Spec my Mum a computer

Craig321 · 18 Apr 2009 at 15:14

My Mum is in need of a new computer to replace the laptop that she currently uses. She doesn't move the laptop around at all, so a normal desktop computer will be fine for her.

She literally only does MS Word 2003 work and browses the internet with it.

Needs to be nice and quiet as well - she doesn't play any games at all so something like the 8400GS heat pipe card would be perfect.

Not sure on a budget at the moment, but if you can keep it around £300 then that'd be good.

She doesn't really like changes on the computer, and doesn't like learning anything new on the computer so I'm going to put XP on there for her. May as well go for 2GB RAM as it's so cheap anyway.

Don't need screen/mouse/keyboard.

Has to be nice and reliable!

Thanks,
Craig.

JonJ678 · 18 Apr 2009 at 15:23

Mini itx I think
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-006-OP case + psu
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-001-ZT zotac 630i
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC 2gb branded ram
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-106-SA slimline cd drive
And your choice of processor. I think e5200 at 62 quid, but a cheaper celeron might do.

With the e5200, the five above come out at 230 quid.
In the near future I should be putting a computer together for the missus' mother, and the above is what I'm going with. The above would obviously need some form of hard drive

Ben M · 18 Apr 2009 at 15:29

I know little about AMD, but that spec is pretty good imo. If she's just using office, there's no reason why she can't go with onboard graphics imo.

That cooler is optional, but i guess it'll make it run cooler and maybe be quieter than using the stock heatsink.
edit: whoops i meant to put this cooler http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-025-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat

Craig321 · 18 Apr 2009 at 15:49

The above looks pretty good - is that AMD 4400 faster than something like the E2200?

JonJ678 said:
Mini itx I think
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-006-OP case + psu
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-001-ZT zotac 630i
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC 2gb branded ram
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-106-SA slimline cd drive
And your choice of processor. I think e5200 at 62 quid, but a cheaper celeron might do.

With the e5200, the five above come out at 230 quid.
In the near future I should be putting a computer together for the missus' mother, and the above is what I'm going with. The above would obviously need some form of hard drive

Not really sure about a Mini ITX. But I will have a look

Ben M · 18 Apr 2009 at 15:57

Craig321 said:
The above looks pretty good - is that AMD 4400 faster than something like the E2200?

Not really sure about a Mini ITX. But I will have a look

Oh, mine was meant to be a matx build, but i picked out the 4480 instead of the 3480. The motherboard that I close is a maxt mobo.

I don't know about performance, but it's cheaper, the motherboard will be cheaper, and most intel mobos don't have onboard graphics.

For Office, I don't think your mum would notice a difference in performance, whereas she would notice the difference in price.

Kennysevenfold · 18 Apr 2009 at 20:10

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Biostar TSeries TA790GX 128M AMD 790GX (Socket AM2+) DDR2 Motherboard £76.99
(£66.95) £76.99
(£66.95)

Corsair VX 450W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-450VXUK) £57.98
(£50.42) £57.98
(£50.42)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7750+ Black Edition 2.70GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £48.99
(£42.60) £48.99
(£42.60)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £29.99
(£26.08) £29.99
(£26.08)

OCZ Platinum Revision 2 XTC 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Series (OCZ2P800R22GK) £19.99
(£17.38) £19.99
(£17.38)

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51) Sub Total : £254.93 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £40.00 Total : £306.68

Angst · 18 Apr 2009 at 20:33

Kennysevenfold said:
Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Biostar TSeries TA790GX 128M AMD 790GX (Socket AM2+) DDR2 Motherboard £76.99
(£66.95) £76.99
(£66.95)

Corsair VX 450W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-450VXUK) £57.98
(£50.42) £57.98
(£50.42)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7750+ Black Edition 2.70GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £48.99
(£42.60) £48.99
(£42.60)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £29.99
(£26.08) £29.99
(£26.08)

OCZ Platinum Revision 2 XTC 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Series (OCZ2P800R22GK) £19.99
(£17.38) £19.99
(£17.38)

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51) Sub Total : £254.93 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £40.00 Total : £306.68

+1

Quixote · 18 Apr 2009 at 21:27

Ben M's spec is spot on. Anything more will be a total waste.

icey_haj · 18 Apr 2009 at 21:32

Kenny, you're bang on mate.

Kennysevenfold · 18 Apr 2009 at 22:05

icey_haj said:
Kenny, you're bang on mate.

Praise from Icey :eek:

Wonders will never cese

RJC · 18 Apr 2009 at 22:13

My 2 penny worth

Antec NSK 3480 Micro ATX Case - Black/Silver (380W Earth Watts PSU) £80.49
(£69.99) £80.49
(£69.99)

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £62.09
(£53.99) £62.09
(£53.99)

Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i Chipset (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £50.59
(£43.99) £50.59
(£43.99)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (TWIN2X4096-6400C5) £33.98
(£29.55) £33.98
(£29.55)

Samsung SH-S223F/RSMN 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail £21.99
(£19.12) £21.99
(£19.12) Sub Total : £251.63 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £39.51 Total : £302.89

icey_haj · 18 Apr 2009 at 22:25

Kennysevenfold said:
Praise from Icey

Wonders will never cese

It's not often you're right, so I praise you when I can.

Quixote · 18 Apr 2009 at 22:29

"She literally only does MS Word 2003 work and browses the internet with it."

It may well be (is) a lovely spec but it's not the right one for the original request.

Even allowing for infrequent upgrades, a fast dual core setup like Ben M speced is going to last YEARS. The other specs are overkill.

Kennysevenfold · 18 Apr 2009 at 22:34

Quixote said:
a fast dual core setup like Ben M speced is going to last YEARS. The other specs are overkill.

1- its an am2 socket, mines is am2+ so i do belive mine will outlast bens,
2- the hard drive specs is actual rubbish
3-cpu cooler and power supply (noise wise) are questionable
4- my case is nicer

so you fail

smogsy · 19 Apr 2009 at 00:48

kenny is always right

Kennysevenfold · 19 Apr 2009 at 01:00

smogsy said:
kenny is always right

Yus.!

now make me a Mod.!

:rolleyes:

Craig321 · 19 Apr 2009 at 01:42

Kennysevenfold said:
--

That looks pretty good actually, will that AMD be faster than the £50 Intel?

RJC said:
--

Not sure about the cheap power supply on that one, or is it a decent one?

Quixote · 19 Apr 2009 at 01:49

Kennysevenfold said:
1- its an am2 socket, mines is am2+ so i do belive mine will outlast bens,
2- the hard drive specs is actual rubbish
3-cpu cooler and power supply (noise wise) are questionable
4- my case is nicer

so you fail

1) - You're right but i'd be willing to bet the computer won't be upgraded again soon enough for it to matter.
2) You're right but the difference for anything apart from boot up will be marginal, especially given the light use.
3) At stock speed which this will likely run, cooler will be fine. Power supply, who knows ? they vary. Both are reliable brands, which is most important..
4) I agree, it is. But there's money to be saved by getting the PSU and case together and neither are exactly hideous.

You missed budget (just) - he came £30 under, for most users your spec would be better but for that use ? the extra power will never be used, the extra cash might be.

Kennysevenfold · 19 Apr 2009 at 01:52

Craig321 said:
That looks pretty good actually, will that AMD be faster than the £50 Intel?

The E5200 is £62 mate...

E5200 - clock speed - 2.5GHz, 2Mb L2Cache,

AMD 7750+ - Clock speed - 2.8GHz, 3Mb L2/3cache

Amd hands down and you save £14

Craig321 · 19 Apr 2009 at 01:59

Ah, fair enough.

Would I be better off going for a ~£50 motherboard and a ~£25 silent graphic card just to rule out the possibility of the onboard graphic card going wrong on the motherboard which would result in much more hassle rather than just RMAing a graphic card?

Just a thought, I want everything to be nice and simple even if something does go wrong.