Spec my Mum a computer

Craig321 said:
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.
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i wouldnt go cheap on the motherboard mate, if you do, some very low end graphics cards will be slower than some integrated graphics engines :)

and your less likely to run into problems the less hardware you have to go wrong lol
 
Kennysevenfold said:
i wouldnt go cheap on the motherboard mate, if you do, some very low end graphics cards will be slower than some integrated graphics engines :)

and your less likely to run into problems the less hardware you have to go wrong lol
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Ah, I was under the impression that the motherboard you recommend was £70 because of the on-board graphics?
 
Stick with Ben's setup.

We're all enthusiasts, so the instinct is to add £10 on for a better component. Your mum really doesn't need that whatsoever; 2gb and a 2.4ghz dual core will last her for years; my mum has similar use and considers her pentium4+1gb ram to be "quick".

Honestly, she won't notice ANY difference from that spec to any others which are £50 more, go with the cheapest possible options.
 
Quite a debate going on, more than any £1k spec I've seen recently :p

I have to agree with myself on this one, she won't notice the difference between what I specced and a faster machine.

If you want some fun overclocking, by all means go for the black edition chip :p

Personally, if it were my mum's money, I'd go for what I specced (except with the 3480 matx case I mentioned afterward)
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again. For that that budget and use, it's hard to beat what you can get by walking into a high-street shop and buying for £299. The girlfriend bought an athlon 64 x2 2.6GHz, 2gig DDR2 RAM, 4 RAM slots, windows vista, nice mouse and keyboard, on-board graphics but with a PCI-E slot in a nice case, all for £299 and that was over a year ago. It's a good PC. Unless you happen to have some of the components lying around from your own upgrades it's an easy way to do it. There is plenty of rubbish systems out there but to someone who knows about hardware, it's easy to pick out the good ones. The bottom line is, for internet and MS-Office, one of these PCs will be just as good as any cheap spec you come up with.

Add windows and a mouse and keyboard to these specs and it will be almost £100 more.
 
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Just to add another one to the mix, Dell are doing the Inspiron 530 with a 2.5GHz Pentium Dual Core, 2GB of RAM, integrated graphics and a 320GB HDD for £279. Good price for a pre-built, and it at least means that if anything should go wrong you can just tell Dell to sort it.
 
Audigex said:
Stick with Ben's setup.

We're all enthusiasts, so the instinct is to add £10 on for a better component. Your mum really doesn't need that whatsoever; 2gb and a 2.4ghz dual core will last her for years; my mum has similar use and considers her pentium4+1gb ram to be "quick".

Honestly, she won't notice ANY difference from that spec to any others which are £50 more, go with the cheapest possible options.
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True, but I'm more looking for the best components for my budget regardless of whether she needs it or not, I want to get the best out of the money that's being spent :)

I will consider a pre-built, but I've never liked pre-builts at all :(
 
Craig321 said:
True, but I'm more looking for the best components for my budget regardless of whether she needs it or not, I want to get the best out of the money that's being spent :)

I will consider a pre-built, but I've never liked pre-builts at all :(
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Exactally what i done, you gave a budget, i got the best (IMO) hardware upto that budget. simples
 
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However, is there any point in a black edition? I know it's cheap, but the 4400+ that Ben M recommended is cheaper.

I'm not going to overclock it or anything like that.

Also, I can't remember is that Spinpoint is single platter... is it? I know my Mum doesn't need a single platter for what she's doing, but I know for a fact hard drives always bottleneck a system, so I will go for a single platter if it's not too expensive.

[Edit]
Never mind, just found out it is single platter.
 
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Yep the spinpoints are single platter, running the 320gb FI in my main pc.
I think the 7750 uses a different setup than the others which helps with performance.
 
Craig321 said:
However, is there any point in a black edition? I know it's cheap, but the 4400+ that Ben M recommended is cheaper.

I'm not going to overclock it or anything like that.

Also, I can't remember is that Spinpoint is single platter... is it? I know my Mum doesn't need a single platter for what she's doing, but I know for a fact hard drives always bottleneck a system, so I will go for a single platter if it's not too expensive.
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I do, do things for a reason,

the 7750+ £50 with cooler

4400+ £37 WITHOUT cooler so add +£10 (for the cheepest cooler) and your at £47

and £3 and you can get the 7750+ which is a much better cpu, its a no brainer mate ;)
 
I know you put it in there for a reason, just wondered why the black edition really.

But, I see now. Thanks :)

RJC said:
Yep the spinpoints are single platter, running the 320gb FI in my main pc.
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Cheers :)

[Edit]
Hmm, I might just order myself 8GB RAM & give my Mum my current 4GB Geil Ultra for the new build. I wouldn't get much at all for selling them anyway, so may as well.

What's the cooler like on the 7750+, nice and quiet?

Craig.
 
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Craig321 said:
I will consider a pre-built, but I've never liked pre-builts at all :(
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They're not always ideal, especially if you're after a specific spec, but for a run-of-the-mill PC they can offer extremely good value. I got my Mum a Dell C521 nearly two years ago and it was astounding value for money (£350 with a 20" display). All it needed was a RAM upgrade, so far it's been a very reliable, very quick, and very quiet machine. Plus if anything goes wrong (within warranty of course), it's just a case of getting Dell to sort it rather than dealing with hardware suppliers who can end up taking ages to RMA stuff. It's actually in Saudi in the moment and still going strong!

Not trying to put OcUK out of business here, but for a simple machine, building one is barely worth the hassle when there's no saving to be made anyway.

Seems like you've got quite a few options to choose from in any case. :)
 
Craig321 said:
I know you put it in there for a reason, just wondered why the black edition really.

But, I see now. Thanks :)



Cheers :)

[Edit]
Hmm, I might just order myself 8GB RAM & give my Mum my current 4GB Geil Ultra for the new build. I wouldn't get much at all for selling them anyway, so may as well.

What's the cooler like on the 7750+, nice and quiet?

Craig.
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If they are still using the same as whats in my mum's PC then there fairly quiet, only hear the fan at full speed which is very very rare :)
 
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