bbbrad Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 Background: Step-mom is a CPA and has an unbelievably bad computer (10-15mins to boot / at least 5 yrs old.) So she has currently started using her laptop for most of her work. (sigh Dell) which she is now recieving complaints about. Budget: ~500$ US ( I will probably give her my monitor (22in acer) for cheap so i can upgrade to a 24.) Purpose: Quickbooks / Excel / Internet etc. Storage: She doesnt need that much storage because she has yet to fill up a 60-80gb HD. I think speed would be better. Questions: -Because she won't be doing any gaming/rendering/video editing would processors with intergrated graphics be sufficient? -I'm not very knowledgable with intagrated chips and how they work. -I don't think intel makes a quadcore processor with "HD graphics" just dual core i3's and i5's? -Would a quad be best for this use? -I know excel proformance is affected most by processor, but Quickbooks is what she mainly uses. What im thinking so far: i3 540 - 125$ Gigabyte H55 ITX - 105$ Silverstone SUGO-5 w/300watt PSU -105$ (I wanted to try this cases because im interested in selling my system and making a SFF system.) WD Black 500gb 7200rpm 32mb cache - 60$ G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 -84$ Total 479$ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 (edited) Waaay to expensive for what she needs. Plus, the i3 540 is a dual-core processor. Go AMD, there's plenty of motherboards out there that have onboard video. I'd be willing to sell a choice of three that I have (2 of them aren't being used). GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - This one doesn't have onboard video, but can throw in a GIGABYTE GV-R435OC-512I Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Low Profile Ready Video Card. Both for $60. ASRock M3A780GXH/128M AM3 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - $50 MSI NF750-G55 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - $70 For a CPU, get the AMD Athlon II X4 620 Propus 2.6GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor ADX620WFGIBOX for $89 at Newegg. You need a more powerful PSU, 450W at the least. That memory is fine. Hard drive is fine, but for $9 more you can get the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB, or... buy her a 64G SSD drive. Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for $120 at Newegg. Buying used and AMD can save you a lot more money. Edited October 1, 2010 by El_Capitan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 Get AMD for sure, and you should get one of his boards Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ940XCJ4DGI - OEM Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulktreg Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 I find this very difficult to say on this forum but I think in this case an off the shelf PC is probably the better option? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted October 2, 2010 Posted October 2, 2010 I find this very difficult to say on this forum but I think in this case an off the shelf PC is probably the better option? Yeah but you of all people know what reeks worst of all in a prebuilt.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulktreg Posted October 2, 2010 Posted October 2, 2010 Yeah but you of all people know what reeks worst of all in a prebuilt.... Yeah. All that bloatware they stick on the things, you've got to spend a couple of hours removing it all! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted October 3, 2010 Posted October 3, 2010 Yeah. All that bloatware they stick on the things, you've got to spend a couple of hours removing it all! what about the junky generic power supplies they always come with? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbbrad Posted October 4, 2010 Posted October 4, 2010 I think the Silverstone 300watt would be more than enough. I hear people running i5's with 5770 on them without any troubles. Are there any benchmarks comparing intel HD video to AMD onboard video. Also @ El_Capitan I was looking into some SSD's, and OCZ is coming out with their ONXY 2's and there at a great price. Does Windows 7 take up as much room as Vista? Not sure if a 64gb SSD would be enough. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted October 4, 2010 Posted October 4, 2010 I think the Silverstone 300watt would be more than enough. I hear people running i5's with 5770 on them without any troubles. Are there any benchmarks comparing intel HD video to AMD onboard video. Also @ El_Capitan I was looking into some SSD's, and OCZ is coming out with their ONXY 2's and there at a great price. Does Windows 7 take up as much room as Vista? Not sure if a 64gb SSD would be enough. 300W's might cut it, just thought I'd save you time and money if it doesn't. My gf's computer I built for her uses a Rosewill 450W with a Phenom II x3 720 BE overclocked, and a HD 4350 (even used a GTS 250 once), and it's fine. Not sure about benchmarks with Intel CPU HD video compared to AMD's onboard motherboard video. My guess is AMD's would win, though that's purely a guess. OCZ is up and coming, but some of their products (RAM, and SSD's) have been known to have issues. Their memory isn't so great, but cheap (I have a 2x2GB pair and had to loosen the timings so they didn't have errors). SSD's I hear people RMA'ing a couple of times. I've had 2 of their PSU's, but those were okay. Again, my gf's computer has the Kingston SSDNow V-series 64GB and she's got Win7 x64, Office 2007, and about 20GB's of music and pictures. She still has 40GB hard drive space left. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted October 4, 2010 Posted October 4, 2010 300W's might cut it, just thought I'd save you time and money if it doesn't. My gf's computer I built for her uses a Rosewill 450W with a Phenom II x3 720 BE overclocked, and a HD 4350 (even used a GTS 250 once), and it's fine. Not sure about benchmarks with Intel CPU HD video compared to AMD's onboard motherboard video. My guess is AMD's would win, though that's purely a guess. OCZ is up and coming, but some of their products (RAM, and SSD's) have been known to have issues. Their memory isn't so great, but cheap (I have a 2x2GB pair and had to loosen the timings so they didn't have errors). SSD's I hear people RMA'ing a couple of times. I've had 2 of their PSU's, but those were okay. Again, my gf's computer has the Kingston SSDNow V-series 64GB and she's got Win7 x64, Office 2007, and about 20GB's of music and pictures. She still has 40GB hard drive space left. I've never had any issues with any of my OCZ's running at factory specs. I'd RMA them if they cant, what else is a lifetime warranty for? I'd be guessing AMD's onboard is better too. 300W should be ok, but is Silverstone a good company, I've never heard much about them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectrascope Posted October 4, 2010 Posted October 4, 2010 This is my suggestion Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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