Dad's System

requiem1

Alright lads,

Thought I'd post up here to help myself work out my thoughts, I'm going to be building a new system for my Dad soon enough, something cheap and cheerful. I was initially thinking along the lines of a mini-itx atom based board in a silverstone sugo but I'm having second thoughts.

He only really uses the computer for internet, stock market, a bit of video and the usual office gig. One side of me knows he doesn't need anything powerful but another side of me wants to build him something decent.

So I'm thinking

Core i3 not sure what model but something decent
4 gigs ram or 8 if the cost is okay
some mATX board with the potential to overclock
one of those 40gig intel SSD's (the value ones)
A decent case built for mATX like the antec p180 mini but it needs to have room for a decent cooler.
Also need to figure out the wattage but I'm thinking a high efficiency fully modular psu like the new seasonic ones.
maybe a 1tb eco hard drive for backup and storage.

Opinions? I'm open to going back to m-itx the only thing is I don't want an AMD system for him.

Thanks

Req

Jonny7

What about one of the small little Acers.. the nettops or whatever they are called now

Compact little things, v nice, you could get a relatively 'highend' version with the dualcore atom, 2 gig ram, bigger HDD, etc

requiem1

Jonny7 wrote: »

What about one of the small little Acers.. the nettops or whatever they are called now

Compact little things, v nice, you could get a relatively 'highend' version with the dualcore atom, 2 gig ram, bigger HDD, etc

But what about the fun of building it? I'm considering them mate, but the only thing is that most of them are not a whole lot better than what he already has and as much I know he doesn't need it he'll want the newest and latest stuff. Any suggestion in the nettop department?

Solitaire

There are cheap LGA775 mobos for the same price as an Atom board, more expensive when you add the cost of the CPU but I can't think of anything that's both better than Atom in mITX format and relatively cheap - there are no budget AM2/3 or LGA1156 mobos out there AFAIK

requiem1

Solitaire wrote: »

There are cheap LGA775 mobos for the same price as an Atom board, more expensive when you add the cost of the CPU but I can't think of anything that's both better than Atom in mITX format and relatively cheap - there are no budget AM2/3 or LGA1156 mobos out there AFAIK

yeah I know and he's currently rocking an E6600 and 2GB's of RAM so I'm not sure what benefit it would be getting another s775 system. The only thing I'm really concerned about is that its quick, quiet and not a major power drainer.

What would you go for? I'm open to anything here, and the price doesn't have to be minimal just not stupidly expensive

Solitaire

Don't upgrade? At least not to mITX unless you want to drop serious money on something up-to-date

Jonny7

Here are some nettops

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Integrated-Graphics-Wireless-Keyboard/dp/B002TI42YG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1272972889&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASROCK-4711140877938-330Pro-DVD-SuperMulti-Graphics/dp/B002WP93GI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1272972889&sr=8-4

Building is fun I know but these things are just incredible for the price, very neat little things, can barely resist buying one myself for the mother

requiem1

Solitaire wrote: »

Don't upgrade? At least not to mITX unless you want to drop serious money on something up-to-date

Yeah I was considering just that, maybe I might just get him a new harddrive and install windows 7 on it for him. I could get that value one from intel and that would give a bit of a boost.

Jonny7 wrote: »

Here are some nettops

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Integrated-Graphics-Wireless-Keyboard/dp/B002TI42YG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1272972889&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASROCK-4711140877938-330Pro-DVD-SuperMulti-Graphics/dp/B002WP93GI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1272972889&sr=8-4

Building is fun I know but these things are just incredible for the price, very neat little things, can barely resist buying one myself for the mother

They are nice little units I actually am a big fan, i think if he pushes a new system enough this would be the road I'd go down, that or just getting him a netbook that he can connect to his screen. I do love building pc's but for my dad is another matter, cause when the internet is down he phones me telling me the computer is completely broken. Basically I don't know if the stress of it is worth it. maybe dell can take away the stress

Solitaire

Bear in mind that even the dual-core Atoms are a HUGE step backward in performance over even an old, slow 65nm C2D. The Ion units are reasonably good for multimedia though.

requiem1

Solitaire wrote: »

Bear in mind that even the dual-core Atoms are a HUGE step backward in performance over even an old, slow 65nm C2D. The Ion units are reasonably good for multimedia though.

yeah i gather its not even comparable, i think his system runs fine except for the odd bit of him downloading viruses for the fun of it. I think he's looking for a reason to go to windows 7 which i don't mind doing but its such an effort. the way I figure it, a new ssd, windows 7 and a decent overclock optimized with speed step might be the way to go, I don't think dropping 700 euro on a new system is worth it but i would like a nice case for him thats quiet, his current akasa eclipse is a bit noisy for my liking even with the sound dampening and low rpm fans

Ya, no need to upgrade that machine for what its used for. ssd and nice new case with silent fans and he will be all set.

massy086

what mobo has he got maybe a bit of overclocking done by you and a fresh instal of win 7 and a new case would have that pc flying again

Jonny7

well I got myself a netbook a good while back.. was terrified it wouldn't run anything.. lo and behold, runs perfect, xp whizzes along..

I mean it won't do 5 or 6 youtube tabs in firefox very well and can't really play HD films, but it handles browsing and generally use perfectly, quite a quick little thing too, I press the on button and it comes out of some hibernation thing and is on in 7 seconds.. its never crashed either

So anyway, I think the nvidia Ion, faster atom chip, more ram and you have a perfect PC for everyday use

requiem1

david7536 wrote: »

Ya, no need to upgrade that machine for what its used for. ssd and nice new case with silent fans and he will be all set.

massy086 wrote: »

what mobo has he got maybe a bit of overclocking done by you and a fresh instal of win 7 and a new case would have that pc flying again

Yeah i'm deffo thinking ssd, windows7 and an overclock (got his processor from 2.4 to 3.4 on air before) but as for the case do you guys have any suggestions? Preferably not something huge, I was looking at the fractal design cases cause apparently they come with sound dampening already installed

Jonny7 wrote: »

well I got myself a netbook a good while back.. was terrified it wouldn't run anything.. lo and behold, runs perfect, xp whizzes along..

I mean it won't do 5 or 6 youtube tabs in firefox very well and can't really play HD films, but it handles browsing and generally use perfectly, quite a quick little thing too, I press the on button and it comes out of some hibernation thing and is on in 7 seconds.. its never crashed either

So anyway, I think the nvidia Ion, faster atom chip, more ram and you have a perfect PC for everyday use

This has become my long term plan, I think in the shortterm I'm going to go with a new ssd and a change of case maybe for him. I really like these and I'm thinking of getting him a netbook to test the waters first but he has a really nice little 12 inch dell he uses on holidays that has windows 7 and is basically the business for what we bought it for. Do any of the nettops have SSD's in them?

Lads thanks again for the input its much appreciated:)

massy086

i believe the antec p182 is great for keeping down the noise but i also love the antec 300

requiem1

Alright so I think what I'm going to go with is

Antec P180 mini
Intel Value SSD
New mAtX board for S775

I'll use the rest of the stuff from his current pc and throw on windows 7 but can anyone advise a good mATX s775 board that is still available?

Limited options in MATX as far as proven overclocking boards go but i would go with this: http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3638109/art/asus/p5g41-m-le-775-socket-g41.html