Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer
JustAnEngineer wrote:At the Dell Outlet, a refurbished desktop (e.g.: Inspiron 570 or 580 from the Home outlet or an Optiplex 580 from the Business outlet) might be a cost-effective solution.
Integrated Radeon HD4250 graphics on a motherboard with the 880G+SB850 chipset should perform just fine for non-gaming use. The $65 Foxconn A88GM Deluxe is the cheapest 880G+SB850 board in Newegg's catalog. The $95 Gigabyte GA-880GMA-USB3 would be my choice because it also includes USB 3.0. The $70 Athlon II X3 450 provides good processor performance for the price.
Did any of the options here appeal to you?
P.S.: It's too late for me to go hunt up links to an Australian e-tailer.
mikeymike wrote:I tend to avoid the AMD 'e' processors, They're clocked at a lower speed, so they perform less and the system will start to "show its age" quicker IMO (when the user starts complaining that their computer is running slow, just because of advances in software).
How often has he upgraded in the past and why? When I say 'upgrade', was it a partial or complete upgrade?
AMD Damo wrote:Thanks for that JAE, we're looking at 24 to 27" at the moment.
How would you compare the Sandy Bridge onboard graphics to the Radeon 4250s on the AMD motherboards?
AMD Damo wrote:mikeymike wrote:I tend to avoid the AMD 'e' processors, They're clocked at a lower speed, so they perform less and the system will start to "show its age" quicker IMO (when the user starts complaining that their computer is running slow, just because of advances in software).
How often has he upgraded in the past and why? When I say 'upgrade', was it a partial or complete upgrade?
Oh ok, fair enough.
Last time he upgraded was over 6 years ago when he bought his last PC from a retailer as a package.
AMD Damo wrote:That motherboard has only 2 DIMM slots. It has the older SB710 south bridge instead of the current SB850, and it lacks USB 3.0.Mobo: ASROCK 880GM-LE motherboard $75
AMD Damo wrote:RAM: GSkill 2x4GB DDR3 $89
mikeymike wrote:Go with 2x4 GiB. With memory as cheap as it is, there's no reason to skimp here. Windows 7 will make good use of the additional memory.IMO, half the memory and you still have loads for the average user.
AMD Damo wrote:I'll advise against using a sluggish 5400 rpm drive for the operating system if you can avoid it. If you've got the budget for an SSD for the operating system, then the slow drive would be fine for data storage. If you're not going to get an SSD yet, then get a faster hard-drive like the 1 TB Samsung HD103SJ.HDD: Samsung Ecogreen F4 2TB $109
AMD Damo wrote:For non-gaming uses, the integrated graphics should be sufficient. It'll be very easy to add a graphics card later if your friend decides that he wants to play 3D games.Graphics: Gigabyte Radeon 5450 1GB $65 (Willing to remove this if the 4250 is fine, I've got a 2400XT lying around here I can just chuck in for free too).
Airmantharp wrote:And uh yeah, what he said. Didn't know JAE got up this early in the morning... and yeah, the specific ASRock H61 board I have in mind (ASRock H61ICAFE LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard) has all that and four memory slots too.
Airmantharp wrote:Definitely shop for a 2.1 channel speaker system. This is the easiest/cheapest way to get decent bass response for your PC speakers.I put the same speakers in the cart, but they are apparently more expensive; there are plenty of alternatives here, while that Creative set is highly rated, you could get something with a dedicated sub that will still blow them away (Klipsch Promedia 2.1 anyone?).
Firestarter wrote:Airmantharp wrote:And uh yeah, what he said. Didn't know JAE got up this early in the morning... and yeah, the specific ASRock H61 board I have in mind (ASRock H61ICAFE LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard) has all that and four memory slots too.
That ATX board won't fit in a MicroATX case. Also, if you want SATA III (for an SSD upgrade in 2 years or so), isn't a board based on the H67 chip a better choice?
Airmantharp wrote:What would you think about this Biostar? Seems to answer every question for a few more $, except for the explanation of the red theme. Hopefully the case won't have a window!
JustAnEngineer wrote:Go with 2x4 GiB. With memory as cheap as it is, there's no reason to skimp here. Windows 7 will make good use of the additional memory.
Airmantharp wrote:Not sure why you would get information from a manufacturer's site- that's worse than retail, which is far worse than web retail. Try Scan?
Firestarter wrote:Windows 7 aggressively preloads programs (and data? not so sure) into RAM when the disk is idle and there's RAM to spare. In contrast to caching, this can speed up the first time you run a program after a reboot.