TR Forums

So my mom's power supply went up in a puff of smoke and although the motherboard and P3 chip still load windows, there's sever stability issues.

So mom thinks it's time for an upgrade, and I agree. It's main use is gonna be email/Internet, with the occasional heavy use of youtube, so requirements are pretty light. However, I would like to build this for power efficiency.

I was looking at TR's system guide, and I'm going to go with a Pentium E2140/60/80. However, the Gigabyte board recommended is not offered by either ncix.com or Tigerdirect.ca (me living in Canada). So I need another suggestion. I'm thinking integrated graphics for the simple fact that solitaire will be the most graphics heavy application used. Passive chipset cooling would also be a big plus.

$90 Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
$80 AMD Athlon X2 4450e 2.3 GHz
$ 0 John Woo's Stranglehold
$75 -10MIR 2x2 GiB Mushkin PC2-6400
$75 -10MIR Corsair 450VX
$10 Shipping from Newegg
$ 0 Shipping from ZipZoomFly
=====
$331 -20MIR

Unfortunately, neither Newegg nor ZZF will ship to Canada...

You might want to consider a SFF or a µATX mobo in a SFF-like case. It's not like heavy-duty cooling or expansion slots or space for big GPUs is a consideration. Moms tend to like things tidy, and a smaller case leaves more room for knick knacks, pictures of children, etc. In fact some of the SFF cases have a way to place a photo behind the clear faceplate.

UberGerbil wrote:

You might want to consider a SFF or a µATX mobo in a SFF-like case.

That actually never occured to me, as I was just going to put it into the existing ATX case, but I popped the idea to my mom and she really liked it.

That narrows down the search criteria a little bit.

Does mom like the Antec NSK 3480?
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article763-page1.html

Maybe your mom might be interested in this? You'd be done in no time.

OR . . . . . you can take the exciting road, go with the board and memory JAE linked to, slap an X2-4200 in there (she is coming from a P3), and use an Antec 1380 case and voila . . . . grand times ahead.

You may want to just pick up a new HDD as well, and use the older one as drive for files.

lex-ington wrote:

Maybe your mom might be interested in this? You'd be done in no time.

Very nice. nice and cheap, definitely has potential.

Although I just priced out a new Shuttle system (use the old hdd and optical drive):
Shuttle SG33G5 http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3247598&sku=S451-3129 - 365.99
2GB Patriot 800mhz DDR2 http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2967711&CatId=2368 60.99 (not including mail-in rebate of $20)
Pentium E2140/60/80 - $100 or so.
Price comes to close $490.

lex-ington wrote:

OR . . . . . you can take the exciting road, go with the board and memory JAE linked to, slap an X2-4200 in there (she is coming from a P3), and use an Antec 1380 case and voila . . . . grand times ahead.

Antec 1380 - $99
x2-4200 - $68.99
Gigabyte mb - $94.62
comes to about $263

I think I'm leaning towards the Intel system, although it's not my money to spend, so we'll see. I do have one other question for you guys though, and that's that I saw some OEM Pentium's which obviously need a low-profile heatsink to fit into either a shuttle/Antec 1380. Any suggestions for that?

For a quiet low-power system, the AMD 780G + 45W Athlon64 X2 BE is better than an Intel-based solution.
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14261

If she still wants a tower look, I would say look into the P180 mini or the Cooler Master RC-541.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

$90 Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
$80 AMD Athlon X2 4450e 2.3 GHz
$ 0 John Woo's Stranglehold
$75 -10MIR 2x2 GiB Mushkin PC2-6400
$75 -10MIR Corsair 450VX
$10 Shipping from Newegg
$ 0 Shipping from ZipZoomFly
=====
$331 -20MIR

WoW. A very respectable system for $300. These are good times.

After showing her pictures of a Shuttle, she's pretty much all about the small form factor now.

That 780G chipset is looking really nice. I read the review when it came out, but since I wasn't really in the market, it didn't really stick. But I'm really liking it. Really low energy consumption and it has some zip in applications. NCIX has a 4050e on a 2-5 day wait time and I think I may just snag that. Toss that in with that Antec 1380, and I think I'll be cooking.

Anybody have any suggestions for a good heatsink/fan that will fit into a small form factor?

Sargent Duck wrote:

Anybody have any suggestions for a good heatsink/fan that will fit into a small form factor?

You're not overclocking right? The stock heatsink with maybe an application of whatever premium thermal compound you have lying about should be more than enough. Keep simple things simple, really.

Just use the stock cooler. You don't hear them (well, only when you first turn on the comp), and the thermal paste that comes on them do just fine.

I would question NCIX about the wait time for that proc. I think it will be difficult to find that particular one in Canada right now.