Basic PC

[Asus]

My Dad's PC is starting to have problems and he wants to get a new one rather than troubleshoot the hardware. Currently he has my old AMD XP 1700+ and GF4 4200 graphics card just for the DVI port. It's in an old beige case with loud 80mm fans tucked away behind a desk cabinet door (with vent holes).

I did some Newegg searching and came up with this wish list.
Comments? Did I miss something?

-He wants to use his current DVD burner (IDE) which is new.
-I have 2 spare 120MM case fans.
-Have keyboard, mouse and monitor.

Originally he emailed me asking about this PC with an old netburst easy-bake oven CPU but I told him I'd price some parts for him first.

 

[3ssence]

Looks like a decent basic PC to me. Integrated graphics on the new AMD chipset, handy, saves money and avoids a separate card with another fan to add to any noise. Decent PSU, always important, a nice X2 CPU, that will be more than enough for smooth browsing, and whatever else he wants to do. All in all it should be far quieter and far quicker than the previous machine, so can't go wrong.

Fantastic price, i wish it was possible to build something that cheap with decent components in the UK, but over here you're looking at nearer that price in GBP for a similiar sort of spec !!

 

[The Brick]

Hmm newegg reviewers aren't too pleased with that mainboard. The rest looks fine to me.

 

[nofx]

Do you need a psu?

 

[Asus]

Fantastic price, i wish it was possible to build something that cheap with decent components in the UK, but over here you're looking at nearer that price in GBP for a similiar sort of spec !!

Yeah, I'm glad it's cheap here.
Could get 2GB RAM for just $30-40 more too.

Hmm newegg reviewers aren't too pleased with that mainboard. The rest looks fine to me.

Yeah, I saw that too. Although the model up one from this with firewire and HDMI got good reviews. (80% gave a 4 or 5) I read the comments and it seems to be mostly with installing the onboard graphics on vista (Will be on XP and I don't plan on installing ATI's Catalyst Control Center).

Think I'll be fine or do you think I should look at another? Recommendations?

Do you need a psu?

Yep, got one in the list.

 

[DrDevin]

The whole list looks good to me.

The X2 3600+ is a great chip, moving from any single core to a dual core really gives the whole system an overall "smoothness" that any user (despite their background) always notices.

I've been using various Western Digital Caviar drives, almost exclusively, in each build I've done for five or so years now and I have never received a complain about them; the first one I installed is still going strong. The extra cache makes a difference and the hard drive is possibly the most important component in a basic system besides having enough RAM.

I wouldn't be worried about the ASUS M2A-VM. It is a good board (along with the AMD 690G chipset). There have been quite a few complaints regarding installing *any* motherboard with Vista but I've never had a problem with it. Just make sure to use the newest drivers and keep the BIOS updated as there were some videocard related problems with earlier versions. However, the onboard video is very good.

Which leaves the memory. I've also been using CORSAIR ValueSelect almost exclusively. It performs very well, especially for the price, but most importantly it had proven itself to be very compatible. I had an awful time with DDR2 and ASUS M2NPV-VM boards. It was very picky with memory but ran flawlessly with ValueSelect.

I'm sure your dad will be very happy with it. In fact my I think my parents want something very similar. Best not give them ideas, their 800MHz Duron is still going strong!

 

[Asus]

Thanks for the feedback, DrDevin.

Yeah I saw this 160GB wasn't much more than the other WD 160GB models but this one had double the cache (16MB) and a 5 year warranty (RE series).

And the CPU I'm hoping will run cool and not use much power. It's 65nm and is rated for a TDP of 65Watts. I could jump up to the 45watt Brisbane which runs slightly faster (2.1GHz) but that would be $40 more. Probably not worth it.