Hey guys, it's been a while. I was hoping you all could give me some advice on a system I'm putting together for my mom. I've finally convinced her to upgrade from her 10 year old Pentium 3 Dell. She doesn't game, so this is primarily a facebook and e-mail machine BUT...I know I won't be able to convince her to upgrade for another 10 years so I'd like to overbuild it now so it has plenty of life in it. She do a little bit of photoshopping so having a little extra punch for that will be nice for her. so here's my list of components. Please let me know if you see any conflicts or can suggest a better alternative for something: CPU - Intel Core i5-4670 Mobo - ASUS Q87M-E RAM - 4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws PSU - CORSAIR TX650 Case - DIYPC Adventurer-9601G GPU - HIS AMD HD 7770 (I thought about just using the on-board video, but the performance gain of even a cheap card is just too hard to pass up and I think it'll help keep Aero smooth as the system ages and maybe help out with photoshop and whatnot) HDD - WD Blue 1TB Optical drive - LITE-ON DVD Burner Let me know what you think!
It's most certainly overkill, but with the lifespan being rather excessive, I think its fine. Would you consider a solid state hard-drive for windows and photoshop, etc. or would that over complicate things (i.e. explaining to save to the storage drive, etc.). You could probably get a cheaper case from a better known manufacturer, such as this Antec Series One. I see that case comes with 5 fans but if they're all LED fan's that may be something that your mom may not like, plus the extra noise from all the fans would be unnecessary.
I already tried to talk her into an SSD but she didn't go for it. She is already going from a PETA to SETA drive as it is so it'll seem like lightening to her. She actually picked the case out herself so that is the one area there isn't much flex. She was really excited to get a case with lights and her computer is in a dedicated office and is only turned on when she is using it so lights/noise won't be too much of a problem. If the fan controllers don't spin the fans slow enough I'll just run 6v to 'em. No overclocking is planned (stability is paramount) so heat shouldn't be a problem.
considering the lifetime its expected to have and the fact that the motherboard can support up to 32GB maybe increase ram to 8GB. It's not essential. I've just always thought the more memory the better (its better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it)
Ahh, fair enough. In that case you could easily save some money by downgrading the psu. Since there aren't any planned upgrades in the future you could easily get by with a 400 watt corsair unit. Maybe something like this Corsair CX430 or the CX430M which is modular. The motherboard also seems a bit pricy, maybe consider something like this gigabyte GA-B85-HD3. Cheaper, has built in 7.1 audio and more then enough ports for a basic pc. Also, like Ryu suggested, why not 8gb of ram? May as well just do that now too and be done with it.
Good point with the PSUs. I only picked the TX series because I've personally had good luck with them. Is the CX series on par? I am trying to switch teams from Gigabyte after my last experience. But looking at the B85 vs the Q87 chipset....other than a faster second PCIE slot there's almost no advantage to the more expensive chip is there? How about the ASUS B85-PLUS I went with only 4GB of ram because she isn't much of a multitasker and RAM is so easy to upgrade I can always just throw some more in there for her later down the road if it becomes a problem. I figured it'd save her a few bucks for now.
Qxx based motherboards use an Intel NIC. This is a great improvement over commonly used Realtek of Hxx / Bxx or even most Zxx boards. To be honest, I would drop the discrete GPU and increase the RAM to 8GB. Intel Haswell IGP is good at openCL too. She will hardly be limited by the HD4600, but more likely by the 4GB. Also, as suggested, the PSU is complete overkill.
Hmm, I havn't had much trouble with Realtek TBH. If that's the only real advantage I think I'll stick with the B series chip. And I debated with myself quite a bit about the video card. I've looked at quite a few benchmarks (granted not 'real world', but still) and the 7770 smokes the integrated GPU by like 2-2.5x. And I have downgraded the PSU
Think the GPU is a bit of unnecessary cost, ssd will be far more useful and 4GB is bare minimum for any new build. Would a APU build not suit here?
The GPU will only add something with games. If the rig won't be used for it, then it's 70-80£ wasted. Even the odd 23.976fps movie playback is no more a problem with Haswell IGP. If she is limited by the IGP in the future, just drop one and you'll have something better than the HD7770 for same or less bucks. Do not forget that 64bits OS are more RAM hungry than 32bits ones. Even a web browser can rapidly eat 1GB, Word is not even close to being RAM efficient ... and this is becoming common with RAM being cheap, devs do not make the effort to optimise the RAM usage. I think you'll save more by going IGP + 8GB than HD7770 + 4GB. And she'll need 8GB far sooner than a discrete GPU.
Alright, you guys have convinced me but I'm still apprehensive of ditching the GPU. I've removed the 7770 and switched from 4GB to 8GB of RAM with slightly better timings (sticking with G.Skill). Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it. If anyone else wants to weigh in please feel free! I probably won't place the order until tomorrow evening. Also, I don't mean to threadjack my own thread heh but I was thinking about ordering my rig an SSD at the same time. Thoughts on this ADATA Premier? Looks to have good speeds and good reviews.
If you want to wow here with how much PCs are better now you could get the new haswell NUC in a silent case. Then mount it to the vesa mounts on the back of her screen but its rather expensive option.
I think anything built within the last 5-6 years would wow her, haha. She's going from a single core CPU with intels integrated graphics (back when they were really shite) and 1GB of RAM and a 150GB PATA HDD to a modern quad core with 8GB and 6GB/s SATA (yes, I know a mechanical HDD won't even fill a 3GB/s pipe, but still).
