Great, you said the exact opposite as the other guys. Now i'm clueless again. I guess i'll have to see for myself.
If the 1.8Ghz s775 celeron is the 430 flavour then its a single core 65nm chip that will clock to 3Ghz easily and be very good at what SHE (not you) wants it to do: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9XN I had one as my main CPU for ages clocked @3Ghz plenty fast enough even for older gaming. As cheap as poss you said.....
a celeron 430 is decent for her, but you'll want a small graphics card, the celeron wont be able to handle decoding 720p
Celeron and 9400GT will do her, anything more is overkill, get the low profile passive cooler, a low profile chassis, and a low profile passive 9400GT and you've got a sleek build, add in a noctua and hey presto, near silent, sleek and will fit anywhere as for watercooling, if she is as clueless as you say she won't understand it and appreciate and neither will her girlfriends
That's not good, i want to do her. I'll put the celeron rig together later today and see if it can handle 720p with the integrated GPU. If it can't, i'll get some passive card.
whats the intergrated GPU? If its intel, get a card. Intel GMA cant handle crap. Get a 9400 or 9600 PCI-e card and she'll be quite happy
GMA 4500. So 9400 then? Wouldn't a 8400 do the job? Because it doesn't seem like there's a significant leap between those two generations.
9400 or 9600. 8400 is crap. 9400 is a bit better considering the die shrink. If you want, an 8800GT/GTS or 8600GTS/GT would work.
My mums computer uses a GeForce 6200, and that handles DVD playback smoothly, i guess you could kinda call an 8400 overkill I'm pretty sure it would manage HD playback easily too... the 8400 that is.
Damn you're quick. As far as i'm concerned anything below 600 is ****, but remember we're not going to do any gaming here. So what makes the 8400 crappier than the 9400 besides the die shrink which should just mean worse heat output? They should have similiar clocks AFAIK.
Woah, steady there, we've gone from recommending a media card to an 8800GT, which is a full-on gaming card. To give you an idea, the 9400GT is basically a re-badged 8500GT, so is a bit quicker than the 8400GS, but not by much and both should be able to handle HD content without any problems. However, I'd be inclined to go with an ATI option, as they don't have those stupid whiny coolers on their lower end cards that the nVidia cards have, and as noise is a major issue for a media PC then a passive heatsink is a must. Take a look at the 3450 or 4350.
This may seem a ridiculously crap card, but the 7200 is £20 and passively cooled. it will play DVD quality video no problem, although i believe you need to go for an 8000 series or later for HD. The equivalent from ATI would be the 4350 i guess, but i dont know too much about the ATI cards.
if you can find a passive 8400 (which is most of them anyway) then go with that, if your not gaming she'll never need the grunt of a 9400GT (little as it is) As for the "I want to do her", c'mon even I could have been more subtle
You can get a passive 8400 for 20 quid. Having a minimalist taste in design doesn't necessarily mean i have to be subtle with the pig jokes
Hey Moyo, i took a closer look at that case, you know the one with the graphics in front... PSU goes WHERE? It looks like it would mount in the front, not over the mobo CPU area. That's a bit unusual but a pretty good idea.
Sell the mobo and get the lady a cheap laptop. Even if it's not moving much, women I know all prefer laptops for some reason. If there's a floor model available at a store, or some online store equivalent to the Dell Outlet or something, give them a go.
