My parents' 5 or 6 year old Dell desktop finally conked out, and while they like their Dell notebook and their iPad, they still want to have a desktop in their office. I told them this time I'd build them a system, but I find myself once again in unfamiliar territory trying to build a small form factor, general purpose machine instead of a monstrous, powerful, full tower gaming computer.
They really liked the size of the Dell they had, which I can roughly equate to the size of the Antec Minuet 350, so I thought that was a good place to start. I'm not set on the case, so if anyone has a suggestion of something roughly the same size that is in the same price range, I'm all ears.
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
My parents will mostly be using it for Outlook, web browsing, Word, Excel, and the occassional game of Freecell.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Budget is around $500. I'll be buying everything locally.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
I live in Canada.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
I need a case similar to the aforementioned Antec Minuet 350, a power supply if the case does not include one, a motherboard, processor, RAM, HDD. I'm unsure if I have a useable optical drive or card reader, but those are fairly minor expenses that I don't need included. They don't really need an SSD or enormous amounts of storage space, so any reasonably-sized HDD should suffice. I told them I'd probably end up getting them an Ivy Bridge processor with decent onboard graphics, so that's the direction I'd like to go. I definitely want to stick to Intel.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I don't think I'll be reusing anything.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No, definitely not.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
They are using a 1600x1200 monitor right now, but I believe they'll probably bump that up to 1080p fairly soon.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the week.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Nothing special, although they are probably going to be investing in an external drive for backing up soon so anything to speed that up would help.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I will need a copy of Windows 7 64-bit. I believe Home Premium is enough for their needs, so that will eat up around $100 of the budget.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
They really liked the size of the Dell they had, which I can roughly equate to the size of the Antec Minuet 350, so I thought that was a good place to start. I'm not set on the case, so if anyone has a suggestion of something roughly the same size that is in the same price range, I'm all ears.
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
My parents will mostly be using it for Outlook, web browsing, Word, Excel, and the occassional game of Freecell.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Budget is around $500. I'll be buying everything locally.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
I live in Canada.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
I need a case similar to the aforementioned Antec Minuet 350, a power supply if the case does not include one, a motherboard, processor, RAM, HDD. I'm unsure if I have a useable optical drive or card reader, but those are fairly minor expenses that I don't need included. They don't really need an SSD or enormous amounts of storage space, so any reasonably-sized HDD should suffice. I told them I'd probably end up getting them an Ivy Bridge processor with decent onboard graphics, so that's the direction I'd like to go. I definitely want to stick to Intel.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I don't think I'll be reusing anything.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No, definitely not.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
They are using a 1600x1200 monitor right now, but I believe they'll probably bump that up to 1080p fairly soon.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the week.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Nothing special, although they are probably going to be investing in an external drive for backing up soon so anything to speed that up would help.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I will need a copy of Windows 7 64-bit. I believe Home Premium is enough for their needs, so that will eat up around $100 of the budget.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
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