Building a decent SFF PC for my Mom

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travanx

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 9, 2000
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For some reason my mom has this idea that she needs as small of a PC as possible. I have showed her pictures of the shutle kind of short fat cases and she doesn't like those as much as the Dell slimline stuff. I was wondering if I was to try to put a core2duo system together myself can I get in a similiar price range as a dell preconfigured? I just want something that will last for a while without having to upgrade. her current PC lasted about 6 years before its finally just too slow to even wait for the bootup.

Anyone have any good suggestions on a case, psu, mb, and videocard to build something similiar to the Dell or HP slimline stuff? I already have a couple extra copies of XP just sitting around.
 
For a basic machine there's no way you can match the prices of Dell or HP, and their slim desktops look really nice. Just go with one of those Dell Small Business Smart Deal Desktops, they update every week and some times have the slim versions with a 19in monitor for roughly $400.

Of course if she is just dying to play Crysis, you might have to look else where :p
 
Let me ask this another way then. Is there something similiarly sized to an HP slimline that I could build myself? We went to bestbuy to look at sizes of cases and she really liked the sony computer thats built into the monitor. That was $1500. So I guess a $500 price range can be moved up somewhat. I am mainly looking at newegg at cases but I am totally confused as to what motherboards I could use to get a core 2 duo into a small case.
 
You'll probably need a mATX board. If you want an Intel setup, find a mATX mobo based on either the G31 or G33 chipsets. For AMD, anything based on the 690G chipset should be good enough. Note that all of the chipsets I just mentioned have onboard video so no video card required.

As for slim cases, the closest to a slimline case that I could find on newegg were these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2E16811153066,N82E16811153068,N82E16811129013

And another search turned up this:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=20990

But I say that you're better off just buying the HP/Dell Slimline PCs since they are reasonably priced and I doubt you'll be able to beat Dell's/HP's prices once you factor in the cost of the OS.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110079

ASUS P3-P5G33
4xSATA
2xPCI
1xPCIe 4x
1x PCIe 16x
*requires use of low profile cards. Not really a problem if its an internet machine. And if you wanted DVI... you could find something.
Card reader
1 optical bays
2 hard drive bays.

How's that?

(You can also find the G965 version for $5 less (and a $50 rebate on top of that)).
Processor: E2140 $70
RAM: Something. $65

Total cost... $ 300~.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110065
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110070
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110070R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110069R

NewEgg has has some nice Asus mini barebones. Only possible issue I can see is there is no x16 PCIe so you are stuck with onboard video.

E21xx - $75-93
2 of those $10AR HP 1gb DDR2-667 sticks - $20AR ($99.90 - 80 in rebates +tax in PA/CA)

+ your hd/optical/etc

Should get you pretty close to the config and size of Dell/HP slimline. Only thing missing is tv card from some of the HP slimline and the PCIe x16 slot.
 
Here are the cases that remind me of the HP slimline:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811190005
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811173013
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108061
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154062

You shouldn't have too much trouble putting together a system for around $500. I don't think even the slowest of dual cores will ever have trouble running the most basic tasks even 6 years from now. What exactly are the features your mom is looking for?
 
Unless you have a pile of spare parts you are looking to make use of, let your mom buy the Dell. You will spend hours trying to match their price, and then you still lose because Dell has free shipping, a free monitor, and/or a free printer for the same low end box you could throw together. You are better off just going over the build with your mom so that she doesn t wind up trying to run Vista with only 512mb of ram and no extra DIMMs or something. Some people like cheap disposable computers with no expansion options and dookie customer service, you know, cause their friends have them too. In this price sector, you can't win.
 
thanks everyone. i like the last case posted, Apex, that looks closest to the size of the slimline. I was planning to get one of the low budget core2duo chips (e4xxx), 2gigs ram, 250+ hard drive, some lower geforce card, and one of the better reviewed motherboards. so not exactly a slow system, but nothing really expensive.
I like building more of a gaming system, because that will generally last longer for those who don't game. Her computer I built for her that she is using is almost 9 years old, so its time to upgrade. When I was doing computer stuff on the side I was upgrading every 6 months. Now that I am not I see the value in buying parts that will be fast longer than a year.
 
If she doesn't play games (and I mean modern 3D-intensive games), to keep the cost lower I wouldn't bother with a video card. The G33 and G35 chipsets have some 3D anyway, so they'll even run Vista with Aero. While I understand you want it to last, unless she gets into 3D games it should be adequate for the next 5-6 years. You could always add it later if you decide it's really needed.

I would also consider just getting a prebuilt system. Since you have copies of XP, you've already covered the biggest issue I would have with one: the lack of a real OS disc for a clean install with no bloat/trialware. Assuming you can install your copy on the prebuilt system (check for drivers first) it should be fine.
 
I always have to assume I might want to use her computer as well. Any matx motherboards with decent video on them that use DVI?
 
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