Going to build my mother an X2 system...

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Lyquist

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Aug 21, 2004
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We just ordered the parts for my mothers new system. She is going into real estate and wanted a powerful system. I tried to get her to just get a single core, but when I told her about dual core she really liked it:) What do I need to know before building this system for her? I have never built an X2 system before, so any advice would be appreciated.

Here are the relevant system specs...

AMD 3800 X2
ASUS A8N-E Motherboard
Radeon PCI-E 550 Graphics card (she is not a gamer at all, so I went wiht this)
Sony DVD Burner
Sony DVD Rom
1GB Mushkin Redline memory (the same that I have in my machine)
Antec Sonata Black Case
Antec True Power 430W powersupply
Floppy Drive
Viewsonic 19" LCD
2-120GB Seagate HDD's SATA
Klipsch 2.1 Speaker system
etc....................

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Lyquist

P.S. She is currently working on an AMD K6-400, so it's definitely time for an upgrade:)
 
The memory is excessive if she's not going to be overclocking. 1GB is fine, but you could get away with some Kingston, Corsair, or Mushkin 'value' RAM and get the exact same level of stability. Also, the redundant DVD drive is kind of useless; if she's going to be copying DVDs they'll need to be ripped to the hard drive first anyway. Also, why the two drives? Are you going to be mirroring them (RAID 1) for redundancy? If so, then that's probably a good idea. If you're going to be striping them (RAID 0), you're asking for trouble when one of the drives fail - its not worth it for her. If you're doing it for the extra space, why not just get a 250GB drive for less and save on power and heat?

Other than those few things that seem to be unecessary for the machine's intended purpose, it'll a great workstation. You could trim the budget down quite a bit though, and spend the money making sure she gets the software she needs legitimately for her business.
 
What exactly is your mother going to be doing with this computer, because if all she's going to be doing is checking email, surfing the net, and using office you don't need a dual core. Now if she runs number crunching programs (like ripping, AV editing, simulation) then a dual core will come in handy. Single core can handle simple multitasking pretty easily, but when you get into more intensive programs then dual core will shine.

As far as the system your building it looks good, but as if your not going to OC the computer then save the money on your RAM and get some value RAM.
 
You probably need a Sonata 2 case since it has a 24-pin ATX connector instead of the 20-pin in the regular Sonata.
 
She's not going to be overclocking at all. I may play around with it, but I won't deliver it that way. I gave her two optical drives so that she can make 1 to 1 copies of her CD's. I guess I didn't really NEED to, but the DVD ROM was only 26 on newegg. I gave her two hard drives because I am going to be ghosting it once a month for her. I am also going to have to teach her how to backup and do stuff like that. I owe her some money and she is letting me pay off the debt by doing computer work for her, so it's a win-win situation for both of us. No pirated software will be used on this machine. EVERYTHING will be legal. I am very uptight about that type of thing. I work on computers for a living, and piracy hurts my business big time. The only thing we couldn't find on newegg is Microsoft Office Small Business Edition. It comes in a three pack, but she doesn't need that. She is currently a professor at a university, so I told her to just talk to the school. She may be able to pick up something really cheap. She is retiring from the university in a year and then going full time into real estate. My mother is a VERY motivated, intelligent woman:)

I went with the high end memory because I really like Mushkin and I have the same exact RAM in my home machine. I think that Mushkin is a very underrated brand.

Lyquist

P.S. The machine may seem a little excessive, but she wants to keep it for five years, so I tried to "future proof" her as much as possible. I still need some advice as to what software I should install...such as chipset drivers, should I install the nvidia firewall? etc...
 
kirbyrj said:
You probably need a Sonata 2 case since it has a 24-pin ATX connector instead of the 20-pin in the regular Sonata.
Click to expand...

I went ahead and bought a 24pin Antec powersupply. I'll keep the 20pin that comes with the machine.

Lyquist
 
you cannot 'future proof' a PC. If you mother is so smart, tell her that is she pays significantly less for a 'decent' system now, she can upgrade in 2-3 years and still come out ahead. As we all know, spending money now is more expensive than spending money in the future.

I am not an expert in the real estate business, but unless you do it on a large scale as a financial investment, i don't see where there is a lot of number crunching involved, maybe you should talk to her about that.

Memory: what the rest said, get something inexpensive. Value RAM is stable and inexpensive and since you should not overclock a business machine anyway, there is no need to spring for anything geared towards that.

You said you'd be ghosting her HDD, but it may make the most sense to use the DVD drive to backup the real important files on a more frequent basis. Once again, it depends on what the business requires.

on the college software, I do not know what your mom's university has as a licensing agreement, but CMU makes me pay for Office, yet I can get almost all MS OS's for free/ cheap.

BTW. My dad manages a couple of buildings and plays a bit with the stock market. He is happier than ever with his VIA Epia, if only for the reason that it is dead silent.
 
kirbyrj said:
You probably need a Sonata 2 case since it has a 24-pin ATX connector instead of the 20-pin in the regular Sonata.
Click to expand...

The sonata case you bought will come with a 24 pin power supply even if its not a Sonata 2.

Trust me on this one
 
It's her money and I'm sure she works hard to earn it. But I'm going to chime in with my own opinion.

The dual core is a total waste. I can't imagine anything a real estate agent would need it for. The most intensive task I could imagine is databasing records of home that are/were for sale and, prices, market trends and the like.

Also, instead of ghosting the drive once a month. Just RAID 1 it and be done (Unless they have a fileserver that the machines are backed up to). If one drive goes, she has all her stuff saved on the other. Non computer savvy people hate having to have work done on thier rig whether it be maintnace or an all out repair. And you'll get tired of doing it too.

Spend the money on an active scanning anti-virus and spyware apps. Mom's need it.

Another suggestion. Just get a dell or a gateway. For average users who just need a computer. It's the simplist thing. Saves you the hassle of bearing the blame if something goes wrong. And it probably will. Not even hardware wise. But people download a lot of stupid stuff like spyware/viruses/limewire. And they wonder why thier box is slow when they just had an uberfast computer 3 months ago. Let dell deal with it.
 
This system is waaaay too much for your mother's work. Any 64bit compatible single core system would be "future proof". Go for a 3000+ single core Athlon 64 or something.
 
swoop56 said:
...Another suggestion. Just get a dell or a gateway. For average users who just need a computer. It's the simplist thing. Saves you the hassle of bearing the blame if something goes wrong. And it probably will. Not even hardware wise. But people download a lot of stupid stuff like spyware/viruses/limewire. And they wonder why thier box is slow when they just had an uberfast computer 3 months ago. Let dell deal with it.
Click to expand...

What an awful thing to say! Condemning your (well, his) own mother to dell's tech support! She'll just be angry at him when she finds out how bad Dell's tech support is and how much it costs to repair stuff, and he'll end up having to fix it himself anyway, which becomes a huge problem if he has to find/buy proprietary parts.

I'm not saying an X2 is a reasonable idea either, but for the love of God, stay away from dell!

* Btw, I fix computers for a living. 80% of all computers we see are Dells, around 50% of which are still under 'warantee'.
 
my mother is in real estate as well. she's been doing fine on her 1ghz amd laptop for quite a while now. multi-million dollar producer as well. :cool:
 
wow, your mom is gonna have a nicer computer than lots of [H]forumers have...

even if it does have a crappy gfx card :p
 
drizzt81 said:
on the college software, I do not know what your mom's university has as a licensing agreement, but CMU makes me pay for Office, yet I can get almost all MS OS's for free/ cheap.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that academic licenses for software are going to explicitly prohibit it from being used for commercial purposes
 
Mcklain said:
The sonata case you bought will come with a 24 pin power supply even if its not a Sonata 2.

Trust me on this one
Click to expand...

My Sonata didn't. My chaintech VNF4 & 3000+ work just fine without it though, so I'm not too sure it matters.
 
DO NOT GET A DELL! or any pre-configured proprietary crapper from any company. custom build is the best way, non-proprietary, more bang for your buck, and you know exactly what is inside of it, therefore trouble shooting is much much easier. and if something goes wrong, you have a lot more options for part replacement, replacements that will be more cost effective as well.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146541

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146545


also, save some money on the ram, don't waste money on uneeded overclocking ram, instead, check out the two links above, thats crucial ram, its awesome. the first link are single sided (yep!) 512mb dimms. the second are 1gb sticks. again, this stuff is awesome, there is a huge thread on it in the memory forum on how great this stuff is. note* it is crucial ram, which is a subdivision of and uses micron chips, lately this ram has become so popular and sold so well, that you might get some revised sticks that are different from newegg's pictures. one such uses bga ram (small squares like on a vidcard) and the other uses samsung chips instead of micron. I assure either of the 3 are great great great, check the memory section if you are skepticle. also, this stuff is basically garunteed ddr500 speeds, and so far, either of the 3 revisions can be mixed and run dual channel just fine. personally, I ordered awhile ago and have 4 of the single sided crucial (micron) chips, this stuff rocks socks man. get it.


oh, and i recommend maxtor hardrives, but thats just my preference. had one for 3 years, and another for 1.5 years, and have never ever had hardrive problems. quiet, and best of class performance.
 
Lyquist said:
I went with the high end memory because I really like Mushkin and I have the same exact RAM in my home machine. I think that Mushkin is a very underrated brand.
Click to expand...

Well you can get Mushkin RAM then get their Standard Performance memory. If you're not going to OC the system, which you shouldn't, then the Redline memory is a waste of money. Those sticks are made to run out of standard spec and is designed with OCing in mind.
 
in a case like this i can only say one thing well 2
1. THATS WAY OVER KILL
2. www.dell.com

i got aunt that processcontrol sim software and she wouldnt need some thing that fast to run work with it there workstations that run the control software dont even need to be that fast lol
 
Wow lots of angry people.

Whos to say DC won't help 3 years for now to make the machine last longer. He already stated the mom wants him to build it as a way to pay off some debt to her (parents are the only ones who can get away with endentured servants). Looks Like a great Machine, cept I would aviod getting cheap optical drives. I have Lite-on that been nothing but a pain since I got it. Sony isn't much better.
 
Topweasel said:
Wow lots of angry people.

Whos to say DC won't help 3 years for now to make the machine last longer. He already stated the mom wants him to build it as a way to pay off some debt to her (parents are the only ones who can get away with endentured servants). Looks Like a great Machine, cept I would aviod getting cheap optical drives. I have Lite-on that been nothing but a pain since I got it. Sony isn't much better.
Click to expand...

Not angry people, just sensible advice. It is much better to get a decent system now and upgrade later when high end components now are much cheaper and/or has newer features that high end components don't have currently. Dual core will probably not shine in simple tasks until Vista comes out and by then you will have M2 A64 X2 not to mention the price of 939 DC A64s will most likely be significantly cheaper than they are now.

If she needed the power then there would be no argument, but if the OP wants to pay he mother back it would be much better to upgrade her computer as power is needed and as prices of components comes down.

Or maybe he justs wants to get his hands on an X2 to play around with for awhile :D.
 
I agree with everyone that the ram is way overkill for her system. That's overclocking ram, get the greenline instead. And some may say the dual-core is overkill, but I say why not..

If your mother is like most users, her system will fill up with spyware in no time. Having that extra core for the spyware alone will be priceless. :D

If the woman wants more power, heck, give it to her.
 
wake6830 said:
My Sonata didn't. My chaintech VNF4 & 3000+ work just fine without it though, so I'm not too sure it matters.
Click to expand...

???

I am just saying that all Sonata are now shipping with 24 pin power supply.

I never talked about it working or not. Dont know where youre heading
 
My mother wanted the dual core after I talked to her about it...I originally was just going to get her the single core 3000+. I told her that she could've gotten by with a cheaper system, but she didn't WANT a cheaper system:)

Lyquist
 
Hell, build her a dual opteron system with a raid5 array, 8 GB of ram, and 2 30" apple cinema displays!
 
insanarchist said:
Hell, build her a dual opteron system with a raid5 array, 8 GB of ram, and 2 30" apple cinema displays!
Click to expand...

Hey, if she has the money and doesn't want any lag whatsoever...
 
Sure the X2s are very powerful processors, but don't let that overshadow the capabilities of the single core chips. Hell, a 3000 or 3200+ is incredibly flexible. You can easily overclock it if you need more juice, but even if you don't, it is a LOT of power. Now if she'd not going to be gaming or doing any sory of intensive work, then why the powerful PC?
 
Lyquist said:
The only thing we couldn't find on newegg is Microsoft Office Small Business Edition. It comes in a three pack, but she doesn't need that
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837116184

For the user you've described things like a good wireless kbd and optical mouse are much more important than how good the memory is.

I'd second the suggestion to RAID 1 the disks.

1GB of RAM and the X2 are IMO good ideas. Although I'd be awfully tempted to use 2x1GB of "value" RAM. While the system will probably be sluggish at the end of 5 years, in the near term (2-3 years) the user will still have a respectable performer. One which should have no problem dealing with whatever MS throws at it.
 
I remember when I was still young... if I wanted something really bad... (like a shiny new 386 with VGA graphics) I would try and convince a pant wearing parent (in my case, father...) that they really needed it.

I have a funny feeling that some of this is going on here... Convince mom to let me buy all the parts and build it so I can play with new stuff.

hehehe... I remember how that game worked.
 
I have to agree here. My mom has a Pentiumm 4 2.4Ghz system with 512 of ram. ALl she does is AOL and word processing. SHe takes pictures with her digital camera and downloads them. Nothing more. It does fine for what she needs.

Now on the other hand, my sister got a used mac off of ebay (G4 Duel 800Mhz, 1GB Ram, since upgraded to 2GB, with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) SHe paid 650 for the machine and a 15" Apple flat Screen monitor. Upgraded to OSx 10.4 Tiger, She hooks up the video camera with Imovie and downloads ton's of video and rips CD to play in her minivan with her kids. And her finances with Quicken. SO that is where a Duel Core Proc comes in handy, but she already has that (Duel Procs)

Anthony
 
swoop56 said:
It's her money and I'm sure she works hard to earn it. But I'm going to chime in with my own opinion.

The dual core is a total waste. I can't imagine anything a real estate agent would need it for. The most intensive task I could imagine is databasing records of home that are/were for sale and, prices, market trends and the like.

Also, instead of ghosting the drive once a month. Just RAID 1 it and be done (Unless they have a fileserver that the machines are backed up to). If one drive goes, she has all her stuff saved on the other. Non computer savvy people hate having to have work done on thier rig whether it be maintnace or an all out repair. And you'll get tired of doing it too.

Spend the money on an active scanning anti-virus and spyware apps. Mom's need it.

Another suggestion. Just get a dell or a gateway. For average users who just need a computer. It's the simplist thing. Saves you the hassle of bearing the blame if something goes wrong. And it probably will. Not even hardware wise. But people download a lot of stupid stuff like spyware/viruses/limewire. And they wonder why thier box is slow when they just had an uberfast computer 3 months ago. Let dell deal with it.
Click to expand...

I agree with all you said but thet last paragraph. Dell is not going to help remove spyware or teach her how to maintain her machine. He wants to help his mom out, and she wants to help him out. This reminds me of when I built my mother a computer, and she had never used a mouse. She raised it up in the air to scroll up ! I knew right there it was going to be a challenge, turns out she just was not of the computer age. She wanted to try, but some things are not meant to be.

to the original post

the rig looks good, you could cut some corners but what the heck, go for it dude. Teach her how to do backups and store off line in a safe place.
 
serbiaNem said:
I
If your mother is like most users, her system will fill up with spyware in no time. Having that extra core for the spyware alone will be priceless. :D

.
Click to expand...

QFT!!!!!!
 
Overclocking ram is pretty much a waste, as noted.

For backups, it is probably easier to just get an external USB hard drive and use the backup software that comes with it. Much easier for Mom to understand than Raid 1 or ghosting or whatever. "Click on this and all the stuff in the big box goes into the little box for safe-keeping." :D

An x2 3800+ is overkill, but possibly useful overkill (we aren't talking about an x2 4800+ here...).

Dell sucks. Their service sucks and their systems are mediocre and larded up with junk software. Most people don't need anything more than mediocre, however.
 
swoop56 said:
Another suggestion. Just get a dell or a gateway. For average users who just need a computer. It's the simplist thing. Saves you the hassle of bearing the blame if something goes wrong. And it probably will. Not even hardware wise. But people download a lot of stupid stuff like spyware/viruses/limewire. And they wonder why thier box is slow when they just had an uberfast computer 3 months ago. Let dell deal with it.
Click to expand...
Listen to this man. Seriously, it doesn't matter how much you understand about computers, the end user really fucks you over in the end. You are doing a great favor for your mom, so lets make it a walk in the park today, AND FOR TOMORROW, and go buy a Dell.

Dell might suck in terms of performance. But you know you want to go for what works and gets the job done for them, not you...

In my personal experience, I just built a system for my bro just a few months ago. And I ordered from Monarch Computer... good company right? Well give it a few months down the road and I find out that the bundle deal I scored from them ended up having a Engineering Sample motherboard from Abit :mad: And YES, it is causing problems, that I had to hear about and take care of.

The only thing you have to do is take it out of the box, plug in cables, remove IE shortcuts, install Firefox, update windows.... and a few more things... I know Dell sucks, but at least people won't be blaming YOU for their problems... I've gotten a lot of that.. .I'm sure a lot of you others out there get it too.
 
AMD 3200+ Venice, 3700+ Sandiego, or 3800+ X2. Whichever you want
Lite-On/NEC/BenQ/Plex/Pioneer DVD Burner
Lite-On/NEC/BenQ/Plex/Pioneer DVD Rom
2GB Giel Value/Corsair value/Crucial/Micron Value/Kingston Value Ram DDR3200
Fortron Source BlueStorm 500watt PSU
Floppy Drive
Viewsonic 19" LCD
2-200GB Seagate/WD HDD's SATA(around same price)
Klipsch 2.1 Speaker system or Logitech Z2200 2.1 THX
512MB USB Flash Drive
12in1(any n 1 really) Memory card reader. Never know if mom wants to put pictures on the PC.
Epson Rxxx Series photo Printer, or canon Pixima photo printer.
Maybe a Canon A510/520 Digital Camera.
Thermalright XP90/XP120 HSF

If you really want to future proof your moms system. Up the mem to 2GB. The X2 would help but in reality it would be better for you to save some money on and buy her other things, Like a Digital Camera, A Good printer, A Flash drive for portable backup(If you're teaching her to back up, teach her to have a backup of her important stuff on her)

Really what you have is fine. if you want to go X2 go ahead. it will make things seem faster. But I would seriously say Consider 2GB of memory because it's Cheap. You can get 2gb of quality ram for under $200. Probably only 50 dollars more then what you were going to pay for the Redline Ram.
 
Backups to live drive in the same system is not really a backup at all.

Do some form of external offsite backups if the data matters at all. (even just use the DVD-R to make the backups and take them home)

==>Lazn
 
I see absolutely not problem whatsoever going with dual core. It will help out in the long run as she plans on keeping the system for at least a few years. There may not be a whole lot out now that she will be able to make direct use of the dual core, but that will probably change in the future. I think it's a good idea.

The RAM on the other hand, I would change. I wouldn't suggest the RAM you want in the system. I think you would be better off going with 2 gig of "value RAM". It will run the same speed as the RAM you are going to put in there but the extra gig will help down the road. A system from five years ago was very likely to only contain 128 meg of RAM. Trying to use that on a system now is hell. A system with 256 meg of RAM is still usable at this point in time even with WinXP. That is why I suggest going with two gig of value RAM.

 
SmokeRngs said:
I see absolutely not problem whatsoever going with dual core. It will help out in the long run as she plans on keeping the system for at least a few years. There may not be a whole lot out now that she will be able to make direct use of the dual core, but that will probably change in the future. I think it's a good idea.

The RAM on the other hand, I would change. I wouldn't suggest the RAM you want in the system. I think you would be better off going with 2 gig of "value RAM". It will run the same speed as the RAM you are going to put in there but the extra gig will help down the road. A system from five years ago was very likely to only contain 128 meg of RAM. Trying to use that on a system now is hell. A system with 256 meg of RAM is still usable at this point in time even with WinXP. That is why I suggest going with two gig of value RAM.

Click to expand...


I agree with this totally. 2GB of value over 1GB of ultra fast stuff for her use.

==>Lazn
 
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