New Build For Grandma!

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samops03

Gawd
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Oct 18, 2007
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My grandma has a 4 year old Sony PC which at this point cannot even load a website correctly. She came over to my house the other day and after checking out my rig begged me to build her a new pc. After talking to her, i decided on the following.

Antec Sonata III Case w/ 500w PSU $80
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H MB $87
Phenom 9500 $169
GSkill 2GB (800mhz) $45
WD 500GB AAKS $99
Samsung Burner $30
Samsung 226BW $250

She wont be doing any gaming so there is no need for a dedicated Video Card. Besides, the 780G has a pretty impressive onboard video chipset which is excellent for video playback.

I will be installing Vista 32bit and i speculate that this pc will last her for years to come. There will be room to add another 2GB as well as Hybrid Crossfire if she does require extra graphics power in the future.I know the Quad Core is overkill for her now, but i want her to be happy for many years to come. She does not upgrade often.

What do you guys think?
 
Nice price for the Sonata III... buy where are you going to buy everything at?

Since you plan on using a microATX motherboard, you may also want to consider making a SFF box for your grandmother... that is, if you aren't trying to make her PC into a high-performance beast. (Check out the SFF forum if you're interested in any ideas.)

I don't believe that dual-core processors are going to go away any time soon -- there aren't many programs or games that are optimized for multiple cores -- so you could drop down to a cheaper dual-core CPU is your grandmother isn't going to do anything heavier than movie watching or web browsing.

You may also want to consider using a low-end GPU capable of offloading HD video from the CPU. (The onboard GPU also takes away some of the "usable" RAM. That may cause system slowdown if your grandmother likes to multitask.) The GeForce 8400-8600 cards and the Radeon HD2600 cards are good for that purpose.
 
tiraides said:
Nice price for the Sonata III... buy where are you going to buy everything at?

Since you plan on using a microATX motherboard, you may also want to consider making a SFF box for your grandmother... that is, if you aren't trying to make her PC into a high-performance beast. (Check out the SFF forum if you're interested in any ideas.)

I don't believe that dual-core processors are going to go away any time soon -- there aren't many programs or games that are optimized for multiple cores -- so you could drop down to a cheaper dual-core CPU is your grandmother isn't going to do anything heavier than movie watching or web browsing.

You may also want to consider using a low-end GPU capable of offloading HD video from the CPU. (The onboard GPU also takes away some of the "usable" RAM. That may cause system slowdown if your grandmother likes to multitask.) The GeForce 8400-8600 cards and the Radeon HD2600 cards are good for that purpose.
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Im buying the stuff from Buy.com, Clubit, and NewEgg with some combo deals and rebate offers. The reason for the quad core is i believe over time, more and more apps will use multiple cores so it wont hurt to get one now, especially for the price.

The great thing about the 780G chipset is that it takes full control of HD video playback and encoding, so there is almost no stress on cpu. You can check out some videos on youtube (780G). You can play BluRay, X264 etc using this board and a cheap AMD cpu with no lag.From what i understand it is the best ONBOARD video solution out.

My grandma also plans to buy an LCD TV soon so i figure this is great for her, since i can easily turn this into a great HTPC via onboard HDMI
 
Nice build, I think the Quad-Core is overkill though. She really will be fine with a Dual-Core for as long as the computer is useful. I can't see anything a Grandmother would be doing would require that much multi-tasking power.
 
newtekie1 said:
Nice build, I think the Quad-Core is overkill though. She really will be fine with a Dual-Core for as long as the computer is useful. I can't see anything a Grandmother would be doing would require that much multi-tasking power.
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Hey, I know some 70-80 year old women who play video games ;) There's this woman who raids in WoW all week long, and she's about 73 or something? You never know haha.
 
Looks fine to me (nice price on the phenom). If she wants to save money, you can wait for a good dell deal instead. But then again, my grandmother knows I love to build systems, so she makes me build her one instead of buying a prebuilt, lol.
 
enginurd said:
Looks fine to me (nice price on the phenom). If she wants to save money, you can wait for a good dell deal instead. But then again, my grandmother knows I love to build systems, so she makes me build her one instead of buying a prebuilt, lol.
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Thats exactly the thing... I love to build new pc's and it brings me pleasure everytime i finish a build from scratch, whether it be for me or one of my relatives or friends. I dont charge them, cause i like to make them happy. I will never buy a dell or any pre-built system for that matter... Not that there is anything wrong with them, I just prefer to build because it gaurantees quality components and upgrade paths for the future.
 
newtekie1 said:
Nice build, I think the Quad-Core is overkill though. She really will be fine with a Dual-Core for as long as the computer is useful. I can't see anything a Grandmother would be doing would require that much multi-tasking power.
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I totally agree with you here and i know she wont use even half of what that pc can do. But because she will prob not buy another pc for like 4-5 years she may need that power somewhere down the line.
 
Can someone please recommend a nice cooler for the Phenom 9500 that will fit the GA-MA78GM-S2H inside an Antec Sonata III case. Thanks
 
Is the stock cooler not good? Do they no longer use the heatpipe coolers for stock? 'cuz the one that came with my Opty165 got me to 2.6Ghz up from 1.8Ghz, so I'd assume they're using the same coolers or better.
 
Get a system from Dell. That's what i did for my fiances grandparents. For $488.00 (Includes tax and shipping!) You can't beat that price, the monitor alone is $200!!!!!

Pentium Dual Core 1.8Ghz/1MB L2
1GB DDR2 667Mhz
160GB SATA2 7200RPM 8MB Cache HD
Intel G33/G33Express integrated graphics
Integrated 7.1 HD Audio
19INCH DELL WFP Monitor
Dell Optical Mouse
Dell USB Keyboard
Dell A225 Speaker System
1 Year Technical Support/1 Year Next Day Business Parts and Labor (If something breaks you wont be getting the calls)
 
sanitarium16 said:
Get a system from Dell. That's what i did for my fiances grandparents. For $488.00 (Includes tax and shipping!) You can't beat that price, the monitor alone is $200!!!!!
Click to expand...

The Dell angle has already been discussed earlier in the thread. ;)
 
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