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Tryin to build small quiet computer for school.

D

danemp

n00b
Joined
Jul 11, 2007
Messages
37
I was thinking of ording this.
Product Description Savings Total Price
. .


Shuttle SG31G2 Intel Socket T(LGA775) Intel Core 2 Quad / Core 2 Duo / Dual-Core / Celeron 400 serial support Intel G31 Barebone - Retail 196.00




G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail


$46.99

. .


Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 Wolfdale 2.66GHz LGA 775 Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E7300 - Retail



$119.99

This is a 361 dollar total, and I was thinking of grabbing a small 160gb sata drive, and I already have a sound card, and dvdrw. Will this work good for my needs? I plan on hooking up the hdi to my 52" lcd for some movie wathcing as well.
 
It would help if you answered the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST" so that we can help you better.
 
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Web Browing, Office 2007
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
350ish
3) Where do you live?
il
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
cpu,case,ram,psu,hd(possibly) I have a 80IDE,ram
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Maxtor 80GB IDE,Liteon CDRW IDE
6) Will you be overclocking?
no
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
21"
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
soon
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
need hdmi and graphix
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
yes
 
You can get the higher clocked E7400 for the same price as the E7300 you chose:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115206

For your needs, the parts you chose (besides the CPU) is good enough for your needs. However I do not know if you can route the IDE cable to both the CD Drive and Hard Drive in such a small case. So I do recommend getting a new drive like this (much better bang for the buck than many 160GB drives):
$55 - Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
While Intel based shuttles may be less problematic, the AMD based versions seem to have many problems. If you can avoid a shuttle, I'd highly suggest it, unless you like troubleshooting. I've got several friends with shuttles, and it seems like they have to troubleshoot a problem quite frequently. Then again, I have no personal experience, so I'm just throwing this bit of info out there. I was considering a shuttle at one point, but when I saw how many problems people were having, I decided on a mATX mini case and a mATX build instead.
 
For your intended usage you don't need 4GB ram even if you were using Vista. YOu could cheap out and save yourself 20 bucks for a Dual channel 2GB kit.

Can't give you a good idea on HDMI capable graphics card so hopefully someone else comes along with some good advice.
 
mutantmagnet said:
For your intended usage you don't need 4GB ram even if you were using Vista. YOu could cheap out and save yourself 20 bucks for a Dual channel 2GB kit.

Can't give you a good idea on HDMI capable graphics card so hopefully someone else comes along with some good advice.
Click to expand...

i agree with the 2 gigs of ram as well..


any ATI radeon 3k series or 4k series card works for DVI to HDMI w/ audio..
 
you could get a dell mini 10 with an HDMI port on it. You could use thing in class then as well
 
I found this on the forums for 225 shipped.

Athlon X2 BE-2400
Asus M3N78-VM
2x1GB OCZ Gold
80GB Seagate 7200.10
500GB Seagate 7200.11
Hauppauge HVR-1800

There is no case or psu, but I can figure something out. Will this be fast enough?
 
This is even better 220 and its local. But this is missing a hardrive and a vid card.


Antec 900 Case...I paid $130
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz CPU ... I paid $149
Asus P5NE SLI Motherboard...I paid $179
4 Gigs of DDR2 Ram....I paid $80
Coolermaster 500Watt Power Supply....I paid $75
Lite On DVD/RW Drive...I paid $29
Logitech G11 Backlit Gaming Keyboard...I paid $69
Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller Adapter ( it allows you to use a 360 controller to play your pc games)...I paid $29
 
BTW. I will be doing some school work, playing lots of music and music videos, and I plan on using HDMI to hook up to my 52" lcd. I don't live in a dorm, and I wont be travelign with the computer, I just need a fast durable machine that can do these tasks.
 
What I would get is this.

SILVERSTONE Sugo SG05-B Black SECC Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case SFX 300W 80Plus Power Supply
ZOTAC GF9300-D-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Mini ITX
PNY 4GB
E5200

comes out to about 370 if you got some other ram with a mail in rebate you could get it at 350.

Mother board comes with HDMI so you don't have to worry about a video card and also it ITX which is the smallest around that can do duel core.

Case is great with a good Powersupply.

Low power low heat CPU.
 
danemp said:
This is even better 220 and its local. But this is missing a hardrive and a vid card.

Antec 900 Case...I paid $130
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz CPU ... I paid $149
Asus P5NE SLI Motherboard...I paid $179
4 Gigs of DDR2 Ram....I paid $80
Coolermaster 500Watt Power Supply....I paid $75
Lite On DVD/RW Drive...I paid $29
Logitech G11 Backlit Gaming Keyboard...I paid $69
Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller Adapter ( it allows you to use a 360 controller to play your pc games)...I paid $29
Click to expand...

Not that good. The Coolermaster 500W PSU is more than likely part of their Extreme Power line of PSUs, a line of PSUs known to be very shitty. In addition, the P5NE SLI motherboard is based on an older and a bit unstable Nvidia chipset.

danemp said:
any other suggestions
Click to expand...

Yeah here's one:

$140 - Antec NSK 4480B II w/ Computer Case EarthWatts 380W Power Supply + AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 CPU Combo
$75 - Asus M3N78-VM GeForce 8200 HDMI mATX Motherboard
$45 - A-Data ADQVE1B16K 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 RAM
$55 - Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
----
Total: $315 plus tax and shipping

The above will fit your needs perfectly. For web browsing and Office, you don't really need a more powerful CPU like the E7400. In addition, the X2 7750+ more than likely outperforms the C2D 2.4Ghz (probably the E6600) of that above local deal. The Antec Earthwatts 380W PSU is a good quality PSU and will be more than enough for your setup.

Though if you want something significantly smaller, than I highly recommend stevedave's setup.

EDIT: Swapped out the mobo. Just realized that you might have a HDTV. So the 8200 chipset is a better choice than the 760G chipset mobo I chose earlier
 
Last edited:
I like both setups thatwere mentioned by stevedave and Danny Bui. Is it basically just a toss up? The size of the case is not the much of a factor. I just want the best bang for the buck.
 
danemp said:
I like both setups thatwere mentioned by stevedave and Danny Bui. Is it basically just a toss up? The size of the case is not the much of a factor. I just want the best bang for the buck.
Click to expand...

Performance wise, it's a toss-up. Both stevedave's and my build performs about the same. But the best-bang for the buck build would have to be mine. It's cheaper than stevedave's build yet performs about the same. In addition, unlike stevedave's build, my setup includes a faster hard drive.
 
Yeah I really like what you have come up with, and the size of the case is not important at all. What you have provided will be everything I will need correct, besides the OS.

I see the edit. Yes, I have a 52" lcd that I want to hook up to it for sure, so dvi or hdmi is important.

Btw, thank both of you very much for your time that you spent helping me.
 
Danny's build is probably what I am going for. It seems to fit what I need very nicely, and the price isn't that bad either
 
The only thing is the ram. Would it be beneficial to pick up a better brand of ram or is A-data ok?
 
danemp said:
The only thing is the ram. Would it be beneficial to pick up a better brand of ram or is A-data ok?
Click to expand...

A-Data is a good brand. In fact, they make RAM for other RAM companies IIRC.
 
Danny's build looks good and you add for some upgradability in there with the use of a good AM2+ board. Only thing I might change is go with a large HDD, maybe the Western Digital WD6400AALS 640GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive, double the size and double the cache for about $20 more.
 
Your title said small and quiet so I jumped at that but Danny's is a better buy if size doesn't matter.

Plus that a a new model case with a combo on the CPU.
 
Yeah sorry about that I guess I was stuck on the smaller,cute size of the shuttles. The only thing about getting a larger hdd is that I barely fill up the 60GB that I have now.
 
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