1st Build...Not a gaming PC. Advice please

goz83

I considered building my own PC a couple of years ago, but in the end, I needed something quick, because my notebook gve up the ghost and I needed something urgent for work at home. I bought a HP TouchSmart 300 PC, which has served me very well. However, lately it has been running very slow, so I started to think about building a PC again. I don't need it for gaming. I just use it for work, so I might have a coupple of MS Office apps open and 10-20 browser windows open at a time. I'm currently running Windows 7 Pro and MS Office pro and I use Norton 360 AV. I basicly do not want to have any delays when opening programs, no freezing and a fast boot. I copied some questions from a post I seen here to help.

1. What is your budget? €1000-€1200. This is the ideal range but I can be flexible, depending on software expenses.

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Work use. I might be on it for 10 hours or more at a time.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? I think I will, yes. I would probably get windows 8. What would you recommend I do for MS Office? I have 2 separate licenses for my HP touchsmart and another for my office notebook and I don't want to fork out for another license if there is another way around it.

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No.

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need? 20" or higher with good resolution. Maybe up to 24".

6. Any special interest, or requests?
*I like the idea of a liquid cooled system if one is recommended.
*I would like a dvd/blu-ray writer drive.
*A good few USB ports. A minimum of 8.
*Bluetooth connectivity.
*memory card slots.
*wireless mouse & keyboard.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes. But I must admit, I am a bit nervous and don't know anything about it.

8. How can you pay? Credit Card, Debit Card, PayPal, Bank Transfer, sexual favours....whatevers needed. I would ideally like to buy Irish, especially as I will be claiming back the VAT, but I am willing to buy elsewhere if the price makes sense. If I am saving 25%+, I will buy elsewhere.

9. When are you purchasing? Not sure. Maybe next month.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? North Dublin.

I will need a whole system. Hardwareversand was my first consideration outside of Ireland.

Serephucus

I wasn't sure whether the total was ex. VAT or not, so this is just something to get you started. It's probably more than you need for basic office work, but if you want to scale back, you certainly can.

Item|Price
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Titanium Grey|€98.00
8GB G.Skill PC3-12800U CL11-11-11-28|€53.43
Seasonic X-Series Fanless X-400FL 400W passiv|€115.16
Corsair Hydro Series H100i|€103.62
2 x Scythe GentleTyphoon 120 mm Lüfter 1150 rpm|€24.42
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB SATA 6Gb/s|€199.07
Dell UltraSharp U2412M (schwarz)|€259.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€127.91
ASRock ZH77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€70.34
Intel Core i3-3225 Box, LGA1155|€118.80
LogiLink USB 2.0 all-in-one Card Reader, für 3,5" Einbauchschacht|€3.32
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1193.05

I've gone for silence, mostly. I don't know how much storage you need, so the only thing in there is a 256GB SSD. This will be a ridiculous improvement over what you have now, and is probably the thing you'll notice most.

There's a decent dual core and 8GB of RAM in there as well. More than enough for Office applications.

I've given you a liquid CPU cooler. I originally had a 3570K in there, but given that it doesn't sound like you'll be doing anything outside of Office and web browsing, it's just not needed. You could scale back the cooler if you like, but the nice thing about this is that you'll have a virtually silent system. The PSU has no fan, the cooler probably wouldn't need any because it's so good, and the case has only three pretty quiet fans to begin with.

The monitor I specced has four USB ports on it (when you get used to this, you won't bother with any other ones) and the motherboard will have at least six.

Are you sure you want Blu-ray? It's a pain to get to work, as you need software on top of the drive itself, and a lot of the time you can get really bogged down in DRM as well.

goz83

Serephucus wrote: »

I wasn't sure whether the total was ex. VAT or not, so this is just something to get you started. It's probably more than you need for basic office work, but if you want to scale back, you certainly can.

I've gone for silence, mostly. I don't know how much storage you need, so the only thing in there is a 256GB SSD. This will be a ridiculous improvement over what you have now, and is probably the thing you'll notice most.

There's a decent dual core and 8GB of RAM in there as well. More than enough for Office applications.

I've given you a liquid CPU cooler. I originally had a 3570K in there, but given that it doesn't sound like you'll be doing anything outside of Office and web browsing, it's just not needed. You could scale back the cooler if you like, but the nice thing about this is that you'll have a virtually silent system. The PSU has no fan, the cooler probably wouldn't need any because it's so good, and the case has only three pretty quiet fans to begin with.

The monitor I specced has four USB ports on it (when you get used to this, you won't bother with any other ones) and the motherboard will have at least six.

Are you sure you want Blu-ray? It's a pain to get to work, as you need software on top of the drive itself, and a lot of the time you can get really bogged down in DRM as well.

Cheere for reply. The total is ex vat. My cuurent system is 8GB ram I think and it's a 500GB memory. I also have an external 1TB hard drive.

4 usb in the monitor looks good. Happy there. Blu-Ray is not a must at all. It was just a greedy extra, so I will scrap that idea.

I really just want a system that will not let me down. I hate when it gets slow.

goz83

Had a friend of a friend over a few hours ago and he is a computer techy guy. Turns out i'm only sporting 4GB of ram, but I can easly upgrade to more. He cleared alot of the crap from my current pc and she is back to running almost like new, so i'm over the moon and for only €20, that's not bad. Also upgraded my pc and one of my laptops to MS office pro 2013. Wasn't needed, but sure I wasn't complaining.

I spoke to him about building my own comp and he recommended a gaming pc for ultimate speed and flexibility if it's a self-build. Looks like I will be re-thinking my approach to the build.