What do I need for my pc?

dingbat

Howdy.

I'm trying to put together a pc to do the following...

Internet and email (obviously)
WiFi broadband
Play DVDs, CDs, MP3s etc..
Burn DVDs
A bit of Excel and Access number crunching

It is very, very unlikely that I'll play any new games on it.

So, can I get away with a Sempron/Celeron type chip for this sort of thing? If I'm only playing DVDs and not playing the latest games, do I really need a video card?

I was thinking along the lines of...

AMD Sempron 2400+ 1.667 GHz Socket A 333MHz, 256KB cache, BOXED
512Mb RAM, 1024Mb if I can afford it.
120Gb HD
DVD Burner
WiFi card
Some sort of motherboard, preferably with graphics and sound built in to save cash.
Windows XP

I'm eyeing up a Samsung 17" TFT monitor - they seem to have an excellent reputation. I would, however, love to get a 19" if I could be assured that the quality would be good enough.

Regarding the WiFi situation, I've got a Belkin wireless router that I want to hook up to a DSL connection. What exactly do I need to put into a pc to enable it to work with the router? Something similar to the WiFi card you'd stick into a laptop?

Another idiotic question - am I correct in assuming that a DVD burner will also burn cds?

Finally, I've become very attached to the idea of building a SFF pc. It would add a good bit to the price though. Any thoughts?

dingbat

(bump)

Anyone?

Main question... is a budget chip good enough for DVDs etc?

leeroybrown

Basically, the _only_ taxing thing most home users do with their PC's is play games. The Sempron, etc would be fine for what you want to do. For what you want I wouldn't even bother with more than 512Mb of RAM. Onboard graphics will be fine unless you want to play games (at which point most chipsets suddenly become useless).

A PCI wireless card. The laptop ones are PCMCIA and need a special adapter to work with a PC so don't use one of them. THere are also USB ones but I'd stick to the hardware PCI card.

Yes, a DVD burner also burns CD's.

As for SFF, If you want on-board everything then you could get a Shuttle or similar SFF case (which comes with Motherboard + PSU) to suit a Sempron whtiout adding too much compared to the price of the normal stuff.

dingbat

Brilliant, perfect answer. Thanks.

Saw another thread about "Dell Outlet", where they sell returned PCs with a 1 year guarantee.

Saw the following on offer over there - it looks like a great deal. What do you think?

SYSTEM SPECIFICATION

Dimension 4700, Pentium 4, 2.8GHz, MiniTower
English - Win XP SP2 Home

Operating System: English - Win XP SP2 Home
Memory: 512MB (2 X 256, NON-ECC400MHZ DDRII)
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Disk Drive: 160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Video: 128MB PCI Express ATI RadeonTM X300 SE
Modem: V.92 Data Fax Modem Ire/Spn
Software: Microsoft® Works® 7.0
English - Adobe Reader 6.0
MISC: Dell Standard PS2 Keyboard
16 X DVD +/- RW
Dell 2 Button PS/2 Scroll Mouse
Norton Internet Securities 90 day English
DMX Dell Media Experience 2.

System Price EUR 565.00

There's another one there that's pretty similar except it's got 512Mb DDR333 RAM and a 128MB nVidia GeForce4 FX5200 with DVI instead. It's for €442. That, to me, seems a real bargain.

padraigf

Yeah, grab it. Thats a sweet deal. The specs you had in your original post would easily suffice too though.