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Need to bulid the Wife a puter, thoughts?

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Niku-Sama

Niku-Sama

Member
​
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
so the wife is FINALLY going to finish college, off and on over 10 years and a student loan bill that's STILL $10k after paying on it while she wasn't in school.

any way she said she wanted a new laptop but remembering she didn't take her old laptop with her half the time I asked why bother with it if you aren't going to use it and what are you going to use it for really?
so we came to the conclusion that she probably doesent need a laptop for school but a computer of her own would probably be best. so a desktop, cheaper and will last longer than a laptop any way and if she really "needs" something for in the classroom or out with study groups I have a netbook she can use that I got for $60 from work.

so if you were going to school and it wasn't an arts/programming/content creation degree what do you think you would need for it?

I was thinking mini ITX, probably just one 240gig SSD, I have a amd 5770 I can use for a video card and I think I still have an older OCZ 600W PSU

any projects, papers, presentations, ect will be stored on external drives because she'll need to pull them up at school on their computers any way and no sense on storing the only copy on a drive you cant take with you, backups will be stored on this computer i'm sure but I don't think papers and projects are going to fill up a 200 gig drive in 2 years.

thoughts?
 
Well, you posted in the wrong section. This is general discussion, not general hardware.

I think an FM2 build is in order. Maybe the latest Athlon X4. Or you go team blue and get an H87 board with a Pentium G3258. Either will be good for these purposes. The pentium lets you overclock for your own personal enjoyment as well as improved performance for waifu san.

What case do you think you're going to work with?
 
Niku-Sama said:
so the wife is FINALLY going to finish college, off and on over 10 years and a student loan bill that's STILL $10k after paying on it while she wasn't in school.

any way she said she wanted a new laptop but remembering she didn't take her old laptop with her half the time I asked why bother with it if you aren't going to use it and what are you going to use it for really?
so we came to the conclusion that she probably doesent need a laptop for school but a computer of her own would probably be best. so a desktop, cheaper and will last longer than a laptop any way and if she really "needs" something for in the classroom or out with study groups I have a netbook she can use that I got for $60 from work.

so if you were going to school and it wasn't an arts/programming/content creation degree what do you think you would need for it?

I was thinking mini ITX, probably just one 240gig SSD, I have a amd 5770 I can use for a video card and I think I still have an older OCZ 600W PSU

any projects, papers, presentations, ect will be stored on external drives because she'll need to pull them up at school on their computers any way and no sense on storing the only copy on a drive you cant take with you, backups will be stored on this computer i'm sure but I don't think papers and projects are going to fill up a 200 gig drive in 2 years.

thoughts?
Click to expand...

I would give her my rig and build me a new one... Oo I have done that a few times. ATM she has my old i7. When I want to upgrade I will find a way to make hers die and then I do it again!
 
Theocnoob said:
That's some marriage ninjitsu right there. "But hon I HAD to buy a new computer. I had no

Hahahaha , something similar to that happened in my household once before. With proper planning and execution they'll never know what hit them. UNLESS a recent bank statement falls into the wrong hands.
Click to expand...
 
thanks for the move who ever, that's what I get when I post from my phone. thought I was in general hardware.

any way I had a hard time deciding on a case for mini ITX, I know I want to be able to use full sized PSUs but beyond that?
not a heap o junk but not super expensive either?

shes getting my old monitor, I hate it! it doesent have buttons it has a "touch area" with imaginary buttons that I accidentally hit and turn the whole thing off mid game.
I've got a 40" tv on layaway so I think that might be my new monitor

I had a kinda sorta build list on my phone, gotta get the links to post here
 
Niku-Sama said:
thanks for the move who ever, that's what I get when I post from my phone. thought I was in general hardware.

any way I had a hard time deciding on a case for mini ITX, I know I want to be able to use full sized PSUs but beyond that?
not a heap o junk but not super expensive either?

shes getting my old monitor, I hate it! it doesent have buttons it has a "touch area" with imaginary buttons that I accidentally hit and turn the whole thing off mid game.
I've got a 40" tv on layaway so I think that might be my new monitor

I had a kinda sorta build list on my phone, gotta get the links to post here
Click to expand...

Corsair 250D is my fav ITX case. Fits a full size PSU. Honestly though, the EVGA Hadron is where it's at for tinyness. That 500W PSU in it is a standard size and replacements area available.
Have you considered either an Intel or Gigabyte NUC? Intel's are pretty boring but Gigabyte does exciting things with fatter NUCs with decent CPUs etc in them. You can just mount it to the back of the monitor and forget it.
 
yea some amount of horsepower would probably be a good idea. because I don't know what its going to become after shes done. or if shes going to finally play some of the games I bought for her over the years. as you can imagine ALOT of things started not a whole lot finished.

lemme see what I had kinda set up before, was roughly $300 for what I didn't have already


edit:
ok this is what I have been considering so far:

for intel:
ASRock H81M-ITX/WIFI LGA 1150 $73 (free ship)
Intel Pentium G3258 Haswell Dual-Core 3.2GHz $70 (free ship)

for AMD:

???????
I donno what they have for decently powerful mini itx? seems like most AM3/3+ itx boards cost a lot and I don't know about their other offerings? thoughts on this?

for the rest:

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3 1333 $75 (free ship)
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100283VXL Radeon HD 5770 (already own)
OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS 600W ATX12V / EPS12V (already own[link wouldn't work])

as for cases I cant make up my mind, I don't mind spending some $$$ on a case but nothing too major.
Thermaltake Core V1 Extreme Mini ITX Cube $50 (+$6 ship)
Rosewill Legacy V6 $70 (free ship)
Rosewill Legacy U2 $70 (free ship)
BitFenix Phenom $80 (+$8 ship)
Rosewill Legacy W1-S $100 (free ship)
last ones a bit much
and of course the 250D, but we've all seen that before, no need to link to it.....

I feel like I am forgetting something...
 
Last edited:
I have no experience with either of them, based on looks alone I like the Legacy U2 and the Phenom cases
 
Niku-Sama said:
the boards I am looking at don't support those speeds
Click to expand...

Yes, they do. With Intel, what the board "supports" is irrelevant as the memory controller is in the CPU. Any Haswell CPU can very easily and happily run 2133Mhz RAM all day. I assure you, 2133 is fine. With the tiny cost difference, it is worthwhile for your consideration :).
 
One other thing before I start gathering parts. I have a phenom 2 720 sitting around are there any good itx boards I could use that on?

It was oced and unlocked the last time I used it so it's a decent chip. It's am2 but I have used it in my am3 board and don't see why it wouldn't work in an am3+ board
 
allright starting over with the planning.

I finally got some info out of her and she said she likes the bitfenix Prodigy case in black orange or blue so that helps narrow it down to what else I can spend on.
since she likes that case I could get the Prodigy M case and go mATX , cost for the case is roughly the same but I could spend a little more and get a 9 series chipset and possibly crossfire if shes ever going to play the games she says she wants to.

so i'm thinking

Prodigy M case in orange (its the cheapest I have found so far)
Intel G3258 since I have a videocard, I have a ton of cards now, tell you ina minute...
H97 chipset board around $80 bucks
some RAMS thinking 8 gigs but a pair of 4's since I can get a 4 socket motherboard in matx

but I am still open to AMD stuff. i'm working on it now trying to get 2 bulid lists going and see which one fares better on price/performance

as for the videocards my uncle gave me a bunch of his folding/mining equipment saying they are going a different route now and this stuff isn't cutting it. I don't know if its becaue he got LGA 1366 stuff or what but card wise I got 2 GTX 560 ti 1 GTX 660 ti 2 R9 270 and a 750 ti (cant remember if GT or GTX, thinking GT) along with a bunch of other high end 1366 motherboards and ram and werid stuff
 
ok still building this thing, had a few things come up hence the late reply with components that are a possibility.

any way I think I am pretty set on this ram:

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 2133 $65 Free ship

it'll probably get ordered soon, its much faster and still retains some decent timings, I think I could probably get it down to 9-9-9-11 with a minor voltage tweak.
as far as cpu/mobo go I am stuck. we are for sure going mATX as it'll be more bang for the buck but I am stuck between the blue and green team

blue team has this going on:
Pentium G3258 Haswell Dual-Core 3.2GHz LGA 1150 $70 Free ship
ASRock H97M Pro4 $75 + $3 Shipping = total $148

green team has this going on
MSI A78M-E45 A78 (Bolton D3) $48 Free Ship
AMD 760K Richland Quad-Core 3.8GHz $78 Free Ship = total $126

both motherboards have mail in rebates but I am not counting on those, I never do. i'm kinda of out of the loop on processors, I've been torturing my 960T for a few years now unlocked and OCed a bit and just stopped reading up on it and since then new sockets and such cropped up so from the little research I have done I came up with these pairs being decent.
I have another question but that's for another section.

any thoughts on these cpu/mobo combos with that ram up on top?
should I wait till black Friday /cyber Monday?
 
I saw that but it was OOS
I take it the 860k is more efficient per Mhz?
noticed it was 28nm...

if we are saving a little but on the mobo then we could spring for a bit better cpu
 
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