[PCM0nk3y]

My sister recently asked me to build her a PC that she could use for basic office work, ie Excell, Powerpoint, Internet, etc....

My question is should I go with a Intel system or an AMD system? I've never worked with AMD so I'm not real familiar with it.

Here is what I was thinking.
P4 2.4 GHz (Northwood core) Zalman 7000Cu Heatsink
ASUS p4p800 SE MOBO
Corsair XMS Extreme Memory PC3200 512MB
Samsung DVD RW
HD's she already has (don't know the spec's)
GeForce 4200ti I think is the extra Vid card I have

Would this be a good set up to do a moderate overclock to like 2.8-3.0 as well as run her office programs? I guess my main question is this, is the ASUS p4p800 going to be a good board to do a moderate OC?

[subtotal]

get an amd, they're every bit as good as intel and cheaper to boot.

btw i don't think she really needs XMS memory for office work, if you want corsair the value select series should be fine

[PCM0nk3y]

well the Corsair Extreme is for me cuz before I give it to her I'm going to see how well I can OC it. I have never had a chance to try a Northwood core CPU. plus I think the Corsair value select is only like 30 bucks cheaper or something like that.

Don't get me wrong I have nothing against AMD, but I don't know them at all and with me wanting to OC it for them, I'd feel more comfortable doing it with an Intel P4. Sorry for the confusion I'm not really debating on whether or not to use a AMD or Intel, I don't know why I posted I was in my first post.

[batboy]

If you are talking about the 2.4C 800 bus Northwood CPU with hyperthreading, then yes that's an excellent choice. Overclocking them to 250 FSB or 3 gig is a no brainer. They will generally do that with stock cooling (with maybe a couple extra case fans) and default or real low voltage.

Yes, the ASUS P4P800 SE mobo is a decent overclocker and would be a good choice... or the Abit AI7 or IS7 series.

You could certainly build an AMD mobile 2600+ system cheaper that would probably function fine, but the P-4 with it's massive memory bandwidth will edge it in most apps. It would take an AMD A64 to match or beat the P-4 and those aren't cheaper.

Just make sure you use two sticks of matched RAM to take full advantage of dual channel DDR.

[Slackfumasta]

If it's an office machine, she needs it to be reliable. I don't think you'll gain anything by overclocking it other than having some fun with it .

I would just build her a P4 machine with HT and let it run stock.

[Keiron]

Does she really need anything over 1.5 Ghz? For office work (unless shes doing rendering or video-con's) a 500 mhz would be fine, never mind a 1.5Ghz. I would go with a 1.5 Ghz AMD socket A, with a decent motherboard. Perhaps a 2x hard-drive set-up with a raid for redundancy (again, depending on what shes does and if her IT bunch does backups). Throw gigabit lan in the mix for future-proofin, and give her 256/512 ddr333 corsair. If you like, I can spec the system out in specifics.

[PCM0nk3y]

well basically the whole point for going with the northwood core P4 is so I can have some fun OC'n it. Plus it never hurts to have a little extra speed no matter what you do with the PC, well that's the way I look at it anyways. I haven't even started OC'n my PC in my sig cuz I'm waiting on my Thermaltake Silent Purepower 560W PSU to come in (current Athena will be going into my sister's rig I'd think it'd be good enough for it) I've heard a LOT of good things concerning OC'n with the mobo in my sig, I'm really anxious to see what I can do with it. BTW this is my first time OC'n a PC as I used to be a DELL junky hehe.

Also would it be better to go with 2x256 and run them in dual channel than just a single 512 stick?

oh yeah I forgot to mention these were her exact words to me "I don't want something that will just get the job done, I want it to be fast" otherwise I'd just throw a cheap P3 system together and give it to her.

[Keiron]

2x256 in dual channel will preform slightly better. Honestly, it won't be noticeable, so if the price difference is, just get the single stick. I would still just build her a regular computer. Building something good for overclocking is useless when you're not going to use all the speed. Regular office work would prolly benefit more form under clocking than overclocking...
[Edit]A 1.5 Ghz or a 2 Ghz would be more than enough for what shes doing. My old 1.4 Ghz T-bird that I use as a server can boot XP in about 31 seconds (BIOS to finished loading apps). Would be plenty fast, yet woudn't make the purase/wallet cry..

[Slackfumasta]

Yeah, most of the PCs that do standard office work don't work very hard.

I'm on a laptop here at work. I often have several remote desktops running, as well as email, 3-4 browser windows, WMP, etc running on it at all times. It's a Centrino 1.4 GHz processer, and it's so underused that most of the time it clocks itself down to 600 MHz.

I've attached a screenshot of my system's current CPU speed/temp, etc. It's pretty typical of a standard office machine.

[Keiron]

Perhaps you could do other neat things to it, like building her a mATX system. Generally there isn't alot of space in the office, so you might want to ask her about that.
Anywho, if you want a AMD system designed, just throw a post up and I'll pull the Newegg specs for it up.

[PCM0nk3y]

well this isn't for her office at work, it's for at her house where she will use it when she brings work home. It will be used as their main PC at the house which is another reason why I want to build a fast machine (I'm trying to get my brother-in-law into PC gaming) I realize that I could get away with building a lower powered machine and it will perform just as good in an office setting. But I also know that if my brother-in-law does get into playing PC games with me I don't want his machine which I just built holding him back. I know there is a big IF with my brother-in-law starting to play PC games, but I've gone through and spec'd the machine I want to build them on newegg and it comes out to right around 500 bucks. And she said she could spend anywhere from 6-750 bucks for it.