Computer for an accountant

A friend of mine referred me to his father to build a new computer for his job. His dad is an accountant with years of financial data on his computer. He's going to be retiring in 4 years or so and wants this to be the last computer he buys. Apparently he wants something pretty powerful, because his current computer is sluggish. My friend said I should expect to have about $2000 to work with. I don't know what sort of applications he is using but he does a lot of number crunching and multi-tasking. I was thinking of going with a core i7 system. I will need to set aside some money for software and OS and such.

Anyways... what components will matter most for an accountant's work? Would clock speed be more important than amount of ram? If I go with core i7 should would it be better to have triple channel or dual channel? I just don't know what will give him the best performance for 4 years.

What do you think?

2000 that's massive!

Get a 920 with a decent X58 mobo. Get 2 SSD and put them RAID0. You could add another set of HDD's if you wanted to. Get some 2000mhz DDR3 RAM or something. Do you need a good graphics card? I doubt it but get a GTX275 or something.

Yea, graphics card is not necessary. Onboard graphics would probably be fine unless there is some left over money. I was thinking about getting RAID for him because I'm sure he has some valuable information he doesn't want to lose.

Speaking of which... what is the safest way to transfer a lot of data from his old machine to the new one? I don't know if SSD is necessary... I could get one SSD for the apps possibly.

I know the 920 is great for multitasking but will 2.66Ghz be a fast enough clock for all that multi-tasking? Also, remember this has to be a fast machine in 4 years as well.

Core i7's are overkill no matter what clock they are in.

Anyway, in 4 years if he feels like there's a performance drop he can just overclock it easily to 3.5 or even 4. That should be better.

You building that rig in Yongsan? You gotta know that that budget wont stretch there like it would Stateside... I guess the saving grace is that a high-end gpu is not required.

jgv115 said:

Core i7's are overkill no matter what clock they are in.

Anyway, in 4 years if he feels like there's a performance drop he can just overclock it easily to 3.5 or even 4. That should be better.

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lol... I have a feeling the dude wont be overclocking...

1. For $2000, I'd concentrate on reliable storage... At least 2 hard drives, and a blue ray burner to burn data to blue rays.

2. Core i7 is retardedly overkill, but if there is money left over, why not?

3. Invest in a good 500 watt power supply, like a corsair 520HX. Maybe suggest a UPS if there is money left over. Clean energy in = long lasting computer.

4. RAM. As the years go by, programs will use more ram. For an accountant, maybe not that crazy, but why not go for a good 6 to 8G of ram?

5. OS: XP will NOT be supported in 4 years. If Win 7 is out by then, get it.

-D

chevro1et said:

You building that rig in Yongsan? You gotta know that that budget wont stretch there like it would Stateside... I guess the saving grace is that a high-end gpu is not required.

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No, actually I'll be back in the states in less than a month, so it will be built there.

Thanks for the input diaz. I was thinking that 2x500gb or 2x1tb HDDs would be good. Also thinking about an SSD for the OS and apps just to try and make the rig a little more snappy. I was also thinking 8gb of ram, but I was looking at the 750w Corsair rather than the 520w. Blue ray will be up to him I think, and I will encourage him to wait for Windows 7 as well. Right now I'm thinking that the Core i7 860 will be the CPU of choice.

For software, I would get Vista Ultimate w/ the Win7 Ultimate/Pro upgrade due to it having the built-in back-up feature, so all you'd have to get is an external HDD. Having just a RAID1 mirror is not enough when it comes to handling money, especially other people's money. So having multiple sources of back-ups is crucial.

How about the newer i5 CPUs??

For 2k I would do this...

i7
6GB ram (triple channel of course with i7)
80GB SSD for the OS (OCZ Vertex/Intel X25 or better), 1TB drive for data/backup, and a 1TB external backup drive.

As far as a PSU for a rig like that which wont be overclocked or use a powerful GPU. A Corsair 550VX would fit the bill nicely and still allow plenty of room for growth. There is no way a 750W PSU will be needed, that would be a brutal waste of money.

juane414 said:

No, actually I'll be back in the states in less than a month, so it will be built there.

Thanks for the input diaz. I was thinking that 2x500gb or 2x1tb HDDs would be good. Also thinking about an SSD for the OS and apps just to try and make the rig a little more snappy. I was also thinking 8gb of ram, but I was looking at the 750w Corsair rather than the 520w. Blue ray will be up to him I think, and I will encourage him to wait for Windows 7 as well. Right now I'm thinking that the Core i7 860 will be the CPU of choice.

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One thing to consider is if all of his programs can use Windows 7.

Quigsby said:

One thing to consider is if all of his programs can use Windows 7.

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Yes, I've been wondering that as well. However, Windows 7 Pro will have the new Windows XP mode, so he should be able to run any programs in that. Or, hopefully, he could upgrade to newer versions of his programs that are Windows 7 compatible.