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best office comp for $400?

M

mastrduke

Senior member
i need a new office comp...used mostly for running programs and internet...dont need good graphics...no speakers or sound card...have a monitor and keyboard and mouse...may be able to keep the same case...thinking about a diff one tho...any recommendations...need it to be very reliable...dont want any probs with it has it will be in an office where i need things to work
 
All prices taken from Newegg.com without shipping included:

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ $52
Asus A7V8X-MX SE $56
Corsair Value Select 256MB PC3200 $41
Inwin Screwless MicroATX Minitower w/ 250W PSU $36
Samsung 52x32x52 CD-RW $29
NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive $9.99
Western Digital 80GB SE 7200RPM 8MB $68.50
Speeze WhisperRock II CPU Cooler $9.99

Total: $302.48
 
BTW: The motherboard has integrated graphics, sound, and 10/100 LAN. If you need a dial-up modem, that's extra.

I've used all the components myself, and they are more or less bulletproof.
 
thx for all the input...is either of these machienes more stable than the other...and they arnt going to be terrably slow are they?can u compare about what ghz these would be like in a p4 setup?

thx for all ur help
 
Originally posted by: mastrduke
thx for all the input...is either of these machienes more stable than the other...and they arnt going to be terrably slow are they?can u compare about what ghz these would be like in a p4 setup?

thx for all ur help
Click to expand...

For the Internet and Office apps, even a 1.4GHz Duron would be fast. The key is that you should keep your system running clean and efficient.

The Pentium equivalent of these systems is in the performance rating. So a 2000+ is equal to a ~2GHz P4; a 2500+ is equal to a ~2.5GHz P4, etc.

As far as stability; they are both equally stable. Just make sure you pick good brands for your components, especially your motherboard, hard drive, and memory.
 
Any cpu out these days and 512 meg of ram will make a good office rig. The cheapie dell won't have that much ram, and will come with XP Home (which I don't like at home or in the office). XP Pro alone will bump your price up $100-$200 from an online box seller. Getting an OS on the thing can be as expensive as the parts.
 
This same thread was basically posted 7 hours ago:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1337425&enterthread=y

For $395.05 you can build:

$80 Barton 2500+
$61 Biostar nForce 2 IGP board
$65 80GB Samsung (3-year warranty)
$86 512MB Mushkin PC3200 CL 2.5-4-4 Basic Green (2 x 256MB)
$48.50 Lite-On 52X CD-R / 16X DVD combo
$32 + $15 APEX black micro-ATX case
$3.55 + $4.00 Unicom 24" round ATA cable

That case only has a 250W PSU, but it's a good PSU that has held up for me, and more than enough if you're not overclocking. More importantly, it's a very nice case and a very good motherboard.

Yes, you can get by with a worse CPU and a worse system in general, but there's no need to build a system that can't read a DVD-ROM. There's no need to use a worse CPU when you can get a Barton for a few bucks more.

If you want to compare this to a P4, you really can't... A Celeron is a significantly inferior CPU to a Barton at any clockspeed, and a non-Celeron is too expensive for a system this cheap (unless you cut every corner and made a horrible system).
 
Originally posted by: Tostada
This same thread was basically posted 7 hours ago:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1337425&enterthread=y

For $391.55 you can build:

$80 Barton 2500+
$61 Biostar nForce 2 IGP board
$65.50 80GB Samsung
$81 512MB Corsair PC3200 CL 2.5 Value Select (2 x 256MB)
$48.50 Lite-On 52X CD-R / 16X DVD combo
$32 + $15 APEX black micro-ATX case
$3.55 + $4.00 Unicom 24" round ATA cable
Click to expand...

$8 for an ATA cable? do the drive and mobo not come with a cable between the two?
 
Originally posted by: Tostada
This same thread was basically posted 7 hours ago:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1337425&enterthread=y

For $391.55 you can build:

$80 Barton 2500+
$61 Biostar nForce 2 IGP board
$65.50 80GB Samsung
$81 512MB Corsair PC3200 CL 2.5 Value Select (2 x 256MB)
$48.50 Lite-On 52X CD-R / 16X DVD combo
$32 + $15 APEX black micro-ATX case
$3.55 + $4.00 Unicom 24" round ATA cable

That case only has a 250W PSU, but it's a good PSU, and more than enough if you're not overclocking. More importantly, it's a very nice case and a very good motherboard.

Yes, you can get by with a worse CPU and a worse system in general, but there's no need to build a system that can't read a DVD-ROM. There's no need to use a worse CPU when you can get a Barton for a few bucks more.

If you want to compare this to a P4, you really can't... A Celeron is a significantly inferior CPU to a Barton at any clockspeed, and a non-Celeron is too expensive for a system this cheap (unless you cut every corner and made a horrible system).
Click to expand...

Tostada understands value listen to him. (I'd prolly ditch the expensive cable, get a moblie barton for $77, and get an Antec case but that's besides the point)
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Tostada understands value listen to him. (I'd prolly ditch the expensive cable, get a moblie barton for $77, and get an Antec case but that's besides the point)
Click to expand...

Thanks. 🙂

I had to modify it a bit because the price of that Corsair jumped $12 today!

I know there's no real need to get the expensive cable, but that board comes with a single IDE cable which isn't long enough to connect the hard drive bay to the top 5.25" bay, and if you're going to get a cable you might as well spend another buck and get a cool one.

I would definitely agree that a Mobile Barton for $77 would be better for the average user, since you can easily clock it up higher. It all depends on the use of the system. When I'm making a system for the non-gamer type who would want this system, I perfer to use a Retail version and not overclock. That way the machine boots up and says "Athlon XP 2500+" and you also get the nice sticker to put in the square hole on the case.

I know, it's silly, but it makes the user feel better about the system.
 
Here's for less than $350 and with a combo drive, floppy drive and HSF which everyone forgets.

Cases Linkworld ATX Mini-Tower Case with 300W power supply, Model "617-C8828-P4" -RETAIL $24.00

CD/DVD Burners (RW Drives)
Sony Black 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive, Model CRX320E Black, OEM $40.00

Fans, Heatsinks (Case, CPU, Chipset)
ALL COPPER LOW PROFILE Dynatron CPU Cooler for Socket A/ 370, 63 x 62 x 60 mm, Model "BH-625" $9.99

Floppy Drives
NEC 1.44MB Black Internal Floppy Drive, OEM $10.99

Hard Drives
Seagate or Samsung 40GB 7200RPM $58.00

Memory (System Memory)
2 x A-DATA 184 Pin 256M DDR PC-3200 - OEM $78.00

Motherboards - AMD
BIOSTAR "M7NCG 400" nForce2 IGP Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL $61.00

Processors
Mobile 45 Watt AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+, 266 MHz FSB, 512K L2 Cache Processor - OEM $77.00



Total (Before tax): $ 358.98

Well Not quite 350 because tostada brought to light some folly and I changed some stuff. But this system will kick, run very cool and Overclock major if your so interested.
 
Originally posted by: Insane3D
Shuttle "MN31N" nForce2 IGP - $80 shipped

Mushkin PC3200 (2 x 256mb) - $86 shipped

Athlon XP 2500+ Retail w/ HSF - $80 shipped

Lite-On 52x32x52 CDRW-$30 shipped ($29.99)

Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM - $62.50 shipped

Floppy - $10 shipped

Antec SLK2600AMB w/300W PSU - $55.77 shipped

Total: $410.27

🙂
Click to expand...
BTW, this board has Firewire and dual-monitor support too 🙂 You're also getting 512MB of memory, 6-channel hardware-accelerated audio, and enough 3D acceleration for many 3D first-person shooters as long as you don't go crazy on your resolution and eye candy. Yeah, I know... 😉

I see one fly in the ointment here, the drive is an SATA drive and the mobo doesn't have onboard SATA capability, but there are plenty of other suitable drives to choose from.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Be careful you have to buy firewire card seprate.
Click to expand...
I bought an MN31N for my mom's rig and was pleased to find they included the FW-outlet plate! :Q The MN31L wouldn't come with it, since it has the basic MCP southbridge...
 
<jealous ours did'nt.🙂 Came with xtra USB thats it...but I only paid $78 at the time. This board has gone up a bit.... The MN31L seems to be a new edition too...hav'nt seen that one before.
 
Insane3D:

You linked to the SATA version of that drive, but gave the price for the PATA version. Keep in mind that PATA Hitachis have a 1-year warranty. BTW, that's a great deal on a case! I would use it myself if I didn't have experience with the APEX case (and Allied PSU) and know it's solid.

Zebo:

I've seen many people complain about onboard video problems when using an nForce 2 with a single stick of RAM. I'd also probably move up to the $58 Samsung 40G because of the 3-year warranty (and my experience with Samsung drives in general).
 
Originally posted by: Tostada
Insane3D:

You linked to the SATA version of that drive, but gave the price for the PATA version. Keep in mind that PATA Hitachis have a 1-year warranty. BTW, that's a great deal on a case! I would use it myself if I didn't have experience with the APEX case (and Allied PSU) and know it's solid.

Zebo:

I've seen many people complain about onboard video problems when using an nForce 2 with a single stick of RAM. I'd also probably move up to the $58 Samsung 40G because of the 3-year warranty (and my experience with Samsung drives in general).
Click to expand...

All good points.🙂
 
I always try to harrass people into giving up the floppy drive unless they actually have work-related stuff on floppy. The 3.5" floppy is so 20-year-ago! (along those lines, Windows XP is f-ing retarded for not letting you install SATA drivers from CD!)
 
Originally posted by: Tostada
I always try to harrass people into giving up the floppy drive unless they actually have work-related stuff on floppy. The 3.5" floppy is so 20-year-ago! (along those lines, Windows XP is f-ing retarded for not letting you install SATA drivers from CD!)
Click to expand...

Now hows he going to flash his video card or bios?LOL

Seriously floppies are still useful. I use them all the time for quick driver transfers when re-formatting a comp that's no longer on network. His choice I mean it's $10 we're talking about here and they still have some use.
 
I haven't used a floppy in forever. Even back in WinNT 3.51, I was just burning my own custom WinNT CD that contained the SCSI drivers I needed. And you can easily make a bootable CDR that has BIOS files on it. You can drag the bootable image and the BIOS files into your burning program, burn, and boot to the CD at least as fast as you can copy the files and boot to a floppy.
 
Originally posted by: Macro2
My vote is for one of those E-machines Athlon XP boxes. Pretty good stuff actually.
Click to expand...

The Athlon ones start at $569 after rebate.

At least eMachines doesn't force you to get a monitor like Dell does half the time. I've often suggested that people just get the "As Advertized" Dell of the week and just buy some more memory and a nice monitor.

If you look at the current Dell deal, it's $474 with a POS monitor, and they only give you $50 for removing the monitor. It's a Celeron 2.4 with 128MB of shared memory, That's insane! It's probably going to force you to use 16MB of that for the video, leaving you running WinXP with 112MB. Nice. And then they only give you a plain CD-ROM and a 40GB hard drive. It has no CD-R and no floppy -- no way of writing to any external media.

EMachines has a $399 deal (after the mail-in rebate) that's just a little better. It's a Celeron 2.7 with 256MB and it can read DVD's. For $479 (after the rebate) you actually get a burner and 512MB.

Both of those machines use the 845GV board -- a wonderful chipset that doesn't support an AGP slot. Instead of an AGP slot, they let you stay with the famed "Intel Extreme Graphics." No, not the new "Extreme Graphics II" which can run UT2K3 in 1024x768 at a blazing 13.4 FPS. It's the slower, old version.

So I guess these days I would not suggest that someone just get a cheap Dell/eMachines system and add some RAM and a good monitor.
 
I tried to jump on one of dell hot "deals" one time and once I went though the checkout they added $160 for shipping and tax. Not so great on a $299 internet comp bringing the total to $460.

Bottom line is you may get a computer cheaper at dell when all the rebates are factored in. But you can also do rebates on parts in the hot deals forums which negates this advantage. The dell is slower, no agp on these cheap models, usually non upgradable, use generic ram and no name loud 1 yr HD's. What you do get is an OEM OS and 1yr support. If one shops around they'll find buiding your own always wins price/performance ratio. No $299 dell or Emachine can compete with what we have listed.
 
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