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Help me build a practical PC for my girlfriend :)

A

aznsurfer

Member
Hey PC builders,

I want to build a PC for my girlfriend (it will be my second build, my first was for me)

I'd like to build her a fast machine but not necessarily the fastest, top of the line one either.

- What chip and video card should I get for her?
- I want something that is noticeably faster than her dinky Pentium II but I don't want to build something that she will never really utilize.
- Do I need to go AMD Athlon 2000 or what would be the minimum I should go. 1600 XP?
- She doesn't need an ATI Radeon 8500, would a 7500 suffice or can I go lower to save cash?

I'm thinking maybe:
- a fast chip,
- adequate vid card,
- stay with SDRAM instead of DDR
- 20GB 7200 drive
- a 15" Active Matrix Flat pannel


what would you guys do?
If it was a car I would want something like the cheapest base model Mercedes 🙂

thanks for helping a fellow PC building freak 🙂
 
Welcome to Anandtech!

You may want to describe what the PC will be used for. Just basics like email/web/office? Heavy photo editing? Video capture? Light/heavy gaming? MP3 encoding? You get the idea. What does it need to do?
 
Get an AMD Duron 1ghz with a KT133A motherboard. The Duron goes for about $70 while the KT133A board goes for about $70. Get 256mb SDRam. Get a GeForce2 MX if she plans on gaming. If not, get a RivaTNT2 or an ATI All in Wonder 128 (ATI has superb 2D quality). Get a Maxtor 20gb 7200rpm drive.

My estimation on the prices are based on pricewatch.com.
 
o thats so nice of you well here you go

CPU: Duron 1.2 gig unless she is dooin a lot of gameing this is more then fine
RAM: 256 Megs of whatever the MOBO will take
HD: 40 gig maxtor 7200 RPM - cause there cheep
Vid Card: GForce 2 MX 400 there cheep and work well. hell my roomin plays max payne and RTCW on GF2 256 and it runs fine.
Monitor: a 17 in 16in viewable - cause you like her and dont want her to go blind
PSU: 300w
CDRom: a 52 x or somethin unless she watched dvds then a DVD drive go with the pioner slot load cause its good.
Burner: something like a 16x-20x should be fine and not that much
Sound card: Sound blaster live OEM will be fine
Case: some case that has some room so you can put fans in it and get to the things that are in there.
 
oh yea I guess that would help 🙂

Well she will use it for:

- lots of email
- Microsoft Office suite of products.
- Basic photo retouching from digital camera usage - Photoshop/ImageReady
- Dreamweaver, FTP, basic site maintenance stuff
- Burning music CDs for friends and family
- an occassional tetris game
- maybe some video conferencing with friends and family
- lots of instant messaging

thanks!!

 
yea what i posted will be more then fine for that. and unless she wants it you dont need to get her a sound card. so that will save some $$$$$. dont go with intell cause there chips suck and are overrated.

youorigional post says a a 15" Active Matrix Flat pannel. this is gonna cost over 300$ just get a good CRT hell you can get some really nice 19 in CRTs for less then 300$ samsung 95ddf Hitachi CM721FB. both great for less then 300$
 
Get her a 1.2Ghz of some kind I recommend either a Athlon or Duron. Also get her 256mb PC133,Radeon LE/7000/7500,KT133A chipset mobo of some kind and a 40gig. You don't need much horsepower nowdays unless you want to play high end games Quake 3,UT,MOH:AA,RTCW,ect(heck even this rig will run all the games I listed at a playable speed). I agree get her a 19" unless you think a flat monitor would suprise her more.
 
I recommend looking at the nForce motherboards.

They have integrated Ge Force 2 MX graphics which are more than sufficient for general use.

The integrated sound is high quality and has low CPU utilization.

It has integrated ethernet (newer boards should have an integrated modem as well - I read somewhere that there had been a problem but it is now worked out).

I built a system for my roommate that used the MSI board. We got the board from Newegg for $146 or so. It came with a bracket with the ethernet port and I think rear audio connectors (he was only using a two speaker set up, so I have no idea how well those work).

MSI also has a new BIOS that eliminates the super stability mode, so that is no longer a problem.

Of course using an nForce board would require DDR and if you will be running 2000 or XP you'll want more than 256 MB of RAM...

The integrated features will save money on the video, sound and ethernet cards and you may not need any PCI cards.

I'd also recommend getting at least a 40 GB drive. They cost ~$20 more (of course you could argue that the 60 GB only cost $20 more than that...).
 
I recommend something like this:

Duron 1.0ghz
KT133A motherboard (like A7V133) or the ECS K7S5A board would be a better choice yet (takes SDRAM, but you can upgrade to DDR anytime. It has cheap sound also, since you didn't mention if she'd be listening to lotsa MP3's, and it also has integrated LAN).
Visiontek Geforce 2 GTS-V: These are the same cost as MX cards, but they're quite a bit more powerful. Why buy an inferior MX400 card for the same amount of $?
Seagate Barracuda IV 40gb: These are supposed to be silent, and 40gb is a good size buy (20gb is only slightly cheaper).
256mb PC133 ram: it should be about enough...hopefully.
A 24x10x32x burner...I saw one of these for $50, but I forgot where. Check out Hot Deals because it may be mentioned there.
Case: Evercase 4252: These are really nice for $40 (how much I got mine for). Except the PSU is quite noisy, and ventilation isn't too acceptable...both problems can be fixed by ordering two $2.79 Panaflo L1A fans though...one for the case, and one for the PSU.
Integrated sound on ECS K7S5A.

That's about it! One bad thing about the ECS K7S5A though: Durons don't run too well on 100mhz FSB. Other boards with overclocking can take care of that though: other boards allow you to lower the multiplier on Duron 1.0ghz to 7.5 and up the FSB to 133; very useful even if not gaming 😀
 
She can probably get by with a Duron 1 or 1.2ghz. As for the mobo, why not go DDR and get an Nvidia-based mobo
with built-in sound, video, and LAN. The mobo is around $150 but considering you basically get a GeForce MX with it and
a sound card that is as good, if noy better, than the best out there, then it actually comes cheap. A 20gig drive is not the cheapest
per gig. considering that a 30 or 40gig is just a little bit more, might as well go with a larger drive.
 
AZN,

I take it you want to build her a system that she will want to use for perhaps two years or more? Some of the systems proposed here just aren't going to seem adequate in two years when the next-version of Windows is released.

The female sex is often concerned with noise, so I would focus on building a quiet system with high performance that will last a few years. Also, you want to ensure that you buy products with stable, reliable drivers; you don't want to have her worrying about all sorts of patches or updates to maintain stability or improve performance.

I would recommend the new P4 1.6A as a processor, because a) its cheap at $140, b) it produces very little heat, c) its stock cooling makes very little noise, and d) it will run just fine at 2.1GHz using stock voltage and the stock heatsink. Moreover, with these new P4 systems, you don't need any extra case cooling or circulation which also serves to reduce noise.

For the motherboard, I would choose the Asus P4B266 DDR mainboard for its rock solid stability, high performance, and the ease with which it will run the 1.6A at 2.1GHz. You could run the processor at 2.4GHz or more, but then you would have to increase voltage slightly. The P4B266 uses an Intel chipset, so you are virtually guaranteed that you will never have any peripheral conflicts (as experienced by past VIA mainboards).

For video, I would suggest a board from nVidia, as they tend to have the best and most stable drivers. Nvidia's chips also offer the best GUI acceleration for Windows XP, as evidenced by Stardock's GUI benchmark listing where all the top results use Geforce boards. If you do buy her an LCD, be sure to get a graphics card with DVI.

For the hard drive, the Seagate Baracuda IV is the clear choice; it's far from the fastest 7200rpm drive, but it is the quietest.

Prices from Googlegear:
==============
P4B266 - $117
P4 1.6A @ 2.1GHz - $143
Crucial 256Mb DDR - $79
Seagate Barracuda IV 40Gb - $88
Geforce4 Mx440 graphics - $115 (from pricewatch)
Soundblaster Live! - $25 (pricewatch)
 
Get her a very cheap Dell. If the computer isn't stable, she'll blame you and you'll have to fix it and you won't have time and that will eventually lead to her leaving you and you killing yourself. You'll thank me later.
 
kracko,

That may be the best advice yet. If you build your GF a computer, she'll rely on you for support...and that can certainly be taxing.
 
The female sex is often concerned with noise

Hey, is that a discriminatory comment there? I've got a virtually silent comp here: Panaflo L1A on Alpha 8045, Panaflo L1A in PSU, teeny northbridge fan, 5400rpm HDD, teeny VGA cooling fan...(almost 0 noise).

Yes, it's very annoying when someone keeps asking you for tech support. But in honesty, when people buy Dell comps, do they use the tech support that much? I have (I mean had) two OEM comps, and I have yet to use tech support (except when I needed to find out what each of the front I/O pins did on this one OEM mobo...argh, incomplete documentation online :| ) Even if she does get a Dell, maybe she'll still rely on you to help config stuff, and the like.

 
Sure. If it breaks, you'll have to fix it. But if you can't fix immediately, you won't feel bad. And if you simply just CAN'T fix it, you can blame Dell and Mr. Gates. Either way, she's not going to blame you and you aren't going to torture yourself about convincing her to spend her money on something that gives her problems. Imagine if you threw in an audigy card (seems reasonable) and some z560 speakers and an LCD monitor and an 40 gig harddrive. And the Audigy screamed at her and the z560's wouldn't stop humming and the LCD monitor had a bad pixel and the harddrive died. Trust me, from experience, you don't want to deal with it. Hell, sometimes I don't know why I deal with it.

And Ionizer86, I totally understand. I'm planning to buy an Alpha and a Papst fan myself in the near future. I hate fan noise.
 
IMO, this is what I would get, since you do want a good computer, not something ultra cheap.

A KT266A motherboard, for stabliltys sake Asus/Abit.

256 megs of DDR, do not get SDR, it is really outdated and it stops you from upgrading later. Since normal athlons above 1.2 ghz can't be used fully since the ram is saturated.

Athlon XP 1500/1600, good price point, low heat.

Radeon 7000/7200, decent for gaming, but great for 2D stuff. Must better then a MX, and cheap too. 7500 if you want dual monitor.

HD should be a 7200 rpm, brand doesn't matter, except no IBMs. 30-40 gigs is good for price point.

No recommendation on the screen, not really into those things yet.

Get the best most powerful heatsink, then put a light fan on it to reduce noise. It has nothing to do with sex, just most people don't like 7000 rpm fans.

If you have to build it for here, a generic case with 300W should be enough.

DVD drive sounds like something she might be interested in. CDRW maybe, depends if she likes making her own music cds, etc.

on board sound on the abit and asus boards are good, so you won't need a extra sound card.

If you build the computer with the right QUALITY parts, you will not have problems, and won't be hounded with tech support. Get value components, you may have issues.

 


<< If the computer isn't stable, she'll blame you and you'll have to fix it and you won't have time and that will eventually lead to her leaving you and you killing yourself. You'll thank me later. >>


:Q

😛

There are a lot of good idea's in the thread so I won't waste your time adding more blah blah blah......... I just liked krackato's response!
 


<<

<< If the computer isn't stable, she'll blame you and you'll have to fix it and you won't have time and that will eventually lead to her leaving you and you killing yourself. You'll thank me later. >>


:Q

😛

There are a lot of good idea's in the thread so I won't waste your time adding more blah blah blah......... I just liked krackato's response! >>




i second this notion... building pc's for anybody other than yourself is almost always a bad idea. My roomate is trying to get me to build one- i just had to say 'no' becuase i dont want to be his source of tech support.. i just dont have the time or patience for it.
 


<< Hey PC builders,

I want to build a PC for my girlfriend (it will be my second build, my first was for me)

I'd like to build her a fast machine but not necessarily the fastest, top of the line one either.

- What chip and video card should I get for her?
- I want something that is noticeably faster than her dinky Pentium II but I don't want to build something that she will never really utilize.
- Do I need to go AMD Athlon 2000 or what would be the minimum I should go. 1600 XP?
- She doesn't need an ATI Radeon 8500, would a 7500 suffice or can I go lower to save cash?

I'm thinking maybe:
- a fast chip,
- adequate vid card,
- stay with SDRAM instead of DDR
- 20GB 7200 drive
- a 15" Active Matrix Flat pannel



 >>



Epox board
ATI Xpert 2000 videocard(many schools are building new computers using this video card or Xpert98, which is what I'm using as I type this)

40GB 7200RPM(not much price difference from 20GB)

 
If the computer isn't stable, she'll blame you and you'll have to fix it and you won't have time and that will eventually lead to her leaving you and you killing yourself. You'll thank me later. >>

But, at the same time if the PC breaks down, you could do something that you like (tinkering with stuff) AND spending time with her at the same time. She may lalso ike the fact the you are doing something for her.
 


<< Get her a very cheap Dell. If the computer isn't stable, she'll blame you and you'll have to fix it and you won't have time and that will eventually lead to her leaving you and you killing yourself. You'll thank me later. >>



Agreed, do NOT build a computer for someone else...

God forbid you two should break up... imagine the calls you'd get then, let me paint you a picture:

2AM Monday morning

Ex-GF: "The piece of garbage you built for me a year ago keeps doesn't let me do X when running Y program... Come and fix it right now, I've got a paper due tomorrow!"
You: "Huh? Who is this? Do you know what time it is?"
Ex-GF: "Don't give me that BS, I guess people never change... blah blah blah"

Sometimes giving Mr. Dell a little business is a good idea

-Ice
 
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