New office built

[Essence_of_War]

120 GB should be more than enough space for windows, office, and any other frequently used applications like web browsers and others.

My work desktop's OS/Apps drive looks like this:
win7 ult 64-bit ~ 30 GB
pagefile+hibfile ~ 27 GB
ALL OTHER PROGRAMS ~ 16 GB (includes Matlab, Firefox, Chrome, MikTex, Mathematica, MS Office 2013, iTunes and more)
AppData ~ 5 GB
= ~78 GB

And this would be fine for a 120 GB SSD. I'd be wary about tossing ANOTHER 10-20 GB of stuff on it, but my non-gaming application suite is more or less static so that's basically a non-issue, and you could always disable the hibfile since booting from an SSD is quite fast anyway. If you wanted to spend a little more on a 256GB to give it more breathing room, that would be fine, and 256GB is still excellent value both in $/GB and total-$, but 120 GB should be sufficient.

 

[mfenn]

The page and hibernation files are also proportional to the size of memory (at least by default). With 8GB of RAM, he should be seeing 16GB for those files (8GB for each).

 

[Galatian]

So Kaveri is out and while interesting for a small gaming rig I think I'll pass on it for a Office built.

Now I'm having second guessing though:

His Phenom II X4 something should be more then enough for his Office task. Wouldn't it be better to simply take his component that he has out of his cheap case, put a 128 GB SSD and a bigger HDD in it, as well as 8 GB RAM, put Windows 8.1 on it and call it a day? The SSD alone will make it look like a new Computer...He could use the case I'm using right now (Fractal Design Core 3000). I could get myself a nice new case in the process, as I am eyeing the Phantek Enthoo Primo for watercooling. Would be a win-win situation...am I being selfish?

 

[Essence_of_War]

That would sure work! There is no office task that a Phenom II isn't up for. You might consider re-investing some of the savings into a cooler-and-quieter-than-stock HSF for the phenom II, but that sounds like a great build to me.

Is there any burning need for more modern/faster connectivity options? Does he need USB 3.0, firewire, or esata for peripherals, for example?

 

[Galatian]

That would sure work! There is no office task that a Phenom II isn't up for. You might consider re-investing some of the savings into a cooler-and-quieter-than-stock HSF for the phenom II, but that sounds like a great build to me.

Is there any burning need for more modern/faster connectivity options? Does he need USB 3.0, firewire, or esata for peripherals, for example?

No not really. But I was just browsing one online store and AM3+ mainboards are pretty cheap. I think I'll just get him one of those for 60€ as it has UEFI, SATA III and USB 3. He doesn't need wireless lan or the like.

 

[Essence_of_War]

That's basically what I was getting at, do you re-use the old MoBo or upgrade to AM3+ to get the new features.

It sounds like you can re-use the CPU, upgrade to AM3+ to get some nice features, and still save a good bit of money. Seems like a good combination.

 

[mfenn]

Something to keep in mind is that the Phenom II X4 is really hot for the amount of work that it does compared to a Haswell (or even a newer AMD). More heat means more noise, which seems like a pretty hard swing considering that you started this thread out with the idea of a fully passive PC. Same goes for the size of the case, a Core 3000 is a full ATX case, a pretty big difference from the sub-ITX cases you were originally gunning for.

There's nothing wrong with keeping the Phenom II X4 from a performance point of view, as long as you understand that it means giving up on some of your original goals.

 

[Galatian]

Don't really want to necro my old threat, but just informing you guys that my BF is pretty happy with the results, although I think most of that is attributed to the SSD, as well as a complete fresh install of windows.

Of course I did consider a completely silent box at the beginning, but that was more because I had the itch to try out something new when I have to tinker around a PC anyway. Well that itch was served, since I gave my BF my old case and in the process built a watercooled system for myself ;-)
Of course I did destroy my CPU while delidding so it isn't really working at the moment, but...well...itch served ;-)

By the way: I got the Core 3000 fairly silent. The Noctua CPU cooler I had was already quiet and since the AM3+ motherboard I choose had too few fan headers anyway I purchased a IDE to 4 x 3 pin fan cable with built in voltage reduction (12V to 5V I think) and it's nice and quiet and fast. I guess everybody is happy now (except my wallet...and perhaps Intel when they find out I RMAd a CPU I destroyed while delidding...)

 

[mfenn]

:thumbsup: for getting the office build working and making your boyfriend happy.

:thumbsdown: for trying to defraud Intel by making a warranty claim on a CPU that you destroyed.