SFF Advice

[bcassell]

Hi. I'm putting together a list of parts for a SFF PC that will be used by my mother and I was hoping for some parts advice. The computer should be fast enough to be effective for many years (mostly it will be used for email, web, office, etc), as inexpensive as possible, and as quiet as possible. So, with that in mind, this is what I have so far (prices are from newegg):

Shuttle SN45G Barebones system ($230)
Athlon XP 2500+ OEM ($85)
2x 256mb Mushkin Basic Green PC2700 (2x $39 = $78)
Western Digital Special Ed. 80gig ($69)
Lite-On 48x24x48x16 CDRW/DVD combo drive ($51)

I was planning on using my old Voodoo3 3000 that I still have sitting around (it doesn't have a fan, and I seem to remember it being a decent 2D card).

So, is there anywhere I could save some money? Any parts that would be better? Anything I'm not considering? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Bryan

 

[DaveSimmons]

Adivce: set up a D: partition and use Ghost or Drive Image to back up C: once you have it all installed. That way you can get back to a clean OS quickly after all the worms and virii trash the running one.

 

[bcassell]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Adivce: set up a D: partition and use Ghost or Drive Image to back up C: once you have it all installed. That way you can get back to a clean OS quickly after all the worms and virii trash the running one.

While I appreciate you automatically assuming that my mother is an idiot, that happens to not be the case. She's going to handle the installation herself, and is perfectly capable of setting up and maintaining a system. I'm simply helping out with the selection of hardware. I know you were just trying to be helpful, and I'm not actually offended, but for future reference you might want to be a little more careful when making assumptions about people's family members =).

With that said, if anyone has any advice on the hardware side of things, I'd appreciate it. Thanks again,

Bryan


edti: speeling

 

[lansens]

That looks good to me. The Shuttle SN45G2 has onboard graphics. I'm not positive about the SN45G. You may not need to use your old vid card at all.

 

[bcassell]

Originally posted by: lansens
That looks good to me. The Shuttle SN45G2 has onboard graphics. I'm not positive about the SN45G. You may not need to use your old vid card at all.

The SN41G2 has onboard graphics, is that what you mean? I was thinking about it. The dual-head is neat, though my mother only has one monitor now, and I can't imagine her making room for 2 on her desk. The thing is, it's ~$40 more expensive than the SN45G, and considering I already have a decent vid card sitting around, that's $40 saved. Of course, if the voodoo3 is going to suck, I'd definitely think about going with different graphics, but as far as I remember (it's been a while since I used that thing) the voodoo3 was a pretty good vid card. Thanks for the advice,

Bryan