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Step One: Case Recommendations
- Thread starter Carbo
- Start date
I recently built a P4 machine for my nephew and this is what I used: Abit BH7 motherboard - $92, Enermax C003 A102USB case - $54. Both bought from newegg.com.
This is an excellent quality 845PE chipset motherboard which is hard to beat for the price. The Enermax case comes with a high quality Enermax 300w power supply and 2 extra case fans; all very quiet. The case has 2 front side USB ports and is good looking, high quality and has a lot of room to work inside. Also, I would suggest buying the retail P4, since it comes with an Intel heatsink and quiet fan.
I would suggest visiting newegg.com, looking up the parts you are interested in, then read the buyer reviews that are attached to each item.
This is an excellent quality 845PE chipset motherboard which is hard to beat for the price. The Enermax case comes with a high quality Enermax 300w power supply and 2 extra case fans; all very quiet. The case has 2 front side USB ports and is good looking, high quality and has a lot of room to work inside. Also, I would suggest buying the retail P4, since it comes with an Intel heatsink and quiet fan.
I would suggest visiting newegg.com, looking up the parts you are interested in, then read the buyer reviews that are attached to each item.
If you do not plan to overclock, and if you do not need a window, the Antec Sonata is a very quiet choice with the standard 120mm case fan. Add the Zalman 7000Cu for the HSFand find a way to quiet your video card, and you are on the way to a quiet machine. If noise is not an issue for you, it is probably not so great a choice.
The first thing you need to know is that it's incredibly easy to overbuild/overspend on a computer for the purposes you describe. The next thing you need to know is that teenagers want to be online or on the phone at all times, preferably both, so dsl or cable internet is a good investment, along with a firewall/router to allow simultaneous net access from multiple machines, while leaving the phoneline free.
Now, check the hotdeals forum, see if there are any Dell Deals at the moment. They've been practically giving 'em away recently- there's little point in building your own if it costs significantly more than a good oem machine. It gives you a price reference point, if nothing else.
Matx systems are probably the way to go- they're smaller, cheaper, and lack nothing you want. I'll illustrate form a web vendor I've never dealt with, just as an example. Pair this mobo with a 512k cache retail p4 northwood-
http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=MB-ARM266AG
Add 256megs of PC2100 ddr in an Inwin s506 (or any inwin s5xx series, depending on the vendor) case from the same vendor, and either a conexant or lucent chipset modem, if you're going that way. Forget separate sound and vidcards for the moment- your daughter probably wouldn't appreciate the difference. The Inwin case will accomodate a full size atx psu if you add a power hungry vidcard , extra hdd, or whatever down the road. Depending on how she uses the box, either a dvd or cdrom drive, floppy, liteon cdr round out the package, along with a retail copy of XP home.... and a single quiet 80mm exhaust fan, like a panflo L1a.... 17" monitor, I like the Samsungs....
Shop around for a keyboard/optical mouse combo, speaker choice depends on whether she wants to actually listen to music on the computer or just listen to the bings and bongs...
About 90% of all computer users would be thrilled to death with that box... well under $1K.
Now, check the hotdeals forum, see if there are any Dell Deals at the moment. They've been practically giving 'em away recently- there's little point in building your own if it costs significantly more than a good oem machine. It gives you a price reference point, if nothing else.
Matx systems are probably the way to go- they're smaller, cheaper, and lack nothing you want. I'll illustrate form a web vendor I've never dealt with, just as an example. Pair this mobo with a 512k cache retail p4 northwood-
http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=MB-ARM266AG
Add 256megs of PC2100 ddr in an Inwin s506 (or any inwin s5xx series, depending on the vendor) case from the same vendor, and either a conexant or lucent chipset modem, if you're going that way. Forget separate sound and vidcards for the moment- your daughter probably wouldn't appreciate the difference. The Inwin case will accomodate a full size atx psu if you add a power hungry vidcard , extra hdd, or whatever down the road. Depending on how she uses the box, either a dvd or cdrom drive, floppy, liteon cdr round out the package, along with a retail copy of XP home.... and a single quiet 80mm exhaust fan, like a panflo L1a.... 17" monitor, I like the Samsungs....
Shop around for a keyboard/optical mouse combo, speaker choice depends on whether she wants to actually listen to music on the computer or just listen to the bings and bongs...
About 90% of all computer users would be thrilled to death with that box... well under $1K.
Lanboy is a decent, lightweight and pretty cheap case that comes with a 330w psu. Antec 1030amg also high qulity build, and comes with beefier, high top quality 430w psu. Both high on value for money imo.
Antec Sonata looked good especially for quiet, cant remember price or if it comes with psu so no comment on value.
Really though its impossible to say without a specific $ limit for the case+fans+psu, or an indication on how important looks, weight etc are to you. And then there's wether youre a fan of case windows, LED's and UV etc etc etc.
Antec Sonata looked good especially for quiet, cant remember price or if it comes with psu so no comment on value.
Really though its impossible to say without a specific $ limit for the case+fans+psu, or an indication on how important looks, weight etc are to you. And then there's wether youre a fan of case windows, LED's and UV etc etc etc.
I agree with nick1985 on the Antec SLK2600 for the case/PSU. Except...get it at Amazon for only $57 shipped. It has a solid 300W PSU and it looks cool. For fans I would go with Panaflo L1As or NMBs at SVC. The NMBs aren't much, but they are cheap and should be adequate. I prefer Athlons, so I don't know about a specific mobo, but I would just stick with onboard sound. Onboard video would also be fine for what you said she is going to do. If she ever decides to play games then throw in a good graphics card. Another suggestion for a good, stable system is to purchase good RAM from quality makers like Crucial, Kingston and many others. I have had nothing but problems with no name RAM.
Brian
Brian
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