Advice needed for PC under 35k for my friend.

channabasanna

channabasanna

Disciple
Hi All,

My friend is upgrading his old system, and he is working to get a new assembled one in 3 weeks time.

Q: What is your budget?

35k. may be 1-2k more would be fine.

Q: What is your existing hardware configuration (component name - component brand and model)

  1. CPU - Intel 3.0 HT processor.
  2. Motherboard - Intel 101GGC
  3. GPU - NVIDIA GeForce FX 6200TC
  4. RAM - 1.5 GB DDR RAM 400MHz (1GB + 512MB)
  5. Monitor - Samsung CRT 56V
  6. HDD - 160GB Seagate
  7. Speaker's : Some old 2.1 donno brand name. (almost 7 years old)

Q: Which hardware will you be keeping (component name - component brand and model)

Nothing. No parts will be kept and will probably give this back to dealer if he is gonna take.

He has a external HDD (WB 1TB MyBook) which he will be keeping.

Q: Which hardware component are you looking to buy (component name) ?

Complete PC. Currently considering:

  1. Intel i5 processor.
  2. A good motherboard. (He will not be into overclocking) Probably ASUS or intel would suffice.
  3. 4GB DDR3 RAM (I am suggesting him Corsair DDR3 1333MHz, Is regular Corsair RAM enough or XMS3 needed?)
  4. 1TB HDD (WD in that which one to go for, he is scared of WD due to the lack of service network, since the adapter of his MyBook had once gone kaput and he did not find it anywhere in Bangalore)
  5. Graphics Card if the motherboard has a good enough Graphics Card it is fine, else suggest a good budget based Graphics Card. (if so please suggest both nVidia and ATi cards in the budget)
  6. Bluray DVD writer combo if any are available. (He wants to use it as Bluray player, no need of blu ray writer).
  7. A good 2.1 sound system (under 5k which should be a part of the budget). He does not want to get a 5.1 sound system.
  8. HD Monitor with HDMI Port (Prefers 23" or 24")
  9. Multimedia Keyboard Mouse combo.
  10. A good PSU (I am suggesting him to buy Corsair VX450 and also told him the benefirts of it, but he is worried to invest 3.5k to PSU since he already got 2 local 400W PSU's burnt).
  11. A good Cabinet with air circulation. (CM elite series)

Q: Is this going to be your final configuration or you would be adding/upgrading a component in near future. If yes then please mention when and which component

No. Wants to use the system as long as it lasts, may be atleast 5-6 years.

Q: Where will you buy this hardware?

Bangalore - SP Road

Q: Would you consider buying a second hand hardware from the TE market

No.

Q: What is your intended use for this PC/hardware.

  1. My friend is not into gaming, mey be he will join us in playing games like UT2004, NFS Porsche 2000 on LAN with us some times.
  2. For him seeing movies in HD and good sound is important.
  3. Also he will be only using Windows XP along with RHEL (RHEL since he is a DBA and will use RHEL for his work).
  4. So at a max he wont use the system less than 2-3 hours for sure apart from watching movies in HD or when he is working.
  5. Internet browsing.
  6. Downloading.

Q: Do you have any brand preference or dislike? Please name them and the reason for your preference/dislike.

He wants to go for Intel i5 processor based system.

If a Graphics Card he wants it from nVidia.

Q: If you will be playing games then which type of games will you be playing?

Moderate gaming. Even if some new games support in medium settings is fine.

Q: What is your preferred monitor resolution ?

Full HD (1920 x 1080) With HDMI input. (He also has a Philips Bluray player at home, which he intends to connect to the monitor if the player has HDMI connectivity.

Screen size: 23 to 24"

Q: Are you looking to overclock?

No.

Q: Which operating system do you intend to use with this configuration?

Windows XP 32 bit with Service Pack 3

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (mainly for his DBA activities)

Some queries

  1. I know that Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 32 bit OS does not use more than 4GB RAM. (it shows upto 3.5GB in my system), so does the RHEL support more than 4GB RAM, if so can he add 8GB of RAM?
  2. Which is the best 2.1 sound system, also give suggestions for some 2.1 channel under 5k which are THX certified.
  3. Is a graphics card necessary for playing Bluray movies? Or the newer motherboard's with onboard Graphics card is enough to play them smoothly.

One of his friend just upgraded his system to the following configuration. (SP Road only, but dont know which store he brought from and when)

  1. Proccy: Intel i5 2300 (approx 7500)
  2. Motherboard: ASUS PH867M Pro (approx 7500) has onboard graphics, USB3, HDMI port.
  3. DELL ST2220L 22" display. (approx 7500)
  4. 1TB Seagate HDD. (Rs2500)
  5. Transcend 4GB DDR3 RAM. (1333MHz)
  6. Speakers JBL Creature 3 (Rs4700)
  7. Cabinet iBall (Rs1500)
  8. Microsoft comfy KB and iBall Laser Mouse for 1k both.

Please provide your valuable suggestions. Thanks in Advance.
 
Here is what I'll suggest for your friend --

Intel Core i5 2400 ~ 8800/-

Intel DH67-BL ~ 5100/-

Corsair ValueRAM 1333MHz 4GB x 1 ~ 1300/-

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB ~ 2750/-

Corsair CX V2 430W ~ 2200/- OR CX 400W ~ 2600/-

NZXT Gamma ~ 2100/- [much better airflow than the Cooler Master eLite series]

Sapphire HD 6850 1GB ~ 9500/-

[not good at audio systems, so no suggestions, but I am aware enough that your friend is chasing a pipe-dream trying to acquire THX certified 2.1 speakers for less than ~5000/-]

Here are reviews for the Harmon JBL Creature III --> Review: JBL Creature III 2.1 PC speakers : Tech Digest / http://www.hitechreview.com/audio/speakers/jbl-creature-iii-are-back-updated/20259/.

BenQ G2220HD ~ 7800/- [21.5" full HD monitor]

APC BR 650VA-IN ~ 2600/-

Microsoft / Logitech multimedia [keyboard + mouse] combo ~ 700/-
Hope this is okay with your friend, if he is open to an AMD rig, he can snap up the following --

AMD A8-3850 ~ 6800/-

ASUS FM1-A75-M PRO ~ ???/-

[rest RIG same as above minus the graphics card, as the onboard Redwood IGP is enough to run most current generation games @full HD resolution with low settings]

For the queries you have put up --

1) Just get the 64-bit version of Windows 7 it'll fully capitalize on the amount of RAM you've installed. Windows 7 Home Premium retails for ~6500/- and supports upto 16GB RAM, the Ultimate Edition has an address limit of 192GB.

2) No idea of audio systems, so no suggest on this Sire.

3) Most current generation IGP's decode HD-movies fine. So a graphics card is not a must.

Assorted links for further information --

AMD Llano, sizing up against Intel sandy-bridge --> AnandTech - The AMD A8-3850 Review: Llano on the Desktop / AMD A8-3850 APU Review: Llano Hits the Desktop - Page 24.

The natural competitor for the A8-3850 is the dual-core/four-thread Core i3-2100 series, which headlines as Intel's mainstream-level Sandy Bridge offerings. As luck would have it, we just happened to have a Core i3-2120 on hand. This little Intel chip retails for $150, which is a little more expensive than AMD's top-end APU, but it nevertheless allows us to see what the strengths and weaknesses of each processor family is.

There's no reason to beat around the bush here, the "Stars" K10.5 cores simply cannot compete with the newer Sandy Bridge microarchitecture when it comes to lightly threaded applications. The Llano chip does occasionally score the odd victory thanks to its four native cores, but even those victories are often by a very slight amount. To make matters worse, in all of our gaming benchmarks it was a slaughter in favour of the Sandy Bridge processor, but only when using a discrete GPU.

When we benchmarked the integrated GPU's, Llano's raison d'être became crystal clear. The Radeon HD 6550D graphics solution that AMD have embedded in the A8-series leaves in the dust anything that Intel have produced so far in the IGP realm. The A8-3850 had on average 80% higher frame rates than the Core i3-2120. If we increased the Llano's memory frequency from DDR3-1333 to DDR3-1866, we could have easily realized a further 15% framerate improvement. This synergy between the GPU and CPU that has been personified in AMD's APUs is becomingly increasingly important as software manufacturers begin harnessing the parallel processing horsepower of modern graphics architectures. While there was once only a handful of GPU-accelerated programs available, now everyday programs like Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer and Flash can benefit from GPU acceleration.
Click to expand...

Oh!! also one more thing, no nVidia graphics processor below the GTX 560 Ti is worth purchasing as competing AMD cards are cheaper and perform better, also run cooler and consume lesser power --> http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=291.

Hope this helped, Sire!!
 
Thanks Alpha17 for your valuable inputs, just had a look into the Intel DH67-BL and it's features looks fine.

Any suggestions on 24" HD monitors which suit in the budget.

Also can you provide nVidia alternative's for Sapphire HD 6850.
 
^^ As I said there is no nVidia alternative for the HD 6850, the GTX 550 Ti ~ 9500/-, simply cannot keep up with the HD 6*** series card as well as consumes more power, while they're at it. So I simply will not recommend any nVidia card till March next year [Kepler just might bring a change].

OR if your firend is patient he can forgo a graphic card completely and get a AMD HD 7*** series card in November--December time period. All the news we are getting suggests nVidia might be in for another drubbing.

For 24" monitors -- BenQ G2420HD ~ 11000/-.

Hope this helped.
 
Thanks buddy, then i think we can avoid buying Graphics Card unless he is into gaming. So i think the on board graphics would just do the job for him efficiently. May be later he can add one if he needs it the most.
 
Components Description Price (INR)
Processor Core i5 2400 9100
Motherboard Intel DH67BL(B3) 5000
RAM Corsair 4GB DDRIII 1333MHz 1350
HDD Seagate 1 TB 7200.12 2750
Monitor Benq G2420HD 11000
Cabinet NZXT Gamma 2100
PSU Seasonic S12II 460w 2600
Key Board+Mouse Logitech combo 650
ODD Samsung 22X SATA DVD 950
Sound Card Asus Xonar DX 4500
Speakers Altec Lansing 5.1 FX5051E 8000
Total 48000
I have included a sound card and 5.1 speakers since you mentioned he wants to enjoy HD movies.

Things you can reduce price on:
Skip the sound card. Or you can get the cheaper Asus Xonar DG for 1.5k.
Get cheaper 2.1 speakers. Altec Lansing 2.1 VS4621 for 3k.
 
Thanks viralbug, but the configuration goes beyond his budget, he can stretch a max till 37k not more than that.

Would like to know which is the best Bluray DVD Writer combo drive and how much does it cost.

He does not want to use 5.1 since he has no space in his room or on his table. So please do suggest a good 2.1 speakers.
 
Get a single 1TB hard-disk if you'll use it as a dump, but if you want to implement RAID in your operations, 2 x 500GB hard drives will be prefered and will actually be a requisite to set up RAID.

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Depending on how many RAM slots you have on your motherboard [2 / 4 / 6 DIMMs] and what are your targeted applications [gaming OR productivity applications], do they need more RAM OR more bandwidth, also the processor platform you use affects the overall feasability of implementing dual-channel OR single-channel set-ups.

Bandwidth --

Dual-channel architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia / Memory controller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Hope this clears your query. Cheers!! Sire.
 
Oops, I had made a major blunder by skipping out the GPU. Apologies. :ashamed:

Components Description Price (INR)

Processor Core i3 2100 5500

Motherboard Intel DH67BL(B3) 5200

RAM Corsair 4GB DDRIII 1333MHz 1350

HDD Seagate 1 TB 7200.12 2750

GPU Sapphire HD5670 4100

Monitor Benq G2420HD 11000

Cabinet NZXT Gamma 2100

PSU Seasonic S12II 460w 2600

Key Board+Mouse Logitech combo 650

ODD Samsung 22X SATA DVD 950

Speakers Altec Lansing 2.1 VS2621 1650

Total 37850

With this config, he won't be able to game much. The 5670 will manage to play games at low settings.

The 24" monitor takes up most of the budget. IMO he should settle for a 22" and get a better GPU.

The cheapest Blu ray writer costs around 5k. He will have to really compromise on the CPU for that or will have to leave out gaming. If he leaves out a GPU, get an AMD Llano A8-3850 for 6800 and Gigabyte A75M-D2H for 6600.
 
Thanks viralbug, since he is not interested in gaming. We will consider the Bluray ODD. (Not necessarily a Bluray writer, if it is Bluray Readonly and DVD Writer that is more than enough).

Is it Liteon Bluray writer you are talking about, priced at 5k? I saw it in the Primeabgb site priced at 5k.

Also does playing HD movies in 24" need the extra boost of the Graphics Card or the onboard graphics of Intel DH67BL(B3) is enough?
 
channabasanna said:
Thanks viralbug, since he is not interested in gaming. We will consider the Bluray ODD. (Not necessarily a Bluray writer, if it is Bluray Readonly and DVD Writer that is more than enough).

Is it Liteon Bluray writer you are talking about, priced at 5k? I saw it in the Primeabgb site priced at 5k.

Also does playing HD movies in 24" need the extra boost of the Graphics Card or the onboard graphics of Intel DH67BL(B3) is enough?
Click to expand...

If your friends priority is a HTPC [heavy duty movie watching with light / casual gaming], the AMD Llano set-up will be much better. Also, these early generation Blu-Ray drives are overtly over-priced for their performance, so I'll not recommend getting that component as of now.

Current generation IGP's [Intel's Generation 6 and AMD's Redwood] are enough to decode HD content, so whether you buy a discrete graphics card OR not you'll have no problem viewing HD content, the shift will come when your friend will start gaming, where the Intel IGP will be incapable of running anything above Angry Bird's.
 
@Alpha17, my friend's priority is for browsing and downloading, along with watching HD movies.

Apart from these, his main priority is for using RHEL for his DBA related work. So i think right now he can only use the Intel Mobo with out any issues, later on when he wants to do gaming (i am sure he wont), then we can add a Graphics card that time.
 
Well he has been using the PC with intel proccy for last 8 years or so. Hence he believes in it, so he wants to have the intel proccy.

Also any alternatives for the motherboard from ASUS.
 
^^ Intel DH67-BL ~ 5100/- is the only cost-effective alternative to ASUS motherboards in my view.

Hope this helps, cheers!!

Try to convince your friend about the AMD alternative.
 
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