OK, so, I've got to put together a PC for light office work (predominantly word processing, filling in forms and emailing them off, using the internet a bit and the odd game of solitaire or whatever).
- The environment it'll be in is EXTREMELY dusty, so good dust filtration on the case is a MUST.
- I'd like it to be as quiet as possible.
- I'd like it to boot fast (so, have an SSD for a boot drive).
- It also needs a card reader for sticking holiday photos and the like onto the thing.
- The user(s) demand an optical drive because reasons.
No editing or anything like that is being done to the photos, just storing and viewing media. Even if editing was going to be done on the thing, it'd only be very light work.
The budget includes peripherals (keyboard, mouse and monitor), and as stated in the title, is £400.
Preferred retailers are CCL and Amazon, don't want to give them too many places to order from.
At the moment this is my plan: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/nRBZYJ
The case is soundproofed, has a PSU and front intake filter, a cover for the top outtake if it's unused and a SD card reader built in. I can't find a case that beats it for this use case scenario...
Included an aftermarket cooler for the sake of silence and being easy to clean if someone forgets to put the dust filter back in or something, and should keep the CPU alive if someone decides to neglect it and not clean it... leaving like, no airflow whatsoever.
Got an SSD for a boot drive because it'd probably be a very nice change for the people using it, coming from some 6 year old dusty af ancient, sad, mutilated, machine.
The CPU's only a 3.4GHz dual core pentium, but I'd assume it'll do and sacrificing the SSD for a better CPU probably wouldn't yield much in terms of performance in its use case scenario. We're not video editing or gaming here, folks, except for maybe if one of the kids decided to get into a bit of minecraft, and even then it should suffice...
Considering it's being used for office work too, I chucked in a decent 1TB WD blue so they shouldn't run out of storage space any time soon. Wasn't going to go leaving them with a 120GB SSD 30-50% filled with an OS alone.
The PSU, I'd hope, should suffice. Don't think anything more powerful is called for here. As long as it's cleaned regularly, I'd hope it'll do fine. Wanted something that's semi modular because it'd be nice if it didn't just end up looking like a rats nest, makes it a bit easier to clean as I sense it inevitably will have to be.
Obviously an optical drive is included because reasons.
The keyboard and mouse combo was just the cheapest, well reviewed thing I could find.
The monitor was the cheapest 21.5" 1080p panel with DVI I could find that looked alright, should be a nice change from their beige CRT (IK rite they shud keep it evry1 noes crts are betr than all this liquid crap display bullshit you can overclock crts to like 1000hz realy helps in csgo). Wanted it to be at least 1080p because that's just the standard nowadays...
Points of concern:
- Will that PSU be OK?
- Should I sacrifice the SSD for an i3 per se?
- Any cases that'd cover all the needs that are cheaper?
- Any keyboard + mouse combos that seem reliable that are cheaper?
- Any 1080p monitors that are cheaper?
Other notes: That ancient desktop, I'll be opening up to get the HDD out of. Expect images of how dusty it is. Probably not been opened in the whole time they've had it. I'll probably have to take it outside so I don't get freaking bronchitis or some shit again. There's a laptop too, that I'll be taking the HDD out of. It's also ancient. Probably won't be as exciting though. Desktop'll probably be dustier.