I'm building a new system for my friend. He's not going to be playing
games but needs something that will allow him to watch tv. Why I don't
know. I want to use Vista Home. Don't need anything high end but enough
where I can upgrade later on. Any input on Mobos, graphics card...
Thanks in advance
Mike M.
Your stated requirements don't really narrow down the
choices at all, any typical system can do these things and
you'd just want to add an appropriate TV tuner card. IOW, I
recommend against getting a video card with integrated
tuner, the cost is higher and you don't get so many choices
of features or software, etc, plus in the future you might
want to reuse the tuner card but not with the video card.
Also, the stated requirements don't even rule out integrated
video, though I haven't kept up with which integrated video
is DX10 supportive if that matters to you (which it may not,
if system is not meant for gaming).
Given the modest requirements, a low-end Dell system
wouldn't be such a bad choice. I mean that unless there are
some more demanding apps you hadn't mentioned, paying a lot
won't necessarily have any direct gains and in the low end
it is hard to beat the price of a Dell system bought at
discount, with coupon or promo/etc, then throw in another
1GB of memory and the TV tuner card.
Now a controversial issue - "You" want to use Vista Home,
but is this really best for your friend? Many people have
decided it is not a good move, that it just bothers them
with bugs and popup messages and usurps addt'l resources
making them pay more to do less. As someone who has build
MANY systems for other people, a bit of advice I will give
is that there is a lot to be said for using a mature OS with
a large userbase and most of the substantial bugs ironed out
over time (& service packs). Otherwise it is YOU who will
be continually dealing with every little issue your friend
has. What you are doing (probably out of friendship) can
end up being more of a burden than you realize (depending on
the friend of course, all users are not created equal).
Maybe I've gone a bit overboard in emphasizing this, but
when it's friend/family/etc, it often isn't quite good
enough to just say "It's Microsoft's fault", you are left
being expected to do something about it.
If it were 1-2 years from now after a service pack and a few
dozen more OS updates to Vista, I would only mention it
(Vista) has a higher overhead so there would be more CPU
utilization, nagging of the user, and about 256-512MB more
memory requirement and a few Gigs more HDD space taken
(negligable in this day and ago of large hard drives), but
in this case, thus far you have described nothing that an
old Celeron 800 system with 256MB memory couldn't do running
Win2k... and that's a mere $100 in total as a used system,
roughly equal to the cost of Vista alone.
As for upgrading later one, it depends a lot on what you
mean. Generally, full ATX is more upgradable than mATX but
systems these days have so much integrated, in some cases it
can make more sense to replace the board and CPU to gain the
performance, as to later upgrade individual parts. For
example today there's already 5.1 or better integrated
sound, Gigabit ethernet, RAID, SATA. I suppose one very
desirable feature would be that even if it had integrated
video, that it also had a 16X PCI Express slot for a video
card.
I suppose in summary, a bit more information about futher
needs of the user might help. Some things we don't think
about so often but might matter to the owner are things like
having front, easily accessible USB Ports (and depending on
where the system will be placed, whether they are at the
top, middle or bottom of the case). Another common factor
is noise level, there's a lot to be said for buying a good
aftermarket heatsink and quiet fan so the user isn't
hearing a lot of noise and cleaning out dust more often (or
actually, in some cases YOU might get stuck with this job
when the system gets flaky from dust-induced overheating),
and that the fan be of utmost quality as saving $5 today on
a fan only to have to spend hours and another few bucks to
replace a fan and/or other parts isn't a good value in the
long run. I write this because based on the meager
requirements stated, this system might have a very long
viable lifespan.
Ok, onto specifics in only general terms since there's still
much variability in what'll work.
Choose a PSU with a trusted name brand. Ideally a minimum
of 18A on 12V rail, even more if ever a chance of a lot of
HDDs or a higher powered video card. Choose a case with at
least 0.8mm steel or 1.0mm aluminum sheeting. Choose a
quality name-brand motherboard like those from Gigabyte,
Asus, Abit, MSI, or Intel. These brands are in no
particular order, every model and year has it's various
quirks but if I had to randomly throw out a generalization
about my perception of the average quality over time, the
order "Might" be from best to worst. Abit, Asus, Intel,
MSI. Next week that opinion might change.
In summary, I feel you should start by defining the budget.
Next pick the case. Next factor for the average cost of
other parts to decide which CPU you can afford. If building
for Vista OS, and longer term use, factor for 2GB memory.
1GB would actually be fine for the stated uses, it all
depends on appropriateness per budget. There are many
acceptible brands of memory too, buy from a place with a
good return policy like Newegg.com.
Wow my post has dragged on too long. You really asked too
general a question, there is much detail that can be
examined about any particular part of a system but to try to
comprehensively cover ALL parts for what is essentially a
system with no particular needs except enough memory to run
Vista without pagefiling a lot, and a TV tuner card, is too
much to cover in a few usenet posts.
