A friend of mine needed a new home office PC to replace his very old Pentium III (!) 733MHz computer. His usage pattern is very typical - word processing, email and browsing the Internet. No gaming. Some picture management but no heavy manipulation. Didn't use any applications that really stress a computer and no inclination nor time to learn them. He likes the idea of playing HD movies from the computer. Hated the noise the old machine made.
Components
So here's the components in the build list and why I chose them.
First, it made sense to go with onboard graphics as there was no need for gaming and that would get rid of some heat generation and noise. It also should be cheaper. Second, it seemed like a good idea to go with an matx system so the machine wouldn't be so bulky as there wasn't much that needed to go in it.
For the motherboard chipset, I ruled out the Intel G33 and G35 because they don't support DVI connections to the monitor. There's the new Intel G43 and G45. No point going with the G43 with the cut down IGP but the G45 looks good. Or there's the Nvidia nForce 6XXi chipsets or AMD's 780G and the new 790G. To make a long story short, I boiled the motherboard choice down to either:
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H using the Intel G45 chipset
or the
Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H using the AMD 780G chipset
I was highly inclined to go with the new Intel chipset and add a nice fast E8400 but after a chat, we went the AMD route. I'm a sucker for top performance but we decided the 780G is more tried and trusted with lots of good reviews. And we combined it with the:
AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5MHz
The fantastic thing about this CPU is that it has a TDP of only 45 watts. It's good enough for the applications my friend runs and it can be easily cooled. There's even a possibility of passively cooling it for a really quiet computer. The only drawback is that it's an AM2 chip and doesn't support the new HyperTransport 3.0 with its much improved bandwidth. But to use that, you have to go with an AM2+ Phenom CPU and then we're back to a TDP of 65 watts or more. But I'm happy there's an upgrade path if he ever needs something with a bit more oommph.
For memory, we went with:
(2x1Gb) Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) 4-4-4-12
We couldn't stretch to 1066 RAM with an AM2 CPU. But again, it's good enough and has fast timings.
For the initial build, we stuck to the stock CPU cooler.
For the case, I did a lot of searching and finally discovered this one:
Silverstone TJ08
I've avoided matx cases before because they often don't have very good airflow and often use non-standard power supplies. However, the TJ08 uses two 12cm fans and can take any standard ATX power supply. And it has nice clean conservative looks that my friend would like.
So to finish off the components, I added:
Seasonic S12II-380 Power Supply
It's a highly regarded quiet power supply. The 430 watt model was about the same price but I figured we needed the power supply to run efficiently at quite a low load so we didn't needed a high wattage version. From other reviews, I expect this computer to only draw 150 watts max and idle at 70 watts most of the time.
For the hard disk and DVD-ROM, we're cannibalizing the newest parts on his old computer. Unfortunately, they're old IDE components but they'll do the job.
The great news is that the total cost of this build only came to £258 (from scan.co.uk). It's fantastic value for a quiet office computer.
Build
The build was very easy.
First, I'm quite pleased with the TJ08 case. The metal is a bit thinner than I like but it does the job. Finish is good. I love the way the motherboard tray drops out which makes working on it very easy.
I don't like the fans in the case. They're powered by a molex connector with a single wire to a three pin connector for speed monitoring. I prefer a fan powered by a three pin connector so you can then control the speed from either the motherboard if it has the facility or using a Zalman fanmate. I replaced the rear fan with my favourite brand, a Nexus 12cm real silent case fan using rubber mounts. I didn't bother hooking up the front fan as the power supply fan and rear fan would generate enough airflow.
The only other drawback with the case concerns the hard disks. First, there's no tray or rubber mounts like you get in the better quality Antec cases. I really like these. And ther airflow around the hard disks is a bit limited.
There are holes in the side of the case which might make sense if it was a much hotter rig but, in this case, it just makes it easier for noise to escape. It would be good to cover them up with a noise damping material.
I'm very impressed with the Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H. Seems nicely laid out, well built with a superb collection of connections and an excellent BIOS. It even has lots of overclocking adjustments. I configured the motherboard to use only 128Mb of RAM hoping this means it will only use the dedicated SidePort DD3 it has onboard rather that taking any system RAM. I discovered that the motherboard didn't configure the 4-4-4-12 memory correctly. Instead it set it to 5-5-5-18. Had to set it manually.
I also configured the motherboard to control the case and cpu fans. The case fan is kept ticking over at a very quiet 700 rpm. The main source of noise from this computer is the CPU fan and an old Seagate Barracuda hard disk.
The standard 8cm CPU fan than came with the processor ramps up to 1800 rpm and gives off a quiet whine that's a bit too high pitched for my liking. The next step to make this machine even quieter would be to replace it with something better like a Scythe Ninja Mini. The case isn't as wide as a regular ATX case so you have to be pretty careful with cooler choice. I suspect with this 45watt CPU, you could passively cool it and just run front and rear fan cases instead.
So that's it. I started this project trying to find an off-the-shelf PC my friend could buy but I didn't find anything I liked that much. There's plenty of adquare PC but for a lower price, I think this one has much better components. I haven't stressed it or run benchmarks but the performance seems perfectly snappy.