earing

Well, a family friend is looking into a new computer and i have been recruited to build it. It's main purpose will be for managing a VERY old database program and general web and business type applications. Price is of no issue to them and they want something that is fast and will last. What i have outlined is probably overkill (I have very little knowledge in the world of AMD) but should give them plenty to work with at a reasonable price. At this point I'm just looking for input from a more knowledgeable source .

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz
Hard drives: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB in a RAID 1 array
PSU: Antec earthwatts EA380 380W
RAM: This is where things get difficult. Both this OCZ and this Crucial Ballistix Tracer have some freakish prices after MIR but the horror stories about the Tracers put it into question.

Other than that, I will be getting XP professional, assorted cables, cd drive, floppy drive, some assorted software, etc., all coming out to a price at about $740 before MIR. I might do a bit of casual overclocking just for fun and to familiarize myself to an AMD system, but nothing too serious (no aftermarket cooling) and it will probably go to them at stock speeds. They already have an ok monitor, so nothing to worry about there. If you have any suggestions or comments, especially about what to do about the RAM, please let me know. Thanks.

Retrospekt

"Price is no issue"

I understand that you want to keep it cheap, but if price is not super important, Intel is the way to go. Look into an E7200 and a Gigabyte DS3L paired with 2(or 4 since it's so cheap) of G.Skill ram.

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Modki

DE/Storage/General Use

I assume you mean surfing teh webz? Any old setup would do, as far as it lasting a long time....ehhh

Intel E2200 $70
MSI P6NGM-L $50
WD Caviar 500GB $80 | $160 for two in Raid1
WINTEC DDR2 800 2x1GB $40
Silverstone 500W PSU $70

$310($390 Raid1) + Case / OS of your choice.

That's all hardware I would personally feel good about on a non-OCing / "General Use" machine. Now if they want to play games seriously look at a HD 3870 or 8800GT (last I checked they were similar in price around $150)

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earing

I guess the more appropriate phrase would be "willing to spend as much as necessary." If they needed $5k of computer, they would pay without blinking an eye, but at the same time are prudent and will be taking the time to fill out every MIR possible, no matter how small.

Going AMD give me the opportunity to get a board with great integrated graphics and built in RAID at a very reasonable price. That's the main reason I'm thinking AMD for this build. This is replacing an old gray box that is probably running windows 98. Everything they will be doing can be done by that machine, but it's beginning to sound like gravel in a blender and are ready to step into the 21st century, hehe.

low strife

With what their doing, I would recomend 64-bit Vista and 4GB of RAM. It never hurts to have a little extra, especially on a computer they want to last.

As for an AMD board with integrated graphics, I recommend this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138105
Paired with:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103773

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earing

I'm using XP for compatibility reasons. Some of the software they use is REALLY old and hasn't been supported for years. I prefer the gigabyte I picked because it is a full sized ATX board with the 780G and would be easier to work with.

DuckieHo

I would recommend getting a seperate RAID controller ($30-60). This way the data will not be tied to the motherboard. In case you ever need to migrate your data, it won't be a problem.

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77bigmac77

yeah use XP for compatibility

airbozo

Since they will be using an older DB program I would not go with vista until you make sure it will work with the older software.

just my $.02... (and yes I do like vista)


EDIT: Damn, I'm slow on the uptake...

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earing

Well, there are a lot of RAID controllers with lukewarm responses and they get expensive in a hurry. In that price range is there anything I should look out for or is it all pretty much on par?