Domino

Looking for a decent rig that would do stuff my dad likes to work on. I don't know if he would get it or not as he doesn't like ording online, but maybe this could be different.

Basically he doesn't do anything too heavy. He wants to be able to play Blu-ray disks, work with word/excel (big excel calculations mind you), listen to music, e-mail, internet. He isn't a big gamer, but sometimes he would play an internet game or 2.

Basically things that I have in mind are:
- A blu-ray player. I don't think he would burn his own blu-ray disks.
- A sound card to give him that extra sound boost.
- A quad core (no overclocking), or any chipset that would render videos fast. I think AMD might be the way to go as you can get a high clocked quad for quite a nice price.
- A dedicated ethernet card opposed to onboard (wireless?).
- Raid 2 drives together.
- Windows 7.
- Portable case.

He should be keeping his keyboard, mouse, speakers, and screen at the moment. Whenever he would want to watch blu-ray on the bigger tv, a poriable case would be good, or even just an extended cord.

I'm going to build a rig off of newegg.ca and then direct canada. Those might just be the only 2 sites to work with as I have delt with them before.

Anyways, any help would be great. Not picky on any brand, just what would get the job done. If an Intel chip would work better for cheaper, then that would work too.

Domino

Idea #1



TOTAL PRICE: $590.54

Corners can be just with this. Even this is a little overkill. But then again, this is just the first suggestion.


^ Forgot BLU-RAY D':

hybrid-kernel

That is such overkill. Get a cheap dual core and a new but low end gpu. Then you can watch bd with hw acceleration.


I have <50% cpu usage when I use my gpu to watch 1080 bd rips (dont know about actual bds)

Sound card and separate ethernet card seem pointless too (unless he actually needs wifi).

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Domino

Thanks for the tips there. That would actually make this thing cost so much less. :P

Well, even a basic sound card with some dedicated amps works wonders. I have used a few sound cards, and that extra umpth that it adds really changes everything rather then using onboard.