Maximum PC

I'll be making my dad a pc for his new business. He wants it to be a Pentium 4 based system. He currently has a Pentium 4 B 2.66GHz one, and he would like somethin similar and slightly faster. He will be using it for mortgage brokering, so it doesnt have to be amazing...I was thinking of a 2.8GHz socket T with a mobo which has integrated video and uses ddr memory...Also an lcd screen of around 17 inches would be ideal. Here is what I have planned so far:

CPU Intel P4-520 2.8GHz LGA775 RETAIL BOX

Mobo ASUS P5GD1-VM Intel 915G w/ 8-Ch Audio, Video, PCI-E

Mem Samsung 256MB PC-3200 DDR400 SDRAM x2

Vid Integrated

Hd Western Digital 80GB S-ATA OEM

optical LG 52X CD-RW/16X DVD-ROM Combo Black OEM

case Antec SLK1650B Black Mini Tower w/ 350W

display LG FLATRON L1710SK 17" TFT (Black)

speakers Creative I-Trigue 2200 Speaker System

Floppy Sony 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive OEM

Peripherals (Preferrably wireless...I was looking at the Logitech keyboard with bluetooth and the detachable number pad...a little expensive though).

OK, I just quickly made that list....He doesnt want to spend too much, but wants a system which will last and is stable as well as fast. Please give me any advice which you have, its an office pc, but I guess a high performance one...he doesnt want to use low end chips...

Any advice is appreciated. I have never used the new Intel Socket 775 chips, so I have little experience with them, and don't really know which mobo is best...and if I should get ddr2 or not...

he really doesnt need a new comuter if he's just running business apps. i'd suggest maybe giving him some more ram, give him a raptor hard drive and a new optical. it'll feel like a brand new computer to him but will save him some bucks.

I was thingking along the same lines as you...but after presenting this idea to my dad, he told me that he wants a new pc. He will be keeping his old pc where is is now, and needs a new one for his new office...so in that case...he will need something new...how dos the above config look then...I do like your hd choice...that would certainly make a difference...as with more ram...anyways, if anyone has any good recommendations, let me know...He wants to spend around 1000$ so not too much...but still plenty to work with

even tho it will cost more, u prob should get an intel64, that or a nothwood cpu

The only people who need this chips are gamers, video editors, people who do serious number crunching with maple or another CPU intensive program.

list the specs of the pentium 2.6gigs computer. i think its a waste of money getting a pentium 2.8 since the pentium 2.6 is fast already. does your dad have a pre-built computer like dell?

i agree with the last post and how your dad's old computer might just need some ram. i also recommend a maintenance check like scanning computer for viruses, spyware, malware, etc.etc.etc.

Is this going to be upgraded later? If not, save some money and get a NON-PCIe board. He probably wont need all that much in the way of expandability becuase it will just be for work and he shouldnt be playing Doom on it

I would stear away from the Raptor... only becuase I dont think he will see much improvment with what he will be doing. Save some $$ and get something a little less costly. YOu could probably get away with a 60 gb PATA hard drive.

A full gig of ram might be a good idea although it probably wont hurt to only have 512mb. You can never have too much ram though

Does he have a USB flash drive? Are these computers going to be networked in some way? If so, skip the floppy (unless you are putting a sata drive in and need it for the controller drivers, and even then you can borrow a drive from another PC temporarily).

Ok, I was looking into the Intel 64 chips, and they look very good, I can't believe I overlooked them. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone knew what kind of performance diferences there would be between P4c, P4e and P464 cpu's clocked at 3Ghz. I would imagine that the 2MB cache, speedstep, 64bit, and newer extensions would give it quite an edge over the older Northwood core.

If the performance increase is significant, what I might do is give my dad my current 3Ghz P4c and my Intel 875PBZLK Mobo, and in return I would get a new 3Ghz P4 6xx series chip. What do you think? My dad said he didnt mind, but I dont want to have to spend too much money. I will need a new mobo if I do that, any good ones you can suggest? Are there any ones that support 64bit, ddr1 and agp? Because I have ddr1 and a 9800pro 128MB card...

Anyways, as for his old pc specs 2.66Ghz P4b (533Mhz fsb), 512MB of the slowest ddr (possibly even pc 133, i never checked recently, so I forget), a Sis mobo with integrated gfx and sound...its nothing that special, and yes he does need a new one anyways, they will be in different locations....

If I end up giving him my mobo and chip, that would be good. Even if I got him a new mobo, it wont be upgrade friendly with the new dual cores...

Anyways, all advice is appreciated

DON'T BUY AN Intel 600 SERIES...now thati've said that Intel sucks...i can't beleve you want to upgrade from 2.66Ghz to 2.8Ghz

What are you talking about?

I just finished a P4 630 w/a GIGABYTE I915G mobo, 512MB DDR400, GeForce 6600 and so on......system was for a friend and he's happy with it.
I personally am thinking in selling part of my system to get a P4 640 and a GIGABYTE I915P motherboard and a PCI-Express video card.

I liked the P4 630 system mostly because it ran as cool as my P4 northwood core: Not bad at 27C idle, with retail heat-sink and fan. One temeperature reading an AMD processor will never be at with a stock heat-sink fan.


I had to update the mobo's BIOS to the lastest to support the P4 EM64T though, but it was a piece of cake updating the BIOS for this GIGABYTE motherboard. After the BIOS update everything worked flawlessly, not one single problem before or after intallation of Windows XP, something that a lot of people whom built their AMD based system cannot say about it, having so many issues with their machines from the start, so pathetic.

The P4 630 w/SSE3, 2MB L2 Cache, EM64T and Speedstep Technolgy would be a nice little upgrade over a P4 3.0C, not a substancial upgrade but.....if you want one, it'd be worth it.
Sure, just in case you play games with the machine, it'd be 10% slower than a comparable AMD system but the fact still remains, your Intel base system will be 100% stable and relilable, something I never worried about when I built the P4 630 system for my friend.

Just get a standard 32bit presscott. The great thing about the presscott is that it is so hot it will be able to cook your dads lunch, great for the office!

just but a pre-built PC Dell Gateway etc. since no gaming willm be done. i personally would not do it but schools do and they seem fine.

I still havent built the system yet, and I've personally decided to not bother upgrading myself. I will build my dads system shortly, and will probably go for whatever chip is best value (I'm hoping that if I wait a little longer, the prices of the 600 series p4's will drop).

I probably wont upgrade myself, because the amount of money I will need to spend will not be worth the minimal increase in performance. I'll wait for dual core