I've got a commission to fit out an office with new PCs. They don't need to be especially high-spec, as long as they can run e-mail/Internet/Microsoft Office smoothly and frustration-free. What I'm looking at so far is:

Antec NSK3480 case with 380W Earthwats PSU,
780G mATX motherboard (Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI or Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H?)
AMD 4850e
2Gb Corsair XMS2 CL5 RAM
Hitachi P7K500 250Gb
Any make of DVD drive (probably won't get used much so cheap is fine)

Scythe Ninja 2 heatsink? I thought maybe the mini would do, but it's not that much cheaper and I could use the 120mm fan. I was thinking of replacing the Antec Tricool at the back with the CPU fan, still connected to the CPU header. That's what I've done in my own PC and it keeps the CPU perfectly cool.

Any thoughts?

Xigmatek's heatsinks often give Scythe/ThermalRight a run for its money and performance in my experience. Btw, I'd get a 500GB P7K500 since it costs so little of late.

Looks great. You can't go wrong with that motherboard+CPU for power savings. Should work just fine for general office use! Also the chassis is a classic.

I can't comment on the silence of the hard drive. I would recommend taking a look into a 2x2 Gb RAM kit - they're not much more than a 2x1 Gb kit anyway. I would probably just pick the cheaper of the two motherboards. Only differences I see is that the Asus has fewer VRMs around the CPU, so possibly a little less energy consuming (this is just an assumtion, though) and the Gigabyte has eSATA on the back. Personally I like the build quality of a Gigabyte board over an Asus "vanilla" budget board, but this is purely my own taste!

I'm perfectly happy with my Ninja, so I can't see why you shouldn't get one. The truth is, you wouldn't notice any difference between the top passive heat sinks. Get whatever one you feel comfortable with. And definitely use the Ninja Fan instead of a Tricool in the Antec NSK3480. Also consider swapping the PSU fan for a Nexus/Noctua 80 mm. I'm positive that this build will work with only two fans; one exhaust fan and one PSU fan = quiet!


As for DVD burner - they're all the same IMO. Get the cheapest with a black front panel to complement the Antec design, I say.

I'm building 4 of these so the cost savings do add up... 250Gb is more than enough storage, 500Gb is just silly! That's a LOT of strongly-worded letters. Anyway another advantage of the 250Gb drive is it's the single-platter version, which consumes a bit less power and in theory should be slightly more reliable.

I'll probably be going for the Asus then since it is slightly cheaper, and I've used Asus boards in the past with no trouble.

I won't be doing a fanswap. Really don't want to be messing with mains equipment when I'm selling it on. If it was for myself I would do, I swapped the fan in my Seasonic S12II-330 only the other week.

The Ninja is a good heat sink. I'd be inclined to go with the OCZ Vendetta II for a beefier system but the Ninja seems like a better option to run without a fan directly attached to it. (I'll be using the OCZ in the boss's PC, which will be a much more exciting set-up). Silence isn't that major a concern, or even power efficiency for that matter, neither were part of the spec but if I can do it I figure I may as well, it gives things an air of quality in my opinion.

Does anybody know how the performance of the 4850e compares to other Athlon X2s? I read somewhere it was round about the level of the 5200+.

Why buying the 780G when you can save money and power with the 740G? Unless the computer needs to play HD video.

As long as it can run Windows Vista Aero...

How could I know?

1. 4850e is the same as 4800+ in terms of performance characteristics like 2x512KB L2 cache, 2.5Ghz, and SSE3 instructions etc.

2. I could run Vista Aero on mediocre Intel G965 or VIA K8M890, not to mention the fact that 740G is more powerful. Aero is not a concern for modern DX10 IGPs.

ok it can do it... but how WELL can it do it? Does anyone know what Vista scores it gets?

I've had flawless Aero experience on Geforce6100 on 22' LCD, and I think you took Aero too seriously anyway. It's 4.5 if I remember correctly. As for something more powerful like 690G/740G/780G or 7050/8200 or G35/G45, there's no doubt that anyone of them would cope with Aero easily; that's the reason why neither IT companies nor website reviewers is interested in promoting or benchmarking it anymore.

Awesome. 740G it is then.

I think the rest is pretty much settled as well.

Thanks everyone!