PC Shopping List
So in this article, we get down to brass tacks. I’ll be doing the actual shopping for parts, for the Home Office PC you remember I’m building. It’s not such a simple task, simply because there’s a budget to respect, and so many parts to choose from.
For some reason, I really like TigerDirect. Some of you may prefer NewEgg. Heck, you can even actually… walk to a store. But who does that these days?
So, listed below are all the parts I purchased, and a short explanation on why they were chosen.
Acer X223WBD 22″ Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms, 2500:1, (WSXGA+) 1680×1050, DVI, Black
I’m a really big fan of this particular screen. 22 inches is a glorious amount of screen space, and at $200, the price is more than right. Sure, there are monitors with better specs out there, but for what we’re trying to do (an office in the home, not a gaming rig, or even a graphic arts station), this is perfect.
XFX GeForce 8200 Motherboard CPU Bundle - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Processor 2.40GHz Retail
I found this great bundle for $180. This particular motherboard, from XFX (an excellent company, by the way) is pretty solid. Since I decided not to purchase a separate video card (but still wanted some decent graphics), this AMD solution is perfect. Intel based onboard graphics are just horrible. This motherboard offers enough onboard graphics horsepower to do just about anything except heavy gaming. More importantly for a business setting, it offers RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 configurations.
The bundle includes the CPU. In this case it’s a pretty solic Athlon X2 4600+ running a 2.4Ghz. Two cores. For the price, this is pretty decent.
Two Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1000GB Hard Drives - 7200RPM, 32MB, Serial ATA-300, OEM
Since we’re going to be setting up a RAID 1 system, we need two drives. This is a full terabyte of storage, which will be mirrored on two drives. If one fails, data is still safe in the other. At $99 each, it was a worthwhile investment.
OCZ SLI-Ready Dual Channel 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2×2048MB)
When you find a deal, you jump on it. For $70, I’m getting 4GB of RAM. This one is running at 800Mhz, which is the most the motherboard can handle, so it’s perfect.
Power Up Black 336 ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB, Audio Ports and 450-Watt Power Supply
This is a simple case. It’s a mid-tower, with no bells or whistles that gamers tend to like. It’ll fit all our components, and comes with its own power supply. $50
Ultra X-Wind Aluminum Socket K8/AM2 CPU Cooling Fan
Don’t forget to get a cooling fan for your CPU. $25
HP DVD1070i 20X SATA Multiformat DVD Writer - With Lightscribe Retail
Optical drives are almost a dime a dozen, but I think it’s important to get something with Lightscribe. If we’ll be making disks, I’d like for them to be labeled properly. A messy office is not a good office. $40
SATA Cables
These are cheap. But don’t forget them. You’ll need them for your hard drives, and optical drive (if you got a SATA drive, like I did). $10
Brother MFC Printer
A good printer is essential. If it comes with a scanner and can send faxes, that’s even better. At $100, the price is hard to beat.
So that’s it for the shopping list. The order has been placed. We’ll start assembling soon.
Comments
[...] My Home Office PC Shopping List [...]
[...] My Home Office PC Shopping List [...]
[...] My Home Office PC Shopping List [...]