Help please with home PC spec for newbie

[sakura]

Hi all. I'm new here after having a few bad experiences with Dell PCs and wanting to try something different.
All the configuration options are confusing the hell out of me so I went to the "help me choose" option and went for advanced home / office. We will be using the pc to watch videos, listen to music, surf internet (basic stuff really). Might want to use it to run some slightly power-hungry macros on Excel, possibly to edit RAW files (will this require a lot of modification to the spec?) and to play simple games like the Sims.

I'd like it to be relatively future proof and my budget is up to £700 with a monitor but without a keyboard & mouse, so there is some room to improve on the spec below.

Anyway, this is the basic spec suggested for Advanced home/office use:
Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD ATHLON II X2 260 (3.20GHz/2MB CACHE/AM3)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A87: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
2GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (1 x 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 430 - DVI,HDMI,VGA
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
19" Widescreen TFT 1360 x 768 2MS, D-Sub, DVI, 18.5" Panel (£79)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £514.00 including VAT and delivery.

I know I need to upgrade the Microsoft office package. Is the only difference between home/student and home/business that the home/business one includes Outlook?

Should I go for a bigger / better hard drive as we have a lot of MP3s and photos to store?
Also not sure 2GB Ram is enough if I want to have say Excel open and performing calculations as well as a few webpages, music playing etc.

Thanks for any advice. I did try to search but couldn't quite find what I was looking for as a lot of the questions seem to be geared towards gaming! Apologies if my questions sound very stupid

 

[Azirius]

I would personally say 4GB RAM minimum. I would've thought the Graphics Card sufficient to run The Sims on it. If you store a lot of films/music/images on your computer then possibly get a 1TB Western Digital Black HDD, they seem to be highly recommended on here.

Can't comment on the processor, but I would imagine it'd do Excel and some basic gaming. Also, try and get a branded PSU (Power Supply), like the Corsair one, they're bound to be more reliable than the unbranded one.

 

[Wozza63]

id recommend upgrading the case to at least a coolermaster 310, for better cooling

4GB would probably be a smart idea

get a caviar black drive, your OS, programs, games etc will load much quicker on it

you should get a slighlty bigger PSU, probably 450w, to allow for aging and to add any small parts you may want to add like RAM HDD etc

id recommend a triple copper CPU cooler, well worth the price

remove the free trials if you dont want them

it is probably worth getting a 1080p monitor even if it is the unbranded ones, there is no point getting a brand new PC and then getting a low res monitor

 

[Petchi b]

This would be a much better spec for you.

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A87: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
22" Widescreen TFT 1920 x1080 2MS D-Sub, DVI, 21.6" Panel (£99)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £700.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[sakura]

Thank you for all the help everyone.

I used a combo of the suggestions posted to decide on my final spec.

I chose the coolermaster elite 310 case, 4gb ram, 1TB western digital black HDD, the corsair 650 psu, triple copper cooler and an Ilaya 22inch monitor.

Also went for the quad core processor suggested by Petchi b - not exactly sure why! Hope this wasn't unnecessary. I did a little reading about quad cores and it sounds like it could be quite useful in the future as more applications start to take advantage of multiple cores (am I right?)

Overall I spent a bit more than I wanted to but I'm hoping it'll last me a good few years and that I will be able to add RAM or anything else as necessary in the future.

Many thanks again for the helpful and friendly responses (I was a bit worried about how I'd be treated with my lack of knowledge) Now I just have to try to be patient. Can't wait to have a good PC after having to deal with loads of problems on my rubbishy Dell XPS laptop!

 

[Petchi b]

You got a good spec there mate so dont worry. Yes quad core CPU's are the norm these days and you will see how everything will run much faster than a dual core. What GPU did you get?

 

[sakura]

Assuming by GPU you mean graphics card, I had ordered the 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS 450 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready but just decided to change to the one you suggested. I might have to start playing some more games if I can find some that interest me!

 

[Sleinous]

Yes by all means the GTX 550 Ti is a nice little card for games and videos, I owned one for 90 days.