New Build

It had been becoming increasingly clear to me that my 2010 Windows 7 desktop was getting slower and slower and slower. Boot time (from POST to Anti-Virus finishing with the machine and allowing me to use some system resources) had become three minutes!

After looking around at the fairly limited range of desktops, both in the shops and online, I was unimpressed. I didn't want an all-in-one or a mini-tower because they lack expansion capability and, already working on a two-screen set-up I didn't want an asymmetric all-in-one-with-second-monitor set up.

I'm not into computer gaming, so really really fast or overclocking was not on the shopping list, but I really wanted a machine that would boot fast, handle multitasking office-type applications, but not cost the earth. Whilst I've done a lot of messing about inside computers before, I'd never built one from scratch before. I thought it was about time I did!

This was what I settled on.

Hardware
In a Corsair 100R case
ASUS prime 250-PLUS  ATX motherboard
Intel G4560 Pentium, 3.5 GHz (dual core, with multi-threading)
8GB 2133 RAM (Kingston Hyper-Fury)
AMD Radeon HD 6450 (recycled out of my old machine)
Corsair VS550 power supply
Sandisk 256 GB SSD for OS and applications
WD 1TB HDD for documents
WD 4TB HDD for photos and videos (recycled out of my old machine)
ASUS DVD-writer
PCIe USB expansion card (5 external + 2 internal)


Software
Windows 10 Home 64 bit
Avast Free Antivirus
Google Chrome
Mozilla Thunderbird
MS Office Professional 2010 (I had a licence for this on the old machine and have uninstalled it there to use it on the new machine)
Adobe Acrobat DC Reader
iTunes
VLC Media Player
Speccy (for system monitoring within Windows)
Syncback Free
ACD ChemSketch
Chemdoodle
Zotero Standalone

Total cost (including Windows) £556.10

It proved to be a fairly straight forward build. There was just a moment before I turned it on for the first time that I worried nothing would work, but it was all quite smooth. The few issues I encountered were:

• Aligning the motherboard with the i/o panel - it just seemed a very tight fit and the spring-sections of the cutouts tended to catch on the HDMI and USB ports.
• Connecting the front panel switches - the motherboard manual was useless at showing what went where, but carefully looking at the tiny labelling on the motherboard itself and a bit of Googling for reassurance enabled me to get that right first time. 
• Cable management was more problematic that I'd anticipated. The power supply for the CPU should ideally have run up the back (rhs) of the casing, but once the motherboard was in place it was impossible to get it back through. Given the trouble I'd had with the i/o panel I decided I would sacrifice beauty for ease. Once the machine is in place, no one will see the cabling anyway. Power to the USB card also cuts across the case, which is a shame. The real difficulty though was in the SATA cables to the HDDs. I had bought one and was recycling one from my old machine, but they were too tight to the case to get the side panel on and I've had to order some right-angle ones before I can finally close the case. I think I'll be able to neaten it all up somewhat once its finalised. 
• Windows install was very fast, but it immediately wanted a 4GB update and that took a long time.

So far (at the end of the first day) I'm very pleased with it. It is certainly fast to boot and fast to use, but it will be its performance when used in day-to-day work that will be the real test. I think the case is well-designed but a bit tight with a full-sized ATX motherboard.

Still to do / possible additions

• I need to replace the SATA cables, tidy up inside and fit the remaining case panel!
• At present I have only one case fan. The CPU seems to be hovering around 32-38 deg C, but I haven't got the second case panel on yet, so I might add a further 120 mm fan at the top of the case to be on the safe side.
• The onboard audio supports 2.1/5.1/7.1 surround sound. My current study isn't really suitable for that sort of audio, but I might add 5.1 speakers at some point in the future.
• I'd really like a front panel card reader with USB charging capabilities, but I haven't yet found one I like.
• I've looked at interface cards for electronics projects and that might be something I'd like to develop in the future.