Budget PC Building... Thoughts?

[SNGX1275]

I'm putting a PC together for my Aunt and trying to keep it as low cost as possible yet still being ok. She'll be using it only for web browsing, some personal finance stuff with Quicken or something, email, and thats about it.

I've been following the TS Budget PC Buying Guide pretty closely with a few modifications. Here is what I've come up with:


Part Website Price Shipping
ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Socket http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092 $55.99 $6.13
Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield 2.66GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116001 $95.00 $0.00
CORSAIR VALUE SELECT 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145568 $95.99 $4.99
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415 $55.99 $5.64
LITE-ON Black 16X http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106014 $29.99 $0.00
Spire BlackFin VI SP-2705B http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811220007 $22.99 $11.34
ENERMAX EG425P-VE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103459 $59.99 $7.11
Ati Radeon 9600xt n/a $0.00 $0.00
Monitor n/a $0.00 $0.00
Keyboard/Mouse n/a $0.00 $0.00
Speakers n/a $0.00 $0.00 TOTAL:
$415.94 $35.21 $451.15

Apologies for the ugliness of the formatting. The vid card, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers will be recycled from either my parts or her existing setup.

Anyway I can get this dropped down to closer $400 that you can see? I think I'll actually drop out the DVD burner, that will drop me down to $421.16

I am not upgrading above any of the components listed unless its a price drop, this system is far better than what she is using now, which is either an early p3 or a late p2 system. Also waiting a bit for new stuff to come out and drop the price on what I have listed is not an option either, I'll probably order within the next day or so.

 

[mailpup]

For the purpose stated, I think a single stick of 512MB Value RAM will be sufficient. Or alternately, two sticks of 256MB. 1GB, dual channel is great and all that but not absolutely essential for this one. If you don't want a DVD burner, I would include a combo optical drive at least (DVD-ROM/CD-RW). However, the cost difference is not much. I'm guessing you already have at least a CD-ROM drive you are salvaging.

 

[F1N3ST]

I second the 2x256mb sticks ^_^ Plus, i think On-Board Video will be sufficient, and you dont need that many watt power supply for that, i would say 300+ watts on a quality brand would be great. FSP Group, Antec, etc. And that case only has one 80mm fan.

 

[SNGX1275]

Ok. I think I can drop the power supply to Antec SmartPower 2.0 and buy it locally for $40, that saves me about $25.

If I drop the ram to CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB (2 x 256MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 its not 667 anymore, and $59 with shipping. Which saves me another $30.

That is $55 cheaper, which pushes me to about $400 with a dvd burner...

I may do that unless I get some better suggestions. Thanks guys.

 

[F1N3ST]

You could buy an Antec Case/PSU Combo off newegg, heres one- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129150

 

[SNGX1275]

Ok, I ordered. Got pretty much the same as in my first post except I dropped the RAM to 512 and didn't order the PSU. I'll get the PSU here at staples for $40 + tax and it will be a 350W Antec.

Total price for everything (including PSU) with shipping (and tax) will come out to right around $378 which I think isn't too bad.

Also when I ordered I noticed the shipping price didn't change if I added in a benq 20.1" lcd. I already have one I'm using now and wanted to set up dual monitors with it, so I went ahead and ordered a second one for myself

 

[Tmagic650]

I am building a barebones MSI Box PM8M2-V, Intel Celeron D for $486.55 including shipping from Newegg. This doesn't include a monitor, keyboard or mouse.

You can get great deals from Retrobox.com too. They sell used brand name computers cheap. I bought a complete Compaq Deskpro EN, Pentium III, 800MHz, 256MB RAM for $80 including shipping. I installed a CD/DVD combo burner and a 40GB Seagate hard drive for an additional $85. The computer was in excellent shape, and took XP Pro perfectly