Budget Build for Father-in-Law

So my Father-in-Law's very old computer is crapping out, and I wanted to surprise him with a new one.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
It should all be very light usage. Email, web browsing, maybe some occasional work from the office on Access or Excel, accounting software, etc. The extent of gaming would be stuff like Candy Crush.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I'd like to keep it at $400 or so max. I'd be willing to spend slightly more if it would be a significant upgrade (i.e. for an SSD or something)
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
I'm in NJ. I'm close enough to the Paterson, NJ Micro Center that I could make that drive.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Case, CPU, RAM, mobo, video card, hard drive (I guess I would prefer an SSD if that won't break the budget), PSU, CD/DVD drive.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Peripherals only - keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc. He has a case already that I think he likes, and it's pretty large, but asking for the case would ruin the surprise part and would probably start a "why did you waste money on me" type argument.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Not positive. From memory I would guess it's a 19". It's not a widescreen.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next week or so.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Like I said, this is going to be pretty light usage stuff. No specific requirements here.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I'm not sure. Feel free to include it in the build, and an alternative build without the OS where the extra money can be spent (if that will even add much at this price point). I'll try to get the wife to do some snooping to figure this out.

PC Hound Part List: $315.23 after $45 in rebates
Included A6-5400k Dual Core processor with a decent enough built in video, 64-bit Windows 7 (with free upgrade to 10 next year), 8gb of ram, 120 GB SSD. You could buy a 1 TB drive with the extra money. PC Hound doesn't have Optical drives listed, typically about $20-25 (in fact, there is an Asus drive for $20 - $3 coupon.

How long is the drive to that Microcenter?
Is New Jersey going to be hit by that big snow storm?

Unless your wife works in IT or at a school or has a spare Windows 7 or 8 key lying around, more than likely you're going to need a new OS key if your Father-in-law's PC is indeed "very old" Nor would I recommend using Windows 7 at this point in time since it's getting close to it end of support.

Dangman said:

How long is the drive to that Microcenter?
Is New Jersey going to be hit by that big snow storm?

Unless your wife works in IT or at a school or has a spare Windows 7 or 8 key lying around, more than likely you're going to need a new OS key if your Father-in-law's PC is indeed "very old" Nor would I recommend using Windows 7 at this point in time since it's getting close to it end of support.

Click to expand...

It's not that far. And yes, we're going to be hammered. I won't be going to that MicroCenter for the next couple days at least. It will be fine by this weekend.

I guess very old isn't terribly accurate. So he had "a guy" that he would go to for computer related stuff and the machine has had occasional upgrades. My limited understanding is that this guy wasn't too great, I don't remember the details but last time I looked at the machine I remember thinking that the guy way overcharged and that all the upgrades didn't really make sense together, plus the typical crappy PSU, etc. All the hardware inside should be at least 3 years old, and it was probably mid/low-end back then. I'm fairly certain he has XP, though there is a really remote chance he has win7 and I'm just remembering wrong.

And actually, yes, my wife does work at a school.

Hmmm.... let's try this:
$57 - Intel Pentium G3220 CPU
$72 - ASRock H97M Anniversary Intel H97 mATX Motherboard
$65 - Crucial Ballistix BLS8G3D1609DS1S00 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$69 - Crucial MX100 128GB SSD
$19 - Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD Burner
$42 - Corsair 430CX V2 430W PSU
$50 - NZXT Source 220 Black ATX Case
$92 - Windows 8.1 64bit
----
Total: $466 shipped

I wouldn't sweat Windows 7/8 revisions, get 7 as it's the lesser learning curve, and use the free upgrade to 10 that will be available when it comes out.

Also, Microcenter has a Combo of a Gigabyte GA-F2A58M-HD2 FM2 mATX AMD Motherboard & AMD A6 7400K Black Edition 3.9GHz Dual-Core Socket for $69.98 + tax - $10 MIR. It's $.70 more then my original pricing above, but gives you a bit more speed in the process.

Syran said:

I wouldn't sweat Windows 7/8 revisions, get 7 as it's the lesser learning curve, and use the free upgrade to 10 that will be available when it comes out.

Click to expand...

Just install ClassicShell and Windows 8.1 becomes just as easy to use as Windows 7. Considering that Windows 8.1 has under-the-hood performance tweaks and there's more than likely going to be initial teething issues for Windows 10 during the first few months, I'm not seeing a strong reason to go Windows 7 here.