Computer for Mother

T

The Realyst

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 14, 2003
Messages
266
My mom is bugging me to build her a computer for about $800. I went to Newegg and came up with this combonation of items. Already have mouse and keyboard. She just wants to go online and email and other basic crap. No games, no overclocking, nothing special. What do you guys think?

Linkworld ATX Case
Samsung DVD Burner
Floppy Drive
80 Gig Harddrive
512 Kingston Ram
Dial Up Modem
Mitsubishi Monitor
Asus Motherboard
AMD 2500+ Processor
Lexmark Printer
Speakers
ATI Radeon 9600SE

Whew! Ok, that's it. I hope I didn't leave anything out. Is this ok? No even games will be ran on this machine so, I think it's good...
 
and you need a powersupply.

Antec or Enermax =)
 
The 9600 is overkill. Hell that is a decent gaming machine. Downgrade to a 9200 or something and run a namebrand powersupply. (antec, forton, enermax)
 
I wouldn't recommend that Rage XL card, even for a low-end configuration. Some motherboards will not boot up correctly without an AGP graphics card installed - but that Rage XL card is a PCI card.
 
Opps, I didn't realize it was PCI. I should of paid attention. The next priced ATI card is like $60 more. Maybe I should go for another company? Maybe Nvidia?
 
The Realyst said:
Opps, I didn't realize it was PCI. I should of paid attention. The next priced ATI card is like $60 more. Maybe I should go for another company? Maybe Nvidia?
Click to expand...
Moreover, I forgot to tell you that the older-design PCI video card may not work correctly on a newer-spec PCI slot. Thus, I'd use that older PCI video card on a newer system only for troubleshooting purposes.
 
get an fx5200 or so... those are enough for every day usage... and solitaire maybe

or a nice geforce 4 maybe
 
does she really need a dvd burner? that could knock off $80 and just maybe get her a regular cd or dvd drive
 
SC385 said:
does she really need a dvd burner? that could knock off $80 and just maybe get her a regular cd or dvd drive
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's no getting around that. She specifically wants a DVD burner in this thing. It's ok, I'm still under my $800 budget if I get like a $60 videocard. Thank you guys for all your help.
 
Hmm. What I would do:

$50: Antec SLK1600
$10: One case fan of some sort, for intake or exhaust.
$90: Seagate 120GB IDE hard drive with 8MB cache
$100: DVD+/-RW
$10: Floppy
$95: ABit NF7-S or Asus A7N8X Deluxe
$80: Athlon 2500+ Retail (warranty; retail cooler will be sufficient)
$60: Radeon 9200 w/ passive cooling
$30: Microsoft KB/mouse set, optical wheelmouse
$30: Cyber Acoustics 2.1 speakers
$120: Decent flat 17" CRT
$80: More than the shipping will cost.

$755, VERY rough estimate.

BTW, guys, I have an ATi Rage Pro (hahaha!) working just fine on my computer. If it's keyed right, it'll work fine; voltage spec followed PCI data bus spec.
 
You could probably find a decent OEM package that would cover all the bases, after upgrading the memory and hard drive separately (maybe buying the DVD burner separately, as well), for under $800. I've got a couple of recent Compaqs (one 1/2 a year ago and the other from another year farther back (both were just the computer, no package, but I do have a couple of Compaq monitors (FS740) that I got elsewhere that are also nice)) and they've both been nice after swapping in a faster hard drive and adding some extra memory. Both are Athlon XP systems and both have integrated graphics (which doesn't totally suck in the case of the one I tried out (the more recent one)) AND an AGP slot. The more recent one even has SATA ports, though they weren't mentioned in the specs. The cases are very nice and both systems are relatively quiet. They came with a lot of preinstalled junk software, but it wasn't that much of a fuss to scrape off. The PSU is "only" 250W, but I ran an AIW 9800 Pro in one for over a month straight at 100% load without a hitch.

For "No games, no overclocking, nothing special." they're more than good.

(Hell, lately I actually even game more on them than on both of my higher spec homebuilt gaming rigs combined (and I wrote this post on the older one after about 3 hours of gaming on the newer one).)

On the other hand, I also got a P4 Dell with integrated graphics (no AGP slot), and I didn't like it, though it was even quieter than the Compaq's. (It just seemed to behave rather strangely at times (it get freeze up for a while at a time), and it wasn't a matter of gaming, as I'd never intended to use it for that purpose nor tried.)

EDIT: Check out the SR1000Z at hpshopping.com. That's what my more recent one is. Looks like you can get a real good deal now... Get a 17" monitor tossed on for $50 AR. Also, you can get a $50 printer rebate and there's a $50 rebate on the system itself (in addition to a $50 instant rebate). Free upgrade to a 80GB 7200 RPM hard drive. Floppy is $10 installed. Free upgrade to 256MB of memory (PC 2700). Athlon XP 2500+ or higher. Etc. And the price gets you the OS as well. (Note on rebates: I've gotten EVERY Compaq rebate (at least 6) without having to call, though they didn't send me any e-mail notifications on the last batch (but the checks showed up before I got around to asking them what was up).)

EDIT 2: Oh, if you do buy from there, go to fatwallet.com and sign up for Fatcash and click through the link in their Cashback Mall to go to hpshopping (HP) for the transaction and you can get 4% back (after 6 months, I believe).

EDIT 3: Looks like you can get everything (burner, monitor, speakers, printer, printer cable, etc.) she needs for under $600 after rebates. Hell, do the memory upgrade to 512MB and you'll still be under $650 after rebates (though I'd get an $80 512MB stick of Crucial from newegg instead).
 
Stiletto One said:
Hmm. What I would do:

$50: Antec SLK1600
$10: One case fan of some sort, for intake or exhaust.
$90: Seagate 120GB IDE hard drive with 8MB cache
$100: DVD+/-RW
$10: Floppy
$95: ABit NF7-S or Asus A7N8X Deluxe
$80: Athlon 2500+ Retail (warranty; retail cooler will be sufficient)
$60: Radeon 9200 w/ passive cooling
$30: Microsoft KB/mouse set, optical wheelmouse
$30: Cyber Acoustics 2.1 speakers
$120: Decent flat 17" CRT
$80: More than the shipping will cost.

$755, VERY rough estimate.

BTW, guys, I have an ATi Rage Pro (hahaha!) working just fine on my computer. If it's keyed right, it'll work fine; voltage spec followed PCI data bus spec.
Click to expand...


You could get her a 200GB harddrive for $90 afterrebate from here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top