New PC for lil bro

[Goran]

My parents are in the market for a new pc and I want to build my little brother a nice little gaming rig but it will also become the family pc and will be doing scanning, printing, etc. This will need to last a few years. My dad was thinking of buying him a laptop for about $800 because he thinks no body is using desktops any more. Anyway I want to stop him from making a mistake by buying a slow laptop with a shared GPU (he of course has no knowledge of graphics).

So I would like to make this build cost around $1000... So I've got to eaither go easy on this conroe build or switch out to AMD or something else to save money.

Should I stick with the conroe or maybe go AM2?
Give me your thoughts!

But so far I have this setup planned:

DVD-RW: NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI Model ND-3550A - OEM

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Monitor: BenQ FP91G+ Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor - Retail

PSU: ENERMAX Liberty ELT400AWT ATX12V 400W Power Supply - Retail

Speakers: Logitech X-230 32 Watts 2.1 Black Speakers - Retail

Memory: G.SKILL Extreme Series 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Unbuffered System Memory Model F2-4200PHU1-1GBLA - Retail
Just a gig is enough for him... Its an easy upgrade later on anyway

Mobo: ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 1066MHz FSB LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6400 - Retail

GPU: XFX PVT42EUDE3 Geforce 6800 XTreme 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Total: $1,320.77

A little more then I want to spent... I would like to cut it down at least $100-$200 more. This is where I am having problems. I may need to swich down to Pentium D or to AM2 or s939.

If you guys can help me that would be awesome.

 

[setscrew]

Your build looks solid except for the PS. You may want to bump that up to the 500 watt for a little more.

Do you really need an SLI capable motherboard?

To get the most out of the build, go with DDR2 800 ram in lieu of the DDR2 533.

To save some funds, consider going used for the flat panel and video card.

If this is still too much of an expenditure, look at an AM2 platform as the system as configured is most likely more machine than they need.