Ultra Budget GF Build -Help Please!

So, my GF's laptop was fried by a power surge the other day. It is not under warranty of any sort. She is a full time college student and is not employed, and thus is in no position to buy a replacement.

Her parents will likely pay for a replacement (she does after all need it for school, especially in her line of study (digital art created in photoshop, illustrator...), but only up to a very low cost. Her laptop from two years ago laptop was a mere $250 and consisted of a 2ghz core 2 duo, intel HD (original) graphics, 2GB ddr2, 250GB hard drive.

The good news is she does not need it to be a laptop, and she would like to learn to build her own computers, so lets kill to birds with one stone and find her some parts for a good ultra-budget desktop!

So far, this is what I've put together. I haven't used AMD in over 10 years so if I screwed something up, or if there are just better deals, let me know!


She will be using this for school (word processing, powerpoints, photoshop, illustrator, flash, light programming, perhaps some dreamweaver or corell painter) and gaming.

She does not need a mouse or sound equipment as she already has a X-Fi HD USB, good headphones, and a deathadder mouse.

She does not need a monitor as she can hook it up to her small 720p TV, although a more practical monitor would be nice if affordable.

I would prefer to put windows 7 Pro 64 bit on it, but if absolutely necessary, it can run linux or one of my extra copies of xp for now until she can save up to buy windows 7 herself.


Total price should be roughly 400 USD or less. If you're up for some extra work, $600 or less alternatives would also be appreciated. Thanks!

To try to address all the replies in no particular order (sorry if I miss something). Will signify major ideas by switching colors:

The one similarity between all responses so far have been that nothing has been said about intel. I don't want you guys to think I'm locked into AMD, I just feel it's cheaper to do an APU build than to get similar performance out of an intel build (since intel graphics are pretty much totally useless). Correct me if I'm wrong

She needs the rig for cheap ASAP. It can be upgraded later for all the non-essentials (for instance, a better cooler for overclocking). It is for this reason that I have some slightly-more-than-needed hardware (such as an unlocked processor) and also lack some of the things you would assume to go with said hardware (like a better cooler).

I'd rather put in an extra $10 here than $100 6 months later to replace a part with no future potential. (Remember, shes unemployed and her parents aren't going to be helping with anything that isn't absolutely essential, so saving money in the long run is very important as long as it isn't over her budget cap).

Shes gonna be sticking with the internal graphics on the CPU for now. She also works with very large files in photoshop with many layers and a long history. From what I've heard about these AMD APUs, memory speed and timing is pretty essential to performance in games. From personal experience, memory speed and size is essential to large photoshop files.

Feel free to show me a cheaper alternative for RAM, but it needs to satisfy the above points (unless I'm wrong about the whole APU thing).

Hybrid Xfire with the 6570 sounds good as a future upgrade. I knew something like that was possible, but I know nothing of the details. Is it compatible with all motherboards? what kind of speed increase can I expect? Any downsides?

I'm not really interested in spending more on the case. I know this one is pretty junky, but it has the essentials and that's really all she needs. Big enough to house low to mid range parts, has some openings for fans (I counted at least 4 80mm... I don't really need more for a low-mid range rig do I? Heck, until I overclock, I could get away with just the stock cooling no?).

Unless the case is cheaper, or the same price but better, I'ma stick with this one thanks.

I'm willing to get a cheaper PSU but it MUST be reliable. I'm also wary of dropping the wattage much as that would pretty much forbid upgrades without a costly PSU replacement. Keep in mind the cost of a PSU replacement in order to allow upgraded cooling and a GPU when/if suggesting cheaper PSUs.

Yes, she needs an optical drive. This will also be her DVD player.

I've never used ECS motherboards before, so I don't really know what to expect with them, but this one has decent ratings and decent specs on paper for a fairly low cost. the suggested GIGABYTE GA-A55M-DS2 is lacking USB and HDMI, both of which are somewhat important to her (her TV which will be her monitor unless she is able to pick up a real monitor only has HDMI input, and she has some very fast and large USB 3.0 flash drives which she runs her photoshop/illustrator/other school files off of. Her school does not allow saving or working off of the school hard drives when in class, and she obviously will not be bringing a desktop into class).

If anyone can suggest a MOBO from a "better" company without it either having a garbage reputation (like some of the ASrock and MSI boards in the price range) or being more expensive, I'll consider it. Bonus for USB 3 and HDMI as stated above.


Alright, I think that's it. Thanks everyone! Let me know what you think of the responses.

EDIT to address last few ninja-posts:

Thraks - she will be gaming on this. It's not a priority, but it's gonna happen. I'm not going to buy a GPU for it but I'm more than willing to drop another 20 bucks on faster ram and a better IGP, even If I'm paying that out of pocket just so she wont whine about how her steam library is totally useless

Whoever keeps saying ebay - no. Even If I wanted to, her parent's will not purchase anything from ebay. I don't make the rules here, sorry.

To the ~$600 build, THANKS! I did ask for a $600 or less alternative, and that is a decent one. I'll agree with Thraks Cravin that it would be worse for non-gaming tasks, but it would be a LOT better for gaming. It would still be enough for her school needs, if perhaps a bit weak in the multi-thread department. It's certainly not a useless suggestion even If I don't use it.
Edited by Zero4549 - 7/22/12 at 1:38am