[Corruption]

Hey guys, been a while since I've been on OCN and I haven't been following hardware development in the slightest since my first build a few years ago so I figured I'd ask for some advice on a budget build.

Uses: simple internet browsing, word processing (maybe), poker clients
Budget: ~$500-600 (incl. monitor)

Hard drive does not need to be large at all. And quiet is good.

I'm an Intel fan personally but if AMD can provide a better budget processor I wouldn't object.

Thanks guys!

 

[PostalTwinkie]

I would be looking at something like this....

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Celeron G540 2.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Microcenter)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 370 ATX Mid Tower Case ($31.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($90.67 @ Amazon)
Total: $423.59
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-09-23 21:00 EDT-0400)

Most people still scoff at the Intel Celeron, but that is an old stigma. The new Celeron built off Sandybridge is fantastic and perfect for what you have described. It is essentially the Core i3 minus the Hyper-threading, it will perform really well for him. I will point out that I added a video card in there, a very low end one. The reason for this is that a lot of websites are now utilizing GPU acceleration, and that is only going to increase. In the longer run it will benefit him and just makes things a little smoother, it will also offload the other GPU work off the CPU.

All you would need to do at this point would have him pick out a display that he likes, as well as a keyboard and mouse. I left plenty of room in your budget for these.

 

[Corruption]

Thank you! Looks like a solid build. However I can receive Windows through DreamSpark (BCS undergrad) so that will cut cost. I would never considered a Celeron to be honest I was mainly looking at the i3's.

 

[PostalTwinkie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corruption

Thank you! Looks like a solid build. However I can receive Windows through DreamSpark (BCS undergrad) so that will cut cost. I would never considered a Celeron to be honest I was mainly looking at the i3's.

Ah, you are one of the few that has another source for the OS, good.

As for the processor, that is why I mentioned what I did. Most people see "Celeron" and immediately pass, after all, the Celeron doesn't have the strongest following and hasn't really been known as a power house. Intel changed that with Sandybridge, they changed a lot really, and the Celeron is now a very viable option.Since your father isn't doing much at all, it will work great for him. Another route would be spending the extra ~$15 and stepping up to the Pentium G630, the only gain is another 1MB on the L3 Cache...not a huge deal for what he is going.