Girlfriend build

[dawhitewizard]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
This is for my girlfriend to do college homework on. Should also be able to run ms office, browse the web, and stream netflix. Should have a wifi card for wireless tethering to her phone since she does not have actual internet service. She is not tech savy and all parts should play nice with windows 7 without any effort. hdmi out for hooking up to the tv for streaming would be nice but not a deal breaker since her tablet can stream to her tv.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
550 + shipping/tax but the cheaper the better.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
San Diego, CA

i really hate fry's but there are a couple close by. I really like newegg but it may be nice to order from amazon or somewhere to avoid tax.

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, psu, mobo, cpu, ram, cd/dvd, hdd, monitor, keyboard, mouse, wifi

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
n/a

6) Will you be overclocking?
nope

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
n/a

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
next week

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.
onboard video and sound would probably be helpful to keep cost down. hdmi out would be nice but not a deal breaker.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
win7 64bit


what do you guys think about these parts? notice anything i should stay away from or any ideas to lower the cost?

NZXT Source 210
Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W
BIOSTAR A880G+ AM3
AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333
Samsung by Seagate Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ/ST500DM005 500GB
ASUS 24X DVD Burner
NETIS WF-2113 Wireless-N Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n
ASUS VW224U Black 22"
$535 + shipping/tax

 

[andrewbub]

save yourself some time and buy a pre-built. you should be able to get a dell or something similar for less than your budget that can do all of those things.

 

[athenian200]

I really don't think going AMD is a good idea, even for a budget build. Everything else looks okay, but I'd swap out the Athlon II X3 and the BIOSTAR for these:

GIGABYTE GA-H61M-S2H

Intel Pentium G850

Sandy Bridge is just significantly better, even at the low end. That set up would only cost you $10 more for the motherboard, if you don't factor in the rebate. Also, they're WAY more power efficient than the X3, which is important because you're buying a cheap PSU and you don't really want to stress it.

If you need to save $10 on something else, I think you could go a little a cheaper on the ram, since you won't be overclocking and I doubt you'll notice the looser timings on a build like this...

Pareema 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

If gaming were an issue, AMD might have a slight edge due to the Integrated graphics being more optimized for that than HD2000, but the stuff you described should be within what HD2000 can do.

 

[Lord Nassirbannipal]

AMD is fine for a budget build. If all that's being done with the rig is homework, surfing the net, email, etc, then you won't see any important differences between AMD and a Sandy Bridge.

 

[Dangman]

Yeah I have to agree with andrewbub and recommend that you get a prebuilt for your GF. Right now there's this Dell deal going on:
http://gotapex.com/content/60528-20...Mem-250GB-HD-DVD-Burner-for-379-plus-Shipping!

No way can we beat that without going with really shitty parts.