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Budget build for parents: Llano or Sandy Bridge?

mmntech

mmntech

Lifer
It's time to replace my parents' old Athlon XP laptop. It's very slow and chokes on my mom's Facebook games.

I'm attempting to build them a while new system. Either a mini-ITX or MicroATX build. Probably the latter as mobos are cheaper. Budget is $400. Already have monitor et al.

Newegg.ca has a very nice bundle now. Comes with a Biostar A55MH, 2.7ghz A4-3400 Llano, 4gb Gskill DDR3, Coolermaster case and PSU, and a 500gb HDD. All for $236.49

Now that Intel has Sandy Bridge out, I'm split about whether to go with a Celeron/Pentium instead. I'm not too knowledgeable about Intel's offerings.


This system will be used for flash games and videos, web browsing, email, accounting/finances. Basically general home office use plus a couple small frills. I want something that will last them awhile though.
 
Either choice should be fine. A SB would be faster for CPU tasks, the AMD will have better GPU performance but that doesn't matter for this use.

The Pentium and Celeron CPUs perform about the same as the i3-2100 for general use after you adjust for the lower clock speed, (i.e. a 2.4 GHz Celeron will be ~25% slower, but faster than a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo.

HD2000 graphics are fine for basic 3D use including very light gaming. I've played Torchlight and Half-Life 2 on my i3-2100 media server PC at 1024 x 768 and both were smooth.
 
How about another notebook? Or are they fine with not having portability?

Link to the combo? I've looked at a similar one recently and was totally not impressed with the component choices, with single channel RAM specified and a craptacular PSU.

I'd recommend the AMD APU for super light gaming and maybe HTPC (for that ol' 24FPS issue). Otherwise, the Intel setup will end up a lot more power efficient.

Pentium G620 $75
mini ITX H61 mobo $60 after rebate?
4GB RAM $25
60GB SSD $90 (do they actually need more capacity?)
Antec ISK 300-65 case $70
slim optical drive $25
 
^ yes, this morning's SB combo on the US newegg site was pretty bad -- $30 of the $50 discount was from throwing in an antivirus program, only a 500 GB HD instead of 1 TB for a few dollars more, etc.

Do they use the PC for an iTunes music collection or a large photo collection? If so a platter drive makes more sense than the SSD.
 
Any particular reason why they aren't going with another notebook. There are lots of Fusion C-50/C-350 notebooks out right now that should fit the bill for ~$300-$400.
 
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