Is this OK for a budget build?

[WildHorse]

This will be for a young sort-of-relative on a budget. They’re not hardcore, just for general home email, web and maybe light school work by their young kids (too young to be gamers). They have a wired cable modem, no wireless necessary:

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

General home use, email, web surf, light school work.
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2. What YOUR budget is.

For a young family on tight budget.
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3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

California edge of USA.
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4. IF YOU have a brand preference.

Intel cpu
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5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Will re-use power supply, hard drive(s), monitor ,mouse , speaker
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Need to buy Case, Motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, DVD±RW drive, keyboard
​

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Yes.
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7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

No OC, will run defaults.
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8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.

I don’t know. They’ll just use stock settings, say maybe 1280 X 720 (is a guess).
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9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

I plan to visit them and build with them by mid-November.
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HOW WOULD YOU REDUCE THIS, IF AT ALL?

CASE TBD, est $100
PSU Reuse FSP Group (Fortron Source) FX700-GLN ATX12V V2.2/EPS12V 700W, Newegg Item N82E16817104015, $0
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 Z68 mATX, $100
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed, $180
RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws, 8GB (whichever model matches the mobo), est $80
Hard Drives & SATA cables Reuse, $0
DVD±RW drive TBD, est $30
GPU SAPPHIRE 100314-3L Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 Newegg Item N82E16814102948, $180
Monitor Reuse Asus VW226T-TAA 22" 1680x1050 WideScreen LCD with Built-in Speakers 50000 :1 250 cd/m2, Newegg Item N82E16824236096, $0
Keyboard TBD, est $75
Mouse Reuse Logitech MX 518, $0
OS MS Windows 7 Home, $120
Other MS Office Home & Student, $150
Tax est $91

TOTAL $1,096

P.S., is there some Anandtech secret for posting a formatted table so columns align?

 

[lehtv]

A budget build for general home use, you say? And you're estimating the cost at $1100, even with all the reused components? That's a serious incompatibility... In short, you could easily get away with $300-400.

Example:
case $40
mobo $60
cpu $70
ram $40
dvd $20
windows $100
keyboard $20
gpu - integrated
ms office not necessary (use open office)

total = $350 before tax+shipping

I don’t know. They’ll just use stock settings, say maybe 1280 X 720 (is a guess).

Monitor Reuse Asus VW226T-TAA 22" 1680x1050 WideScreen LCD with Built-in Speakers 50000 :1 250 cd/m2, Newegg Item N82E16824236096, $0

 

[fffblackmage]

Well, since we're not looking at a gaming rig, you can immediately drop the graphics card - we'll be sticking with an integrated solution.

I'm not sure why you picked the i5-2500k... but you can cut CPU cost almost in half by going with the i3-2100 instead, or maybe even go with a Sandy Bridge Pentium, like the G620 for $73?

Here's a DVD burner for $20.

8GB DDR3 memory will only cost you $42.

I don't have any particular keyboard to recommend, but a basic one shouldn't cost $75.
$12 example

$35 Rosewill mATX case.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Officemax, $279.99.

http://www.officemax.com/technology/...ct-prod3610128

G620 dual-core rig, IGP, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, perfectly servicable for a daily-driver PC for kids. Plus includes Win7 64-bit Home Premium license.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What you specced out, OP, is basically a gaming rig, yet you say no games. Are you secretly hoping to build a gaming rig so that when you visit, you can play games on it, all the while building it on their budget, not yours?

 

[WildHorse]

What you specced out, OP, is basically a gaming rig, yet you say no games. Are you secretly hoping to build a gaming rig so that when you visit, you can play games on it, all the while building it on their budget, not yours?

No, they're 400 miles away. I was thinking I'd help spec it out, and drive up there to help put it together in mid-November.

 

[WildHorse]

Officemax, $279.99.

http://www.officemax.com/technology/...ct-prod3610128

G620 dual-core rig, IGP, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, perfectly servicable for a daily-driver PC for kids. Plus includes Win7 64-bit Home Premium license.

I don't understand why links posted on AT, generally, won't open for me in either Firefox or IE.

 

[dpodblood]

Jeez $1100 for a internet/office machine. Now that's overkill. For machines like this I would hardly even recommend building a machine from scratch. You are better off getting a basic $300 Dell/HP/Whatever PC because then they will at least have warranty, and you won't be on the hook for support.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No, they're 400 miles away. I was thinking I'd help spec it out, and drive up there to help put it together in mid-November.

Well, your heart is in the right place, but would you really want to make another 400 mile trip every time they have hardware problems? For this situation, I would definitely buy, rather than build.

Btw, that machine at OM is in the weekly flyer.

 

[mfenn]

Jeez $1100 for a internet/office machine. Now that's overkill. For machines like this I would hardly even recommend building a machine from scratch. You are better off getting a basic $300 Dell/HP/Whatever PC because then they will at least have warranty, and you won't be on the hook for support.

:thumbsup: To this. They certainly don't need a $1100 machine for office tasks. If you want to get them something reliable and reasonably priced, consider a refurbished Optiplex from the Dell Outlet.

For example, You can get an Optiplex 990 with an i3 2100, 4GB of RAM, RAID 1-able HDDs, Windows 7, and a 3-year NBD business-grade warranty for less than $500.

 

[WildHorse]

:thumbsup: To this. They certainly don't need a $1100 machine for office tasks. If you want to get them something reliable and reasonably priced, consider a refurbished Optiplex from the Dell Outlet.

For example, You can get an Optiplex 990 with an i3 2100, 4GB of RAM, RAID 1-able HDDs, Windows 7, and a 3-year NBD business-grade warranty for less than $500.

Well, your heart is in the right place, but would you really want to make another 400 mile trip every time they have hardware problems? For this situation, I would definitely buy, rather than build.

Btw, that machine at OM is in the weekly flyer.

Thank you both!

The used Dell is a great idea. Maybe I'll look at that, and also the build suggested in the other thread by LOL_Wut_Axel, "Budget System Builders: $400 Gaming PC "