Building a PC for a friend

[Mitherman]

Hello again all. I'm building a PC for a friend, and I want to throw the build out there for consideration before I order anything. He only has 400 bucks, but he doesn't want to play video games or anything. Just surf the web or any other college related things. This is what I have so far, and it leaves just enough for shipping.

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner included extra White bezel, with 12X DVD-RAM Write Black IDE Model LH-20A1P-186 - Retail

APEX TU-163 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM

EVGA 256-A8-N313-LX GeForce FX 5500 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 8X Video Card - Retail

pqi POWER Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MAB41GUOE-X2 - Retail

ASUS P5LD2 R2.0 LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Celeron D 356 Cedar Mill 3.33GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80552356 - Retail

I've put most of this together using the reviews on the site. I do realize that PSUs that come with cases aren't usually that great, but this one seemed good from the reviews. Is there anything that I could/should change for the better, and still keep it the same price?

[shadowpr]

without links i can't tell, but i'm sure you might be able to save some money by getting a mb with on-board video.

[freakitchen]

My first suggestion would be to look at the prices on budget DELL systems. For a web surfer, they easily beat custom builds for price AND performance, and more often than not include a nice LCD monitor to boot.

If you still want to build, I'd do things quite a bit differently. To start, the case you picked out comes with a low quality ALLIED power supply. Look in the direction of Antec instead - they're one of the few companies doing decent case+psu combinations. This is the cheapest they offer

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129031

You MIGHT be able to do this a little cheaper by going for a power supply like this, and putting it in a cheap case that ships without a power supply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=basiq%2b350w

The video card you chose is AGP, and as such is not compatible with the motherboard, which is PCI-Express only. Go for a motherboard that has video built-in, such as this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131041

...and match it up with this newer 800mhz Celeron chip:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116038

I'd also get Corsair RAM instead of the PQI for quality reasons

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145526

You should also get a SATA hard drive - not IDE. Look at 160GB capacity which should fit in your budget - a Seagate would be my suggestion

Keep in mind you'll also need to figure the price of an operating system into the cost - another good reason to look in the direction of a DELL.

[Gen.Ben]

Mither, Most of the parts you listed were junk. If I were you I would consider a build similar to this:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131199 - $50

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115014 $126

Video Card: Onboard video on motherboard - $0

Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145568 $40

Power Supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371005 $60

Hard Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148262 $70

DVD Reader/Writer http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106055 $31

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=%2410+-+%2425 ~$25


TOTAL: $402

But if its just going to be a web surfer, you might want to consider a dell. Because they allready have windows installed.