Building a comp ..more for less !!

[Rush1]

Decided to build a comp for my bro so he can play Star wars galaxies with me.. Bad news is..i just shed out 2k to fix my car..being the cheap person i am,i am gona do my best to make him a suitable comp with what i have to spend...which would be under 500 bucks ....he already has a decent monitor ..keyboard/mouse....here is where i need advice,..what to spend the 500 bucks on...he currently has a complete comp...1.1 ghz intel celeron.. Geforce4 (not sure what model etc)..256 ram..and the rest of the basics a comp has...i need to know the following ..
1) what do u reccomend keeping from the old comp (cd drive,case, etc)
2) after concidering he has monitor/keyboard/mouse,,and concidering what parts (if any) u would keep from his current comp...what would u spend the 500 bucks on to build him a comp..
i have done alot of research on prices of parts etc but i am still a newbie to building them myself..i know 500 bucks wont make his computer top of the line (or near it :P)..but just looking to build him a decent comp that can play the game without tearing his hair out because of lag lol...anyways.thanks guys and i appreciate any advice

[Force Flow]

Welcome to PCMech, Rush1

You'd be suprised at what you can put together for $500

Does he have any preferences as to going AMD or Intel?

[Cricket]

What kind of computer does he have now? Is it a home built or a name brand computer? If it's a name brand, you won't be able to reuse the case or power supply. You can probably reuse the hard drive (unless it's really small) the CD-ROM or whatever optical drive it has and the floppy drive. Not sure if you can re-use any of the PCI cards. If it has any ISA cards in it, you can forget reusing those.

For a gaming computer, you want to get the best video card you can with the budget you're working with.

Let us know exactly what kind of computer he has now and the specs and we'll help you spec out his new computer.

Cricket

[timbit]

sure, it won't be top of the line... but it sure will destroy what he had before... let's try this out.

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ w/333 FSB and 512 cache $94

MOBO: Asus A7N8X-X nForce2 $67

RAM: 512 MB Corsair Value Select CAS 2.5 $82

Vid Card: ATI 9600 XT OEM $149

HDD: Recycle the one you got, or: Seagate Barracuda 80 GIG SATA w/8mb Buffer $75

CD: recycle the one you got
Case: recycle
Sound: onboard
PSU: really depends on what you have right now... if the one you have is a cheap piece of crap, get the Enlight 360 W $32

TOTAL: $499

hehe pretty close to your budget, but it will only be like 420 if you don't need a new hard drive. and this baby will absolutely kill his old computer, no doubt about that. what do you think?

[Punked Out Comp]

CPU- AMD Athlon XP 3200+ "Barton", 400MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail-$187
MoBo- ASUS "A7N8X-X" nForce2 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL-$66
Vid Crd- CONNECT3D ATI RADEON 9600 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -RETAIL-$94
RAM- Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 512MB(256MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail-$134
If you have a crappy PSU then get the Enlight ATX 420W P4 Power Supply, "EN-8420934" -RETAIL-$40

Grand total of $521
That's hardly over your budget and this is an AMAZING system for the price.