Jack Bruss wrote:
> I want to build a new computer for my father in law. He now has a 7 or 8
> year old Best Buy something or other. The monitor, speakers, and keyboard
> are ok, so we just need to get him a new system and optical mouse. My son
> and I have built several systems in the past, but the last was about 2 years
> ago, and I haven't kept up with the chip or mb types or terminology.
>
> So, I would appreciate some advice on the components to buy. I would most
> likely buy at Newegg, as I have always been treated well there. We are just
> looking for a basic system to do email, view photos, simple games, etc. We
> don't need any special extra power. He has a dial up connection only, so
> we'll need a modem, although I guess we can use the 56k modem he has, unless
> newer ones have some advantage.
>
> Thanks for any thoughts,
>
> Jack
>
>
Hi Jack,
I don't know if you've selected your system yet (this was posted about 5
days ago) but 300-400 is plenty reasonable for the system that you want.
I just spent $495 at newegg.com; everything but a new monitor, and my
new system is fast, efficient, and looks great, too. I got an AMD
socket 754 Sempron chip, a Biostar mobo with onboard video and sound,
case with built-in 450-W ps, 1G DDR memory, Samsung CD/DVDdrive/burner,
SATA Seagate 250G hdd. I already had a floppy drive (I still have lots
of doc's and lists of engineering tables on floppy discs so I need one),
had a few ethernet cards so used one of those, and I got a new USB2 hub
to replace my USB1 hub. The case has 2 usb rear and 2 usb front ports,
and a firewire port in the front as well. Got an IR mouse and new
keyboard, oh yeah, and some logitech speakers w/a subwoofer that for the
price kicks butt (I don't listen to it too loud, but I like the quality
better than the standard desktop cheap speakers). I use this system for
3D modeling, work, email, analysis (matlab/mathematica, statistics,
etc), photos, watching movies, very little gaming and no
processor-intensive games. Right now this system would probably cost
more, a few of my components were on sale, but you can do REALLY well at
newegg. It was also the first one i built completely by myself, and it
was way simple, everything fit, worked great first time.
newegg is definitely the way to go.
regards,
karinne