$700 budget pc

[coshkara]

Hey guys, my wifes sister wants me to build her a computer and her budget is 700usd am looking for any suggestions on what would be the best place to start. I have always used the egg for all my computer needs but I feel that I didnt do the best planing on my own budget when I built mine, so any help will be greatly appreciated.

[gvblake22]

Well, our recommended hardware lists are always a good place to start.

Beyond that, if you are simply concerned with prices, then an AMD AM2 system might be worth taking a look at seeing as the only things available from Intel that outperform those chips all cost more.

Please give us a little more information as to the primary/projected useage of this machine so we can pick parts accordingly

[coshkara]

Well she doesnt game much as her old pc dont have a chance to but she would like that option if possible. Her kids are also geting older now and more interested in them, but she mainly uses her pc for her buisness and she wants to run vista.

[gvblake22]

Do you need any extra peripherals like a monitor, speakers, mouse, etc? Do you need your own copy of Vista or any other software that must be purchased that needs to be included in this cost?

[coshkara]

Need vista, asside from that just the case components and a case.

[gvblake22]

Which version of Vista do you prefer? Do you want retail or OEM?

[coshkara]

Is there any difference in home premium oem and retail?

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by coshkara

Is there any difference in home premium oem and retail?

The Retail version actually has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions on the DVD while the OEM is only 32-bit (or 64-bit if you get that one). Plus some people like having the retail box with the little instruction book and whatnot

[coshkara]

OEM 32 bit is fine since that is what I am runing and have the box and book from mine.

[gvblake22]

Antec SONATA II with 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 PSU ~ $100 (-$30 mail-in-rebate)

GIGABYTE GA-M61PM-S2 AM2 motherboard ~ $70

AMD Athlon64 3800 X2 (65W) ~ $92

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 ~ $60

EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT ~ $110 (-$10 mail-in-rebate)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB hard drive ~ $70

SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write ~ $30

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit OEM ~ $120
__________________________________
Total is about $652 (+ shipping, which will bring you to about $700)
- $40 of mail-in-rebates


I only have one stick of 1GB DDR2-667 because it will make it very easy to add another 1GB stick later on if you decide you want to... If you want to save some more money, you could drop down to a low priced 7600GS instead of the 7600GT. I would have put that in there but Newegg's site wasn't cooperating right now...