i quickly put together some parts for my dad, he is really wanting to upgrade from his pII 350mhz, lol.

and he definatly wants this to last, probably for another 8 years, thats how old his current comp is.

cpu:

celeron 420 - 44$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819116040

ram:

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB - 50$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145015

or

G.SKILL 2GB - 55$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231098

mobo: ??

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L - 95$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128059

psu:

ENERMAX Liberty ELT400AWT - 90$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817194002

or

CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX - 65$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817139003

case:

Antec Solo - 80$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811129018

video:

EVGA 256-P2-N753-TR - 80$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130297

Corsair for both the memory and PSU.

Does your dad play games? If not, the 8600GT is completely overkill. You could alternatively find a motherboard with onboard video. For example, the Intel X3100 graphics accelerator (the GPU that comes with the G33 chipset) is plenty to run Aero on Vista. There aren't really too many other situations (aside from gaming and CAD tools) where a dedicated graphics card is needed.

well 80$ for that vid card is a good deal, even tho it prolly is overkill. i could possible see him playing nhl08 and tiger woods 08.

i do still need to decided about the video. what are some good choices on mothergoards that have good integrated video, is X3100 the best?

Nice setup, the only thing I would throw in is a simple E2140, just 30 US$ more...

What about the DVD-RW and HDD?

he already has a dvd combo drive, so he can at least burn cds, which he doesnt even know how to do..

and i already have an 80gb hdd sitting around from my other comp.

and i suppose i will go for that allendale, dual core is definatly better for only 30$ more

now what about mobo with integrated graphics?

Edited November 21, 200718 yr by ripken204

Definitely go for the dual-core. Dual-core is going to be faster and better at multi-tasking.

As for the graphics... I have Intel GMA on my laptop and it works fine for what I do. However, I don't use it for gaming or CAD, and I don't use vista, although it does fine with 3rd party eye candy for XP. The x3100 is actually pretty sweet for integrated graphics. It supports DX10 and 384 Mb of graphics memory. It might be worth looking in to.

im most likely going to go with the 8600gt. for that price it is amazing.

Indeed, we are talking here about a 95US$ mobo + a 80US$ VGA card, so that’s just 40US$ more then integrated graphics when we look at the same kind of quality of motherboard... Also it will support DX10 at this moment + OpenGL 2.0 witch will come in handy for CAD apps . A big plus too is dual Monitor support and DVI, although there are G33 mobos that have DVI on board...