New Build Suggestions

[smith04]

I am thinking of building a new PC for my daughter. She will use it mainly to surf the net, lots of IM, playing music, ripping CDs. An occasional letter in Word. She plays the guitar, so may get into a little sound recording and sound editing, but not on a professional level.

My price range including a monitor is in the $700 range.

Any suggestions?

smith04

[saphalline]

None of those activities are very demanding, which is good because your budget is the most limiting factor. At $700 w/monitor, you're looking at a Celeron D or Sempron 64 almost exclusively, perhaps even with only 512MB of RAM. Do you have any errant components laying around that you can use?

[smith04]

I have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, a floppy drive, a DVD writer that I could use. I have Win XP I can put on it.

But I would like to change to a 17" flat panel monitor.

What if I went up to $900 or even $1,000?

smith04

[saphalline]

The keyboard, mouse, floppy drive, and optical drive help a bit. Not the most expensive parts, but they help. However, having a copy of Windows helps a lot! ;) WinXP ain't cheap, especially on such a low budget.

You should be able to fit a decent system into your original $700 limit (including a 17" LCD monitor) without dire constraints. I'd still recommend keeping the CPU low in order to afford adequate components elsewhere, but this is not a huge deal since the latest Celeron D's and Sempron 64's are still more than capable of handling most tasks. This will allow you to invest in more RAM (1GB minimum these days), a decent-sized hard drive (320GB SATA 300 is under $100 these days), and a good chipset with onboard video and future upgrade potential (the iG965 kicks @$$ with its GMA X3000!).

Do you have a preference for either Intel or AMD?

[smith04]

I really don't have much of a preference. My last two have been AMD.

smith04

[saphalline]

Sorry for taking so long. I've had precious little time lately for new configs. Off-hand, here's what I'm thinking for core components:

CPU - $59 - Celeron D 356 Cedar Mill 3.33GHz retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819112213)
Mobo - $115 - Intel BOXDG965RYCK retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121048)
RAM - $60 - Kingston ValueRAM 1GB kit DDR2-667 retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144199)
HDD - $85 - Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATA/300 w/PRC OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148140)
PSU - $75 - Enermax EG465P-VE FMA 2.2 460W retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194011)

Total = $394, not including shipping. I left out the case for now since they're so dependent on personal preference, space constraints, future expansion, etc. Even so, add a case and a 17" LCD monitor of your choice, and you should still be well within your initial budget.

One extra thing to consider, however, is a dedicated sound card for sound recording. You could toss that up to a future upgrade, but I'm going to warn you now that any onboard audio is not really up to the task of sound recording, even if it just casual. Onboard audio is fine for playback, but not recording. And the best sound recording software in the world can't make up for limited hardware support, so think about that carefully.

[DesiMaster]

As a teenage guy, I know that if my computer couldnt handle the stuff i do, I would be very angry.(casual gaming, editing, Home theater, Amp for my guitar :D)

Here is my suggestion:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144016(she will need the storage after a year or 2 of heavy media use)
$135

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138051Great 2 in 1! i would love that!
$157 (includes shipping)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116238Nice and current

$136

memory *idk* ~$70 (1 gig)

sound card *idk* ~$40-50

Case *your choice* ~$10-100

i didn't have time to finish my search but that is my estimate on what things will cost... good luck!