Building in-expensive computer

[Elemennop]

To start: One of my parent's computer, a Dell, is getting to be over five years old now, and they'd really like a new computer. I've been thinking about building it for them; They're going to keep using the same monitor (17" LCD), but the rest will probably be upgraded. It's mostly for my mother, and she mostly posts on internet, uses basic windows programs, and is a really big picture person/photoshopper, as she has over 25GB of digital pictures alone right now (basically, she doesn't game so not gaming oriented comp). At the moment, I'm thinking of building something along these lines:

Cheaper nforce3 mobo
one of the mid performance Athlon XP or Semprons
1gig value select Corsair RAM
Antec BQE case
Seagate or Samsung 120 or 160GB SATA HDD
Cheap chaintech 7.1 soundcard
Basic $10 Floppy drive

Now I'm unsure of a few things: First of all, what type of video card should I get? I'm thinking of getting a $70ish AGP card. Also, I'll probably get a DVD burner; should I just go all out and get something like the NEC 3500A, or should I get a cheaper one? Also, their current sound system is crapping out, so I'll probably get a new one; they don't use it much, but I'd like a cheaper 2.0 or 2.1 speaker system.

So, suggestions?

 

[nick1985]

PRICES INCLUDE SHIPPING

Case $96

DVD-RW $58.50

Hard Drive $100

Floppy $10.50

RAM $120 (Price reflects $10 mail in rebate)

Motherboard $77

CPU $120

Speakers $34

Video Card $45

Grand Total: $661

My question is, is a sound card really needed? From what you say this computer will be used for, it doesnt sound like it.

 

[swatoke]

I have built one Athlon XP 1800 system it was a good performer at the time, no experience with Semprons so your choice. I would go with 512mb ram I don't think she needs a gig unless she is doing lots of photo editing. I would not buy a sound card most onboard sound is pretty good. For what your mom will be doing I would buy an IDE hard drive not sata, it is cheaper. I just bought a NEC 3520a great burner no problems at all.

 

[Elemennop]

Alright, cool. I guess I'll go with an XP--The SATA/IDE difference in $$ isn't that much and I personally prefer SATA, but I'll think about it.

She also has a tendancy to have several photo-editing programs open and in use, so she just might be using 1 gig of RAM. I'll see what I have left afterwards in terms of budget and balance it out then.