A budget HP from the year of 2003. AMD Athlon XP 3000+ @ 2.1 GHz single core 1.5 GB RAM, upgraded from 512 MB. 160 GB HDD Windows XP S3 Unichrome Graphics. :shock: Yep, they need a new one. None of my family (except me) use the computer for 3D intensive programs, so here's the specs I have planned. (This will be my first time actually building a computer) AMD Athlon x4 (a little future proofing via quad-core) 4 GB DDR3 RAM 2 TB HDD AMD graphics chipset(I won't be using this comp myself) Windows 7 Home My dad is the impatient, computer illiterate person, (not a good combo) so I am trying to shoot for something that can take some abuse and still be fast. I figured a quad core will still perform well even if my parents download a bunch of resource hogging programs.
Looks good enough. Buy a semi-decent power unit and that system should last for a while. One thing you could do is to get 2 TB HDDs instead of one 2TB and make regular backups from the system. Your parents probably wont need that much HD space anyway.
You write "AMD graphics chipset". From that I get you want an onboard GPU but you probably mean an AMD graphics card right? If that's the case may I recommend an Sapphire HD 5770? Pretty good card (not the newest one though) and isn't very expensive (115 for me with shipping). Or you buy a 6850 which costs a little bit more (145 with shipping) but is newer. And buy RAM in a kit (not two different sticks). Don't forget to take a 64-bit Windows and other than that you're pretty much fine with that setup. One thing though: Be careful with the mainboard . Had a lot of people complain that their CPU is not fitting because they just bought one without checking if their mainboard actually has the socket for it (you need a mainboard which supports an AM3 CPU).
I meant the AMD onboard graphics. Like I said, my parents don't play games, and I myself won't be using it. 2 TB HDD are dirt cheap nowadays, so why not. Otherwise, I'll probably get the slightly faster 500 GB HDD. As for the Mobo, I'll probably decide on the CPU first, then look at the compatible boards.
