New System For Father - Suggestions/Help?

Hi guys!


I'm looking at building my father a new computer. He's in his 50's and obviously doesn't do any gaming and he doesn't really use his computer for much other then email and internet use, business, scanner, printer, documents, etc.

For these reason I'm going for budget. Cheap cheap cheap. But I'm also going for quality and speed. I want Vista to run as smooth as possible, and want his system to have reliable parts and stability.

I'm new at building computers. I just built myself a sweet gaming rig, so my knowledge mostly pertains to the most powerful parts, I don't know much about low end quality budget parts.

If any of you guys can give me suggestions as too good parts (mobo, RAM, Video (integrated?), cpu (I heard Intel is best but does he need Intel? Is it better for speed and reliability? Or is AMD just as fine?) or a ideally a complete build that would suffice I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Budget -$500 ideally around $300

Note there is a thread already running about a sub $400 system and that includes a discrete graphics card, take that out and then you'll end up at just over $300. Check the spec's against dell and other offerings.