Planning a system upgrade for my grandpa

[PinkJazzX]

I am planning to do a system upgrade for my grandpa for he can use Windows 7. He doesn't care much about performance, so I thought I could share some information.

Currently, he runs a Pentium 4 3.0HT Northwood system with a Gigabyte 8IG-MK motherboard, and 1 GB of DDR memory.

Here is what I am planning to get him:
■Biostar N68S3+ Socket AM3 motherboard
■AMD Athlon II x2 245 CPU
■2GB DDR3 memory
■LiteOn IHAS224 DVD+/-RW drive

For the power supply, I will give him my spare Antec Basiq 350W (since the PSU he has now doesn't support SATA or the latest ATX standard). I don't remember what is his HDD capacity, however, should he need more capacity for the Windows 7 installation, I can give him my Western Digital 160GB 7200 RPM PATA drive, which I don't really need anymore.

This should cost less than $150, however, does anyone have any suggestions? I don't want to pay too much money.

As a possibilty, I am also considering the Sempron 140 to save some money. How does it compare to the 3.0 GHz P4? Both are single core, but the P4 has HyperThreading. Still, the Sempron 140 is much newer and uses a newer architecture (K10 vs. NetBurst).

 

[addison]

The specs are fine, semperon is HORRIBLE because if he watches videos and such the cpu just mihgt over heat from that! So the altoh x2 is a much better choice get it at 2.9 super fast a 3 gigs of ram is decent today. Also a good case in which I love is the Ultra X Blaster.

 

[PinkJazzX]

The specs are fine, semperon is HORRIBLE because if he watches videos and such the cpu just mihgt over heat from that! So the altoh x2 is a much better choice get it at 2.9 super fast a 3 gigs of ram is decent today. Also a good case in which I love is the Ultra X Blaster.

He has no need for a new case, his existing case will do just fine.

 

[striker410]

It all looks good, although you might consider a dedicated graphics card, something cheap like the 5450. It will give him much better performance for as little as $20 more.

 

[Subidoo]

Your first build looks like it would be just perfect for the everyday net use. You could even step it up and give him 4GB of memory considering it's not very expensive.

•Biostar N68S3+ Socket AM3 motherboard
•AMD Athlon II x2 245 CPU
•2GB DDR3 memory
•LiteOn IHAS224 DVD+/-RW drive

 

[PinkJazzX]

Your first build looks like it would be just perfect for the everyday net use. You could even step it up and give him 4GB of memory considering it's not very expensive.

•Biostar N68S3+ Socket AM3 motherboard
•AMD Athlon II x2 245 CPU
•2GB DDR3 memory
•LiteOn IHAS224 DVD+/-RW drive

Thanks. Also, to save a little money, I was thinking of instead of buying the retail version of the CPU (normally priced $70-$80), I could buy the OEM version for $49 and add a Cooler Master heatsink for $11, thus saving me $10-$20. Is that a good idea?

 

[Subidoo]

If you don't care for the Warranty, OEM and a heatsink should work just fine.

 

[PinkJazzX]

Actually, on NewEgg, I found a Biostar N68S3/AMD Athlon II x2 250 combo for $85. Since it is a long time until Christmas though, perhaps a better deal might come up by that time.

 

[Subidoo]

Yea Newegg will always have great deals popping up every now and than, got to just check it on a daily basis. But that's not a Bad combo.

 

[thrule01]

Good stuff. Could add some more ram if you wanted or came across good deal but other than that should be ample for him.