Building a (non-gamer) PC for my Mum... Thoughts?

I can't provide you with all links because I can't figure out what currency you're using.

However, consider building an mITX system for this. You can get really small cases. Some of the Lian Li cases are really nice.

Obviously you'll need a mITX motherboard and CPU. I'd suggest going for a Sandy Bridge (socket 1155) board with an i3 CPU. This will last years if all you are doing is doing general browsing and word processing.

"Smaller than a mid tower " is a big range

Have a look on Newegg for mini-ITX cases. Some have included power supplies . 200 watt should be plenty .

Then a motherboard with a H61 or H67 chipset + an intel i3 2100 processor because its very low power drain and integrated graphics

4 gig of 1333 Mhz ram

and a WD green hard drive [ if she cares about noise ]

and a dvd drive to suit the case

us dollars lol. thanks for the mobo advice! should i stick with 64bit W7?

I agree. H61/H67 and a i3-2100 would be a great, fast, and efficient choice.

You can build a reasonable PC for as cheap as about $350, and I consider it reasonable if it has at least a dual core processor with a good clock rate and 4GB of ram. The non-gaming home user doesn't need much hard drive space and only needs the minimum GPU. You can buy a PC from a big retailer for about what you can build one for, if you already have the OS. The manufacturers get a real good deal on the OS, but OTOH they use real cheap components in the PC. I was checking recently for my dad and discovered that you could buy a complete PC as cheap as $300, but it have a slow processor and very little ram. To get a decent processor and 4GB of ram took $400 or more. You could build the equivalent PC for $350-400, with better components, but then you would have to pay for the OS.

Or you could try an AMD Athlon 2 X2 or X3 build if you want to go AMD, and maybe 2-3GB of RAM

I got the build that is so funny, only took me like 10 minutes to find them XD.... but it's bang for the buck LOL... It's a total of $608 but only over by a little bit XD... Well, take a look:

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

MoBo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Case & PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

VideoCard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Slight overkill there LegendKiller . Im sure her emails would open 0.001 of a micro second faster but having the case melt to do it might not be a wise choice ... and does the gfx card actually fit , or is the case half height ???

Another possibility :

My original build but ditch the cpu and motherboard for

SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350 AMD E-350 APU $99 with rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

With the rest of the build I suggested its $400 .

and if you go with LegendKillers case [ which I like the look of ] then the price drops even further

^^ I agree with outlander. I might get an 880g board (if they make them in mini ITX) and an Athlon II x2 though. Little more horsepower for the money.

Best answer selected by splittrain.

Thanks guys for all your help and suggestions!you guys are what make this forum the BEST