Building a budget PC with older parts

[HCAIT]

I'm trying to build a low-budget PC for a friend. I received a few parts from a while back and wondered what kind of short term PC I could build him.

Here are the parts I have:

AMD Athlon 64 x2 2.7GHz Cpu
MSI K9N SLi V2 Motherboard
2 Gb of DDR 2 800 RAM
160 Gb Hard Drive (with Windows XP)
XFX Radeon 6870 GPU (my contribution)

I would like to upgrade the RAM and get him a new HDD and case for now, with the plan to upgrade the motherboard, RAM, and CPU all together in a year or two. Also, Windows 7 wouldn't hurt, since it would mostly be used for games like Skyrim.

Does this seem like enough for a start. I have the total cost of startup for him around $200-300, depending on what he wants to upgrade most.

 

[jerreddredd]

upgrading the Ram would be a waste of money. DDR2 isn't used anymore any new MB will need DDR3. XP runs fine on 2gb
the CPU and MB are really old and not very powerful so I wouldn't expect much gaming wise.
Win7 is $100 for the OEM version and is only good for 1 install regular version of win 7 is $159 (on Amazon)

I would get a good case, PSU, DVD for now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146075
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136247

then when he gets some more money look to upgrade the CPU,MB,RAM, HDD and install Win7.

budget system wise i would go with:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1029183
and whatever 500gb 7200rpm drive that you can find on sale (WD,Samsung,Seagate)


So for about $350 and your H 6870 and win 7 he culd have a good budget gamer.

 

[HCAIT]

upgrading the Ram would be a waste of money. DDR2 isn't used anymore any new MB will need DDR3. XP runs fine on 2gb
the CPU and MB are really old and not very powerful so I wouldn't expect much gaming wise.
Win7 is $100 for the OEM version and is only good for 1 install regular version of win 7 is $159 (on Amazon)

I forgot to mention that I have a DVD drive that I got for free as well, so thanks for reminding me! As far as Windows 7 goes, I am pretty sure that I have my disk lying around .

Here is the PSU I looked at. It costs a little less, and is within the requirements for the load on the system. Plus it's $15 cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371045

I like the recommendation for a $160-170 motherboard/RAM/CPU upgrade ASAP.

 

[HCAIT]

Best answer selected by HCAIT.

 

[jerreddredd]

I forgot to mention that I have a DVD drive that I got for free as well, so thanks for reminding me! As far as Windows 7 goes, I am pretty sure that I have my disk lying around .

Here is the PSU I looked at. It costs a little less, and is within the requirements for the load on the system. Plus it's $15 cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371045

I like the recommendation for a $160-170 motherboard/RAM/CPU upgrade ASAP.

I usually only recommend 80+ cert PSU's and I want to be sure it had 2xPCIe connectors on it. you can use a molex to PCIe that comes with the HD 6870 though.

there is nothing wrong with the VP 450 though.

you still need a copy of win7 (you can't have it on 2 machines at the same time) though and OEM version can be reused if you have to replace the MB in a machine.