New system suggestion

[SaiyaJin]

Hi, I'm building a system for my sister soon and I need some help with choosing the stuff.
First, it has to be small, either the sff cubes or maybe a microATX solution I guess it'll work.

I don't care if its Intel or AMD, ATI or nVidia, but it has to have a good value, and i'm not looking for killer performance but it shouldn't be a piece of crap either.
Since at the moment my budget is ridiculously tight, the computer itself should be up to $500 (no monitor). Yea I know but I can't help it. The computer will be mostly used for Internet, probably dvd viewing/burning, and light video editing (mostly transferring video from a camera to a dvd). I guess an integrated video solution is fine for its purpose and it would save me the video card cost.

So, any suggestions? Is it even possible with that budget?

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[lonelypauly]

Based on what it's going to be used for, 500 bucks will buy you plenty of computer, provided you do a micro-atx setup instead of going SFF, although you might be able to squeek by on 500 bucks, maybe. I would suggest looking at AMD 64 bit mobos, socket 939 if you can afford it, if not socket 754. Check out Newegg and ZipZoomFly online. Memory is dirt cheap right now, dvd burners are cheap too. If you wanna go really small, check out <A HREF="http://www.mini-itx.com/" target="_new">http://www.mini-itx.com/</A> but that will be as much as the SFF stuff, if not more.

<b><font color=blue>Athlon64 3200+ Winchester/MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI/MSI 6800 Ultra/1 GB Kingston HyperX (Dual Channel)/74GB WD Raptor/600Watt Enermax Noisetaker/ Dual Mitsubishi 21 Inch Monitors</b></font color=blue>

 

[dunklegend]

Motherboard <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135191" target="_new">$80.99</A>
Processor <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537" target="_new">$153.99</A>
Memory <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820156020" target="_new">$73.55</A>
DVD Burner <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152035" target="_new">$46.00</A>
HD <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144126" target="_new">$56.00</A>
This is around $400 before shipping you just need a case and a power supply. It can be done but you might go a little over budget.

Nothing is as easy as it looks

 

[SaiyaJin]

Cool, thanks. If I do go with socket 754, is the sis chipset any good, I know it's not an nforce but if it works good then I'll probably get one of those and a Sempron.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[dunklegend]

Socket 939 is a little bit better because of the dual channel memory and the ability to upgrade to double core in the future, but S754 works good also. I had a s754 via chipset and it was OK. I don't know how good the sis chipset is right now, so I rather not comment on that.

Nothing is as easy as it looks

 

[fishmahn]

SIS chipsets a generally quite good. Unfortunately for SIS they get stuck in the budget boards, so they never get that 'good press' that the other chipsets get.

Mike.

 

[endyen]

Sis chipsets are very nice. It's the features on the mobo that suck. Go with sis, and get savage integrated graphics? No thankyou.

 

[lonelypauly]

If she's not gaming it could be ok right? What about dvd viewing?

<b><font color=blue>Athlon64 3200+ Winchester/MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI/MSI 6800 Ultra/1 GB Kingston HyperX (Dual Channel)/74GB WD Raptor/600Watt Enermax Noisetaker/ Dual Mitsubishi 21 Inch Monitors</b></font color=blue>