Refurbished are systems that somene sent back for whatever reason, or something that was on display in a store. Every computer I have owned up to building my own have been refurbished. IMO they are better then new. A new one goes through an assembly line and gets assembled by machines. Refurbed has a skilled technician check each individual part.
The Hard Drive is wiped and a fresh OS is installed.
Seriously I hope you reconsider building it, its not as difficult as you may think....
8600GT 512MB
AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
Rosewill Stallion 400W PSU
A-DATA 2gb(2x 1GB)
CoolerMASTER Centurion Case
WD 320GB HDD
Biostar Motherboard
ACER 17IN Widescreen LCD
Vista or XP 100$
Comes out to be 700 and 570 without the monitor.
Seriously think about it this rig will blow those others away for the most part.
This isn't better then the Gateway. Intel 2.0 core2 vs. AMD x2 2.0? Come on. 500g HD vs 320 come on. And an 8600 GT, for 60 more dollars you could get a 3850 with waaaaaaaaay better graphics. I already offered him a custom build with a core2duo at 3.0, 2g of ram, 500g HDD, and a 3850 for $650.00
Enlist the help of a friend, or your parents and build one together. You will all have a great time, and you will learn a lot about PC's in the process!
Message edited by jitpublisher on 12-16-2007 at 07:06:45 PM