I'm looking to build my mother a new computer. She currently has a 5 year old dell pentium 4, 512 ram; very basic. Thus I'm looking to create one with a budget near $500 that can last the next 5 years yet at the same time doesn't need to be a gaming rig. She's a real estate agent, so she mostly multi-tasks office tools, internet browsers, photoshop, image files, etc. I'd like to make it windows 7 friendly; I have a 64-bit version, but I realize her scanners/printers are a few years old, so I'm not sure if we'll be forced to use the 32-bit.

What I came up with so far:

CPU: INtel Core 2 Due E8400
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P.....6819115037

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45 LGA 775
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P.....6813128372

PSU: Corsair 550w
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P.....6817139004

Memory: Corsair XMS2 4g (2x2g) 1066
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P.....6820145247

HDD: WD Black 640GB 32mb cache
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P.....6822136319

Case: Antec 300
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P.....6811129066

I tried to keep everything 64-bit friendly, but this set-up will run over $600 and I still need to choose a video card (any suggestions?). I looked at other CPUs, I contemplated getting a Core Quad, but for the price increase I don't know if its all that beneficial for her. Otherwise, should I downgrade the current choice to maybe a Core2 Due E7500?

In the end, I don't want to sacrifice quality just to save a few dollars, and then have to reinvest a year or two later hehe.

Cheers,
Flo

@LH: She has a Dell Dimensions 3000 with an Intel pentium 4, 2.8 Ghz. I contemplated maybe upgrading her current system from Dell's mobo, but I remember reading (when a built my gaming rig) Dell's systems are quite unique and thus make it impractical to adjust.

Otherwise, Dell has an Inspiron I managed to customize with the exact stats as above except the ram being slower (800 instead of 1066) and only 320GB HDD and an integrated videocard for only $650 all included (with windows 7 64-bit). However, again, having read Dells are hard to upgrade has me wondering if it's worth the savings 3 years down the road.

Cheers,
Flo

I would get 2 smaller HDD's rather than 1 big one. That's usually more practical - also for seperating system and data. Ideally the OS disk would be an SSD, but that is a $200 hit on the budget. Other than that, I prefer Antec PSU's.

@whs: she currently has an 80gb HDD in her PC. I would use this for her OS. I simply chose the corsair because it's what I have and had no problems, so I will look at antec PSU - thx :)

@mickeyblue: thx for the CPU & GPU suggestions. I simply checked out a cheaper case with good reviews. I have the antec 900 and no problems so far, while (at least on newegg.ca) alot of cases have overall positive feedback, I noticed there were significant negative ones as well on cheaper models. Would you have a specific one in mind?

As for the bigger HDD, she needs to store alot of images (she has well over 50gb just for this year's work) and when I checked prices for 160/320/500/640 HDD, for $80 I figured might as well use a 640 for her main PC storage.

I'll look into everything a bit more with this new advice. Thx again everyone :)

-Flo