Hello good people of gamespot, I want to build new PC for my father, nothing fancy he uses it for net/skype and some times games like

Company of Heroes.

the things I want to get are

MoBo

CPU

GPU

RAM

what should I buy ? I want to spend around 200-250$ and will buy from newegg.com.

I already have case, cpu and hdd and dvdroms

I was thinking to build it around

Celeron E3400 Wolfdale 2.6GHz LGA 775

here is the link.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116348

any ideas ? I mena can you provide some links to that build/upgrades please

and I thought it would have been good upgrade from what he had..

AMD Athlon 3000 2.1 GHz .. lol

its not like he will use it for something crazy or any future upgrades..

Keep in mind that your windows key is tied to the old motherboard. If you change that out, you are going to need another windows activation key.

A dual core sb makes a lot of sense for a "dad PC".

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128527

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116398

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139659

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102935

That's motherboard, cpu, memory and gfx for 250$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.777501---------> mobo and cpu

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396 ---->ram

there you go, you can use the onboard graphics which is good enough for your dad, and buy something later on

Total comes to $250

@ superclocked : hmm but where will I plug 2x DVD roms then ? or you think i can plug HDD and DVD rom on same port? @blaznwiipspman1 : there is even no onboard video card on that MoBo sorry. and the PC must have be able to run game Company of Heroes ...maximus_2

the integrated graphics on the i3 2100 is actually built into the cpu. Also take a look at the motherboard carefully, it has a vga port and a dvi port, so yes it has integrated graphics. Company of heroes doesn't need much in terms of graphics power. Main reason why im recommending this setup is because it has future compatability for ivy bridge processors. You could go for the phenom II build but its a dead end motherboard...

its your choice in the end, both setups will be fine for your father.

what about this parts.. ? Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive ZOTAC ZT-95TEK2M-FSL GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNS BIOSTAR H61MGC LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Celeron G530 Sandy Bridge 2.4GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80623G530 the total price on all ended up 277$ with S&H a bit over of what I expected..maximus_2

9500gt is a big no, unless you already have it (would run COH just fine, tho). I'm not even sure if it's faster than the IGP on that perocessor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131783

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116399

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396

There you go. A little under $200. That motherboard has 1 ATA133 connector (enough for a HDD and a DVD drive). It's also compatible with the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs, so it can be put to good use if you decide to upgrade in a few years. And if he's not happy with the integrated graphics you can always add a dedicated gfx card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131783

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116399

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396

There you go. A little under $200. That motherboard has 1 ATA133 connector (enough for a HDD and a DVD drive). It's also compatible with the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs, so it can be put to good use if you decide to upgrade in a few years. And if he's not happy with the integrated graphics you can always add a dedicated gfx card.

gamerns

id replace the h67 mobo with a z68 one. That way he can still overclock cpu's as well. You can't do that with h67.

@ superclocked : hmm but where will I plug 2x drives then ? or you think i can plug HDD and DVD rom on same port? and the PC must have be able to run game Company of Heroes ...maximus_2

another good build idea is one centering around the llano a8. Its a quad core cpu with graphics at least 2 times more powerful than intels integrated graphics.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103994

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138336

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396

$200 for a quad core processor, 4gb of ram, a really good graphics card, a motherboard. Doesn't need that much of a power supply either. Make sure you enter the promo codes. Also you will need a heatsink and fan. So around $220 for everything.

[QUOTE="maximus_2"]@ superclocked : hmm but where will I plug 2x drives then ? or you think i can plug HDD and DVD rom on same port? and the PC must have be able to run game Company of Heroes ...superclocked

I'm not sure if this is the case with all motherboards, but with my last system, I noticed that I would get horrendous HDD speeds when I had a ODD and HDD on a single IDE ribbon, even if the ODD was not being accessed.

[QUOTE="superclocked"][QUOTE="maximus_2"]@ superclocked : hmm but where will I plug 2x drives then ? or you think i can plug HDD and DVD rom on same port? and the PC must have be able to run game Company of Heroes ...GS550L

I'm not sure if this is the case with all motherboards, but with my last system, I noticed that I would get horrendous HDD speeds when I had a ODD and HDD on a single IDE ribbon, even if the ODD was not being accessed.