New Computer For My Daughter

[MVC]

OK, nice and simple. My older daughter (a junior at UCLA this coming fall) has "stolen" a computer from me every August for the last couple of years so this time I figured I'd build one for her to "steal" in advance rather than have her walk off with one I'm actually using :bang head . So, I've seen good deals on both 5xx series P4s and Clawhammer Athlon 64s and a few other chips, but what is the best deal right now and which will give her better resale value a year from now when she "steals" a new one from me and sells the old one?

I'm posting in this forum mainly because I already have a case in mind to put her new machine in (v1200) and I've got a good idea of which PSU and GPU I'd like to use (OCZ Powerstream 520 and a 6800GT, whatever brand I can get a good deal on) and I just closed on a Raptor for her "C" drive and I've got a couple spare data drives so that isn't a problem, but I really don't have a firm opinon on what chip (or motherboard) to use. Any ideas? Keep in mind that whatever she gets from selling this thing next year is a good chunk of her spending money until Christmas so I want a chip that'll hold at least a good portion of its resale value, at least among college students who can be persuaded to buy by a pretty blonde who can discuss water cooling :).

Thanks,
Mark

[maxio098ui]

and what kind of money are you wanting to spend

[Goshawk]

Thats the probelm with building a a rig, typically you going to get perhaps 25-30% of your expenses back from resale, it''s just how the computer market is right now. Bought a toshiba laptop a while ago for 1500, had it a year, and sold it for 500, it would never sell on ebay.


~ Gos

[WarriorII]

How about a nice AMD S754 sytem?

[Lunar_Lamp]

Surely s754 would depreciate faster than s939?

[WarriorII]

754 would give him several choices right now, & be a inexpensive one to build.

(lots more 754 mobos than 939's right now) $$

And depending on the cpu he picks, the speed would hold for a few years.
$ per performance is something to look at.

It's just a recomendation. something to think about.

S754
6600GT
a Gig of decent ram

Heck, I'd like one of those. :D

[kayson]

Computer hardware depreciates ridiculously fast. Even after only a year, you're not gonna get much money back. I wouldn't worry too much about how much you'll get back, especially with all of the new technology coming out. On that note, a 754 system would be a good choice. You could also get a cheap celeron. Socket 478 has a lot of options for motherboards as well.

Edit: A 6800gt is overkill. You would be perfectly fine with a 6600. It will be cheaper, it should hold its value about the same, and the performance is pretty close. Unless your daughter is a hardcore gamer, I advise staying away from a 6800gt.

[WarriorII]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16819103535

s939 setup

A64 Socket 939 3200+ "Venice" core
DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR mobo
OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 1GB (512 x 2) PC3200 RAM
ATi Radeon X800XL video card
Forton BlueStorm 500W power supply
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 RPM 160GB SATA150 hard drive

I won't take credit for putting that info together, termin@tor from the OCS forums (http://www.ocs-overclockers.org/forums/index.php?) did,

but I'd thought I'd pass it along. :)

Heck ! I thought 939's were more expensive that that!

-change out the vid card for a 6600gt.
-change out the HHD for something useable - maybe an 80 gig for her.
-change out memory for something cheaper.

Have fun decieding.
:cool:

[willkill1337]

I doubt that she would need the SLI mobo, the Ultra D would do fine. Will this rig be overclocked because I don't see much of a point buying a DFI mobo if you are going to run at stock.