- Joined
- Apr 26, 2012
- Location
- New York, USA
So, for a late mother's day present, I'm going to build my girlfriend a computer. Right now, she's using a 6+ year old laptop with a centrino and 2GB ram. She has a bunch of stuff on it she doesn't want to lose, and never backs up, so a simple reformat is out of the question. It's slow, and it's time. Budget is around $550, sans OS.
So, I've got these parts picked out. None of it is top of the line, and it doesn't need to be. It needs to be small and pretty, while still being able to do what she wants. This should more than accomplish that:
Raidmax Element in Pink
ASRock H81M-ITX
A refurbished MSI 650 - Only because she might want to play L4D.
Corsair CX430
Pentium G3420
250GB 850 EVO
G.Skill NS 2x4GB 1333 CL9
Pink Butterfly Mouse mat
Pink flowery keyboard
Pink flowery mouse
Windows 7 via her stepdad who has a few unused keys from client PCs that were unworking donations. She'll upgrade to 10, so it doesn't really matter anyway.
I have my old HP 1080p monitor that she'll use, but eventually may upgrade her to a touch screen.
Not the gaming beast that I'm typing this on, but more than functional for web browsing, email, office stuff and maybe Left 4 Dead. I checked minimum specs, and everything meets or exceeds them. The only thing I'm a little iffy on is the motherboard. She won't be overclocking, and the CPU is on the list for all bios versions, so there won't be any compatibility issues there, I'm more concerned about quality. If anyone has a better board (must be ITX) at a similar price, please let me know.
Otherwise, what do you guys think? I'm not against APU builds, but I don't think that for the price, this can be beat. Am I right?
So, I've got these parts picked out. None of it is top of the line, and it doesn't need to be. It needs to be small and pretty, while still being able to do what she wants. This should more than accomplish that:
Raidmax Element in Pink
ASRock H81M-ITX
A refurbished MSI 650 - Only because she might want to play L4D.
Corsair CX430
Pentium G3420
250GB 850 EVO
G.Skill NS 2x4GB 1333 CL9
Pink Butterfly Mouse mat
Pink flowery keyboard
Pink flowery mouse
Windows 7 via her stepdad who has a few unused keys from client PCs that were unworking donations. She'll upgrade to 10, so it doesn't really matter anyway.
I have my old HP 1080p monitor that she'll use, but eventually may upgrade her to a touch screen.
Not the gaming beast that I'm typing this on, but more than functional for web browsing, email, office stuff and maybe Left 4 Dead. I checked minimum specs, and everything meets or exceeds them. The only thing I'm a little iffy on is the motherboard. She won't be overclocking, and the CPU is on the list for all bios versions, so there won't be any compatibility issues there, I'm more concerned about quality. If anyone has a better board (must be ITX) at a similar price, please let me know.
Otherwise, what do you guys think? I'm not against APU builds, but I don't think that for the price, this can be beat. Am I right?