[krott5333]

First off ..shes paying for the parts.(im not that generous!). free labor though
Its just for basic stuff, she doesnt do anything real instensive. Office, Internet, etc etc.

AMD T-bird 960 Mhz
30 Gb Maxtor 5400 RPM
32 MB Radeon
K7S5A (going to use integrated sound)
128 Kingston Valueram SDRAM
Sony Floppy
Artec CDROM
Foxconn mid ATX case w/ 300w PSU
XP Pro

Does all that sound good for the need?

Thanks

[BuccKevin]

Sounds pretty good for basic stuff. You can even go a little lower for the basic stuff.

[AMD-Inside]

punch the ram upto 256
just my 2 cents

[chrismacan]

Originally posted by AMD-Inside
punch the ram upto 256
just my 2 cents

You have to have 256meg RAM with windows today.

It is an absolute requirement. My wife's rig has 256meg and she has no problems. With only 128meg windows gets very sluggish at times.

The extra ram costs only about 40$ more and is well worth the difference. It makes it easy to run a real time virus scanner and firewall without slowing windows down.

I have built at least 30 computers in the last 6 months and all of them have at least 256meg ram. I won't sell a computer to a client if they wont take 256meg ram. The phone calls I use to get about the system being slow drove me crazy and cost me lots of time.

[Penguin4x4]

No less than 384MB for Win2000 or XP IMO. Have this Compaq with 256MB, takes about 5 minutes to boot up. Comps @ school have 512 MB RAM, takes 45 seconds. Both Use XP.

[AMD-Inside]

oh my word!!! your computers at school have 512megs!!!!
gosh ... must be a damn nice school!!! hehe

Originally posted by Penguin4x4
No less than 384MB for Win2000 or XP IMO. Have this Compaq with 256MB, takes about 5 minutes to boot up. Comps @ school have 512 MB RAM, takes 45 seconds. Both Use XP.

[Tbird man]

my parents have XP pro and 384MB and i must say it needed it. we constantly had problems with 128 megs so we bought a 256 chip and slapped it in there and it works much better now.

[Da Whip]

256 MB of ram is really the bare minimum. It will run okay for most applications, but if you can afford it get more.

[Caffinehog]

OK, skip sdram, go with 256mb of ddr. And why get a $37 t-bird when you can have a $52 1600xp with MUCH better performance?
for $45-50 more, you can get a computer that's nearly twice as fast, and will therefore have a longer useful life.
Also:
CD-ROM: $20
DVD-ROM: $35
16X12x40x CDRW: $40

CDRW's are very useful. If you have one, you will use it.

[jazztrumpet216]

Or a 1GHz Morgan Duron would be fairly cheaply had and it would also outperform the T-Bird in question. I would second the XP recommendation though. I would go with some 256MB of DDR but that's me... some generic PC2100 wouldn't be THAT much more expensive than the equivalent of PC133.

[Penguin4x4]

Originally posted by AMD-Inside
oh my word!!! your computers at school have 512megs!!!!
gosh ... must be a damn nice school!!! hehe

Yeah........all 5 of em!

[OSUmaxx]

Do you really need XP Pro? You could save some money by going with the Home version if she won't be using the extra features.

[CPFitz14]

Comps @ school have 512 MB RAM, takes 45 seconds. Both Use XP.

Our school computers don't have ram

[AmigoThree]

We have hundreds of MACS invading our school and there is only about 75 PC's.

[drunkmonkey]

at least get a xp1600

[chittnp]

im running 512 mb of pc 133 with xp pro, and it seems very happy, and RAM (especially pc133) is fairly cheap, and you should be able to run any program I've come across so far with 512 mb's.

You just can't get a better deal on a processor than the 1600XP for $53.99 SHIPPED! check out www.newegg.com for some good deals.

[Braindonor]

Yeah I say go with the 1600+ instead I would go DDR and get 256MB at least 512 if it can be done and I personally I say a 7200rpm HD oh and definetly spring for a CD-RW

[krott5333]

Originally posted by Braindonor
Yeah I say go with the 1600+ instead I would go DDR and get 256MB at least 512 if it can be done and I personally I say a 7200rpm HD oh and definetly spring for a CD-RW

Lets see here..

128 SDRAM -> 512 DDR Difference : $76
Tbird -> xp 1600 Difference: $12
5400 RPM -> 7200 Difference: $10
CDROM-> CDRW Difference : $26

Thats $124 more than originally. Yeah, $10 here, $10 there would make it a better computer, but it all adds up.. and I can always upgrade later.

[Able72]

okay, but think of the money you throw away by going with the lesser components to start with. It may cost an extra 125 dollars to start, but in the end you save more money by not having left over parts sitting around collecting dust because no one wants to buy them from you and you really have no good use for them.

My suggestion, in this order would be:

1. Go with the higher proc.

2. Definetly go with the CDRW ---- Teach your girlfriend about the wonderful world of MP3's (there's all kinds of free music out there from new artists that want the publicity so they grant you the right to download the music for free)
Also, if she wants to move any file larger than 1.44mb from one PC to another, a 700mb CD is hard to beat (not to mention the ease of backing up those important files that might get lost should your HD croak or whatever.
Not to mention that you can leagally back up any CD you own (like the ones you carry in your car) so that if they get stolen then all you lose is the backups (investment about $0.50 ea. and time) and not the expensive originals at almost $15.00 ea.

3. Go with DDR instead of the SDRAM - perhaps only a stick of 256

Just my two cents.

[OSUmaxx]

Originally posted by krott5333


Thats $124 more than originally. Yeah, $10 here, $10 there would make it a better computer, but it all adds up.. and I can always upgrade later.

Not sure if you saw my above post, but I still don't see why you can't cut out $100 and get XP home instead