Building a PC for someone, check these specs

[Brent]

First of all he is not a gamer, his main goal with this is going to be for Multimedia use. He wants to output the sound to his reciever (no SPDIF though) and is going to be watching DVD's and video on it. He is also looking into burning his own DVD's. Probably encoding as well.

However the price range he has givin me to work with is $600

he doesn't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor

just the computer

he related to me he wants at least a 60Gig HDD and Windows 98SE (don't ask me why, he just does ) and he wanted me to price out DVD-RW drives (as an extra cost later on if he so chooses one)

so for $600 i'm trying to build him a nice Multimedia system

searching newegg I came up with this, tell me what you think, and tell me if there are any areas I could shave off a few dollars

Computer Specs and Pricing

Case
ANTEC SOLUTION SERIES Model# SLK2600AMB w/ANTEC SMART POWER 300W P4/AMD POWER SUPPLY ATX12V – RETAIL - $59

Motherboard
MSI Motherboard for Socket A (462) Athlon Processors w/ LAN. Model# KT4VL - $86

CPU
AthlonXP 1600+ - $57

Memory
CRUCIAL MICRON 256MB 32x64 PC 2100 DDR RAM - $77

Video Card
ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500 64MB AGP RTL - $127

Hard Drive
MAXTOR 60GB 7200RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL # 6Y060L0 - $90

DVD-ROM
Lite-On 16x DVD Model LTD-163 Black - $47

Floppy Drive
SONY 1.44MB 3.5 INCH INTERNAL FDD DRIVE – BLACK - $18

CDRW (optional)
Lite On 48x12x48 CDRW Model LTR-48125W Black - $68

DVD-RW (optional)
Aopen DVD+RW DVD Rewriteable drive Model DVRW2412PRO IDE Retail - $282

HP DVD200XI DVD+RW & CD-RW COMBO DRIVE RETAIL 4.7GB 2.4X/2.4X/8X DVD, 12X/10X/32X CD - $309

Sony DVD Recorder Drive Model DRU500A Retail - $365

Operating System (your choice)
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition CD - Full Version - $91
Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 Full Version - $143

[YeOldeStonecat]

Only thing I'm wondering about, "multimedia"...is he just going to watch from DVD's, or actually play with...edit, run from hard drive, etc. Getting at....the WD SE's, if anything, are soooo much better for multimedia users...esp when it comes to editing, etc (the 8 meg cache thing) They ///really/// show their strength there. If he's not going to do that, then disregard.

Sure can't go wrong with that Antec case 'n power at that price...sweet.

Win98 a little iffy running on Via, but that's what he wants, take a look at nForce sans onboard video?

[Brent]

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat
Only thing I'm wondering about, "multimedia"...is he just going to watch from DVD's, or actually play with...edit, run from hard drive, etc. Getting at....the WD SE's, if anything, are soooo much better for multimedia users...esp when it comes to editing, etc (the 8 meg cache thing) They ///really/// show their strength there. If he's not going to do that, then disregard.

Sure can't go wrong with that Antec case 'n power at that price...sweet.

Win98 a little iffy running on Via, but that's what he wants, take a look at nForce sans onboard video?

I don't actually know if he will be editing them or not. I am going to call him this evenning with this list and see what he says, and what he needs exactly, go over each thing.

I definitely orginally thought of the 80gig WD special edition drive, but in an effort to reduce price I went with the maxtor 60gig.

Everything is already overpriced when its added together already

I have to think of how to SHAVE OFF prices!

I'm definitely going to recommend XP, but he was saying he wanted 98SE cause it works with everything, heh.

I'll look at the nForce boards... again, trying to get the lowest prices...

[Ghosthunter]

If he plans on doing encoding and editing, I would highly recommend the 80 gb WD SE, and an Intel processor over AMD.

Also go with 2k at least, so he can use ntfs and use files over 4 gb, 98se can be a pain when working with large multimedia files


Also if he plans on doing capturing from like a vhs/camcorder/cable tv , the ATI ALL IN one wonder is not that good compared to an hauppauge pvr 250 in terms of quality.