If I wanted to buy this computer new, how much would it cost?

Question

Black ATX case with 300W and side X window.
KT4V-L KT400 Chipset
333/400 Mhz RAM
8X AGP
6 PCI
6 Channel AC’97 Audio
10/100 LAN

256MB DDR 333
AMD XP 2200+
40 GB Hard Drive 7200 RPM Western Digital
ASUS 52x24x52 CD-RW Retail
Samsung 1.44 Drive
Chaintech Trident 32MB AGP

And how would this computer rate today for the purposes of a student who just surfs, does email, listens to music, writes papers, etc. Is it decent? Good? If not good, would upgrades get it up to speed? What upgrades? Thanks.

Answer 1

There is no NEW costings for such a 5 year old machine. Without monitor and original OS, that PC is worth around $150. To make it work decently, increase RAM to 512mb, BUT 1Gb RAM would do wonders to that PC.

Answer 2

How much would it cost? C'mon!! Do you actually want us all to go check the prices on all those things and compare proces for you?
so I am going to ignore and tell you what you really need to know.
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When purchasing a computer it's always apropriate to consider what the user will be using it for, what their true budet is, plan for future upgrades and try to get as many years as you can, or same applies you may need to sell it one day...

Now if you really only want to surf the net.. I say do not even bother building your computer.. go buy a frakkin Dell for 400 bucks.. I mean really... there's no point in building utter crap.

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So I personally would want a larger power supply 500w and I would want to make sure it had a lot of connectors

Is that hdd SATA ? and while 7200rpm is OK 40GB is not even enough for a laptop user. It's a complete waste of your money to buy such a cheap hdd. Get a 500GB or at least 300 (for the love of cats). I know, you just want to surf the net but remember what I said think about future...

ok the RAM 256 I don't even think that meets the minimum of windows requirements... so find out how many slots you ave for ram on the mobo and what is the MAX amount a single slot can hold.. and at least get that... although I suggest filling at least 2. (with all of the overhead of applications graphics today and all the programs running in background and together.. you really won't be happy unless you've got at least 2GB of fast RAM and that would be my minimum rock bottom)

The onboard sound is OK solely because you're saying its 6 channel.I usually turn off the onboard and pop in a soundblaster 7.1

I preface this next part with saying I assume and/or hope that you get a really nice monitor...
As for the video card... again I am going to say 32MB is like the lowest possible amount pretty much and I havent had to look into video cards for a while but I am not familiar with that brand... but you can't go wrong with nvidia or radeon
In fact, here is a list of the top cards and it's all the wo I mentioned
http://internetgames.about.com/od/hardware/tp/tpvideocards.htm
oh my... some of these have 768MB so yea upgrade that... don't go cheap on video card.. cause it is not just the picture itself but refresh rates and you really need a good one... at least a good brand with decent ram.


Side windows means not much... you can put neon inside woo hoo... make sure the case has good fans, quite, ball bearing, and a loy of them.. in and out...

The more stuff is also why you want more power...

And at least get a DVD-RW drive... (goto http://www.videohelp.com for good dvd burner specs)


Good Luck!

Answer 3

If you just surf the internet and listen music or write documents this PC is decent and must be maximus $250. But if you want to play some new games you must think of something else, like: a processor of 3.0 Ghz/ 512 Mb DDR/Hard disk of 80Gb or more and the most important a modern video card with 256Mb or more.

Answer 4

about 150-200 bucks worth of parts(without a monitor)


That system has almost everything you need for Internet/emails/papers. Your only limit would be 256mb of ram. 512 is really be needed for large word applications. But you could get away with out it just be slower.You couldn't run vista but all other windows systems would work. Xp would run good if you tweak it and turn off all the services you dont use.

Had about the same system around 2004ish It worked for me back then no reason it wouldn't work for you now :)I had a pen200mhz laptop and paid 1500 dollars for it. I did nothing more than what you plan on doing with your system now.