Little history first. My first build was my computer (still running strong after 4 years 
) then my mom followed suit and I built her one, then my dad, then my friend. So I've got some experience building and have always advocated that it is a better bang for your buck.
Now recently I was asked by my girlfriend's dad to build my girlfriend a computer, but the budget is $400
. The only stuff they have for a computer is a mouse. Luckily it doesn't have to be a super gaming machine or anything of the sort. The most taxing program it would run is some Steam games that don't need to be at the highest settings. (I got her into Day of Defeat and Left 4 Dead lol)
I got to thinking about the pricing of just a monitor and an OS and getting an "ok" monitor would be around $100, maybe a bit less, then XP with Office is going to take a large chunk, $125 if I get lucky. So that leaves about $175 for the tower which just won't work in my experience building.
So now to my question, in the $400 range would it be more cost effective to buy a prebuilt computer that comes with a monitor and the software desired (XP and office)? Or am I missing some new price cut that has happened in the last year or so on monitors and OS's?
) then my mom followed suit and I built her one, then my dad, then my friend. So I've got some experience building and have always advocated that it is a better bang for your buck.Now recently I was asked by my girlfriend's dad to build my girlfriend a computer, but the budget is $400
. The only stuff they have for a computer is a mouse. Luckily it doesn't have to be a super gaming machine or anything of the sort. The most taxing program it would run is some Steam games that don't need to be at the highest settings. (I got her into Day of Defeat and Left 4 Dead lol)I got to thinking about the pricing of just a monitor and an OS and getting an "ok" monitor would be around $100, maybe a bit less, then XP with Office is going to take a large chunk, $125 if I get lucky. So that leaves about $175 for the tower which just won't work in my experience building.
So now to my question, in the $400 range would it be more cost effective to buy a prebuilt computer that comes with a monitor and the software desired (XP and office)? Or am I missing some new price cut that has happened in the last year or so on monitors and OS's?
