Building a PC for a casual gamer

My brother, to whom I owe a lot of favors, is in the market for a desktop.  I offerred to help him pick one out, or if its cheaper/worth it, built his own.  I%26#39;ve never build a computer from the ground up though, so I%26#39;d be very nervous about doing so.  Anyways, he does do some gaming, Civilization and the like, but nothing that requires a monstrous hard drive.  He also doesn%26#39;t want to upgrade to Vista yet, but wants the PC to be able to do so (so 2 gigs of RAM).  Finally, he wants both DVD and CD burning capabilities. I%26#39;ve been scanning sites like Newegg to figure out how much parts would cost, and also scanning sites like dell and Gateway to figure out how much a pre build were cost (and if the difference isn%26#39;t to great save my time and go for the prebuilt).  However, I%26#39;m having a lot of problems finding an appropriate prebuilt PC.  Most places either want to force you to get Vista, include wastes of money like Quad core processors, or are just to weak to reliably run Vista.  Any advice is appreciated.Building a PC for a casual gamer
What sort of budget are we looking at?Building a PC for a casual gamer
budget is key.  ''we'' can%26#39;t really do much w/o knowing how much you are willing to spend on different parts.
You won%26#39;t save huge amounts of money on a pre-built like that, but the flexibly of choosing what you want for parts is worth the small savings and time investment IMHO. Plus the quality will be way better. This guide is showing its age a bit, [url]http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/3649521[/url] but with a few tweaks on the RAM, video card and monitor you could have a better system for less and play games like CIV easily. Actually that system would muscle CIV IV easily so if you need something cheaper then look along those lines.Besides price range like LordEC asked about, what other games would he play? 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116249  cant go wrong with an intel pentium d  $60!!!!!!http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827248006  dvd cd burnrhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144160 casehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161677 memoryhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001088 monitorhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188019 motherboardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144188 hddhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116171 media center oem this is coming from someone who has never built a pc and i t looks pretty good!
[QUOTE=''queenfan66'']http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116249 cant go wrong with an intel pentium d $60!!!!!!http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827248006 dvd cd burnrhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144160 casehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161677 memoryhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001088 monitorhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188019 motherboardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144188 hddhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116171 media center oemthis is coming from someone who has never built a pc and i t looks pretty good![/QUOTE]And how is he going to game on that?There are many things wrong with that build but I%26#39;ll wait until I get a budget. 
[QUOTE=''queenfan66'']http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116249 cant go wrong with an intel pentium d $60!!!!!!http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827248006 dvd cd burnrhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144160 casehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161677 memoryhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001088 monitorhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188019 motherboardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144188 hddhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116171 media center oem this is coming from someone who has never built a pc and i t looks pretty good![/QUOTE]Ummm... a pentium d and a 680i? How about no. Also, the 680i doesn%26#39;t have onbaord graaphics so he can%26#39;t even hook his monitor up to that. If he doesn%26#39;t want to game, it may be easier/cheaper to get a prebuilt.

Queen fan, the guy needs a graphics card...
I have no problem with a Pentium D on a 680i but I wouldn%26#39;t recomend buying a Pentium D now when you could get a Core 2 Duo for the same price. Heres a basic gaming rig core 2 Duo E6320 Asus P5N-E Motherboard2gb Corsair XMS2 6400 800MHz DDR2 ram  7900gs 512mb (or 8800gts 320mb depends how much you want to spend)250gb Deskstar Hitachi SATA2 HDa good 500W PSUit depends how much you want to spend you could change the E6320 for a E6420 or even a E6600. the same with the motherboard you could get a Asus P5N32-E 680i motherboard which I would recommend for and extra price. so what is an estimated buget for you
We can%26#39;t do much without a budget.
what kind of case is that he posted :lol: a boxed piece of Cr8p. their are cheaper and better cases then ugly thing:shock:
[QUOTE=''SiKh22'']what kind of case is that he posted :lol: a boxed piece of Cr8p. their are cheaper and better cases then ugly thing:shock:[/QUOTE]LOL Not to mention its micro ATX! The 680i won%26#39;t even fit in that.

Here%26#39;s a good computer for a casual gamer... Motherboard: eVGA 650i Ultra http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188017Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo e6320 1.86 ghz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115015RAM: Corsair 2 Gigs 800 mhz DDR2 RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145590Graphics Card: eVGA Geforce 7900 gs 256 mb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130056Power Supply (I%26#39;m not too good with power supplies) Thermaltake 500 watt psu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153050Hard Drive (I%26#39;m not sure how big he wanted) Western Digital Caviar 320 Gig 7200 rpm hddDon%26#39;t forget an operating system though.  
For a budget, I%26#39;d say $900-$1000, meaning shoot for under $900 so when you realize you%26#39;ve forgotten something there%26#39;s room in the budget.  I think he also wants a flat panel monitor included in that price.  As for his gaming needs, pretty much just ''take over the world'' stragey.  Civilization, Europa Universalis, and the occasional economic sim.  He really doesn%26#39;t need anything to powerful, though I%26#39;d like to keep future upgrades in mind.  For a graphics cards, I think a lower end 7-series is plenty. Oh, and he wants the case to look ''business acceptable''.  I%26#39;m guessing that means black or beige with out lights.  Thanks for the comments so far, I%26#39;m going through them to see if anthing seems appropriate.
how is a 7900GS casual?! I was thinking 7600GS/7300GT or somthing lol
[QUOTE=''greatatlantic'']For a budget, I%26#39;d say $900-$1000, meaning shoot for under $900 so when you realize you%26#39;ve forgotten something there%26#39;s room in the budget. I think he also wants a flat panel monitor included in that price. As for his gaming needs, pretty much just ''take over the world'' stragey. Civilization, Europa Universalis, and the occasional economic sim. He really doesn%26#39;t need anything to powerful, though I%26#39;d like to keep future upgrades in mind. For a graphics cards, I think a lower end 7-series is plenty. Oh, and he wants the case to look ''business acceptable''. I%26#39;m guessing that means black or beige with out lights. Thanks for the comments so far, I%26#39;m going through them to see if anthing seems appropriate.[/QUOTE]AMD wins this round: MSI K9N Platnium Socket AM2 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+  AM2 CPU
Cooler Master Centurion 5 case (with included 430w PSU)
Kingston 2GB Value DDR2-667 RAM
Western Digital 250GB Hard Disk Drive
eVGA GeForce 7600GT Video Card
Pioneer Black DVD-RW Drive
Black Floppy Disk Drive
Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2All that should be around $600-800. Then all you need is a monitor, keyboard and mouse and some speakers/headphones.
I like Wesker%26#39;s build myself - a little tweaking here and there wouldn%26#39;t hurt (I prefer Seagate drives to Western Digital at the 320/250GB range), but his build looks right about perfect. I%26#39;d save a bit of money and pick up a slightly cheaper motherboard like the ASUS M2N-E nForce 570 or the Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4, but it%26#39;s a good place to start.
Yeah I think Wesker has good a good build. What about an 8600GT instead of a 7600GT ? That way the gaming PC will be able to play DirectX 10 games as well.
[QUOTE=''Cyborg-21'']Yeah I think Wesker has good a good build. What about an 8600GT instead of a 7600GT ? That way the gaming PC will be able to play DirectX 10 games as well.[/QUOTE]Or just wait another 2 days and see how the HD2600XT turns out, now that I think about it. 
[QUOTE=''RayvinAzn''][QUOTE=''Cyborg-21'']Yeah I think Wesker has good a good build. What about an 8600GT instead of a 7600GT ? That way the gaming PC will be able to play DirectX 10 games as well.[/QUOTE]Or just wait another 2 days and see how the HD2600XT turns out, now that I think about it. [/QUOTE]That%26#39;s probably a better idea to see if the 2600XT is better or not.

laura mercier