Comments:
What’s with the love of cheap cases? Are you guys masochists? Minimum $50 for something halfway decent.
For the office computer, get a CPU/mobo combo deal at Newegg, pretty cheap.
The PSU prices are for the absolute worst garbage you can find on the market. It will have low efficiency, produce unreliable voltages and will be loud. Don’t think of spending less than $50 for a “good” office computer, and expect to spend over $100 for a good gamer PSU.
“If you know where” for Windows 7 Pro is cheating. You should be paying retail. Add at least $100 even if you claim OEM.
Monitor, $150 is fine for office, but for gaming you want better. LED backlight and IPS with a fast response make a gaming monitor, start at over $200 at 23”.
Keyboard/mouse? Cables? Hard drive?
-It’s a case. You push a button or two on it. Yes, if you want lights and pretty colors, you can pay more.
-Cheap, noisy power supplies can be picked up for $20. You can find a good one for well under $100.
-All my copies of Win7 I picked up for $50. All are registered with Microsoft. Not sure why that’s “cheating”.
Amazon has a Win7 family pack (3 licenses) for $125.
-Samsung 23” monitor (8ms, LCD) $150 at Microcenter.
If you want 5mS response and LED, it’s $180.
Especially if "where" is some fly-by-night internet outfit who is selling stuff that "fell off the truck". Sure, it'll pass WGA and Activation -- it's not a pirate -- but it might be a little bit warm to the touch...
OTOH, all my copies of Windows are strictly legal, no hassles, no worries.
> You should be paying retail.
For most people, yes. In my case, I run so many copies of Windows, between the "on-the-metal" native installs, the three Macs that are BootCamped, and a pocketful of VMs, it turned out cheapest to get an MSDN subscription at the "Operating Systems" level. Pretty much have access to everything, all the latest releases. And I have clean, up-to-date installation ISOs of everything back to Win 3.11, should my little heart desire it.
Obviously, I'm not the average case... :)
On this one I just copied the guy I was responding too. He said you can get Windows 7 for $50. I figured it must be an academic edition. Ask him >>>> astyanax <<< where that $50 copy exists :)
Cases are 0$. Already have some.
You can spend $800 on a computer case if you put your mind to it
Or about $35 shipped for one that is functional
For the office computer, get a CPU/mobo combo deal at Newegg, pretty cheap.
That usually works out. You can get a good CPU/mobo combo for $90-$120. You can get cheaper than that but is usually is VGA out on the motherboard. But my minimum requirements are DVI or HDMI out onboard video
The PSU prices are for the absolute worst garbage you can find on the market. It will have low efficiency, produce unreliable voltages and will be loud. Don’t think of spending less than $50 for a “good” office computer, and expect to spend over $100 for a good gamer PSU.
My personal experience with ~$25 ThermalTakes and CoolerMaster has been zero problems
Monitor, $150 is fine for office, but for gaming you want better. LED backlight and IPS with a fast response make a gaming monitor, start at over $200 at 23”.
What I see is an LCD sweet spot of ~$130-140 for 23".
Peeps have been gaming for years with 2-4ms response time LCDs
Keyboard/mouse? Cables? Hard drive?
Does Apple include those things? Not on a Mac-mini
Samsung 1TB eco-green is $45 at New Egg right now but I see deals all the time for 500GB-1TB in the $40-$60 range shipped to your door