Help building an inexpensive computer for friend's birthday

If I go with the HP Pavilion p6-2200z Desktop PC [hp.com], is there an inexpensive CPU I can buy to upgrade it so it's better than the G530? Thank you.

I'm currently leaning towards the pre-built tower because it seems cheaper (I have a coupon I can use to bring the price down from $299 to $170).

If you have a coupon to make it $170, that's not a bad deal. Just keep in mind that #1 it only has 2GB of ram and #2 it is running integrated graphics (if radeon hd, then should be able to play LoL fine.

The Microcenter is an hour away. Anyway to maybe meet someone half way that you know. You should look at their bundle deals.

http://www.microcenter.com/specia...PROMO.html

The Quad Core AMD Phenom X4 and a board for $100 (before 10 rebate).

Probably would push your budget a little but it's a far better processor.

I have the same graphics card (6670) and it runs LoL beautifully.

I built the above machine a bit ago and managed to spend
$100 on the board and proc,
$30 on 8GB of kingston hyperx memory,
$70 on hard drive
$20 on a cheap 450w power supply (diablotek or some crap like that, always had good luck with these, never had an issue, although I know they are not of the highest rated).
$45 on the graphics card AR

Actually didn't buy a DVD drive for a bit and used USB to install windows (I don't ever find myself using the dvd drives).

Your most expensive purchase will be the processor, motherboard, and hard drive. Finding a bundle deal on a processor and motherboard will do you good and save you some money.

If you had a case and hard drive and dvd drive already, you could probably buy the amd combo above for $100, then spend $30-$40 on 8gb of ram, $20 on a cheap power supply then fit that graphics card into it somehow you'd be spending around $200-$230... (before rebates).

I'm planning to throw in the graphics card and RAM I posted in the first post of this thread.

So it would be $170 HP Desktop + $40 RAM + $70 Graphics which puts you at about $280 before rebates. You could easily build a better machine for that if you did in fact have a microcenter around.

If I go with the HP Pavilion p6-2200z Desktop PC [hp.com], is there an inexpensive CPU I can buy to upgrade it so it's better than the G530? Thank you.

I'm currently leaning towards the pre-built tower because it seems cheaper (I have a coupon I can use to bring the price down from $299 to $170).

I'm planning to throw in the graphics card and RAM I posted in the first post of this thread.

Thanks for replying. I don't think I'm going to go with the pre-built HP route. Unfortunately, I don't have a microcenter around (the closest one is over 400 miles away).

This might be a hard one to get then . $200 is a hard price range but it is doable. You want the best bang for the buck though, especially since he will be gaming a little. I would suggest you sign up for tiger direct emails. Tiger direct is known for selling some killer barebone deals that would be right up your alley considering your price range.

Right now they do not have any seriously good deals, but they frequently do (usually once a month or every 2 months).

Here are some past examples.

http://slickdeals.net/f/4895984-T...7-Shipping

http://slickdeals.net/f/4802636-B...dle-263-AR

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/7...-mid-tower

Otherwise if you have some time before your friends b-day you might wait until Windows 8 arrives as prices on current machines in store will drop.

Thanks for posting. If I have Windows 7 that I have been using on my laptop, but would like to give it to him to use on the desktop, would that be fine?

The closest Fry's and Microcenter stores are an hour drive each way, so purchasing online is highly preferred. The link you provided brings me to the main Shell Shocker deals page; which combo were you looking at?

Thanks,
Vic

Thanks for replying. I don't think I'm going to go with the pre-built HP route. Unfortunately, I don't have a microcenter around (the closest one is over 400 miles away).

Ok, so are you an hour away from Fry's/Microcenter or is it 400 miles away?