Hello there! A friend of mine recently asked me to help him find parts and build a PC for him. Now here's the catch the budget is $150 and I do not think that there is any wiggle room on that. He wants the PC for editing and stuff like that so my question to you guys is first off: Is that even possible to do? Can you make a decent PC for under $150? My next question is would you guys help me by suggesting parts and such as you usually do? I've built a gaming PC for myself so I feel that it would be a bit different for shopping for parts between the two. Anyway thank you guys for all the help and I hope you guys have an awesome day!
EDIT: I do have a case and some other spare parts lying around. Most of them are really old and junky but do you think it is worth even bothering? Most of the parts are ancient so I've never really cared to store them properly or anything.
My first recommendation is to see what spare parts you have laying around. Most people have a hard drive or two maybe even or case or PSU. Once you know what you already, going forward is much easier.
$150? That really isn't much at all. You'd need a minimum of $70 to get a copy of Windows which if you're gaming and editing, using say the Adobe Suite, you'll need otherwise you could get a Linux distro for free.
Even using scavenged parts though it will be difficult to find any thing that can run games or editing software very well. Let alone rendering in HD.
my recommendation is to save up more and don't spend it on anything then build one when he has more money. Unless some one has a lot of spare parts around you are not going to get any thing decent. If he needs one look for a second hand computer that has decent specs.
At this price point, you're either looking at old used hardware or a shitbox.
Save more money until you have at least $400 for hardware only.
Well here's what I came up with: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3rcAp
You'd have to have a spare hard drive lying around, and either a spare case or a cardboard box. And it would have to run Linux or a pirated copy of Windows.
But, honestly, have him save more money. Anything under the realm of around $300-350 isn't even going to be worth building without any spare parts. If your friend could spend in the realm of $250, and scavenge a hard drive off another computer, then something decent could be built.
I just took a stab at it for fun
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3rdi7
That MAY be ABLE to edit, which is like saying you CAN walk from south america to canada, but... and in all honesty, you would be in Canada before this thing got done with a YouTube Video. Everyone else is right....save the money. You are not even positive your case will fit a mATX.
If you go with the new AMD 25W APUs you may have a chance... In my country you can have quad core for about 60$ and motherboard for about 40$, and i live in eastern europe... So i guess in US or wherever it's gona be cheaper... Socket AM1, Athlon 5150 is about 50$ here, quad core cpu, 1,6GHz if i am not mistaken... Asrock AM1B-M is about 40$, so 90$ for CPU, GPU and MOBO... They don't have those in PC Part Picker... There is also mini ITX motherboards for 2-3$ more, that will allow you to grab Cooler Master Elite 130, that is dirt cheap...Grab FSP Group FSP300-60GHT for 38$ and Patriot Viper 4GB 1600MHz for 30$ and you are set... 170$ - quad core, 4 gigs ram, decent PSU and graphics for older and indie games...