Hi

Slightly different from the usual "spec me a machine" thread as it's for my brother, who's recently moved to the states. He's got about $450-$500 to spend on almost an entire machine, though he may salvage some stuff from his old machine here and take it back with him when he flies back out there next week. We both don't have a clue who's good and who's not retailer-wise out in the US so advice on shops to look out for/avoid and what are reasonable prices to pay would be helpful too.

Okay, his requirements are:
Motherboard, Processor, HSF, 512mb generic RAM, cheap-as-poss case and generic PSU, maybe a graphics card but he's willing to use his old GF2GTS until he can afford something better. He's going to take his old hard drive/optical drives with him.

I was thinking he maybe could get a low-end A64 solution, either that or the trusted NF7S/AXP and put the extra towards a decent gfx card.

Thanks in advance.