Hello, I'm building a computer for a friend.. just for surfing the net, burning cds and watching dvds, but there is such a big difference in price from Celeron to P4. He is looking to spend 500-600 total, so would getting a Celeron be a big difference from a P4? Thanks in advance. "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

HaykM11 The New Celeron D CPU has a FSB of 533 and 256KB L2 Cache. The P4 Prescott CPU's have a FSB of 800 and 1024KB L2 Cache. The big difference is in the FSB and the L2 cache witch helps the overall performance of the CPU. Thats why there is a price difference between the 2 CPU's. If on a budget go with the Celeron D if not the P4 chip is a good one to go for. MSI KT6 Delta FIS2R - MB AMD Athlon XP 3200 - CPU 2 x 512MB PC3200 - RAM ATI 9800XT 256MB - VC SAMSUNG 172x LCD - DISPLAY

CASE/PSU: ANTEC Solution Series Super Mid Tower Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK3700AMB" - Retail ($62) MOTHERBOARD: ASUS "A7V8X-X" KT400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL ($53) CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2700+, 333MHz FSB, 256K Cache Processor - Retail ($103) MEMORY: Crucial 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-2700 - OEM ($42) (x2) ($84) SOUND CARD: Turtle Beach 6-Channel PCI Sound Card, Model "Santa Cruz" -RETAIL ($47) VIDEO CARD: N/A (explained below) HARD DRIVE: Western Digital Special Edition 80GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model WD800JB, OEM Drive Only ($62) CDRW/DVD: Samsung 52X32X52X16X DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive, Model TS-H492A/WRDH, Retail -OEM ($43) SUBTOTAL: $454 That's a pretty decent setup in my opinion. I wouldn't go with a Celeron. Just my opinion, once again. And here you have an AMD Athlon XP 2.17GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB, CDRW/DVD combo drive, Turtle Beach 'Santa Cruz', "budget" PC. I have the AMD Athlon XP 2.17 GHz CPU and it's fine for me. It's never given me any trouble and I bet I use the computer more often then your friend, heh. 512MB of RAM will be sufficient for him/her, is my bet. And Crucial is a good brand. I have Crucial RAM in my computer. The Turtle Beach/Voyetra 'Santa Cruz' sound card is excellent, it's regarded as one of the top 10 sound cards. Just look at the reviews (I also own this card too, heh.) The motherboard I also have, it's an ASUS. What's there to say? It's a decent motherboard. 6 USB ports, onboard LAN, onboard audio (but I wouldn't recommend onboard audio unless you do not plan on using the computer for music), 3 slots for RAM, etc. Good stuff. :) I have almost that same CDRW/DVD drive, but I think that one is a slightly different model. But same specs more or less. It's fast. You should have no trouble burning/ripping/reading. The hard drive is an 80GB Western Digital. That should be enough space for your friend I suppose. Heh. I download constantly and I can't fill it. I didn't put a video card recommendation because I would guess your friend wants a budget card. I don't know much about budget cards. I love the one I have but it's about $200 and that's probably too much for your friend. I can't recommend anything else though because my FX5200 I had trouble with. Heh. Anyways, you probably have your own idea as to what you want to go into the computer. I was just bored and figured I'd give some recommendations. Cheers!

Oh and all of the above items can be found at www.newegg.com Read some of the reviews, browse around. :)

Oops, I forgot the floppy drive! You never know when you might need one. Heh. I have a Mitsumi? Hmmm. I think. Anyways, you won't find a floppy drive for more than $10 I don't think so that shouldn't be a problem. Heh. Just tack on $7-$8 more. :)

If that is all he is doing with his pc then get the Celeron D.

If he doesnt plan on doing any gaming or light gaming and light video editing or no video editing, a Celeron would be fine, altho i would recommend the new AMD Semprons which seem a little more powerful for you low budget wallet. Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939 nForce3 AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 939 512MB DDR3200 Windos XP Pro SP2 nVidia Geforce4 MX 440