best bang box for under 400 bucks ??

expatCanuck

Geek Trainee
Greetings.

I'm looking to replace my boy's AMD XP 2700 system
(lovingly built by me some time back).

It'll be used for 'net research, email & gaming (not necessarily in that order).

He'll use the existing Samsung 710N multisync LCD.

I can get a Dell for $360 equipped with
- Pentium E2140 (1MB L2 cache, 1.6 GHz, 800FSB)
- 1 GB RAM (DDR2 SDRAM - 667 MHx
- 250GB SATA
- DVD R/W
- WinXP Home

Two questions:
1) can I do any better putting my own box together?
2) for an extra $60/$100, Dell will add an ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro/XT, but for that kind of cake, I suspect that I can do better adding an alternate card down the road (e.g. - an nVidia GeForce 8600 GT) if the onboard graphics don't suffice. Am I right?

Many thanks,
- Richard
www.oldWithoutMoney.com
 
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