Douglas Fifield wrote:
....
I figure he can get by with low-level sound and speakers as long as he
has decent CPU, graphics, and memory. He can upgrade the sound later.
In that case, most motherboards come with integrated sound these days,
which will see you through for a while.
Meanwhile, a couple of questions:
What's your budget?
Do you have any existing parts that could be reused?
You won't get a definitive shopping list on this forum (although
someone will doubtless accuse you of being lazy for asking for one),
but you should get some recommendations of specific parts. Hopefully
you'll get some generic advice as well.
On which subject, my generic advice would be:
1) Get a PSU of 450W+ because that will be sufficient for future sound
and video card upgrades and probably some way into the future. You will
receive conflicting advice about whether a branded one is worth the
money over a non-branded one.
2) Look out for a keyboard, mouse & speaker bundle for best value for
money at this stage. A barebones kit might include these.
3) If you've got the space, a 17" CRT monitor really is OK for gaming.
Only get a TFT now if you're pushed for space or if you see a good
bargain. Remember to get one with a refresh rate of less than 25ns, or
you will see "ghosting" on the screen with fast action games like Halo.
4) Don't bother with PCI-E graphics (your budget will probably rule
this out anyway) or BTX format motherboards. These are both new
technologies and the existing AGP and ATX (respectively) standards are
more than capable of handling the demands of today's games and for the
foreseeable future.
5) Whatever case you get, make sure it's got a case fan. CPUs and
graphics cards in particular run hot these days.
