I am looking for an extremely budget friendly PC. Its for my nephew, he is starting HS at one of the top magnet schools in Cali and he doesnt have a pc. SO i want to build him something that he can do school work on and play a few online free games like Maple Story, LoL etc. It doesnt have to be graphics heavy, just be able to handle the normal Office Programs etc, he also wants to become a game programmer so it would have to run those kind of programs decently like Gamemaker, Unity, XNA etc. I was thinking of building him the HTPC thats 475, which is pretty good deal. But if i can get something simliar just a tad bit cheaper that would be great. Right now, just worry about the PC. Not keyboards, monitors, OS etc. I can get all of that stuff for him later.

Thanks guys!

Hey goldenkillah - did you sort out this build yet? Still need help?

yes i would still like some suggestions on a build. Otherwise i might just use the HTPC that you have up.

I gave it a few tries, but it's tough to get anything cheaper... you could probably find a slightly cheaper case, though.

I was able to put together an HTPC build for around ~$280 this weekend for a friend, but it's definitely not a gaming machine -- it'll probably struggle with LoL, actually. You'll either need to go the Llano APU (A8 or higher preferred) route or the i3-2120 + dedicated GPU route. Both are solid, but will cost you around $450-$500 no matter what.

You could also drop the SSD a bit if you opt for a smaller one, but then you'll have almost no room for storage.

How important is it to you/your friend that the system is ultra small? You could go with a MicroATX variant instead of the MiniITX build we put up, which would run about ~3in bigger, maybe 4in all around, but will be cheaper in the motherboard and case choices.

Thoughts on this option?

Form factor isnt an issue, it doesnt have to be small or compact. Just something budget friendly. So it can be any size tower really. Regular size, mid size etc. I am just looking for something budget friendly and 400 is OK.