As soon as he said he was looking at HP computers, I yelled NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I am URGING him to build his own since he is educated and smart enough to build a rig from scratch since he has taken apart both towers and laptops and they worked upon reassembly..."running Word, Microsoft Picture Manager (or w.e. it's called), maybe 4 I.E. tabs, calculator, and possibly something else not too memory hoggish".
He tells me he is in the $800-1000 price range ($1200 absolute max but this needs to include dual monitors at least 20", preferably up to 24") so he can go either AMD or Intel. Obviously going AMD he can build a hexacore-based rig for the multitasking capabilities, but I don't want to push him in that direction unless it is what is best for him. Considering the above budget has to include monitors I assume that going AMD will give him more bang for the buck. He said he doesn't need a gamer, looks to me from his needs for AutoCad and 3D apps on a dual-monitor setup that this will be a working rig. Those apps suggest using a specialty card for crunching CAD and 3D but with todays onboard graphics I was wondering if that was necessary. Any thoughts you can share on this subject will be greatly appreciated and passed on to him with preference.
Thanks!