I’m not very knowledgeable about low-mid end computers. I’m trying to replace my mom’s fried computer. She has mostly simple needs, but she plays a few video games. Mostly adventure games. I’d basically like her to be able to play The Walking Dead Season 2 as well as Dreamfall Chapters when it’s released in November. It doesn’t have to be max quality, but she wants good quality.
Most of the computers I’m coming up with on Newegg and such are in the $800+ range. This is okay, but I feel like I should be able to find one in the $500-ish range. I thought you used to be able to get low-ends with passable discrete graphics cards for that much, but it seems like adding a non-integrated card instantly ups the cost $300 or so. The only other non-negotiable is that it needs to support dual-monitors, which she uses for work.
She’d strongly prefer Windows 7 Pro to Windows 8.1, but if it’s not be possible that’s fine.
She is computer competent enough to pop in a graphics card herself, though, so if buying one separately is cheaper we can do that. Or have integrated cards gotten way better since last I checked?
Look in their Off-Lease/Refurb section. Off-lease means a company that wanted bleeding-edge computers has now upgraded to something less than 5 years old (possibly even using Win8) so they sent back the Win7 machines and got newer stuff. That doesn’t mean something broke, but it’s not brand new and it’s not going to run like today’s brand-new computers either. Refurb generally means something broke, it got sent back, and it’s fixed now. [Sometimes it means the previous owner didn’t know how to set it up properly and simply thought it was broken.]
For the needs you describe I’d bet a WIN7 Home Premium operating system will work well enough. Most motherboards that can handle that will have at least 2 graphics output connectors, though you’re free to add a dedicated graphics card if you wish.
TigerDirect also has that kind of section. I think they call them Refurbs over there.