New build, suggestions welcome

[chevytrucknut]

It's been several years since I've dabbled with building my own PC, but the time has come to build a new one...

Problem is, I have lost all feeling for the market, and I have no idea what is the best stuff at the moment. I know Intel has made pretty great strides since I built my last PC, when AMD was ruling the market.

So, help me out, if you feel like it! My budget is anywhere between $400 & ... I dunno, $750?... we'll see, lol.

I've already got the case, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and OS/software.

plus many components from my old build that could be used if necessary, though they're probably worthless.

I don't need this computer to be set up as a high-end gaming system. It will mainly be for business & office applications, internet browsing, online streaming of videos, and some light-duty CAD work. Also I'll need to make sure I have ample hard drive space (500GB minimum). If it's set up for that and gaming would function on it, hey cool, all the better.

Feel free to ask any questions if you need more info to help formulate a build. You guys and girls are the experts

Thanks in advance.

 

[chevytrucknut]

I should also mention, my everyday computer (laptop) is an HP 8560w with:
i7-2820 processor, at 2.30GHz
16 GB Ram
Win7
(a fairly crappy) Seagate 320GB 5400 RPM HDD. Really the only bad thing about the laptop.

So if you can come up with a build that mimics (or outperforms) the performance of that machine, I'd be pleased.

 

[PP Mguire]

You aren't going to get i7 performance out of that budget. IMO if you are happy with the laptop you could always just put a nice SSD in it and would speed up the general performance nicely.

 

[Murphyslaw]

Yeah, even with you using things like the case, old hard drive+cd drive, psu - Which a old psu like that should not be used at half its potential most of its life and then used in a high power build, it would just die or 'Die hard' I.e. Take the computer with it.

I would just wait a few months and do a higher end build when the new series of cpus come to the market