I was thinking of replacing my digital machine with younger & better looking model but I haven't been checking out the hardware in about three years, so I have no idea what to buy

I have a total of 500 Euros for everything (including the Windows 7). The only thing that should be a bit more advance is the monitor(mostly bigger).

I would really appreciate to hear if anyone has any suggestions on this. What would be your optimal configuration with this budget?

windows 7 home premium is 199€(in europe)

an 20-21" monitor in medi markt is around 150-170€

that makes 350€,

Unfortunately 150€ is not enough for other parts.

(prices may highly differ im your country though.f.i. home premium is less than 90€ here in Turkey)

Win 7 is 200€?
That's not really that good I expected it to be less then 150.
Is there a way I can transfer my XP license onto new PC?

EDIT: Your right- I will have to check the local Win 7 price.

windows 7 home premium (system builder) costs (in germany) 90 euros
the system builder editions are all cheaper then the full versions. the features are the same, but you have afaik no microsoft support (but who cares :p)

24" TFTs starts at 150 euros

you have ~250 euro budget left. even now veeery less. but a nettop could be possible...

O.k. it seems I can get away with 100€ for Win7 if I buy OEM, & if I go for 19'' that would make 110-120€, so final price would be 220€.

That leaves me with 280€ for everything else Not really good right? I think I need to save more that 500€ for something useful

what are your current specs?

for about 300€ you would get something like that:

30€ case
40€ power supply
40€ graphics card (radeon 5450?)
50€ 500gb harddisk
40€ 2gb ram
50€ cpu (athlon dualcore?)
50€ mainboard

not really high end but depending on what you want to do it could be enough.

24" TFTs starts at 150 euros

Really?

Can you show me an example?

Sorry for the offtopic ...

those very cheap 24" tfts aren't that great though. they use TN panels with bad viewing angles, bad colors and so on... IPS or PVA panels are better but much more expensive.

My currant pc is:

Athlon 64 AM2 3000 BOX AMD
K9N NEO-F AM2 MSI
512mb DDR2 PC667 KINGSTON
512mb DDR2 PC667 KINGSTON
ATI Radeon RX1600 PRO 256mb MSI
Aurora FRONTIER

I was suggested that something like this could work:

Monitor BENQ G2220HD 127E 21.5"
Procesor Athlon x4 630
Memorija 2gb ddr3 ram 1333mhz patriot
Ploca Biostar a785g3 &integrusom
Kuciste LC Power ATX Midi Tower
Graficka ...I would like to skip on ATI and maybe take ASUS?
+ windows 7 home premium

O.k. what do you think about this config:

This is approximately 570€ when converted from dinars.