So this holiday season I was given the task of building two gaming pcs for these two kids that lost everything after hurricane Matthew flooded their home.  Currently they are living in a hotel and about to relocate into a new home and the only thing they wanted for xmas was computers.  My wife brought up the fact that I build and repair computers as a hobby, so here i am now.
 
Building two gaming pcs on a budget was tasking but with the help of my neighbors I was able to get two fairly decent monitors for free. I was able to pick up two m81 thinkcentres off ebay for a fairly decent price, unfortunately the cpu advertised in the listing was a i3-3220 but I received one 2100 and one 2120.  Instead of returning the units I opted for a partial refund as they may still suit my needs.   So all in all they cost me 130.00 shipped after all was said and done. (i3 cpu, 500gb hdd, 4 gb ram, dvd-rw) Hell I figured the ram, dvd-rw and hdd alone would cost 65.
 
Also was able to pick up two gtx 1050 off newegg for 99.00 each. 
 
I originally went the new build ark but once built left no room in the budget for a decent gpu.  I hated going with a prebuilt but it presented the best bang for buck and more room for a dedicated gpu.
 
My question for you guys is do you think I should try and pick up some better performing cpus for these systems?   I could probably check ebay or make a wtb thread in the marketplace.

I was thinking they may need a little more ram tbh

8GB is enough, 4GB is really low. 
 

Budget is 250 each, includes system, monitor, keyboard and mouse.
 
So far
System - 165 so far Included system and 1050 gpu.
Two m81's cpus are listed, one hs a single 4gig the other has 4x1gig sticks.
OS - Was able to use the oem keys to activate a fresh copy of windows 10.
Monitor - free
Keyboard - Had a couple of dells lying around.
Mouse - Found decent ones for 7.00 with mouse pad.
Wireless adapter - D-Link Xtreme N DWA-552 7.00 each
 
 
Systems support up to a 2600.
 
Kids are 11 and 13.  So not rally expecting witcher 3 or gtav any time soon.

Very cool project Julian!! I bet you will make their Christmas! 

The I3 will be fine, shoot me your address I'd like to help, I'll send you some DDR3 to bring them to 8gb 

Update (after partial refund)
 
System - 2 x Lenovo M81 65.00
Gpu - 2 x Zotac 1050 mini 99.00
Wifi Adapter 2 x D link Xtreme-n 7.00
Cpu Upgrade - 2 x Intel 2500 66.00
Ram Upgrade - 16gb Mushkin redline 2133 mhz - donated by notfordman, also received offer from candle_86 (thanks guys)
Monitors - Dell  17 inch 1280 x 1024 75hz - donated by friends
Keyboards - 2 x Aula 2014 Mechanical keyboard 26.00 (outmen blue key switches)
Mouse - E 3lue Mazer II /w mouse pad 6.00
Aesthetics- 2 x 3 led uv lazer lighting 3.00 (added for a little case lighting out of the front)
Total - 2 x 272.00
544 - 500 = 44 -15 = 29 over budget
 
Extras Notfordman also donated a partially functional Asus Rt-n66u that I fixed. 
 
Leftovers - 4gb stick of Samsung ddr3 1333mhz cas 9
4 x 1gb elpida 1333mhz cas 9 ddr3
Intel i3 2100
Intel i3 2120
Pretty sure that will cover the overage
 
And finally a benchmark (double the performance)
 

 

very cool your helping out for good cause and having fun doing it let me know if you lack anything

man if i would have seen this in time i could have helped you out with some parts, i been down that way a few time since the storm hit and it was really messed up.

Julian_Moore_III
Yeah they were fun builds, but crunch time toward the end was hell, she ended up picking them up on Christmas eve. 
 
I appreciate the fact that you would of helped too, I wasn't really looking for help with the builds it's just that everyone jumped in.  A few things needed repairing and refurbishing but I was willing to do the work. 

I have done the same few times, i work in tech so i can usually get a few for cheap if not free, clean them up and get them setup for basic stuff, done a few mild game machines also, nothing fancy but the people i do it for appreciate them. Was down that way a few weeks back and looks like things are starting to return normal, besides the road construction by ft. Bragg. Lol

Still a nice little build, first system I built for someone was from a old school computer they got, I threw in a q8200 and a quadro gpu.  They really wanted to play minecraft, single income family like mine, so I was eager to help.  I didn't have no money lying around and was limited by the cases form factor, remembered I had a quadro that was in my kids original build, Lenovo s20 came with a dual core which I replaced with a w3530, had a ample psu and was able to run any card I could put into it.
 
Now with the new low profile 1050 those low profile cased systems can get some use. 
 
All that matters is we do what we can to help who we can, knowing they will get some mileage out of that system.  

jeffro66
and helping people in need what it's all about guys

 +100 to that