Can It Be Done??? Bragging Rights Contest

[WalkinTarget]

Rand, I was just reading my old Maximum PC issues and re-read that article !! Dave did screw up royally with that build, and he also bought a mobo that didn't support his CPU, so he had to return the board and buy one that would !! Readers crucified him the following month in the Letters column so I doubt we will see a return visit to articles like that one, but those are in fact my favorites.

That too was a 'Cheapest build for $300' if I recall, minus monitor, but it was one of those moments where you feel truly sorry for the guy for his effort, even half arsed as it was.

Cheapest PC for $300 ??? I just sold one last weekend for $200 with this in it:

A-Open Nforce2 Ultra mainboard
AMD Barton 2500+ bumped to 3000+
Geil 512mb DDR3200 RAM
ATI 9800Pro modded with Arctic Cooler rev3 HSF
Maxtor 160gb IDE HD
SB Live! 5.1
Tt Purepower 420w PSU
40x CD/RW - 12x DVD
Windows XP Pro SP2
Nero 6
Logitech kboard/optical mouse

Add a $100 17" LCD and everyone's happy !!

Edit: ryan, I checked on that GPU in your link and the rebate appears to now be gone.

[drunken_chef]

do you want something used? I have a complete system that has a XP1700+ and a 17" CRT. that I would sell to you for about half of your budget. PM me for the details if you are interested.

[drunken_chef]

also, when I was originaly pricing out new parts. my concern were parts that wouldn't fail in a couple of months.

[WalkinTarget]

Bump for a good seller ! I can vouch for chef's previous dealings. I sometimes wish we had a small side forum for parts swaps/WTB/FS but that does stretch the boundaries of a gaming forum a bit.

If you haven't figured out by now, I am a hardware junkie, and I always have something going on with my home gear. There's no way I will make any money on most of my endeavors, but thats what a hobby is for.

Instead of buying a $55k Vette like my Father in Law, I just build a $600 PC from parts gathered from here and there. Its good tonic for the soul and keeps me happy.

[Rand{CLR}]

If you're looking at pentium 2 level stuff, why not try to find some of those wholesalers that recycling programs send stuff to when they break down donated and obsolete systems? You can probably find a warehouse of parts that way for the cheap.

-Rand

[The_Needle]

Heck, for that matter I can just send you one of my old machines for $200! The shipping costs suck though

[mapes]

As much as I loath Wallmart

Try this

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=7754614

It runs vista home and its a Via C7 1.5 ghz processer. Use the other hundred bucks to buy a monitor

Edit whoops the next model up runs vista home...it clocks in at 278 bucks

[mapes]

Actually after reading some random forum posts it looks like it will run xp the only issue people had were finding drivers for the modem. At 199 it's not such a bad deal (other than the evil walmart).

[JohnyRico]

Dang, I remember my buddy paying over a grand for a computer with a hard drive so large we made fun of him for because there was no way he could possibly fill it. 100 Meg!