$300 to spend! HALP!

V

vk99x

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 10, 2003
Messages
103
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?

- email, inet, picture editing, resizing, etc, decent application use, nothing heavy

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$300

3) Where do you live?

- Chattanooga, TN

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.

- everything except monitor, keyboard, mouse

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

- n/a

6) Will you be overclocking? - No

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? 19" CRT

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? next several weeks

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc. - onboard video, nic, audio, etc

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? - Yes

This PC is for my mom, she doesn't have much money and I'm trying to make $300 do as much as possible. I'm really looking for quality over quantity. It'll be used mostly for internet, email, picture editing and design, watching some movie clips (off camcorder).

I've thrown some things together from newegg, but it's been tricky to keep @ $300, HALP!
 
Also hit up Dell Outlet for refurbished Dell PCs.
 
Unless you find a free OS (win7 launch event), thats gonna be one tough build for that price. I agree, checkout dell outlet, as the actual dell deals are typically around $400 before tax and shipping, but they usually include a monitor, kb, and mouse. :p Off the shelf refurb pre-builts would work, too, obviously.

The best DIY I could come up with was if you lived near a Fry's and/or bought some parts used off of the FS/T forum:

$80 - Celeron 430, MSI G31M3-F (integrated Video/Audio/LAN), and Raidmax Case (Fry's B&M)
$45 - 500GB HDD (Fry's B&M)
$36 - SeaSonic SS-300ET 300W (Newegg)
$30 - 2GB DDR2-667 (FS/T Forums)
$107 - MS Windows 7 (Newegg)
=========
$298 + tax and shipping - $20MIR

I'll admit, this is worse than many of the refurb/dell outlet systems you can get for around this same price. ;) Even if you go all used parts you could most likely build a better system. :p So basically, this build was just a proof of concept, but as shown, is not your best option -- go with a refurb.

Actually, instead of the Compaq refurb Ghettobox listed, I'd go with this HP Slimline instead, since it has more RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883147035

And if you live near a MC, you can save a few bucks ($250 for similar specs as above refurb links):
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...409763&BrCs=498&BrCg=16185856&BrRc=1100074286



Or if you actually had an OS, here's a decent build:
$60 - AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache Socket AM3
$55 - Zotac GF8200-D-E AM2+/AM3 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 Micro ATX ($20 MIR)
$45 - Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-667 CT2KIT12864AA667
$40 - WD Caviar Blue WD2500AAJS 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache SATA300 (Promo: EMCMMML53)
$50 - Corsair CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80+ Certified ($20 MIR)
$22 - Rosewill R223-P-BK 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower (FS Promo: EMCMMML73)
$29 - Samsung DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223C
================
$301 + tax, free shipping, - $40 MIRs
 
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