Ultra budget PC

[Link97]

The mission set to me today is to find the absolute cheapest PC humanly possible capable of speedily opening in MS Outlook and surfing the internet at resolutions in excess of 800x600. 'tis for my aunt.

No monitor/keyboard etc are required, just the box.

I'm wondering if it would be better to go for a pre-built one (where could I get such a bargain?) or if I should go for building one from scratch.

Key points:
Budget = <£200, close to the £100 mark would be supreme ("Ultra" budget )
On board gfx (she will not be playing games on it any time soon)
My aunt currently has filled her HD with a staggering 10GB of data so a very small HDD is acceptable (I actually rounded up to 10GB)
On board sound
etc

Allez, SVP

[adam1701]

maybe look in your local paper or classified ads. people are always selling their old machines off for a decent price.

you could probably get one for less than &#163;50 imo.

[alsenior]

For all new parts thats a good price. operating system wise you could put ubuntu linux on there and hae a very nice system

[staffsMike]

Change that CPU to a celeron dual core, that'll save another &#163;10 or so, otherwise a good budget build

[mediaboy]

Knock off one of those sticks of RAM. or maybe even drop down to 512 (although the price isn't hugely changed by going from 1gb to 512mb) and save another &#163;10-15...

[PsychoChimp]

Gonna need an OS (that's not linux ) as the OP said that MS Outlook access was needed.
That's another &#163;60

I reckon your best bet is to buy an old comp and max out the RAM

Chimp

[Link97]

My dad has a spare XP disk knocking around.

I'm currently putting those components in my own basket and shall assess it from there Looks excellent, though. I think I'll go for 1GB of RAM and I've found a dual core Celeron which I'll show you guys in a sec.

[MadduckUK]

Dell Optiplex GX150 PCPentium3@1.13Ghz/384/40GB/DVD/17" on eBay, also, Desktop PCs, Computing (end time 10-May-08 20:51:54 BST)

+
swap the 128mb stick in it for
Kingston 256MB SDRAM 133MHz/ PC133 168 Pin CL3 non Ecc 3.3v Low Profile - Ebuyer

+ donate monitor to one of those places

= job done, more than fast enough, quiet and small

[Link97]

Note: the mobo says it has 4x SATA 300 ports, is that alright? Also, it doesn't say it supports 667Mhz RAM which explains my upping to 800MHz, is this a valid move?

@Madduck: those specs make me cry inside ._.

EDIT: also, don't I get free shipping on Scan seeing as I have a Hexus account, how does that work?

[staffsMike]

You do get free shipping yeah, head off to the scan forum to find out exactly how.

Yeah stick to the RAM you know it supports although it probably would work with slower stuff.

[Link97]

You do get free shipping yeah, head off to the scan forum to find out exactly how.

Yeah stick to the RAM you know it supports although it probably would work with slower stuff.

Rather be safe than sorry

[amdavies]

Be green, use a recycled computer.
P-III 1GHz with 512MB ram will be plenty for a simple XP machine, even if you need to run Zone-Alarm and an anti-virus on it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For web browsing and word processing under XP a dual core is not really needed!!

I came up with this spec off Ebuyer with free Supersaver postage:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2ghz) Socket AM2 512kb L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor &#163;23.00 &#163;19.57

MSI Saturn 890 AM2 Mini Tower Barebone - VIA K8M890Pro Chipset With 350W PSU &#163;59.99 &#163;51.05

LiteOn DH-20A4P-21C 20X DVD&#177;RW/DL/RAM Black Bare Drive - OEM &#163;15.19 &#163;12.92

Kingston 1GB Kit (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-5300/667MHz - Non Ecc - Cl5 - 1.8V &#163;12.84 &#163;10.92

Maxtor STM380815AS 80GB Hard Drive 7200rpm SATAII 8MB Cache - OEM &#163;23.45 &#163;19.95

*Free Shipping has been applied to this order

Total: &#163;134.47

Using Scan you can get something similiar to the above spec for around the same money!

UPDATE!!

Does your aunt even need a DVD drive?? I assume that CD-rewriter would be enough for her needs??

You could probably save another 20 quid if you subsitituted the barebones and DVD drive with the following:

Casecom KL-787 Silver/Black Mid Tower Case - With 350W 20+4pin PSU &#163;19.99 &#163;17.01

Lite-On LTR-52327S CD-RW 52x32x52x Internal IDE (Beige) - OEM &#163;5.29 &#163;6.22

MSI K9MM-V Socket AM2 onboard VGA 6 Channel Audio mATX motherboard &#163;23.27 &#163;27.35

The total will now be &#163;112.85!!