Cheapest base unit build possible

[wedge22]

Ok guys whats the cheapest base unit build you can come up with please, it has to be able to browse the web, email and use Word. It must include Win XP home too.

[Dark Horse]

As in prebuilt oem system or from separate parts self build?

[wedge22]

Either mate whatever you can find would be good

[Dark Horse]

Cheapest I could sensibly find on ebuyer is as follows:



You could probably shave off £20 if you really wanted to be cheap and get a Duron 1600 and 266fsb mobo but its not really worth it.

The thing that really bumps it up is windows xp. It may be worth looking at the Acer Aspire systems on ebuyer, they are only £40 more expensive and would get you a warranty and a few more software options.

[rc55]

Ooh Err - PC Chips motherboard? I know it's cheap but lordy, they haven't got a great reputation for quality products.... :S

Ruairi

[Mike Fishcake]

And not a PC Chips motherboard probably.

I'd rather eat my own legs than use a PC Chips mobo.

[Dark Horse]

He did say the cheapest if i'm not mistaken

[Kebab]

You still need an HSF to go on that sempron, as it is OEM i dont think it comes with the standard AMD one.

[Dark Horse]

Ebuyer Value CLA-XP28 AMD Cooler Althon upto XP2800+ : Quick code 81893 £2.50 inc VAT

[ed^chigliak]

It's worth £40 not to have to build it and install the OS and drivers.

[nez]

I have a load of Pentium 1 computers from a job lot here all you need is a hdd, you can have one for free if you pay for postage!!! they run win98 just fine

nez

[Jonny]

Pre-built cheap! E-bay for an old 500Mhz or if you can afford it, get something along the lines of what dark horse suggests. I reckon you can go plenty cheaper though, looking around.
Do you need a monitor?

[wedge22]

Well its to replace a crappy pc that my father in law has and it really needs to be new not used, it also has to run Win XP. All he needs is the base unit he already has a monitor,keyboard and mouse.

[Scarlet Infidel]

Would a straight CD drive do as opposed to a DVD and CDRW one as shown above?

[Scarlet Infidel]

This is very similar to the system above with a couple of changes and a hsf added (Edit: i cant stand angelfire...)
However, id spend another £6.50 (making it up to £200.40 inc postage) by removing the duron, the hsf and the lame motherboard and going with this bundle. Then youll have a better motherboard and the systems fsb will be 333 instead of 266.

So to sum up, ive ended up with pretty much the same system as previosuly recommended so this is the type of thing you should expect to end up with.

[Bender316]

I had a look at this as well recently for a friend. For £250 (I think that's what I paid delivered) you can get a complete pre-built system from Ebuyer with winXP Home installed, and a cheap Works office software aswell, and AV, etc etc.


With a 1 year warranty, it beats the hell out of trying to debug a heap of cheap'n'nasty components, to work out which one isn't working when something goes wrong. Let Acer sort that out instead. It might use a PC-Chips motherboard, but because they do the pre-install, you don't have to worry about sorting it out yourself

For an extra £30-40, it's well worth it IMO. If it was a higher spec system, no way would I buy an Acer, but at that price it's saving me a few hours work, so worth it. I did it that way anyway.