Cheap Rig

[CubanCorona]

I need to build an inexpensive rig for secretarial work at a small firm. It will be used for word processing, web browsing, and emailing. Mobo integrated sound and video will do just fine. I have a monitor already. What would be a good case/ps/mobo/cpu/mem/hd combo if I?m looking to spend ~$300 or less?

 

[DaveSimmons]

search "budget" "rig" "300" for a few dozen existing threads on this.

Or if you want a legal OS for your system, look for a Dell deal in Hot Deals or GottaDeal.com (probably $400 though).

 

[imported_raybay]

A rerurb unit from www.pcsurplusonline.com

 

[Kaido]

I saw a Dell deal in the Hot Deals forum for like $350 (I bought my 2.8ghz P4 Dell for $400 a few months ago)...also eMachines has pretty cheap boxes nowadays (hehehe). If you're going to build one, you might think about getting an AMD Duron processor...I saw looking at them earlier - a 1.8ghz Duron is less than $50! My old 850mhz Duron ran great, cool, and cheap 🙂

Also, Compgeeks has some killer deals on boxes...click on the link and scroll down to the "Pentium III" section...there are several nice deals for around or less than $200.

 

[Polishwonder74]

Here's what I just built for my uncle about 3 weeks ago:

Antec Solution Series Beige SLK1600 w/300 watt psu
Lite-On 52X CD-ROM
2 Enermax Adjustable 80mm fans UC-8FAB-B (I HIGHLY recommend those)
Thermaltake TR2TT HSF (adjustable)
Sony 3.5" floppy
WD400JB 7200 RPM 8MB cache hard drive
Asus A7N8X-X mobo
AthlonXP 2000+
Sapphire Radeon 9200SE (Do NOT use the included catalyst drivers, go for newer version)
2 sticks 256MB Kingston ValueRAM PC3200

It's rock solid (so far) and is as silent as a brand new Dell (I outdid myself this time)

Sorry, I didn't save any benchmarks to show & tell, but I'll say, it's absolutely NO DOG.

Grand total was about $480 including delivery.

Hope that helps you. It turned out to be a spitting image of what Anandtech recommended in the last budget guide.