Help my friend put together a $300 system

[Madcowz]

Yea I know you can't get much with $300, but it's a start... Plus anything you get with $300 oughta be better than his Pentium 200 MMX w/ 32MB EDO RAM. I'm thinking about a barebones system from Compgeeks and a Celeron... something along those lines. Anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[mjquilly]

Go with a Duron instead, cheaper and more performance than the celery...and you're right, you can't get much w/ $300. The good thing about the Celeron is that you can get a Mobo w/ integrated video, sound and nic/modem, if you consider that a good thing which I do not. That would easily offset the price difference between Duron/Celeron. So I guess I change my mind, go celery to keep it as low as possible.

 

[BigLance]

Does his sytem need everything (like Hard drive(s), video, sound etc?) If so, here is my best:

Thes prices do not include shiiping costs...
AMD Duron 650MHz $43
FIC AZ11 Duron 133MHz FSB 3D Video Motherboard $88 Can be upraded later on with faster video board....
ZEUS 128MB PC133 SDRAM $43
Creative SB PCI128 $23
15GB Quantum UDMA/66 Hard Drive $91
Delta 52X CD-ROM $26
3Com USR 56k v.90 Winmodem PCI $26
Mid Tower Genica ATX Case $17

Thats about it cept monitor, comes out to $357. That is over his limit but maybe you don't need all that hardware..
www.pricewatch.com is where I pulled the information

Good Luck !

 

[Instigator]

Your only real hope is an E Machine. $300 is not alot to work with if you want something that is new. If you don't mind signing up for a 3-year subscription to Compu-Serve or something like that. You can almost get the E Machine for free. Buying a used computer might be another option. I hope he at least has a monitor. Good Luck.

 

[Playitagainsam]

check open box deals in best Buy or Circuit City!

Last fall I got a HP 6350 for about $300...

 

[sitka]

Att'n Biglance, absolutely incredible response. Cap is doffed

 

[uncouth]

travel back in time and sign up for the Shopss deal...

 

[Ethernet]

For $400 bucks I'm getting a t-bird 800 with motherboard, 256 meg of ram, and a geforce DDR - just use price watch, stuff is cheap lately.

 

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

BigLance:

From what I can tell, and according to FIC's webpage, that motherboard does not have onboard video. If you can show me otherwise, that'd be great as I am looking for a board to put a duron in that has integrated video. Thanks

Cigar

 

[BigLance]

sitka, thank you very much !!

CigarsmokedbyClinton, you are probably correct here, I ran some queries on pricewatch to come with the information for him, on the description it said there was onboard video, however, there is a good chance that was an error...

There are other boards I imagine that have onboard vga and support Duron however I am not a Duron person and do not know

But you could pickup say a 8MB TNT2 card for about $28. Or spend a little more and get like a V3 or something...

 

[Madcowz]

okay he may have a $400 cap now... any other suggestions? Compgeeks has some pretty WEAK barebones available now, another other places?

 

[chiwawa626]

400?, might as well go for a system with the msn 400 dollar rebate! buy a $150 sys, the 250 for msn 2 years....good comp