Mobo/CPU/RAM/HDD for $300?

[CountZero]

Title says it all. I've been looking around at doing this and I'm not sure its even possible to do a decent setup for $300. I'd love to do a Barton if its possible in this money limit but that alone would be $90. I can skimp on the HDD now if there's a cheap like 20GB or something or even potentially go without one for a bit (I have an old 4GB) but running on a 4GB is just a painful thought and it could be months before I could afford to upgrade again.

I do plan on doing some piecewise upgrades after this purchase (it'll have either a Geforce DDR 32MB or MX2 64MB until i can afford better). But that will be a while as well.

I'll be using the computer to do a bit of everything gaming, programming, what have you. A little future proofing would be nice. I was thinking a Nforce 2 mobo and maybe a cheaper athlon and a 512 stick of PC2700. Then switch the cheaper athlon with a barton when they drop in price after the 64s hit the market.

I've looked at it every which way and I'm having a hard time coming up with something decent. I'm fond of using newegg since they've always worked well for me in the past and nothing with MIRs if at all possible. Thanks for the help!

ps This is an upgrade for a second older computer (P2 266) not an upgrade for the one in my sig. My GF is addicted to EQ and I'm trying to build myself a decent second computer for myself to use when she's gaming away or maybe to play along with her.

 

[dmw16]

I saw a guy selling a 1700+ Bred on the FS/T forum and it had a good stepping...you could overclokc that. I think he wanted $60. Aside from that, for mobo check out SolTek, Chaintech, and Epox. The epox I would suggest is the 8RDA or 8RDA+ if you need everything on board. A lot of places dont seem to have the 8RDA anymore, but the Chaintech 7NIL1 - SUmmit looks good. Newegg has that for $69. So that plus $90 for your barton and you still have $141 left. The RAM and hard drive are gonna be a little bit more tricky. If you look in this thread you can get 256MB of PC3200 for $35. That is a pretty good deal. Or 1stchoicememory has 512MB of PC2700 for $67. That would leave you $74 for a hard drive. If you are willing to do the MIR thing, Best Buy has an 80GB seagate for $59 after rebates. That would put you under $300, but after shipping probably just barely.
-doug

 

[Theslowone]

Athlon xp 2500 84.00
Dane elc 512 pc2100 73.00
Chaintec nforce2 ultra 71.00
40GB hd 7200 60

Total is 288 all from newegg, any 40gb hd is about 60bucks. 80gb(7200) for only 11 dollars more.

If you want a complete system then thats going to be hard to do, even shopping around.

 

[VansTheMan]

I'm almost done building my system and I'm up to about $350 including shipping. I got everything off ebay and the only problem I had was the guy I bought the mobo from is in the Navy and his wife forgot to send the I/O shield, but he shipped it once he got home. I used a case I already had, a GeForce 2 MX400 64MB I had, and CD-R I had. The only problem is that I had to be really patient to get the best prices, so if you're looking to build it right away, this won't work. I also don't know how fond anybody else is of using ebay...

Asus A7V8X Deluxe ($62 shipped)
XP2600 333FSB retail pkg ($99 shipped)
WD800JB ($61 shipped)
Corsair 512MB XMS3200C2 ($88 shipped)
Enermax EG365P-VE ($32 shipped)

 

[CountZero]

Thanks for the help guys, while looking through newegg I cam upon a couple of deals so how does this look:

Biostar Mobo ($146.50 w/ Barton 2500)

Barton 2500 ($0)

Crucial 512MB PC2700 ($85) There is some cheaper stuff but when you take into account shipping and the fact that I've never heard of some of those brands this starts to look better.

40GB 8MB cache HDD ($62)

For a grand total of $293.50 which would be keen if a surprise bill hadn't shown up but I still might be able to swing it. Thoughts and opinions on this setup? If you had to trim it down to cut cost what would you do? Like I said up above I have a craptastic 4GB HDD lying around also have two 128MB sticks of PC133. That other biostar bundle with the XP1800+ goes for $99 that would drop the price by $47.50 so that was another possibly cheaper option.