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The $100 cheeseparing challenge

P

preCRT

Platinum Member
Can a super-skinflinty pc be built for under $100[US]?

This is a challenge I am determined to beat & build in the next few weeks.

The pc will be used ONLY for surfing, email, watching hulu and printing the occasional email. NO gaming will ever occur, no overclocking. Grandpa speed is fine, it only needs to be fast enough to watch streaming online video.

Although I am an AMD fan, I'll bend & go with Intel if it means beating the challenge.

Onboard sound & video will be fine; will need wifi access to the home network.



Yes, I've searched this and other forums, haven't found a thread with as low a budget.



Already available parts: PATA HDD, CD-R, Win XP, monitor, keyboard, mouse & speakers.

So I'm looking for:
case, ps, motherboard, cpu, hsf, wifi card, and memory [1gb].

Is several years old Arctic silver still usable?

It has been several years since my last build and the online players have changed. Where else should I be checking for deals [IIRC] besides Newegg, mwave, eWiz, zipzoomfly, frys.com, geeks, pricewatch & fleabay?


I'm not within a thousand miles of Fry's, am 40 miles from a Microcenter but would prefer to order online.

Is this doable?


Thankx for any & all suggestions.
 
i managed to get everything but a harddrive for $140 2 years ago.

frys cpu/mobo, ram for $4/gig, $30 antec case and PS.....
 
Its do-able until you start shopping for RAM. Either DDR-2 or DDR-3 are going to break your budget in a hurry.

I think it can be done by dropping the RAM, but you obviously still need it to make the build complete.
 
preCRT said:
Can a super-skinflinty pc be built for under $100[US]?

This is a challenge I am determined to beat & build in the next few weeks.

The pc will be used ONLY for surfing, email, watching hulu and printing the occasional email. NO gaming will ever occur, no overclocking. Grandpa speed is fine, it only needs to be fast enough to watch streaming online video.

Although I am an AMD fan, I'll bend & go with Intel if it means beating the challenge.

Onboard sound & video will be fine; will need wifi access to the home network.



Yes, I've searched this and other forums, haven't found a thread with as low a budget.



Already available parts: PATA HDD, CD-R, Win XP, monitor, keyboard, mouse & speakers.

So I'm looking for:
case, ps, motherboard, cpu, hsf, wifi card, and memory [1gb].
Click to expand...
$32, decent case + 400W UL-listed PSU, free shipping at Ewiz
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=...e-Black-Silver

There was also a deal for a Rosewill ATX case and a Biostar NV6100 AM2 mobo for like $45 free ship a while ago, I got in on two of those.

$20.99 for a 775dual-VSTA refurb, free shipping I think too.
http://3btech.net/as77coduo10w.html

$6.99, free shipping, CPU Heatsink/fan Cooler For Intel Core2 LGA 775 To 3.8G
http://cgi.ebay.com/CPU-Heatsink-fa...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a4fd2b3fd

Or same thing, $1.99 + $4.06 flat-rate shipping
http://cgi.ebay.com/CPU-Heatsink-fa...4671?cmd=ViewItem&pt=CPUs&hash=item2a045c756f

$12.99 + $2.95 shipping, INTEL P4 3.2GHz /1MB /800 LGA 775 CPU
http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-P4-3-2GHz...5236?cmd=ViewItem&pt=CPUs&hash=item255c298684

That's up to $74.97. Still need RAM, Wifi card, and video card(?).

$15.00, free shipping, 1GB Ram Upgrade Desktop 2Rx8 PC2-5300 DDR2
http://cgi.ebay.com/1GB-Ram-Upgrade...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c14222e16

Up to $89.97. Can we find a $5 wifi and a $5 video card?

$1.00 + $4.37 flat-rate shipping, ships from HK
54Mbps WIFI 802.11G 2.4G Wireless LAN USB 2.0 Adapter
http://cgi.ebay.com/54Mbps-WIFI-802...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5adae305ef

Up to $95.34. Need to find a video card.
$0.99 + $4.00 shipping
ATI Rage 128 AGP Video Card 100% New Cheapest on Ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Rage-128-AG...tem&pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3a5a7daf6f

$100.33. I guess I failed, it's not $100 or less. GL beating my prices though.

Edit: I guess there are some slightly cheaper heatsinks, if you don't want the OEM one. You could also save $5 by going with a Celeron instead of a P4 3.2. But I think you want all the CPU power you can get to watch streaming videos. That said, I don't know how well the Rage 128 scales and smooths video, it might look a tad bit blocky. Don't ask where you would find XP drivers for that card either.
 
Last edited:
VirtualLarry said:
$32, decent case + 400W UL-listed PSU, free shipping at Ewiz
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=...e-Black-Silver

There was also a deal for a Rosewill ATX case and a Biostar NV6100 AM2 mobo for like $45 free ship a while ago, I got in on two of those.

$20.99 for a 775dual-VSTA refurb, free shipping I think too.
http://3btech.net/as77coduo10w.html

$6.99, free shipping, CPU Heatsink/fan Cooler For Intel Core2 LGA 775 To 3.8G
http://cgi.ebay.com/CPU-Heatsink-fa...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a4fd2b3fd

Or same thing, $1.99 + $4.06 flat-rate shipping
http://cgi.ebay.com/CPU-Heatsink-fa...4671?cmd=ViewItem&pt=CPUs&hash=item2a045c756f

$12.99 + $2.95 shipping, INTEL P4 3.2GHz /1MB /800 LGA 775 CPU
http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-P4-3-2GHz...5236?cmd=ViewItem&pt=CPUs&hash=item255c298684

That's up to $74.97. Still need RAM, Wifi card, and video card(?).

$15.00, free shipping, 1GB Ram Upgrade Desktop 2Rx8 PC2-5300 DDR2
http://cgi.ebay.com/1GB-Ram-Upgrade...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c14222e16

Up to $89.97. Can we find a $5 wifi and a $5 video card?

$1.00 + $4.37 flat-rate shipping, ships from HK
54Mbps WIFI 802.11G 2.4G Wireless LAN USB 2.0 Adapter
http://cgi.ebay.com/54Mbps-WIFI-802...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5adae305ef

Up to $95.34. Need to find a video card.
$0.99 + $4.00 shipping
ATI Rage 128 AGP Video Card 100% New Cheapest on Ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Rage-128-AG...tem&pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3a5a7daf6f

$100.33. I guess I failed, it's not $100 or less. GL beating my prices though.

Edit: I guess there are some slightly cheaper heatsinks, if you don't want the OEM one. You could also save $5 by going with a Celeron instead of a P4 3.2. But I think you want all the CPU power you can get to watch streaming videos. That said, I don't know how well the Rage 128 scales and smooths video, it might look a tad bit blocky. Don't ask where you would find XP drivers for that card either.
Click to expand...

Thank you for participating, 3btech is a new one for me, I'll check them out and the rest. I forgot about CL, I'll be checking them as well.
 
Nice VirtualLarry!

A couple other options.

Pixxo case + PSU for $2 cheaper. No idea if this psu is any good.

If you want a bit more omph, for $5 more, you can get ATI x1300 for $10 shipped. You'll also need to find a mb that has pci-express 16x slot though.

does after rebate price count? If so, then
masscool hsf at zipzoomfly for $5 after $10 rebate and comes with little packet of thermal paste. This only supports up to 95watt cpu though.
 
Ya, good luck topping Larry in a hardware low prices search ! He knows his stuff, so I rarely bother to try and out-do him.

Other than the video card, its an interesting build project. The eVGA B-stock 6600 for $10 would be my choice, but that blows the budget to hell by $9.
 
WT said:
Ya, good luck topping Larry in a hardware low prices search ! He knows his stuff, so I rarely bother to try and out-do him.

Other than the video card, its an interesting build project. The eVGA B-stock 6600 for $10 would be my choice, but that blows the budget to hell by $9.
Click to expand...

Yeah seriously. Although Larry could just cheat and sell you one of the 1000 systems that he has for $99...

:awe:
 
I think you need to hit the $30 after $10 rebate Intel celeron e3200 + mb deals from fry's. Only way you'll get a remotely modern system for that price. Otherwise, you can just find the sites that sell old p4 systems for $100 or less.
I miss the days of free after rebate case, psu, hsf and occasional ram deals.
 
ther00kie16 said:
I think you need to hit the $30 after $10 rebate Intel celeron e3200 + mb deals from fry's. Only way you'll get a remotely modern system for that price. Otherwise, you can just find the sites that sell old p4 systems for $100 or less.
I miss the days of free after rebate case, psu, hsf and occasional ram deals.
Click to expand...

I too miss the old days of FAR parts & price matching by AMEX, that was how I mostly built my first 3 PCs. I even miss Compusa, Circuit City, & Computer City.




I did luck out on craigslist, picked up a Dell Dimension P4 2.8 with 1g of ram & an ATI vt-x1300 256mb card for just $40. Even better, I only had to drive 5 miles to pick it up, closer than any store.

All it needs is a wifi adapter.


Again, thank you all for your valuable insights and contribution to this thread. I hope it'll help others out there looking for super cheap builds.
 
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