Challenge: Build a PC for £150

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

An interesting challenge perhaps for an article i'm working on for another site!

What's the best PC you can build for £150 INCLUDING VAT, INCLUDING delivery?

Conditions:

- Must include all the important stuff, CPU, RAM, HDD, Graphics, Sound etc. PLUS a DVD drive

- All items must be from one online store

So far i've come up with the below... which is the Atom integrated Mobo (64 bit version), 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Samsung DVD-RW, black case... all from eBuyer coming in @ £146.36.

Can you do better?

;)

P

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Interestingly the Atom mobo could be swapped for a "Intel Celeron Dual Core E1200 Socket 775" and a "NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i" equipped mobo without busting the budget... a better option?

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[Guest Paul (MVP)]

One of the attributes of the Atom that does appeal however is it's OSX friendliness ;)

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[Guest tsutton]

That's a very good price. Good find.

Building one for yourself or for a friend/family?

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Just curious, and interested to see just how cheap PC building has got!

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[Guest sagr]

How about the same as (from Ebuyer) above but with:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4450e 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Retail Boxed Processor

Kingston 2gb Kit (2x1gb) Ddr2 800mhz/pc2-6400 Hyperx Memory Non-ecc Cl4

Foxconn A6VMX AMD 690V Socket AM2 onboard VGA 6 channel audio mATX Motherboard... for £154inc vat

Or AMD Sempron LE-1200 Socket AM2 2.1GHz Retail Boxed Processor for £135...

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Sempron > Dual Core Celeron or not?

The X2 option is over budget, you could of course lose a GB of RAM or halve the size of the hard drive... Interesting...

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[Guest awarner (MVP)]

Ebuyer has always been on of the cheapest places at least in the UK.

I presume this is for the base unit only and does not include an OS?

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Yeah, correct...

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[Guest]

Here's my entry! ;)

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Nice one ... does that case come with a psu?

[Guest]

Oh yes, 400W PSU and the Mobo has on-board VGA too. I wonder how low this DIY PC thing can go?? ;)

[Guest]

It works out even cheaper with a dual core Athlon X2! ;)

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Impressive, where's that from?

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[Guest]

That's all from CCL I'm sure someone will find an even lower bottom end of the market! ;)

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

See my idea was to build the most energy efficient PC possible. Saving money etc.

[Guest jimbouk]

I win...

I bought an HP ProLiant ML110 G5 - Micro tower - 1-way - 1 x Dual-Core Xeon 3065 / 2.33 GHz - RAM 1 GB - HDD 1 x 250 GB - DVD±RW (+R double layer) - Gigabit Ethernet - for £94 four weeks ago from Insight. Amazingly they sold out the 250 they had in stock at that price in 24hours.

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

In which case, you lose ;)

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[Guest jimbouk]

Woah... OK only1gb of ram, but I could get another one for £25 - so a xeon processor, 2gb ram, 250gb hard drive, sata/sas etc... £120

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Yeah, but you lose because it's sold out! ;)

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[Guest jimbouk]

No... you lot lose!

Its sat at home running sbs 2003 and hosting all my media and my email... pushing it out to my diamond etc, and I have thus cancelled my 4smartphone account. That £85 saving per year combined with Pipex halfing my monthly bill and throwing in a fixed IP address - saving me £10 per month, means that the £200 or so total outlay is paid for in one year.

I just need to find the best cheap server AV offering...

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

;)

:wacko:

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[Guest sxywill2005]

I found two systems at Aria if that counts ;) :

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+...productId=31975

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+...productId=32113

[Guest sxywill2005]

Ah build your own system...

Well I have an option. It costs £148 inc VAT, but there is a £10 delivery charge <_<

Bringing it to £158.

Specs are better on mine. ATI integrated tend to perform better than nVidia and Intel. What is bringing my cost up is the super sexy Asus case which doesn't include a power supply. I have room to have a cheap looking case with power supply for less than £20 which would mean that including delivery, I could have something which comes to £148. For an extra £3 you can have a 250GB HDD too :wacko:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+...productId=30165

Aria also do a cheap Pinnacle PCI-E dual hybrid TV tuner card too for less than £18:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+...productId=28679

Then you have a Media Centre on your hands ;)

Edited September 25, 2008 by sxywill2005