PC for about $300
 

Well, my brother asked me to build a computer for him, but the problem was that he is not exactly wealthy and only had $300 to spend. Here is what I bought for him:

Motherboard w/ CPU $74.00
PC CHIPS M811LU KT266A / VT 8235 5xPCI 1xAGP(4x) 2xUSB ATX 266FSB -with cpu - ATHLON XP 2200+,1.8GHZ w/ Heatsink Fan

Memory $50.88
512 MB PC2700 Micron

Hard Drive $67.49
Seagate 80 GB IDE

CD-RW $34.98
Lite-On 52x24x52 IDE

Floppy $12.98
Sony 1.44 internal

Video Card $69.00
PowerColors ATI Radeon 9600SE

Case and Power Supply $17.00
400 W Power Supply and Metal Case

Total $326.33

Obviously I had to cut corners on this. But how do you think I did? Any bad experiences with any of these components? I know the PC Chips Mobo might be a bitch.

I think you're doing pretty good there.
Case fan?
I'm guessing he already had monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer.

Sound? LAN? Modem?

Any software? Moving it all over?

The problem I see is that a $17 case/w "400" watt p/s is likely worth exactly what you paid for it. A good $50-60 p/s, maybe with his next paycheck or somthing, would be money really well spent.

What a bitch it'd be to have $273 dollars worth of decent equipment fried in 6 months by a POS power supply.

Ya did good! About the same thing I'd have ordered. I probably would have canned the videocard and went with an onboard video PC Chips motherboard, but if he's gonna do any type of gaming, the 9600SE will benefit a little bit.

I've ordered two PC Chips motherboards recently, and both are quality boards. The driver installation is kinda tedious, but other than that, there wasn't any problems.

-Lasereth

He already has a monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, which are mostly remants from his current computer. LAN is built in to the mobo. Onboard sound will do for now. Software, including OS, will be moved over. Thanks for the power supply advice, that is often the most overlooked piece of equipment, your point is well taken.

Right on, my main man. Good luck.

What bothers me, is that the el cheapo box here compares pretty strongly against my two year old box. Time to save some $$, and build again.

You could cut corners even more and get on-board video. Depends if he plans on doing any gaming, but seeing as you only have $300, it doesn't seem so. Nvidia just released (or plans to release) a new line of on-board video N-force or something like that.
This is what I have in mind for mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...138-234&depa=1

Saves you $70 bucks to cut out the video card, and it has on-board LAN and on-board 6-channel audio.
My choice for case/PS: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...192-008&depa=1

It's not $70 saved for the video because that motherboard is way more expensive than the PC Chips. He got the PC Chips mobo and the Athlon XP for $74. That BioStar is $64 by itself. :) It would be a little bit of saved money, but the added 9600SE is worth it.

-Lasereth

Wow, I have no idea how I missed that one.
Well, then my CPU choice would be this, a slight upgrade from the choice above.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-378&depa=1

I would go with the better processor than the video card especially if he is interested in a cheap computer. The graphics card could easily be upgraded if he wanted but the processor would be a lot harder to upgrade.
My .02

if he is going to play games, ditch the SE, go with a 9500 pro or a 9700 pro. if you are not going to do any gamming then the 9600 SE will do.

He has $300 total to spend on a PC. :)

-Lasereth

Out of sheer curiosity, why do you think a CPU would be any harder to upgrade than a video card?

9700 pro is almost half of that... he *could* have bought a GeForce 4 TI 4200 from Newegg refurbed for 50 bucks... thats what I did, and I love it... not to mention that it runs circles around a 9600 se.