The $300 PC

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not to bad of a system for the basic home\home office use, i would recommend a better cpu if your spending the $$ anyways
 
From newegg. Much better :)




Update Spire BlackFin VI SP-2705B Black/ Silver SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
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Update Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model HH80551PE0672MN - OEM
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$71.00 $71.00

Update CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Desktop Memory Model VS1GBKIT667D2 - Retail
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Subtotal: $350.94
 
Where i live Toronto area and there are lots of used and refurbished Pentiums for that and less.Already to use and guaranteed.
 
pentiums are little too old for of use. The article made it a point to have dual core CPUs.
 
Nice article. BTW, has anyone seen the specs of the $100 laptops made by those folks at MIT? If someone does know, could they post them here? I can't seem to find them anywhere...
 
in reply to the $100,- laptop.

Here you go(from wikipedia)
Hardware

The hardware specifications as of November 2006 are:

* CPU: AMD Geode GX2-500 at 1.1 watt, with integrated graphics controller
* CPU clock speed: 366 MHz
* 1200×900 7.5" diagonal LCD (200 dpi) used in one of two modes:
o Reflective (backlight off) monochrome mode for low-power use in sunlight. This mode provides very sharp images for high-quality text.
o Backlighted color mode, a blurry 1200×900 that is similar to between 400×300 and 693×520. (like NTSC or PAL television) Despite the blurring, the display will still be decently sharp for it's physical size; normal displays as of February 2007 put about 588×441 to 882×662 in this amount of physical area and support subpixel rendering for a tad more.
o Depending on mode, power consumption of the display is between .1 and one watt.
* 128 MiB of Dual (DDR266) 133 MHz DRAM
* 1024 KiB (1 MiB) flash ROM with open-source LinuxBIOS and OpenFirmware
* 512 MB of SLC NAND flash memory
* External SD card slot[22]
* Wireless networking using an “Extended Range” 802.11b/g wireless chipset run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power consumption.
* Marvell 8388 wireless chip, chosen due to its ability to autonomously forward packets in the mesh even if the CPU is powered off. An ARM processor is included.
* Dual adjustable antennae for diversity reception.
* Keyboard, conventional (QWERTY) alphanumeric layout. Key imprinting & firmware localized for the country of use.
* Dual five-key cursor-control pads; four directional keys plus Enter
* Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input
* Built-in color camera, to the right of the display, VGA resolution (640×480)
* Built-in stereo speakers
* Built-in microphone
* Audio based on the AC97 codec, with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in
* 3 external USB2 ports.
* Power sources:
o DC input, ±10–25 V
o 5-cell rechargeable NiMH battery pack, 22.8 watt-hour (82 kJ) capacity
 
think we've gone a little off-tangent here..... I was trying to stick with desktops....

to SNGX1275
I thought he was talking about original pentiums.... yes you could go with a pentium D, but I think the articles were also factoring in efficiency.
 
It is possible to build an affordable, quality pc. One way is to "shop around" for a barebones system. Some that I've seen on Tiger Direct are pretty decent, to include Intel's Core 2 Duo and AMD's AM2 systems. You just have to remember to scrap the power supply that usually comes with these kits. Additionally, you can salvage optical drives from your old build to cut some corners as well. One obstacle that does cause the price of a low cost system to go up is when you have to purchase new RAM. With the advent of Vista and the higher requirements for more RAM in that OS, the market price of RAM is like gasoline anymore; one week it's up, then it drops and the next, back up again.
 
sghiznaneck,
I couldn't have said it better. That $125 computer I spoke about was built from a MSI Mbox barebones system I bought from Newegg recently. I removed the MSI motherboard and I used an older Biostar AMD Athlon XP board and processor in the case. A used Lite-on combo burner and some old DDR memory, a used floppy and PCI modem... $125. The MSI Socket LGA775 will be used for another motherboard and CPU/memory upgrade... $250. I paid $89 for the Mbox barebones, including shipping
 
don't forget computer salvage shops and ebay. Quite often you can get used components like cases and RAM dirt cheap.
 
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