Mantorp's Journal: Best way to get a good cheap PC

My 5 yr old PC is dying, I got it as a return at Circuit City at about half the sticker price (pentium 4 with a dvd burner, those were expensive 5 years ago) and it has served me well. I'm also a fan of the Dell refurbished site. Where else can I get a decent PC for cheap?

Two ideas.

[dexterpexter]

I haven't visited in a while, but http://www.tigerdirect.com/ [tigerdirect.com] used to have good deals on decent computers.
http://www.newegg.com/ [newegg.com] is probably pretty good, too.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

that's what I did, where I did it

[zogger]

I even went upscale and got a new black tower case that I didn't need, just wanted. Got a new mobo, the case with PS, CPU and one half gig stick of RAM for around 150$, and even got my rebate money back, every penny, no hassle. I moved my optical drive and hard drive over. About as cheap as it gets now. If you can recycle your case, swell, means you can get a full Gig of RAM now and maybe do it for around a hundred bucks total just for the new mobo and chip and RAM, as long as none of that is very top of th

Sales/Online Deals

[quanticle]

It depends on what you mean by "good" and "cheap". You could wait for a sale and get a bottom of the barrel Dell for ~$400, but would that fit with your definition of "good"?

Re:

[jawtheshark]

He has a 5 year old PC which is dying.... If he is happy with the current performance, a el-cheapo Dell will do just fine. I also assume that he can recycle some components from the old machine to be used in the new one.

I just recently bought the cheapest dual-core laptop I could find in a brick-n-mortar shop. It works just fine (hey, it's overkill) for my needs and was only 799€ (Turion X2/1Gig RAM) Those prices were unheard of just a few years ago. My first laptop (a 486-DX2-66MHz/8Meg RAM)

Re:

[Mantorp]

I would like to get a MAC-mini but I really don't want to pay such a premium. I have an acquaintance who works at Apple so maybe I'll see if he can find any employee purchase deals. I'm not comfortable enough building my own system from scratch, mostly because I wouldn't know which components are compatible with each other. I don't really play games, I mostly use it for managing my photos and editing home videos of the kids.

Re:

[dave-tx]

Check the apple store for refurbished units (I meant to provide a link, but can't figure out how to link properly due to dynamically created addresses in the store). That's how I got my wife's Mac for a good price.

Re:

[jawtheshark]

I don't think it's all that much of a premium if you buy a Mini. The higher end, sure, but not really the Mini. (Mac is lower case, by the way) Just don't buy RAM at Apple, and get it somewhere else and you're fine.

Building your system is easy. I compare it to playing lego. Let's see what you need:

• Case: don't go too cheap. I've cut myself on all cheap cases I bought and most are "assemble only". Every maintenance will be a pain. However, if you don't mind a few cuts, you can go for the 40

Re:

[TechnoLust]

What?!?!?! No mention of dumpster diving? You're losing your touch!

Re:

[jawtheshark]

The problem with dumpster diving is that it depends on the dumpsters. In "rich luxembourg", you find 1.2GHz AMD Athlons, or 1.9GHz P-IVs, but in a city like Metz (in France), you'll be lucky to find a P-I.

Last saturday, I was at the recycling centre again and I found a P-III, Slot 1, by estimate of the size of the heatsink an ~1000MHz model perhaps higher. I let it there, I have plenty of machines at that power level...

Re:

[Iamthefallen]

Yeah, what price range does cheap mean? Sub $500, 500-750, 750-1000?

Also, what parts are reusable off of your old machine? Would you be willing to build your own replacement?

few other thoughts

[nizo]

www.mwave.com (I would personally get a barebone computer; depending on your pc hardware fu abilities)
www.compgeeks.com sometimes has good deals
I agree with the earlier tigerdirect and newegg places too. Though if you wait a bit you might be able to pick up tons of nice machines as morons ditch their perfectly good PCs and move to vista :-D

Another option is local government surplus

[Degrees]

For some reason, City governments replace their PCs much faster than County governments. More cash in the bank means more freedom to upgrade I guess. Anyway, last week the City had a few Dell PCs for sale, $200 for P4 2.0 GHz. Sold as-is, though they will let you plug it in to make sure it powers up prior to buying it.

Mind you, you can get a new Dell for $400 with warranty, but it will be a Celery processor instead.

Anyway, check out your local government surplus. We have gobs of P II 450's for sale for $6

Re:

[jawtheshark]

You're getting ripped off if you pay 60$ for P-II class machines: in the dumpster I often find P-III class machines. I don't even bother with those anymore, especially if they are Slot 1.

Re:

[Degrees]

Fair enough. :-)

In retrospect, I realize I got my spec's wrong: P-II (up to 400 MHz) = $40, P-III (up to 866 MHz, but mostly only 450 MHz boxen left) = $60.

But ultimately, you make a good point: look hard enough, and the cost is free. :-)