Cheapest components to run a lowly xp machine ?

steveinspain · 12 Nov 2009 at 20:29

I may be in need of a very cheap pc to run xp - there is a program I want to use that will only run on xp (Roxio EMC6, for making cd compilations), so what would you suggest I look at. I have a power supply, hard drive and case with case fans, so need a mobo, CPU and memory plus cd drive.
So, tell me what to look for please !

RJC · 12 Nov 2009 at 20:34

Something along these lines:

Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £67.99
(£59.12) £67.99
(£59.12)

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 Low-Voltage Dual Channel (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £62.99
(£54.77) £62.99
(£54.77)

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £45.99
(£39.99) £45.99
(£39.99)

Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive (Black) - OEM £19.99
(£17.38) £19.99
(£17.38) Sub Total : £171.26 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.00 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £27.04 Total : £207.30

cook001 · 12 Nov 2009 at 20:39

I agree with RJC's list.
The 785g chipset is just fine for running xp

sastusbulbas · 12 Nov 2009 at 20:49

Surely you can build a system cheaper than that, he did say very cheap and for that application.

Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (Socket 775) DDR2 Motherboard £35

Intel Celeron Dual Core E3200 £34

Extra Value Memory (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz £36

Plenty of choices for DVD drives at £17

steveinspain · 12 Nov 2009 at 20:50

Amazingly quick replies guys - Thanks !
Do I need 4gb RAM, or could that be reduced - my old pc, that worked just fine doing what I want to do only had 1gb, so maybe 2 would do ??

steveinspain · 12 Nov 2009 at 20:52

sastusbulbas said:
Surely you can build a system cheaper than that, he did say very cheap and for that application.

Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (Socket 775) DDR2 Motherboard £35

Intel Celeron Dual Core E3200 £34

Extra Value Memory (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz £36

Plenty of choices for DVD drives at £17

Hey, that sounds better in terms of price - as you point out - it has to be VERY cheap, and yours is !

Memphis · 13 Nov 2009 at 00:14

I would not be buying new for the sake of a single out of date application.

_TubbZ_ · 13 Nov 2009 at 01:36

You could always buy the new Roxio Cd creator thingy, from a quick google it costs about £30...

Nate Silvers · 13 Nov 2009 at 02:38

_TubbZ_ said:
You could always buy the new Roxio Cd creator thingy, from a quick google it costs about £30...

Exactly, lol steveinspain ya jackass

J.B · 13 Nov 2009 at 07:56

Memphis said:
I would not be buying new for the sake of a single out of date application.

_TubbZ_ said:
You could always buy the new Roxio Cd creator thingy, from a quick google it costs about £30...

Exactly what I was thinking, or try and run it on a virtual machine.

I love the idea of an entire machine just for burning CDs.

Nate Silvers said:
Exactly, lol steveinspain ya jackass

Bit harsh.

steveinspain · 13 Nov 2009 at 10:31

OK, jackass here...
The newer versions of roxio do not have the same facilities, so do not do what I want - I tried installing my version on my W7 machine and ended up having to do a fresh install. I even bought a newer version to try it !
Hence the reason for wanting a cheap machine - as for secondhand - I have already posted in the wanted section, but thought it worth asking here just in case..

J.B · 13 Nov 2009 at 12:14

Have you looked in to running it virtually?

steveinspain · 13 Nov 2009 at 13:47

Yup, tried that too !
That was when I ended up having to reinstall, as the whole pc stopped working...

geekyEd · 13 Nov 2009 at 15:11

Find a different (non roxio) made solution to your issues.

As had been said buying a whole computer to run a cd burning application is down right stupid (the concept of doing so, I'm not calling you personally stupid).

DragonQ · 13 Nov 2009 at 15:22

There are loads of freeware optical burning applications, don't spend £150-200 on a PC just for burning CDs/DVDs. Hell, Vista/7 can burn loads of things natively but if that isn't good enough try out CDBurnerXP - it does pretty much everything you'll probably need (although I use ImgBurn for more advanced image-related stuff).

steveinspain · 14 Nov 2009 at 07:28

What Roxio EMC6 has that I cannot find elsewhere is a wonderful crossfading facility that allows me to fade out one track over a certain amount if time. I can then fade in the next track where I want and for as long as I want. Now there are several other bits of software that do something similar, but I have not found one that is as easy to use and that lets me hear the results well. I have tried sound editers and as many cd burning apps as I can find without ever finding anything that works so well for me.
Maybe you know better - if so, please point me towards it !

Chaos · 14 Nov 2009 at 11:48

Tried Audacity ?

steveinspain · 14 Nov 2009 at 21:02

Yup, tried Audacity - its good, but is still way more complex than it needs to be - more professional than I need - I cannot remember all that I have tried, but certainly the mainstream programs - nero etc

PermaBanned · 14 Nov 2009 at 22:01

sastusbulbas said:
Surely you can build a system cheaper than that, he did say very cheap and for that application.

Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (Socket 775) DDR2 Motherboard £35

Intel Celeron Dual Core E3200 £34

Extra Value Memory (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz £36

Plenty of choices for DVD drives at £17

I'd go with this actually, i saw that CPU overclocked on a similar (or even identical) board to 4GHz, on stock volts and stock cooling.