Help spec a cheapo system! (£200-250)

[Dr. Gonzo]

This is an extremely tight budget and I'm in a bit of a muddle... OcUK please come to the rescue! My dad's friend wants a PC for his son mainly for school work and internet use, all on the measly budget of £200-250 or maybe just a little bit over.

The best I've come up with so far is £262.85 for this little lot:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Retail
Motherboard: ASRock 939 Dual-SATA2
Memory: 512MB Elixir PC3200 DDR
Hard Drive: 160 Seagate Barracuda SATA
Case: Northstar 4-in-1 w/ 450w PSU
Video: Connect 3D 256MB ATI Radeon 9550
Optical: NEC ND-4570 16x DVDRW

However after looking over a few threads I've noticed people getting a nice spec. machine out of £235.88:

CP-164-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-164-AM)
£54.95 £54.95

CA-004-AS Asus TA-210 Series Midi Tower (Black) - 360W PSU (CA-004-AS)
£32.00 £32.00

MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£69.99 £69.99

MB-148-AS Asus M2V (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-148-AS)
£44.99 £44.99

HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£33.95 £33.95

Obviously its missing a few things but if someone could spec a similar machine with the extra bits like a GFX card, mouse, keyboard etc within the afformentioned price range I'd be a very happy man (and I'm sure he and his son will be too).

Thanks!!

Gonz

 

[semi-pro waster]

I don't think it is possible to go for AM2 + keyboard and mouse in the price range, this is about as close as I can get(ok the AM2 3000 is £3 cheaper or so) but there really is very little else about the machine that could be cut back on. It has onboard graphics and the parts are fairly solid but about as low as I'd go.

MB-149-AS Asus M2NPV-MX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-149-AS)
£44.99 £44.99
CD-045-LG LG GSA-H10NBAL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-045-LG)
£15.99 £15.99
CA-004-AS Asus TA-210 Series Midi Tower (Black) - 360W PSU (CA-004-AS)
£32.00 £32.00
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
MY-080-CR Crucial 512MB (2x256MB) DDR2 PC2-4200C4 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT3264AA53E) (MY-080-CR)
£31.99 £31.99
CP-164-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-164-AM)
£54.95 £54.95
Subtotal £205.87
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £37.77
Total £253.59

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Thanks mate that was damn speedy too might I add!