[sclug] Dell desktop for 175GBP inc. delivered - offer closes 2/11/2005

[Alex Butcher]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, Peter Brewer wrote:

> Bottom line is.... if you want a job doing properly.... do it yourself!  You 
> can easily build this spec machine for this price from components.

Let's see...

Asus P4P800-MX i845GV motherboard, 41.72 inc. (eBuyer)
  [closest is probably Intel D865GVHZ for 7GBP more, but ltd. availability]
Celeron D 325, Boxed with HSF,     50.80 inc. (eBuyer)
2*OCZ 256MB DDR400/PC3200, 17.61ea 35.22 inc. (eBuyer)
Hitachi DeskStar 80GB 7200rpm HDD  34.90 inc. (eBuyer)
Aopen mATX Case w/ 250W PSU        35.63 inc. (eBuyer)
Lite-On LTN-527 52x CD-Rom drive    8.22 inc. (eBuyer)
  [Dell is 48x, but this is the cheapest new CD-Rom drive I could find]
Shipping                            7.63 inc. (5.0Kg-9.9Kg, >30GBP value)
  [might even require 10.0Kg+ rate]
TOTAL                             214.12 inc.

Caveats:
- No Windows XP license included
- no 90-day /system-wide/ warranty
- eBuyer vs. Dell; both have horrid reputations for CS, but I'd prefer Dell
- Many of the parts specified are not in stock, and eBuyer won't let you
   order them today, but they have sold them at these prices at some time in
   the recent past.
- No cost attached to time taken to assemble system.

Can you do better, Peter?

> This allows you to make compromises where you see fit and not to
> compromise on the important components.  For instance, it means you can
> ditch the Celery processor and get one that can add two numbers together
> without a pause!

Do keep up; the Celeron D's are virtually identical to the Pentium 4s that
were being sold 2-3 years ago; they have the 533MHz FSB as did the P4 'B'
revisions. Also, seeing as you brought up the topic of addition, Intel chips
usually have faster FP than AMD's. The only significant restriction is the
cache - 256KB instead of the P4's 512KB. As an aside, a Sempron 2200+
(cheapest >2000PR + 333MHz FSB) was 38.02 inc. from eBuyer and the cheapest
non-PC Chips motherboard was the Asus A7V600-X KT600 board for 30.47 inc.
giving a saving of 24.03 (assuming the 2200+ is comparable or better than the
Celeron D 325) which still leaves you above 175GBP, delivered.

Dell charge an extra 110GBP+VAT to upgrade from the Celeron D 325 2.53GHz to
a P4 2.8GHz, eBuyer sell the Socket 478 Pentium 4 2.8GB for 127.37 inc (so a
76.57 inc. 'upgrade').

No-one claims that Dell's entry-level systems are good machines for games,
CAD, clusters or whatever. They're not even intended to be very expandable.
They're intended and specified as basic business desktops, and they'll cope
with that kind of usage just fine.

Disclaimer: I've bought ~11K worth of Dell kit for work, never bought Dell
from home, and built all my PCs myself, bar my first 486, my laptops and the
IBM P5-133 that someone gave me. I do not directly own any stock in Dell.

> Pete

Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>