Ultra cheap £250 computer

T

tpspoons

New Member
Hey guys my boss at work asked me to see if I could find a new PC for his wife for around £250 (though I think they'd go up to around £300). This is what he said in the email:

RAM – she works with lots of programs open at the same time (principally Office plus Sage).
DVD RW
Min of 160GB memory
Reasonable clock speed but doesn’t have to be dual core processor
Package including new monitor would be great but not essential

She's basically only gonna be using it for the office suite and browsing the net + music/basic videos etc (nothing too major). I've given up on looking for one with a monitor consider her price range so don't worry too much about that. I've put together a quick build on ebuyer to get an idea on the price (see attached png). The major cost in that is the OS but I'll ask if she has a version of windows xp or something so she could buy the upgrade instead (thus saving around £30).

Although thinking about it a package deal (i.e. prebuilt) would probably be better as it would come with warranty as a whole - she's not too techie so warranty on the entire product instead of individual components would probably be better.

Anyway you guys probably know more than I do so if you have any ideas that would be really helpful.

Thanks
Tomer

spece.png
 
You don't need the graphics card in your build, the motherboard has onboard, and you don't need windows either, you can put ubuntu on there as well instead, which will work, maybe with the help of wine, but it will work with Sage

With that much extra money, you can make the build much better:

Motherboard: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/MSI-...DR3-1333-1600(OC)-SATA-II-3b-s-SATA-RAID-uATX

CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-...e-S-AM3-31GHz-2MB-Cache-HT-4000MHz-65W-Retail

Hard Drive: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500G...HD502HJ-SATA-3Gb-s-7200rpm-16Mb-Cache-8ms-OEM

Memory: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...6-(1333)-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24-150V

Power Supply: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/400W...ies-PSU-ATX-PS-2-80plus-Efficiency-UK-Version

DVD Reader/RW: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sams...DR-12x-DVDR-DVDplusRW-x8-RW-x6-SATA-Black-OEM

Case: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-TM-B11-Black-mATX-Tower-No-PSU

that comes out at £263

Does it need to be prebuilt or are you to be building it?
 
I don't mind building it but I don't think she would like ubuntu - like I said she's not very techy so it would probably be better if I could set it up the way she's used to. I could probably get away with sticking xp on it for now (we seem to have a multi-licence version in the office) but I can imagine she'd prefer it if it had windows 7. + also she did specifically say she wasn't too sure about an OEM version since she wanted proper support with it in case anything went wrong.

That setup does look significantly better (and cheaper) so I'll see if I can persuade her.

Edit: Also what are the onboard graphics like on the MSI 740GM-P25? It doesn't need to run any games but it would be nice if she can use the full aero experience without too many side effects.

Thanks!
 
tpspoons said:
I don't mind building it but I don't think she would like ubuntu - like I said she's not very techy so it would probably be better if I could set it up the way she's used to. I could probably get away with sticking xp on it for now (we seem to have a multi-licence version in the office) but I can imagine she'd prefer it if it had windows 7. + also she did specifically say she wasn't too sure about an OEM version since she wanted proper support with it in case anything went wrong.

That setup does look significantly better (and cheaper) so I'll see if I can persuade her.

Edit: Also what are the onboard graphics like on the MSI 740GM-P25? It doesn't need to run any games but it would be nice if she can use the full aero experience without too many side effects.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The graphics aren't great, it is a HD2100. It won't be good enough to run aero, however all aero does is give translucent windows and taskbar. You could get a cheap dedicated graphics card so you could use it, but I doubt it would be worth £35 just to get translucent bars.

I understand as well when you say support that you mean over the phone/email support, however any problems that occur can be sorted right here on computerforum. Also, I have done it for a couple of other members, if you want support you can add me on skype to get support whenever with whatever problem or question. That would save you a little on getting an OEM version of 7, rather than retail
 
I think what I'm gonna do is go with your build but with 2gb instead of 4gb of ram and use the extra cash to buy Win 7 OEM. That should come to around £300 but I'll double check.

The thing about support is that I'm quite happy to offer her tech support if she needs it but she told me she would feel more conferable knowing that the proper channels are available in case of an emergency. At the end of the day though she'd probably fold if I told her how much money she could save :P

Anyway thanks a lot and if anyone has any more ideas that would also be great!

Also actually I seem to remember that you used to be able to install Windows 7 using an upgrade disk by installing the trial and then upgrading from that? Is that actually possible I can't remember where I read it?

Edit: Oh and do you prefer SCAN to Ebuyer? I've always used Ebuyer since I've had nothing but decent service from them but the prices do look slightly cheaper on SCAN.
 
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The upgrade disc is an upgrade from Vista. If you have a system with Vista on it, or bought a system with Vista on after the end of June 09 (only certain ones, not including ones you built yourself), you can buy an upgrade disc and upgrade to 7, which is a substantially cheaper option if you already have vista, but would come out to more if you bought the 7 upgrade, and a copy of Vista separately. If you qualified for the free upgrade, like it says, it is free, so you contact microsoft and they will give you the upgrade key and all the necessary stuff to get the upgrade done
 
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