The 20,000 Peso PC - Reloaded....

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About three weeks or so ago I made a post entitled The 20,000 Peso PC. It was written to give a person on an extremely low budget an idea on what kind of specifications and components he can expect from a computer worth approximately P20,000.00 (roughly 357 USD).

A week after that, two of my friends (Dick and Oliver) decided to take me up my offer to construct for them home-built computers in the same price range. The intended use was for simple office tasks, such as word processing or spreadsheets, playing MP3s and DVDs, and burning CDs. Since neither of them are hardcore gamers, not even casual gamers, the ability of the assembled PCs to play 3D titles was admittedly very low. That capability was not really needed anyhow, and was hardly a loss for them, so they were more than willing to give it up if it would make the cost cheaper.

The specs are based on the PC described in my earlier post, with some changes due to variations in component availability. If an inexpensive part is not available, I had to either find an equivalent part or to bump the specs up a notch. Here's what my friends ended up with:

CPU: AMD Sempron 2400+ (OEM) - P3,700.00
Motherboard: ECS KM400-M2 - P2,450.00
Memory: 256 MB PC333 DDR SDRAM - P1,150.00
Hard Disk: 80 GB Seagate Barracuda - P3,500.00
Optical Drive: Lite-On 52x/32x/52x Plus 16x COMBO drive - P2,450.00
Floppy Drive: 3.5" floppy drive - P420.00
Video Card: On board (S3 UniChrome 2D/3D Graphics) - P0.00
Sound: On board - P0.00
Modem: D-Link Rockwell Conexant 56k internal modem - P480.00
Monitor: 17" AOC 7V - P5,300.00
Case: Generic (includes generic power supply, mouse, keyboard, and speakers) - P1,500.00

TOTAL: P20,950.00

The total is about 500 pesos more expensive than the price quoted in my earlier post, but some modifications had to be made to make up for unavailable parts. The original Sempron 2200+ was bumped up to a slightly more expensive yet faster Sempron 2400+ (166 MHz real speed gain). The board used was an ECS KM400-M2 instead of the ECS K7S7AGL. Both boards are made by ECS, which is known for making inexpensive yet reliable PC components, particularly motherboards. The KM400-M2 also has built-in video via an integrated S3 UniChrome 2D/3D graphics processor. It's not as powerful as the Xabre 200 built in the K7S7AGL, and it doesn't have dedicated video memory, only relying on system memory. But it does have one thing the K7S7AGL doesn't have: an 8X AGP slot. If you really want to play games, just plug in a high end ATI or NVIDIA card and you'll be ready to rock. If you don't however, the built-in graphics will suit anyone just fine for anything short of high-end gaming.

Here are some pictures I took while building the PC:

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Sempron 2400+ CPU

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ECS KM400-M2 board with installed Sempron processor

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Coolermaster DP5-6JD2 CPU cooler

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256 MB DDR 333 SDRAM

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Motherboard installed in case

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Seagate 80 GB hard disk

While it's true that you do get what you pay for, what you do get is not necessarily a bad thing as you can see.

Hope you enjoy your new computers guys! :-)

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