[Bungleau]

If I were looking for cheap, I'd go to a local PC shop and ask for a bare-bones machine. That will get you what you're looking for at a reasonable price (far more reasonable than you could do yourself).

However, if you're building a machine, chances are that you want some better components in there, and that costs money.

With a standard machine, you'll get on-board everything. You will soon discover, especially if you use the machine for gaming, that it is worth what you paid for it. You'll want a better vid card, better sound, more memory... in short, you'll keep adding.

You might consider the Frankenstein approach: keep an eye out for components on sale, and when there's a good price on a CD-ROM, or hard drive, or memory, or whatever, pick it up. Eventually, you'll have enough pieces to build a monster *evil laugh*

*edit* I just picked up a price list from a local shop here, and a bare-bones AThlon 2000+ system is US$269. 128M memory, 52x CD, floppy, on-board sound, video and NIC. No hard drive, no OS.

[ 10-10-2003, 11:36 AM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]