Elite l7vta2 kt400/ddr/agp8x/sound/lan motherboard 2150
AMD sempron 2200 +333mhz processor (box) 3350
Western Digital 40gb 7200rpm Hard Drive 2750
Generic 512mb PC266 DRAM 2200
Inno3d FX5500 128DDR(8x) 128bit TV-out/DVI Video Card 3350
Sony 1.44 FDD 420
AOC 7vlr 17″ Silver Black Monitor 5300
Lite-On 52/32/52 (burn proof) Black CDR 1500
Reflex AMP 706 P4 300w (blue) casing 1550
SG 4100 keyboard (black ps2) free
Generic Scroll Mouse Black ps2 free
Mouse pad free
Colossus 693 180watt black speakers free
total Php 22,770.00
using it now to post this, and i gotta say, its pretty fast for most our purposes, and we’re a happy lot now at home. Wasn’t able to get the MSI AP11b Wifi Access point yet. They had only 1 unit left and when we opened it to check, it was grimy, and when I pulled it out the box the antenna fell off. likely it was a showroom unit, but its definitely seen better days, causing staff to issue me one of the rarest events in my many years of buying PCs – a cash refund.
At any rate, it’s the cheapest WAP out there, or at least in PCExpress’s pricelist to date, others being the P4,500.00 Surecom EP-9600GP and the P3,850.00 Cnet CNAP-711. The MSI unit costs only P2,950.00, and I have instructed my sister to look for one at Gilmore as we speak.
Other points of note is the incredible drop in price of a quality CDR in the Lite-On 52/32/52 unit above. I remember distinctly saving up for a P5,000.00 or so 24x unit not too long ago. At P1,500.00, CDRs should be standard equipment by now (and likely, Nero Burning Rom as de facto burning software, as well as .nrg, Nero’s proprietary disk image format), so I was surprised a bit when I compared PCExpress’s bundled promo options and found some units without one, so these are likely extra inventory. They also dont stock 5400 rpm drives anymore, and at P2750 for 7200rpm 40gb that is a good deal.
i opted for a blue version of my Reflex 706 casing, which other than having tons of space for air to circulate around, and space for another fan (just comes with one), just plain darn looks good in my opinion. I also bought a black/silver monitor AOC monitor, actually a trade-off from buying what I really wanted, a 19″ flat unit. If I didnt have to get the WAP I’d have gone for it and still stuck to the 25k ceiling, but as it is, no go.
And finally, the mobo/processor selection. Although ECS isn’t a highly regarded brand, I took a risk on it 2 years ago and my unit is still going strong (knock on wood). Except for a few ‘cannot find hard disk’ issues which turned out to be defective ide cables, the thing is still ok. I could probably have done better than a Sempron 2200, but the closest Athlon at 2800mhz is P6,250.00, 2x the price. And as processors go, Id likely not find much difference in 2200 to 2800mhz, so I went cheap and again, stuck with the budget.
I’ve stuck to the philosophy of pouring on the RAM and Video Card, and ‘scrimping’ on the processor (and in this case, had to with the mobo as well). So far it’s worked out for me, but the best affirmation of this was when the guy helping me select parts blurted out a “tama yan bossing buhos mo sa ram at vidcard, itong mga ‘to (points at mobo/proc) pare pareho lang naman e”. nuff said.
