Hi,
Businesses rapidly depreciating their computer equipment means that I can pickup perfectly good stuff on ebay at a fraction of the original cost.

Although I did buy my main laptop new, I have a Dell server, 2 thinkpad t61's and a thinkpad t43 bought off ebay , all for total less than $500 (I am a computer hog!). The thinkpads, in particular, are very tough and well built. If you don't need the latest gizmo, this is a good way to go, so long live the corporate accountants :-)

cheers
pete

pete hilton
saruman@ruvolo-hilton.org

Probably up to $50 if it is a Core2 system.

My main system is an incrementally upgraded system from ~2006.

I bought it for $20 in 2009-2010. It came with Vista, a crappy Celeron D 360 (Pee-4 based) and the RAM was upgraded from 512 to 2 GB
In 2011, the motherboard died and I replaced it with a brand new socket 775 board (one of the last made)
And changed the RAM from 2 GB DDR2 to 4 GB DDR3

Motherboard, RAM totaled about $60

I ended up upgrading to a Core2 Duo E6700 rather quickly for $30 towards the end of 2011. HUGE improvement

In 2012, I upgraded the 250W PSU to a 400W unit and added a Radeon 6670 ($100 total)

2013 - I added a second hard disk which I got for $10

Earlier in 2014, I upgraded the CPU to a Core2 Quad Q9550. ($65)

At the end of 2014, I changed the graphics card out with a used Radeon 7850 ($90)

Still runs the original Vista installation as well as dual boots Debian.
I use it to run VMs, do compile jobs, play 2011-2013 3D video games, etc etc.

Computer processors have not changed that much from 2007

am glad someone else noticed this. Especially true if you're not shopping at the top end of -them. You can get more cores, but there's only the one data bus (usually). Not like the difference 286 - 386 - 486 - pentium, which were steps ahead.

This is why I stick with older ThinkPads.

I bought a Toshiba Satellite C50 with Intel i3 4025U, 4 battery cells, 6GB RAM

( The first Dell Inspiron laptop I ever had came with nine cells, the second Inspiron one came with six cells, and on Dell website right now, a high-end Dell Inspiron laptop comes with three cells.
http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-15...15-5547-laptop )

It is cheaper than my Asus which broke down on Christmas, it comes with 6GB as opposed to the 4GB on the Asus,

This Toshiba was being sold for a lower price than usual because it was the last one in stock.

I will say it now - it is cheaper than my Asus but it is certainly a pleasure to work with this Toshiba. While I am not going to the nursing home any time soon, it is also much lighter than the Asus. I am experiencing the reasons behind Toshiba's traditions, reputation and reliability first-hand.