A dual Xeon bundle for $228

Basically the cost of a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz processor bundled with a PC Chips motherboard. The Xeon motherboard used comes from Computer Geeks and is the Thunder S2720GN. It uses the E7500 which supports a 400MHz FSB. Note that unlike comparable P4, hyperthreading is present. On top of that, six memory slots, supporting ECC registered memory. Other specifications and features include Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and one 10/100MBps Ethernet port. You will also get an integrated ATI Rage XL graphics controller with 8MB memory. As for expansion slots, they include four 64-bit PCI-X and one 32-bit PCI slot.

Up to four ATA hard disks can be connected using the integrated PCI controller onboard and there are two USB ports if you want IO ports. The motherboard does fit many ATX compliant towers but don't expect standard ATX power supply to work. Only EPS 12V power supplies. If you are vying for more power, then invest in two Xeon 2.0Ghz processors. They have twice the amount of RAM, though they cost twice more than their 1.7Ghz counterpart. Note that none include any HSF. Can anyone send me some info regarding when two 400Mhz FSB Xeons can match or beat a 800MHz Pentium 4? µ

UK
I have very rarely met with a better deal than this one. Greenleaf Electronic Recycling Ltd has surprised me once more. They are selling an Athlon 64 2800+ with a DVD writer and a 128Mb graphic card for only £229+VAT. Granted they are refurbished and second user. Even then they offer fantastic value for money. Who would potentially dream of buying a 64-bit system for only £229? You get only 128MB memory though and a 40GB hard disk drive. Everything else though is integrated. From the USB ports to the integrated LAN and sound modules. The minitower casing provides with three external 5.25in bays. If you can live with an integrated video card and a slower processor, then Greenleaf has a Pentium 4 2.66GHz on sale at £183 only. It comes with 256MB memory and a 8x DVD writer. Note that standard UK delivery is £25 though. So take this into account. You can contact the firm on 01355247670. You won't find its website or its email address, probably. µ

France
Asus has been bold enough to launch a Dual Xeon motherboard based on the hitherto uni-processor i875p. The PC-DL Deluxe has been acclaimed as one of the best entry level Dual Xeon boards. At Eur 188.40 at multe-pass, it is incidentally the cheapest dual processor board in France, regardless of platforms. Its specs are very differnt from what you would expect from a platform using Xeon processors. The latter being more associated with server platform than the enthusiastic. Gone the Registered ECC memory support as well as any SCSI or PCI-X slots. The PC-DL is well endowed with features as well.

Six-channel analogue audio, four DIMM sockets, eight USB 2.0 ports, Intel Gigabit LAN, serial and printer ports and one two firewire ports. The motherboard also has a pair of ATA 133 and serial ATA ports plus two RAID serial ATA ports. There is also a Promise controller allowing RAID usage. On top of that you will also find five PCI slots and one AGP slot. Also best of all, you can still use your usual power supply instead of any other exotic - expensive one. Interestingly, you can overclock the Xeon quite easily using Asus patented AI overclocking but only in 1Mhz increments from 133Mhz to 165Mhz. PC Pro achieved a 15% success which is quite promising since they did not use any specific performance enhancer. µ

Singapore
Sometimes, you need graphic cards for other things than playing. To work for example. Hardwareplace is selling a Wildcat Realizm 100 for S$1849. The latter is not a gamers graphic card. It is a professional one. It is equipped with 256MB GDDR3 memory and has two DVI ports. Though it was released less than six month ago, it shattered several SPECviewperf 8.01 benchmarks, the equivalent of 3Dmarks 2005. The Specbench website shows that it grabbed the first places and accesits in a number of industry standard software like 3dsmax, CATIA or Maya. The Realizm 100 has a VPU and works on an AGP8x slot, delivering over 32MB bandwidth. In comparison, a Radeon X800 XT generate only half that bandwidth. Wildcat Realizm 100 is equipped with two, single-link DVI-I connectors, two DVI to VGA display adaptors and a stereo connector. it can access up to 16GB of virtual memory which essentially makes it viable for very large mdoelling. Physically, the card is covered with a black piece of plastic with 3Dlabs written over there. The plastic hides a massive heat sink and fan. µ