INQUIRER daily buys

UNITED KINGDOM
ARIA is selling what is probably the cheapest socket A motherboard on the planet. For £9.99+vat (roughly four pints of good beer), you get yourself an ACORP 7A1647A (no error - some sites sell it for thrice the price). Granted it is not a latest version but it is new and comes in a retail box. It uses the short-lived ALI 1647 chipset and is compatible only with Palomino, Spitfire and Morgan Core AMD chips (you can easily source them on Ebay; ebuyer.com have new XP1800+ for 38 quid). It has integrated sound, and AGP slot and 5 PCI slots and is ATX. You can buy it and find more information here. Its updated BIOS is found here, but oddly though, there is no trace of that motherboard on Acorp's website. Unfortunately, no review of this product is available on the interweb.

FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES
PC Chips has always been a favorite amongst no-frill system builders although it does occasionally gives serious headaches and the M811LU illustrates this. At €23.56+vat in France at Rueducommerce.com, it costs almost the same in the UK (£14.99 at Ebuyer.com) and in the US ($18 at Partspc.com). Build around a KT266a Chipset, it offers a wide range of functionality in an ATX format: five PCI, six USB 2.0 ports, onboard audio and LAN with an AGP port.. User reviews at Epinions, Newegg and Ebuyer speak volumes for this board, which is also available under the brand name Syntax and ECS. The product page is here and offers link to updated BIOS, manual and latest drivers. Unfortunately again, no reviews of this board are available. PC Chips boards are available under a wide range of brands - Eurone, Matsonic, PC Chips, ECS, Syntax, Alton etc.

SINGAPORE
It might not be the cheapest board in the world but it surely is in Singapore and by a wide margin. At $SGD71 (bear in mind that they have no VAT or sales tax there), Unlimited's (tel 63333196) Matsonic 8158's Socket A motherboard is cheap. Featuring onboard LAN, VGA and sound and a VIA KM266 chipset, it also has an AGP slot and everything is packed in a handy microATX format. Performance will not be pristine but at that price, it really doesn't matter. Updated drivers and BIOS are available here and here. The product's page is here. Sadly, no review of this product is available on the net, as far as we can make out.

If you know about any special offers in any of these countries, drop a line or two to me here. µ