$996 X2 4400+ system appears

WE'RE ATTEMPTING to convince resellers in this column to offer freebies or additional discounts to our readers. If you do buy from any of the guys listed here, just tell them that you come from the INQ's daily buy column. And, resellers or readers alike, if you have some hot and spicy deals, please send me a line.

Dumpinggoods is selling a 200GB 7200RPM HDD from Maxtor for only $79. The Diamond Plus 9 model comes with an ATA interface, Maxtor developed Shock Protection System and DPS. Last but not least, it has a 8MB buffer.

Cyberpower has an X2 4400+ system for only $991 with expected shipping date next Friday. You get a X Blade II mid tower with a 450W PSU and a sidepanel window, an X2 4400+ CPU, free half life Bronze download coupon, a MSI Motherboard with Integrated X300 video module, 512MB Corsair Memory, a 80GB 7200rpm HDD. You have a mere CDROM and no monitor, mouse or speakers. Still a pretty good price if you're looking to change your rig.

Hawkeye sends me news that dabs is selling a whoppa of a video card. A Gainward Ultra/2400 Golden Sample with DOOM III, 256MB memory, DVI and VO for only £181+VAT. 16-pipe GPU, a huge HSF and only three left. Oy, it's an O'c 6800GT. So Ultra speeds should not be too far.

PCSurplusonline has a Compaq Proliant DL480 Quad P3 Xeon 700Mhz with 1MB L2, 512MB memory and two SCSI 9.1GB HDD hard disks. You won't get much more. But with a SmartArray Raid Controller and a server casing, then you might just have found your entry level home server.

Have you ever wondered whether it was cheaper to build a computer or buy components and just build one. We checked on ebay and found out that the price difference was very minimal, around 5%. A good system we found here is one from Express PC. £264+VAT buys you an Athlon A64 3200+ with 1GB memory, a 120GB HDD, a 16x DVD writer, an Asrock motherboard with integrated graphics but nothing more.