Anyone who's anyone in the overclocking scene knows that to be seen with anything less than this *months* chip is tantamount to getting up and saying 'Actually, I rather like Macs...'.  It has to be the newest.  It has to be the best.  It has to be expensive...
But what happens to all the old(ish) hardware?  When someone upgrades to the latest Athlon XP2200, where does the old Athlon Thunderbird go?  Most get sold on second hand forums to less demanding users, some (belonging to crazy people like Trubador ) get experimented on, and others just left by the wayside.
When I upgraded from a 450MHz PIII to a 1.2GHz Athlon, I was stuck on what to do with the old motherboard and processor.  Although I *could* sell it, I would get a tiny fraction of it's original price.  I decided to keep it until I could figure out my plan.
A while later, I upgraded my 3dFX Voodoo3 3000 graphics card to an ATI Radeon 64Mb DDR VIVO card.  Again, I wouldn't be able to sell the old card for more than a few quid, so in the pile it went.
Still later my rapidly filling 13.6Gb drive was replaced with a nice 30Gb Seagate model...  Another item for the now growing pile...

It occurred to me that by this time I had almost an entire computer here...  And so I started to see how cheaply I could get the remaining bits for...  I already had the main components (motherboard, processor, graphics card, 128Mb PC100 memory, hard drive, ancient 8x CD-ROM), I was just lacking some minor components.  The final cost of the bits I didn't have ended up at:  

After installing Windows NT Server 4.0 (plus all 7 service packs, plus the post-6a security rollout...) I had a fully fledged workgroup server for file storage and to use as a ShoutCast MP3 server for £30!  It keeps receiving bits that are ripped out of my other computers when I upgrade (such as another 128Mb RAM when I switched to high-performance Crucial CAS2 memory), and thanks to a bit of overclocking is now running at 504MHz.

So, next time someone asks you the cheapest computer you've ever seen, tell them a custom-built Windows NT machine with a 504MHz processor, 256Mb RAM and a 13Gb hard drive for £30...  :D
UPDATE: Citadel now has a 3-CD autochanger, 384Mb RAM and an additional 20Gb hard disk!

-Blacklaw
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