Felt like making a small XP PC so I bought an Aopen i45gmt-HR Socket P motherboard complete with Core 2 Duo T6600 (2.2GHz / 800FSB/3mb) and 4GB of RAM for £10. Crucially it came with the heatsink and fan, all ready to go.

I put it in my small case along with a passive DDR2 9500GT of all things and now I have a slightly interesting and very quiet Windows XP PC. The only downside (other than the slow 9500GT) is no EAX sound effects.

I've done some googling and ebaying and I think a C2D P9500 (2.8GHz/1066/6mb) is the best bang for buck CPU at £12. And I'll probably replace the GPU with something a bit faster (and louder).

Anyway Socket P is kinda interesting as a 25watt to 45watt cpu platform and it's quite happy running Oblivion even if the 9500 isnt.