If you're going for cheap, best bet is finding locally or thrift store... sometimes you can get good deals on ebay for complete machines (or ones without hard drives) for less than $80 shipped. If you keep your total budget under $100 it is possible.

there aren't any thrift stores near where I live that sell old computers

Were are you from?

sprcorreia wrote:

Were are you from?

USA

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

sprcorreia wrote:

Were are you from?

USA

If you are comfortable with buying overseas you should be able to put the machine together and avoid selling a kidney. Head over at Amibay, you'll find lots of stuff there.
In case you don't find what you want, PM me, I might be able to help you out.

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

sprcorreia wrote:

Were are you from?

USA

You have to search google for thrift stores. USA is a big place you know. 😀
If I say I come from Europe it is the same, though if I say that I am from Northern Jutland in Denmark in Europe.
Then it is like saying that you are from Hudson Valley, NewYork State in USA.

sprcorreia wrote:

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

sprcorreia wrote:

Were are you from?

USA

If you are comfortable with buying overseas you should be able to put the machine together and avoid selling a kidney. Head over at Amibay, you'll find lots of stuff there.
In case you don't find what you want, PM me, I might be able to help you out.

I have no experience with this marketplace... Yet this might also be an option:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?7-Marketplace

brostenen wrote:

sprcorreia wrote:

If you are comfortable with buying overseas you should be able to put the machine together and avoid selling a kidney. Head over at Amibay, you'll find lots of stuff there.
In case you don't find what you want, PM me, I might be able to help you out.

I have no experience with this marketplace... Yet this might also be an option:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?7-Marketplace

I'll have to check out the site

brostenen wrote:

You have to search google for thrift stores. USA is a big place you know. :-) If I say I come from Europe it is the same, though […]
Show full quote

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

USA

You have to search google for thrift stores. USA is a big place you know. 😀
If I say I come from Europe it is the same, though if I say that I am from Northern Jutland in Denmark in Europe.
Then it is like saying that you are from Hudson Valley, NewYork State in USA.

I get what you're saying

Recycle centers are also gold mines in the US by my experience.

Where in the States are you located?

keenmaster486 wrote:

Recycle centers are also gold mines in the US by my experience.

Where in the States are you located?

Wisconsin

My advice is to scrounge eBay looking for an ATX style socket 7 though it doesn't have to be a high end one there are still some to be had at acceptable prices if you don't mind going without an agp slot. AT style socket 7 boards can be very cheap but the cost of the cases along with some of the goodies needed to get it along adds up and that is where many first timers these days get screwed.

I can't remember the last time I saw a computer of any sort in a thrift store, and I've been to dozens in two states over the past few years. I pick up almost every card I find (got a capture card and a Linksys ethernet card back in the spring), as well as any decent displays, but the systems themselves are as rare as rocking horse ████. eBay is a nightmare, but the aforementioned recycling centers may be an option. I don't seem to live near any, and where I live, it's a pretty bad idea to show up looking to score old tech anywhere. (My area) Craigslist is full of fools looking to strike it rich by dumping old Dell systems because they're "vintage".

It's funny that once everyone was throwing these machine away and now they're sought after.

Let's start another way.

What old games are you looking to play?

Games like 'Speedball 1', 'Donkey Kong', 'Frogger' for DOS run too fast on my 486 DX2 when the 'Turbo' button is on. With it off, they run fine.

Games like 'The 7th Guest', 'Monkey Island', 'Screamer (lo-res)', will run fine on my Pentium 90 and Celeron 1.3 Ghz.

For DOS games running 'in' DOS, then it's perferable to find a motherboard with room for an ISA soundcard.

For some reasons in my country(Brazil) socket 7 machines aren't too expensive.
Compared with socket 370 and slot a and slot 1 system it is pretty cheap.
To be honest my first retro gaming pc (for msdos) was one 3-in-1 socket 7 system and it was pretty much inexpensive to build(i guess if i directly convert it it was around 150 us dollars).
If you manage to score one super socket 7 board and one k6-2+ 500, 64 mb of pc 100 and one voodoo 3 agp you pretty much have one good system to play games released until 98.
Just be sure to use one awe64, it will work great with modern atx psu since its not require -5v rail to work properly.

Yes countries where they had a perceived longer useful life, either due to not being so materialistic or due to super high import tax and shipping on new tech, the used prices probably lag US/Can by 5 years or so, so they are in the dip.

All the campaigns to be green and "recycle e-waste" haven't helped up here. Which is not so green as re-using things, yet ppl will get a huge feeling of smug righteous satisfaction dumping their old systems in the "e-waste" bin rather than selling it for $20.

I'm in Missouri in the US. I've never had issues finding Socket 7 hardware, but it depends what your definition of cheap is. If you buy all the parts separately on ebay you should be able to get away $100-$200 dollar range for the whole system. If you buy a system to start with and tweak it from there you will save money because you can almost always buy a full system for cheaper then the sum of it's parts. I've got 4 Socket 7 ATX boards and 5 or 6 AT socket 7 boards and I paid very little for any of them.

Yeah, I haven't really looked but the socket 7 systems here in europe haven't seemed that expensive, especially not on local auctiony type sites. Should buy them up I guess, but they just take too much space.

andrewreader wrote:

It's funny that once everyone was throwing these machine away and now they're sought after.

Let's start another way.

What old games are you looking to play?

I'm looking to play a small variety of games. From "Wolfenstein 3d" and "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" to "Quake" and "Need for Speed 2 SE".

Rhuwyn wrote:

I'm in Missouri in the US. I've never had issues finding Socket 7 hardware, but it depends what your definition of cheap is. If you buy all the parts separately on ebay you should be able to get away $100-$200 dollar range for the whole system. If you buy a system to start with and tweak it from there you will save money because you can almost always buy a full system for cheaper then the sum of it's parts. I've got 4 Socket 7 ATX boards and 5 or 6 AT socket 7 boards and I paid very little for any of them.

On ebay, the prices for each of the components are ridiculously high. Also, I haven't been able to find any cheap socket 7 systems on ebay.

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

On ebay, the prices for each of the components are ridiculously high. Also, I haven't been able to find any cheap socket 7 systems on ebay.

Just to further add onto my last comment.You might quantify what you version of cheap means. I know some people who have gone years without spending very much money, but they spent a lot of time looking for free for cheap hardware. For others having the convenience of just paying a reasonable price for hardware to have it shipped to their doorstep is worth saving the time of having to search for a deal. You absolutely put together a socket 7 for completely free if you are willing to be patient and look for parts locally.

What you say about ebay is often true but what you'll find is generally the overpriced items generally sit around for a long time unsold. Items that are priced competitively tend to go fast, or you have to be patient for an auction style listing to complete. Once i found a pair of Super Socket 7 ALI motherboard both with CPUS and RAM in them which was misclassified under the wrong catagory and it turned out to be local to me so I arranged local pickup. Only ended up being 20 dollars for that auction. While something like that is kinda rare it's generally not hard to find an ATX super socket 7 motherboard for 30-50 dollars regularly. Outside of that it depends on what kind of parts your wanting.