I picked up a few bits at sales today, they're over 10 years old, but I dunno if I should be posting in "modern", but I didn't think the pics would be real interesting to spam this with, since they're not rare stuff, just currently a bit useful to me. PCIe MSI 8400GS and Sapphire HD6450 GPUs, a buck a piece, bought them kinda blind as they don't really announce themselves very well on any of the labels, it was just "oh, a buck, yeah I'll take 'em." More happy about the 6450 think they are underrated cards for low power, single slot, use. Also have some useful transcoding support. 8400GS is a bit meh, but it might get a job shoving pixels somewhere, it's another chance at giving a super picky Dell anything better than an X300 I guess, though it's only mildly better. Then I spent some "real" money... It's a mini-ITX, E8400 (3.0Ghz 45nm C2D) on a DG45FC intel motherboard, with 4GB and a 500GB Barracuda in a Apex MI-100 case, 250W Allied PSU... I couldn't resist for $30.. very neat little system with still just usable grunt. Not sure whether it's gonna be a HTPC or a media server, or a general purpose box or what right now. In theory it can take a 65W quad core, but probably only the Q9550S worth considering... and not until I score one super cheap. It could be taking a place in my vaguely conceived at present "compact stack" of smaller form factor units, something like 6-8 retro boxes in the space required for 2 mid towers.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.