The price is reasonable at $33 with shipping included.
The price is reasonable at $33 with shipping included.
You're looking at a decent budget build with an Intel DH55HC motherboard and an i3 540 chipset. It's suitable for basic tasks like Prime95, but if you want more performance, it might be worth upgrading to something like the Xeon X3470. The board is priced around $33, which seems reasonable for a mid-range setup.
I noticed you're using a limited Haswell stock heat sink. Check if eBay has a better deal or consider other options for cooling your setup.
Oh wow, awesome! Finally an accident in my favor with PC hardware. I'm starting up a build thread detailing the history of my Koolance system and my progress toward getting it to be a functional PC once again. I know the H55 board will hold me back so I may be on the prowl for a better motherboard on eBay and here at some point in the future. Thanks, that's good to know the single core performance is equivalent to the i3.
It's surprising how outdated the hardware still feels. I think we should expect replacements sooner rather than later, since things are generally swapped out after a year or so.