Barebones Systems come w/ CPUs?
posted by lesseffective 
Cameron Postelwait was recently surprised to see that some barebone systems we could potentially sell did not come with CPUs. I clarified the situation by assuring him that *most* barebone systems don't include CPUs. Dan took Poster's side to say that barebone systems should have at least a CPU and RAM, but no hard drive. I gladly pointed out that barebones means case, power supply, and motherboard. Rather than check online, we just talked to tech support. The first definition that we got from "Little Jon" Adams was "a barebone system includes a case, power supply, and motherboard." Dan, Cameron - u dun got moded!
comments
all of these are described as "barebones" by the store selling them, and all include processors:
http://www.ascendtech.us/customkititems.asp?kc=DTBBSEMP7542800
http://www.smksuperstore.com/catalog/viewitem.asp?ID=23486
http://www.eaglebit.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=EB-110-00003&Click=14
http://www.eaglebit.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=EB-110-00002&Click=14
It's probably more accurate to describe barebones systems by what they almost universally lack: keyboard, mouse, screen, memory, hard drive, video card, other PCI cards, etc.