Another Ars Ultimate Budget Box 321
Some nice Friday afternoon reading for you; Ars Technica has another go at the Ultimate Budget Box, a cheap no-frills PC for minimum cash output. From the article: "Look around inside most corporate offices, where most computers need to handle a few Office documents and light Internet use. They don't need to be able to burn CDs or handle 3D-intensive games, but they do need to be reliable and affordable. Lots of consumers out there probably want a similar box--an appliance that lets them get onto the Internet, take care of e-mail, and create a few documents. For them, being able to burn a CD-RW would probably be nice, but anything beyond that is an extra. Low-cost, reliability, and quality are key. That is what the Ultimate Budget Box is about: not skimping on components, but not loading it up with features either." The final price? US$525.46
Re:final specs (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm currently in stage 2 of 3 in getting my family off of Windows. They're already using Open Office and Firefox. They're actually happier with them than they were with IE and Office- when I told them I could block ads with Firefox their faces lit up. The next time they buy a computer, I am installing linux on it- just leave them a firefox and an office icon on their desktop and they won't care about the difference in colors. And it'll be a win for them, as I can just ssh into their box if they have problems. I'll just give them a no-privlidges account on it and I'm done.
Re:You mean the Mac Mini, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
1) is almost impossible with PC components, if you want any reasonable performance. I will be choosing a MATX board, but I am trying to find one that is smaller than 24.4×22 cm and which still has Firewire and DVI/TV out like the Mac Mini.
The PSU will be external like for the Mini. (btw. Mac Mini's PSU gets very hot.. and it does not have any sink drain either)
2) I am solving by building the case myself. I am no stranger to working with aluminum.
3) I am trying to solve by replacing the internal heat sinks and chassi fan(s) with one large heat sink that will become one side of the case. Heat transfer from each component to the heatsink will be through copper blocks, but some heatpipe-like features in these blocks would be better.
Of course, this decision requires that all i/o is integrated.
But there are still drawbacks compared to the Mini, while costing as much:
- still twice as big as the Mac Mini,
- the Mac Mini has dedicated graphics memory while the integrated PC boards share memory between CPU and GPU with reduced performance.
- the Mac has a slot-in DVD. I can not find any reasonably-priced slot-in DVD burner anywhere close... (I live in Sweden, btw)
Re:You mean the Mac Mini, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
MacMall sells this for $474, but gives an extra $20 rebate, a free printer and a 4x5 graphics tablet.
Instead of a crappy MS XP home you get a real OS, better than XP-professional and you also get the iLife programs.
Add the same keyboard, monitor, speakers and mouse as listed and you get a media capable computer that'll also work great for browsing the web and simple office jobs. The mini is silent, but how much noise does that 300 watt power supply make? The mini is run by a small 85 watt power supply.
Sometime this year the new Intel powered mini will make this so called "Ultimate Budget Box" totally obsolete and expensive.
Re:What a load of CRAP (Score:3, Interesting)
I put together a PC with similar components for my mom, and the final price (not including a monitor because it doesn't make sense to pay to ship a monitor) was $180. In the Silicon Valley I have access to a lot of surplus computer parts places, but anywhere else you could find prices just as good or better through websites or mail-order.
This article is more of a guideline to building the ultimate budget box, not a frickin' blueprint or Bill Of Materials (for you manufacturing types out there). It basically points you in the right direction so you can avoid a lot of the research I had to go through to find the same components, but you do still have to use your BRAIN.
Nothing in life is free, after all...
Re:I didn't RTFA, but.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Last summer, my parents bought my brothers a SlickDeals Dell. P4 3.0GHz HT, 40GB, 128MB or 256MB (lowest option, bought cheaper memory elsewhere), integrated graphics. No AGP or PCIe, but for them, a PCI FX5200 was enough. $350 included the 17" LCD. Bought another 512MB for about $50, so figure a total of $400. Quite a few of the Dell deals do indeed have PCIe now. Considering that most of the PC is an integrated Intel mobo, there's not really much room for "substandard components" either.
And that includes tech support from Dell. That's not much, but it's better than none. It also includes a copy of XP Home (you may or may not care about that).
Re:Gaming PC for about this much (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm. I've got a 600Mhz Duron chip and I do stuff like that. Of course I've got 1.5 gigs of ram.
Actually, the real reason I have so much ram is that I wrote a java program to post stuff to autopr0n.com that would need to hold 10-30 uncompressed JPGs in ram, which took a shitload of ram. Heh. Most people were still at 512mb at the time.
By the way, I've noticed CPU speeds havn't seemed to be going up much lately, is the same true of ram? I remember when I started AP about 512 megs was average, and people are still using about that much memory. It's so strange too, since ram is so cheap.