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I just bought 8 GB high-end (1600Mhz DDR3) RAM for 30 quid.

I wouldn't call 4GB DIMMs (I very much doubt you got an 8GB stick at that price) of desktop ram "high end" even if they happen to be overclocked slightly.

That makes 240 for 64 GB.

Unfortunately it doesn't (I know the GP said ignoring the cost of the motherboard but the GGP didn't). To do 64GB with 4GB DIMMs would require 16 sticks. Given that desktop DDR3 only supports 2 DIMMs per channel and than a typical system has 2-3 channels this becomes a problem. To fit 64GB total using 4GB desktop modules would require a board with 8 ram channels. The most ram channels you get on a single CPU socket is 4.

Unless it's already a high end server platform "Upgrading" an existing system to 64GB means ripping out the CPU and motherboard and replacing them with a server platform that can take all that memory. Further it most likely means use of more expensive ram

Lets look at how much it would actually cost to do that first using 8GB DIMMs of registered ECC memory*.

Motherboard: 1x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182240 : $225
CPU: 1x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105266 : $250
Ram: 8x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139280 : $76 each -> $608

total: $1083

Now lets consider using 4GB DIMMs of desktop memory.

Motherboard: 1x http://www.provantage.com/supermicro-h8dg6-f~7SUPM3F1.htm : $578
CPU: 2x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105266 : $250 each -> $500
RAM: 8x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313123 : $40 each -> $320

total: $1398

* 8GB DIMMs of desktop memory are like hens teeth at the moment and cost more than 8GB sticks of registered ECC memory.

Maybe you could join the 21st century sometime. 64GB of RAM costs 16x$21.99=$351.84, not $2000.

Who uses 2GB sticks to get 64GB anyway? You can get a 4GB high quality stick for $21.99 at Newegg. That's $351.84 for 16 of them. That's £227 at today's exchange rate. You're right about the ratio, though. It's about 3:1 for price of RAM to SSD.

And you know what? I'd take the RAM in a heartbeat. It would have at least 10:1 better read rate, and even more advantage in write rate. It never wears out. And you can use it for anything; not just a hard drive cache. In fact, I'd say the sweet spot for a hard drive cache is maybe 8GB, not 64GB, if you optimize what it caches. Now you're down to $44, and there are reasonably priced desktop motherboards that will hold this much more than you want to have for other purposes. On my desktop system, /bin, /lib, /usr/bin, /usr/lib, and /etc put together in their entirety total no more than 1.3GB. If you put all that and other well selected stuff in RAM drives and mount them, just about all programs will load essentially instantly. Just stick with the hard drive with existing linux RAM caching for the data (all other partitions).

6 ram slots is not that uncommon on triple channel memory boards. Here is one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157163 it will set you back an entire $155.

Though, I am hoping that next time I get a new PC I can go beyond the 4 cores/8GB of RAM I have now and not be outrageously expensive. That would rock.

You can. It's called Llano by AMD and Asus is offering a Matx board that supports 16GB of memory. You do need to spend some money on the 4GB DDR3 sticks but the price isn't too bad as this shows http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134927 -$25 a stick isn't bad at all for 4GB memory.

I've been planning a new build for year end and it's going to use the Asus board and the Llano Quad Core with APU. Cost of the hardware w/o the Wacom Cintiq 12WX and Corel Painter 12 is right around a grand ($1000) and that's with 16GB of memory, 5x - 2TB drives, a 1GB video card (radeon 6570), Icy Dock Drive Tray system with 3 trays/caddies. Add in the Cintiq and Corel Painter and we're talking $2500 dollars for the entire system. Note that it doesn't include the Win Tax as I've got a legal copy of Win7-64 to install.

I am VERY happy with my Asus RT-N16, which I got on sale for $60 or so.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320038

--4-port gigabit
--b/g/n (but doesn't have the "dual" mode n or whatever it's called)
--3 antennas
--2 USB ports on the back for NAS purposes
--***Runs Tomato firmware***
--VERY fast processor for those that want the box to do other stuff (Broadcom BCM4718 533MHZ, RAM: 128MB)

I've been using the ASUS (yeah I know, shut up) RT-N16 with DD-WRT installed and have been really pleased.

http://www.asus.com/Networks/Wireless_Routers/RTN16/#specifications

It is/was actually a top recommended DD-WRT device. It's also cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320038

It might not support open-wrt (as far as I know) but I have gone thru 2 Linksys WRT54G routers, x1 netgear, x1 belkin, x2 dlink routers over the past 10 years. I bought the TrendNET 639GR a year or so ago and it is a fantastic wireless router. The x4 LAN ports are gigabit, and the TEW-639GR is a wireless N router. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156249

That's what I was thinking. A SATA/USB3 adapter I bought has a jumper to make the drive read-only. That got me thinking - why can't we have a hardware toggle switch to make the boot drive read-only? You can't root it if you can't modify any of the bootable system files, or if you do manage it a reboot will clear it up. Yeah you'd have to toggle the drive writeable to install new software or update. But is there really any point to leaving the boot drive writeable when you're not updating or installing?

I use this model at home, its great. I have no idea why people are so eager to spend $$$ to keep their crap out in a cloud. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108065

What's your definition of "affordable"? Newegg has gigabit PCIe NICs starting at $15 (shipped); there are four choices under $25.

What's your definition of "affordable"? Newegg has gigabit PCIe NICs starting at $15 (shipped); there are four choices under $25.

OTOH, a low-power CPU (i3 2100T with the included 600 RPM fan, a PSU with a quiet FAN and an 80+ gold rating, and probably no graphics card, will make no audible noise, less than the hard disk. silentpcreview.com has lists and reviews of components.

Dolphin is a Wii emulator, so it may need a real graphics card, especially if he's considering 1080p (wii doesn't do 1080p but the emulator does).

I'd recommend the $40 fanless Radeon HD 5450. As you can see from this review the 5450 provided double the framerates compared to a i3 2100 without a video card, in many cases going from unplayable 20-something fps to very playable 50+ fps.

Of course in that same review they threw in a $70 Radeon HD 5570 which many times offered 2-3x the framerates of the fanless 5450, but the 5570 has a fan and noise is the primary concern to the poster, not price or framerates.

I build this HTPC system last year and loaded it with XBMC Live running on Ubuntu (now 11.04) that can do full 1080p hardware accelerated decoding of complex scenes without dropping a single frame (I do my own encodings). Because the Intel Atom is a dual-core at 1.8 GHz along with nVidia Ion Next Generation which is equivalent to a GT210 video card it can shred on graphics.

HTPC - iAtom 1.8 2C, 2GB DDR3, 40GB SSD, 2TB HDD, Blu-Ray, ATSC+ClearQAM, Mini-ATX, 120mm Fan

Subtotal: $588.91
Shipping: $22.22
Total: $611.13

MOB: ASUS AT5IONT-I Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz, dual-core) BGA559 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
MEM: G.SKILL 2GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-10600CL9S-2GBSQ
TVC: AVerMedia AVerTVHD Duet - PCTV Tuner (A188 - White Box) MTVHDDUWB PCI-Express x1 Interface
SSD: Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CT040G310 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
DVD: LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Disc Reader SATA Model iHOS104-08
CAS: APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply
FAN: GELID Solutions FN-SX12-10 120mm Silent Case Fan
REM: AVS Gear GP-IR02BK Vista 2 channel IR Remote Control

Temperature Sensors

This thing is completely silent when watching TV and it doesn't overheat or suffer from any thermal problems, even in super hot temps outside and a warm house at 80 F.

user@XBMCLive:~$ sensors
atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: +1.12 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
  +3.3 Voltage: +3.33 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
  +5 Voltage: +5.05 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
  +12 Voltage: +12.10 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 989 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CHASSIS FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +50.0C (high = +60.0C, crit = +95.0C)
GPU Temperature: +52.0C (high = +60.0C, crit = +95.0C)

user@XBMCLive:~$ sensors -f
atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: +1.12 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
  +3.3 Voltage: +3.35 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
  +5 Voltage: +5.05 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
  +12 Voltage: +12.10 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 983 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CHASSIS FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +122.0F (high = +140.0F, crit = +203.0F)
GPU Temperature: +125.6F (high = +140.0F, crit = +203.0F)

Put in an SSD that is just big enough for the OS, and store all of the data a NAS like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165122. It could have 0 moving part in the living room. Who cares if the drive in the laundry room makes noise or not.

Try one of the ASRock barebones PCs. I bought one to replace my last home-built silent PC.

Uhhh...it sounds like an F16 taking off?

Anyway let old Hairyfeet set you up and show you how its done. First I'd start with this box, while personally i like a little more elbow room he said little so little it is. Next up for a nice powerful but cheap CPU I'd go with this Phenom triple if he has a tight budget or this Phenom II quad if he has a little more to spare. I have this Phenom II chip in my own system and it is easy to under and over clock, and I have built plenty with the first Phenom triple chip, both are great.

Then you'll have to measure the depth to know how big a HSF you can go for, bigger is of course quieter so if it has enough room (haven't used a shuttle in awhile so I can't remember the depth offhand) I'd use something like this which if you turn on C&Q when you aren't slamming the Deneb this will be pretty quiet. Then for GPU something like this HD6570 which IIRC is the largest AMD makes that will still go low profile and passively cooled.

Finally slap in a 1Tb Samsung EcoDrive (quiet as a church mouse) and 4Gb of RAM along with Win 7 HP X64 (or the OS of your choice) and voila! You are good to go friend! Enjoy!

I could make it a hell of a lot more powerful and silent cooling BTW, but that would increase size. You can't beat the laws of physics, if it is powerful it is either gonna need fans or a big ass heatsink to cool the sucker. I've found most liquid cooling to be just as noisy if not more than regular HSFs, it just moves the fans from the CPU to the radiator. But this should give you a nice combination of speed and quiet and when you aren't slamming the living hell out of the Deneb all you will hear is the quiet hum of the PSU, that's it. With mine I hear the AC on the far side of the room more than I do the PC not 3 feet away from me, its nice.

Uhhh...it sounds like an F16 taking off?

Anyway let old Hairyfeet set you up and show you how its done. First I'd start with this box, while personally i like a little more elbow room he said little so little it is. Next up for a nice powerful but cheap CPU I'd go with this Phenom triple if he has a tight budget or this Phenom II quad if he has a little more to spare. I have this Phenom II chip in my own system and it is easy to under and over clock, and I have built plenty with the first Phenom triple chip, both are great.

Then you'll have to measure the depth to know how big a HSF you can go for, bigger is of course quieter so if it has enough room (haven't used a shuttle in awhile so I can't remember the depth offhand) I'd use something like this which if you turn on C&Q when you aren't slamming the Deneb this will be pretty quiet. Then for GPU something like this HD6570 which IIRC is the largest AMD makes that will still go low profile and passively cooled.

Finally slap in a 1Tb Samsung EcoDrive (quiet as a church mouse) and 4Gb of RAM along with Win 7 HP X64 (or the OS of your choice) and voila! You are good to go friend! Enjoy!

I could make it a hell of a lot more powerful and silent cooling BTW, but that would increase size. You can't beat the laws of physics, if it is powerful it is either gonna need fans or a big ass heatsink to cool the sucker. I've found most liquid cooling to be just as noisy if not more than regular HSFs, it just moves the fans from the CPU to the radiator. But this should give you a nice combination of speed and quiet and when you aren't slamming the living hell out of the Deneb all you will hear is the quiet hum of the PSU, that's it. With mine I hear the AC on the far side of the room more than I do the PC not 3 feet away from me, its nice.

Uhhh...it sounds like an F16 taking off?

Anyway let old Hairyfeet set you up and show you how its done. First I'd start with this box, while personally i like a little more elbow room he said little so little it is. Next up for a nice powerful but cheap CPU I'd go with this Phenom triple if he has a tight budget or this Phenom II quad if he has a little more to spare. I have this Phenom II chip in my own system and it is easy to under and over clock, and I have built plenty with the first Phenom triple chip, both are great.

Then you'll have to measure the depth to know how big a HSF you can go for, bigger is of course quieter so if it has enough room (haven't used a shuttle in awhile so I can't remember the depth offhand) I'd use something like this which if you turn on C&Q when you aren't slamming the Deneb this will be pretty quiet. Then for GPU something like this HD6570 which IIRC is the largest AMD makes that will still go low profile and passively cooled.

Finally slap in a 1Tb Samsung EcoDrive (quiet as a church mouse) and 4Gb of RAM along with Win 7 HP X64 (or the OS of your choice) and voila! You are good to go friend! Enjoy!

I could make it a hell of a lot more powerful and silent cooling BTW, but that would increase size. You can't beat the laws of physics, if it is powerful it is either gonna need fans or a big ass heatsink to cool the sucker. I've found most liquid cooling to be just as noisy if not more than regular HSFs, it just moves the fans from the CPU to the radiator. But this should give you a nice combination of speed and quiet and when you aren't slamming the living hell out of the Deneb all you will hear is the quiet hum of the PSU, that's it. With mine I hear the AC on the far side of the room more than I do the PC not 3 feet away from me, its nice.

Uhhh...it sounds like an F16 taking off?

Anyway let old Hairyfeet set you up and show you how its done. First I'd start with this box, while personally i like a little more elbow room he said little so little it is. Next up for a nice powerful but cheap CPU I'd go with this Phenom triple if he has a tight budget or this Phenom II quad if he has a little more to spare. I have this Phenom II chip in my own system and it is easy to under and over clock, and I have built plenty with the first Phenom triple chip, both are great.

Then you'll have to measure the depth to know how big a HSF you can go for, bigger is of course quieter so if it has enough room (haven't used a shuttle in awhile so I can't remember the depth offhand) I'd use something like this which if you turn on C&Q when you aren't slamming the Deneb this will be pretty quiet. Then for GPU something like this HD6570 which IIRC is the largest AMD makes that will still go low profile and passively cooled.

Finally slap in a 1Tb Samsung EcoDrive (quiet as a church mouse) and 4Gb of RAM along with Win 7 HP X64 (or the OS of your choice) and voila! You are good to go friend! Enjoy!

I could make it a hell of a lot more powerful and silent cooling BTW, but that would increase size. You can't beat the laws of physics, if it is powerful it is either gonna need fans or a big ass heatsink to cool the sucker. I've found most liquid cooling to be just as noisy if not more than regular HSFs, it just moves the fans from the CPU to the radiator. But this should give you a nice combination of speed and quiet and when you aren't slamming the living hell out of the Deneb all you will hear is the quiet hum of the PSU, that's it. With mine I hear the AC on the far side of the room more than I do the PC not 3 feet away from me, its nice.

However if you insist on fanless, the answer is to go large, not small. A tiny system like a mini has to have fans since there isn't much room for heat sinks.

Tell that to the massive heat sink on the ASUS E35M1-I motherboard.

With that and a quiet laptop hard drive and fanless power supply, it's finally truly possible to build a completely silent (from 3 feet or so) small form-factor machine that doesn't perform like 5-year-old hardware.

E-350's have decent graphics capabilities and you can pick up CPU+MOBO combo's for a very nice price
and then a CASE+PSU combo's for

The bare-bones system will thus cost as little as $130, and will kick the snot out of Atom solutions.

E-350's have decent graphics capabilities and you can pick up CPU+MOBO combo's for a very nice price
and then a CASE+PSU combo's for

The bare-bones system will thus cost as little as $130, and will kick the snot out of Atom solutions.

Right; the next jump from "the Mac Mini fans are too loud" doesn't have to be fanless, which is particularly troublesome in an emulator situation where the CPU will always be running. The key to low noise fans is to get big ones that move air even at lower speeds, which right now means 120mm. Using fans that are too small, in order to make the case really tiny, is what the Mac Mini does wrong for this application. A case like the Sugo SG05-B will give you those in a reasonable form factor. It won't be tiny, but there's a fundamental trade-off here: you can either make your fans cool well, be small, or be quiet--never all three at once. I have done here on past emulator boxes is to use a case with a larger fan like that, combined with one of the Zotac Mini ITX boards using an Intel Atom processor.

This is how you get a Gulftown processor for $1000: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115079

Knowing Intel I doubt you could use it in a Xeon motherboard (in any case I don't think it does ECC). Since it's Socket 1156 you're stuck putting it into a last-generation motherboard.

I refuse to adopt a whole different suffix just because of marketing drones trying to reinvent the term.

My heart bleeds.

A known liar, for fanboy reasons, may have been lying about other things too. For example, the price of th AMD CPU' is actually:

AMD Phenom II x6 1100T for $189

So he lied about both the cost of the AMD CPU and the cost of the AMD motherboard.

What else did he lie about? I cant find a single SATA 6Gb + USB 3.0 motherboard for Sandy Bridge for under $89. Hard to prove that he lied here.. absence of evidence and all that, but we know that he is a liar so we cannot accept what he says....

As for you. We know that when confronted with the fact the at least one piece of data from the liar was incorrect, you still worked off the rest of his data unquestionably. That makes you a fanboy too. When I said "we" cannot accept what he says, that obviously didnt include you, who happily did because you agreed with the conclusion.

A known liar, for fanboy reasons, may have been lying about other things too. For example, the price of th AMD CPU' is actually:

AMD Phenom II x6 1100T for $189

So he lied about both the cost of the AMD CPU and the cost of the AMD motherboard.

What else did he lie about? I cant find a single SATA 6Gb + USB 3.0 motherboard for Sandy Bridge for under $89. Hard to prove that he lied here.. absence of evidence and all that, but we know that he is a liar so we cannot accept what he says....

As for you. We know that when confronted with the fact the at least one piece of data from the liar was incorrect, you still worked off the rest of his data unquestionably. That makes you a fanboy too. When I said "we" cannot accept what he says, that obviously didnt include you, who happily did because you agreed with the conclusion.

That's why instead of buying Caviars or F3s you instead buy enterprise drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=western+digital+re4

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145493

and then add a small SSD with the savings for the OS/apps. The new BIOS/chipsets even allow you to combine them so that the SSD is used as a large cache drive.

Sheet feed scanners, not a single sheet scanner.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=634&name=Scanner-Document-Scanners

$189-$1000

http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=351&Tpk=fax%20machine

$49-$800

So your 300% more Sheet Feed Scanner still requires you to deal with the inherent limits to email attachment size, if the document requires a signature, you still have to print it. Fax machines work better with legal and business documents than email attachments.

That said, your cheap all-in-one scanner/printer/copiers are all garbage, in 11 years of supporting them, I've never seen one last a calendar year before failing.

Sheet feed scanners, not a single sheet scanner.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=634&name=Scanner-Document-Scanners

$189-$1000

http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=351&Tpk=fax%20machine

$49-$800

So your 300% more Sheet Feed Scanner still requires you to deal with the inherent limits to email attachment size, if the document requires a signature, you still have to print it. Fax machines work better with legal and business documents than email attachments.

That said, your cheap all-in-one scanner/printer/copiers are all garbage, in 11 years of supporting them, I've never seen one last a calendar year before failing.

At $30,000 per SSD, times 3, you get $90,000. Divide that by 60 and you get $1,500 per hard drive to break even.

Im not sure Ive ever seen a hard drive that costs $1,500; Newegg says 450GB SAS 15k drives can be had for $300.

But then, we dont know how much data is being stored by that SSD, or how much was being stored by the mechanicals, or how much parity (if any?) each system had, or whether they were from the same vendor... all of which make the article pretty darn useless.

They mention, for example, that their SAN totals 900TB. Im almost positive that at $30k a pop those SSDs are NOT holding 300TB each (and if they are, someone point me to the vendor fast, so I can quit my job and start a company serving up high-speed database storage).

The lawsuit was for laptops that broke because of heat damage. I have one of the busted laptops in my house. The thing powers on for 10 minutes before overheating and losing video.

You already DONT have a working laptop in that case, and given that most laptops crap out after 3 years ANYWAYS, getting a completely free replacement outside of the warranty period is a great deal.

Yes, the real winners are the lawyers, but what do you really expect with a class action suit? nVidia still had to pay for a large number of laptops, THEY certainly werent the winners no matter how you look at it.

Car analogy time: You own a new Porsche 911. One year later the engine craps out. You join a class action lawsuit because it's happening to a lot of people. After waiting two more years judge decides to give everyone brand new Chevy Aveos (fair comparison, since they are giving them $250 laptops). Sure, Porsche's paying, so they didn't "win", but you still got screwed out of 10+ yrs of driving a beautiful Porsche, instead you're stuck with a cheap compact car.

You would have been better off suing on your own, at least you could get the value of the car minus depreciation or a comparable car (Boxster, perhaps?), and trust me most of those laptops that broke had much faster processors than that $250 laptop since remember, this was a high-end GPU that broke, they don't pair good GPUs with slow CPUs.

Here's an 8.4" tablet with a dual core ARM for under $200. Maybe it's a quality issue? I've read mixed things about cheap tablets. But still...

That's pretty weak on the hardware specs. If you don't care about off brand, you can get a Chinese clone with far better hardware at places like Merimobiles for less.

Here's an 8.4" tablet with a dual core ARM for under $200. Maybe it's a quality issue? I've read mixed things about cheap tablets. But still...

Newegg always has a bunch of monitors on sale, I just looked and there's a 23" 1920x1080 Acer for $139.99 with free shipping. http://www.newegg.com/emailpromo/

> cost of the USB

You only need to use the USB stick once, to install linux. Thereafter, you can download whatever you need from inside Linux. Surely you can borrow an USB stick from a friend, if you don't own one already.

Since Ubuntu fits a single CD, you could buy a 2GB USB stick for $6: http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=522&name=USB-Flash-Drives&Order=PRICE

> time/cost of downloading Linux

This is getting silly.

> CPU Heatsink?

The included CPU includes a heatsink at the price they specify: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103953&Tpk=Athlon%20II%20X2%20270

> I didn't see the cost of HD cable either

Every motherboard I have bought has included SATA cables in the box. According to http://www.techemporium.com/ssproduct.asp?pf_id=1018895174 , the selected motherboard includes 2 SATA cable.

> cost of the USB

You only need to use the USB stick once, to install linux. Thereafter, you can download whatever you need from inside Linux. Surely you can borrow an USB stick from a friend, if you don't own one already.

Since Ubuntu fits a single CD, you could buy a 2GB USB stick for $6: http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=522&name=USB-Flash-Drives&Order=PRICE

> time/cost of downloading Linux

This is getting silly.

> CPU Heatsink?

The included CPU includes a heatsink at the price they specify: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103953&Tpk=Athlon%20II%20X2%20270

> I didn't see the cost of HD cable either

Every motherboard I have bought has included SATA cables in the box. According to http://www.techemporium.com/ssproduct.asp?pf_id=1018895174 , the selected motherboard includes 2 SATA cable.

Never skimp on the PSU, it will make your hardware less durable, sound worse quality, will behave badly with power micro-outages, take down your PC in a thunderstorm instead of only it failing and so on.

You should cheap out on the rest, even get a Sempron if it's what it takes, as it's worth former $1000 CPUs such as Athlon FX 57 and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. It even unlocks into Athlon X2 with a simple BIOS setting. You profit from not having to run an antivirus and adobe, java, quicktime etc. updater.

Regarding optical drive : get an used one from the trash, even the one from your Pentium 166 will install ubuntu just fine (and is better at ripping damaged CDs). Even the case can be scavenged from the pentium 2/3 era and will be a bit higher quality and easier to work with.

You should get a $40 PSU, not a $30 PSU + case. a 400W or 350WFortron / FSP group one is rock solid and will run your PC stable for a decade. Those a real watts too :).

All retail CPUs come with a heatsink for the past several years, so that's straight-up bullshit. Motherboards usually come with at least 1 PATA (in the old days) or 2 SATA cables -- the particular one they chose clearly includes 1 PATA and 1 SATA cable.

USB sticks are incredibly cheap -- you can probably bum a 256MB off your friends for free (if you can find anyone who still has one that small), worst case you pay $5 for a 1GB or 2GB. That's way more than enough room for a net-install, or adequate for a disk-install -- and still doesn't push it over $200.

Time to download? Now you're just being an ass -- they're not counting time to assemble it, time to pick up components locally, time to order components online, or time to sit around smoking weed while waiting for the UPS truck to bring your goodies. Why would they count time to download the OS?

Its not my dream rig or anything, but picking off just about the cheapest item in each category yields $184 from newegg.

CPU $42 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
Motherboard $38 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153181
RAM $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635
Case & PSU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811162059
HD $34 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148698
DVD $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031

Its not my dream rig or anything, but picking off just about the cheapest item in each category yields $184 from newegg.

CPU $42 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
Motherboard $38 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153181
RAM $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635
Case & PSU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811162059
HD $34 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148698
DVD $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031

Its not my dream rig or anything, but picking off just about the cheapest item in each category yields $184 from newegg.

CPU $42 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
Motherboard $38 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153181
RAM $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635
Case & PSU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811162059
HD $34 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148698
DVD $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031

Its not my dream rig or anything, but picking off just about the cheapest item in each category yields $184 from newegg.

CPU $42 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
Motherboard $38 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153181
RAM $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635
Case & PSU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811162059
HD $34 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148698
DVD $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031

Its not my dream rig or anything, but picking off just about the cheapest item in each category yields $184 from newegg.

CPU $42 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
Motherboard $38 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153181
RAM $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635
Case & PSU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811162059
HD $34 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148698
DVD $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031

Its not my dream rig or anything, but picking off just about the cheapest item in each category yields $184 from newegg.

CPU $42 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888
Motherboard $38 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153181
RAM $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635
Case & PSU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811162059
HD $34 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148698
DVD $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031

Sure; Newegg. Go to the category of component you want, drill down a bit to get the basic thing you want, then do "Sort by: Best Rating". Ignore things that haven't been rated very often. You just found the good manufacturers.

I used to spend a lot more time reading review sites. Now I start with Newegg, narrow the field to only matching products that are well rated by buyers, and then I dig into the reviews of just those to check on performance/features. Big time savings, and I avoid almost all of the crap. The great thing about this approach is that it automatically adjusts in close to real-time to product quality as it's being delivered to people, which is often quite different than what review publications see.

Sorry they actually changed the settlement to a $250 Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX with a single core 2.3ghz AMD V140.

If you're replacing a $1300 HP TX1000 Tablet with AMD 64X2 2.0GHz you may choose a $450 ASUS Eee PC Tablet with Atom N570 and 1gb ram.

Note you do have to mail in your old laptop to receive one of these and there are no other laptops to choose from, you either get a $250 laptop or if you had a tablet you receive a $450 Asus Eee PC.

Nvidia won, customers lost. I hate Nvidia

Sorry they actually changed the settlement to a $250 Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX with a single core 2.3ghz AMD V140.

If you're replacing a $1300 HP TX1000 Tablet with AMD 64X2 2.0GHz you may choose a $450 ASUS Eee PC Tablet with Atom N570 and 1gb ram.

Note you do have to mail in your old laptop to receive one of these and there are no other laptops to choose from, you either get a $250 laptop or if you had a tablet you receive a $450 Asus Eee PC.

Nvidia won, customers lost. I hate Nvidia