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Unbeknown to me I ordered Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit for System Builders - OEM for $99.99 USD edition just two days before this limited-time upgrade deal was announced and now the package is in the mail. Luckily for me, I intend to refuse delivery and Newegg will take the items back and refund me the money. I'll be able to recoup my costs.

Strangely if I bought my Vista version after June 26, 2009 I could get Windows 7 for only $9.99 USD for the upgrade, but because I placed the order on June 24th I don't get squat.

I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit version for free and got a product key that will work all the way until March 1, 2010 and then expire June 1, 2010. I'm going to install this version on a new system upgrade that I just built with Intel Core i7 920 2.6 GHz, Asus P6T, G.Skill 6GB DDR3-1600 C8 memory, and Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE cooler.

If I purchase the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade pre-order for $49.99 USD by July 11, 2009 then I can jump from my Windows XP to Windows 7 for only $50 USD and I get to do a clean install anyway.

When October 22, 2009 rolls around and they release the full version of Windows 7 then I can either update, upgrade, or at worst do a clean reinstall to the full release RTM version then. I think that this is the path that I'm going to take and save myself half costs and skip Windows Vista along the way.

Unbeknown to me I ordered Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit for System Builders - OEM for $99.99 USD edition just two days before this limited-time upgrade deal was announced and now the package is in the mail. Luckily for me, I intend to refuse delivery and Newegg will take the items back and refund me the money. I'll be able to recoup my costs.

Strangely if I bought my Vista version after June 26, 2009 I could get Windows 7 for only $9.99 USD for the upgrade, but because I placed the order on June 24th I don't get squat.

I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit version for free and got a product key that will work all the way until March 1, 2010 and then expire June 1, 2010. I'm going to install this version on a new system upgrade that I just built with Intel Core i7 920 2.6 GHz, Asus P6T, G.Skill 6GB DDR3-1600 C8 memory, and Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE cooler.

If I purchase the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade pre-order for $49.99 USD by July 11, 2009 then I can jump from my Windows XP to Windows 7 for only $50 USD and I get to do a clean install anyway.

When October 22, 2009 rolls around and they release the full version of Windows 7 then I can either update, upgrade, or at worst do a clean reinstall to the full release RTM version then. I think that this is the path that I'm going to take and save myself half costs and skip Windows Vista along the way.

Unbeknown to me I ordered Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit for System Builders - OEM for $99.99 USD edition just two days before this limited-time upgrade deal was announced and now the package is in the mail. Luckily for me, I intend to refuse delivery and Newegg will take the items back and refund me the money. I'll be able to recoup my costs.

Strangely if I bought my Vista version after June 26, 2009 I could get Windows 7 for only $9.99 USD for the upgrade, but because I placed the order on June 24th I don't get squat.

I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit version for free and got a product key that will work all the way until March 1, 2010 and then expire June 1, 2010. I'm going to install this version on a new system upgrade that I just built with Intel Core i7 920 2.6 GHz, Asus P6T, G.Skill 6GB DDR3-1600 C8 memory, and Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE cooler.

If I purchase the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade pre-order for $49.99 USD by July 11, 2009 then I can jump from my Windows XP to Windows 7 for only $50 USD and I get to do a clean install anyway.

When October 22, 2009 rolls around and they release the full version of Windows 7 then I can either update, upgrade, or at worst do a clean reinstall to the full release RTM version then. I think that this is the path that I'm going to take and save myself half costs and skip Windows Vista along the way.

Unbeknown to me I ordered Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit for System Builders - OEM for $99.99 USD edition just two days before this limited-time upgrade deal was announced and now the package is in the mail. Luckily for me, I intend to refuse delivery and Newegg will take the items back and refund me the money. I'll be able to recoup my costs.

Strangely if I bought my Vista version after June 26, 2009 I could get Windows 7 for only $9.99 USD for the upgrade, but because I placed the order on June 24th I don't get squat.

I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit version for free and got a product key that will work all the way until March 1, 2010 and then expire June 1, 2010. I'm going to install this version on a new system upgrade that I just built with Intel Core i7 920 2.6 GHz, Asus P6T, G.Skill 6GB DDR3-1600 C8 memory, and Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE cooler.

If I purchase the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade pre-order for $49.99 USD by July 11, 2009 then I can jump from my Windows XP to Windows 7 for only $50 USD and I get to do a clean install anyway.

When October 22, 2009 rolls around and they release the full version of Windows 7 then I can either update, upgrade, or at worst do a clean reinstall to the full release RTM version then. I think that this is the path that I'm going to take and save myself half costs and skip Windows Vista along the way.

Unbeknown to me I ordered Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit for System Builders - OEM for $99.99 USD edition just two days before this limited-time upgrade deal was announced and now the package is in the mail. Luckily for me, I intend to refuse delivery and Newegg will take the items back and refund me the money. I'll be able to recoup my costs.

Strangely if I bought my Vista version after June 26, 2009 I could get Windows 7 for only $9.99 USD for the upgrade, but because I placed the order on June 24th I don't get squat.

I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit version for free and got a product key that will work all the way until March 1, 2010 and then expire June 1, 2010. I'm going to install this version on a new system upgrade that I just built with Intel Core i7 920 2.6 GHz, Asus P6T, G.Skill 6GB DDR3-1600 C8 memory, and Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE cooler.

If I purchase the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade pre-order for $49.99 USD by July 11, 2009 then I can jump from my Windows XP to Windows 7 for only $50 USD and I get to do a clean install anyway.

When October 22, 2009 rolls around and they release the full version of Windows 7 then I can either update, upgrade, or at worst do a clean reinstall to the full release RTM version then. I think that this is the path that I'm going to take and save myself half costs and skip Windows Vista along the way.

"the servers have to be cheap, and they have to be super power-efficient." So aren't Atom-based nettops using like 5 watts and dual core versions selling for $150, you supply the drive? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167037

A powerful processor alone can cost well over $500 so why can't the OS cost $300?

And to quote the parent post:

A Core 2 Duo that can handle even Crysis costs well below $300.

An i7 920 costs $279.99 on Newegg. That i7'll wipe the floor with that Core 2 Duo, and I belive that the i7 is a "powerful processor" that costs well under $500.

newegg.com, where any serious builder does his shopping.

Core i7? What is this, the middle ages?

What you need is this bad boy. You aren't really having fun unless you're playing on Xeon E7450.

Act now, and the shipping is 299% more free than on that outdated POS the i7. That's right, 299%! [Hey, anyone spending that kind of money on a single processor has got to be bad at math].

I actually was referring to $1000 for the CPU alone. (see http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115200 )

For what it's worth, we've had good luck with the Norco disk crates like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133023

These have 15 hot-swap SATA slots. Each set of 5 is multiplexed to one eSATA connector on the back of the crate. The crate comes with a PCI-X 4-port eSATA controller. We use the crate as Just a Bunch of Disks, but it can be also configured as a RAID array. At the price (about $800), it's very cheap per slot. We currently have two of these full of terabyte disks, and an older DS-1200 (12-slot) with a mixture of disks. They've been very reliable so far.

I picked up one of these guys for my backup purposes. I filled it with 5 1TB drives and set it up in a Linux software RAID5 config. It backs up all of my media that resides on an LVM volume. It's been working out quite nicely so far :). The port multiplier feature is very nice. I only have to run a single eSATA cable for the 5 disks.

Ok, so make it a 36" flat panel... whatever those uber-resolution displays are at any more. My point remains... your older 9800GTX+ can do it, and the current ATI chips are faster. You only run into ATI's cards being noticeably slower than Nvidia's when you're talking about higher resolutions than the 1920x1080 you're running. Even 2048x1152, which is the highest resolution non-specialist display I've seen, as compared to the starting at $600 uber-displays out there.

So what you're saying is that for the minority of the market, workstation users and gamers who will spend all the money they can to get the absolute most performance possible, Intel and Nvidia are currently the best choice? No shit, sherlock. The thing is, AMD and ATI machines are much more cost effective, and give much more performance for the dollar, as well as being able to upgrade them in the future. Not everyone will drop $500 on an i7. Some people only want to spend, say, $65 on X2 7750 and a good motherboard which will let them buy a better CPU in the future without having to get all new RAM and a new mobo and such, as you'd have to do with a current Core 2 system.

Now, go price me a 256GB SSD. I found one for $4k. If you can find one for under $3k, I'd be surprised...

OCZ Vertex 250. NewEgg. $729. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227396

That would have the same problem as the solid state - expensive and small size. The HDD I just ordered for my notebook (supposedly) has a 5.5ms seek time.

I wish this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609415 was about 1/5th the price so I could seriously consider it. Still, it's already down from the ~$2100 I first saw it for. I think I'll just hold my breath...

^H^H^H^H^H^H NO CARRIER: FATAL USER ERROR

Yeahhh... give me the one that costs 36 times more, takes up 4 times more space, requires 8 times more controllers and is guaranteed to wear out in a few years. If your I/O patterns are so messed up that today's horrendous SSDs actually lower your cost per I/O, you need to rethink your information architecture.

There are two schools of thought regarding SSDs:

1. Those who talk shit about them
2. Those who have used them

It's not just Apple that charges such a large amount for better parts. Dell (whose computers you can easily upgrade on your own) has prices on upgrade parts that are much higher than retail.

For example, a base model Vostro desktop lists the Core 2 Duo E8600 as an upgrade (over the Celeron 450) for $330; the E8600 can be bought for $267.99 with free shipping. Dell lists their 21.5" HD monitors for $260; I recently bought two Samsung 21.5" HD monitors for $189.99 each (with free shipping, and there are rebates available). Dell will upgrade your baseline Vostro from 1GB to 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 for $112; it's not hard to find 4GB kits for anywhere between $40.99 and $76.99, depending on what brand you prefer. On the same machine Dell will upgrade your 80GB hard drive to a 1TB 7200RPM hard drive for $330; Seagate 1TB drives can be had for as little as $89.99.

(Those aren't affiliate links, don't worry :P)

If you were to get those upgrades, Dell's markup over retail prices is as much as $400, and they pay OEM price, not retail. (To be fair, the hard drive I linked above to is OEM, not retail.)

These days, I see very little reason to buy a desktop from Dell (or Apple or whoever) unless you're buying a laptop - and even then, you shouldn't have the vendor upgrade your RAM. I bought 4GB RAM for my laptop for $20 (after rebate), where Dell would have charged me $200. (Ironically, the RAM was marketed as "for Macs", despite being standard DDR2 SODIMM.)

As a humorous side note, if you want Dell to preconfigure RAID on a pair of 1TB drives, they'll do RAID-0 for $350 or RAID-1 for $250... same hardware, different price. Fun fun fun.

I'll probably get modded down for this, but the latest versions of Norton aren't slow anymore. I used to be dead set against Norton, but 2009 came with my laptop and it is easily the least intrusive AV I've ever come across. It's never picked up a virus, so I can't comment on detection, but I've never gotten viruses in the past anyway.

I suggest you use it before regurgitating the old Norton issues.

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/review-norton-internet-security-2009-not-ready-2008101/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2330018,00.asp
http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-security-and-firewall/norton-internet-security-2009/4505-3667_7-33246586.html?tag=api&subj=re

Even Newegg customer reviews are overwhelmingly fives. Yes, I know there aren't a ton of reviews, but it's interesting nonetheless.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16832108387

I can't comment on Microsoft's offering, but I am a bit skeptical. If it's free, I'll probably try it at some point.

Why not just go with the WD green drives? I have used those in the office builds where a customer is going to be working in a quiet office and the temp/noise levels are much better IMHO than a standard drive while not being nearly as expensive as the 2.5s. From the sounds of it the WD green is just what you are looking for. This way your users have the power when they need it, and have the quiet and the power savings when they don't.

If it were me and I could get the company to sign off I would get a couple of kill a watt meters and place one on a standard drive equipped and one on the WD green equipped PC. Have them both in the same department so the loads should be identical and then compare the power savings and the noise from the users perspective after a week. This should let you know if the switch makes sense from a dollar standpoint, but I bet from a power savings the green drives would probably pay for themselves if you have a large group of PCs and intend on keeping them for any length of time. After all, they are gonna be using their PCs one way or another, why not save the company the electricity if it makes financial sense to do so? With the green drives the lower price should make up for the extra power they might use, and as I said this gives your users the ability to have the extra speed when required. Seems like the best of both worlds to me.

Why not just go with the WD green drives? I have used those in the office builds where a customer is going to be working in a quiet office and the temp/noise levels are much better IMHO than a standard drive while not being nearly as expensive as the 2.5s. From the sounds of it the WD green is just what you are looking for. This way your users have the power when they need it, and have the quiet and the power savings when they don't.

If it were me and I could get the company to sign off I would get a couple of kill a watt meters and place one on a standard drive equipped and one on the WD green equipped PC. Have them both in the same department so the loads should be identical and then compare the power savings and the noise from the users perspective after a week. This should let you know if the switch makes sense from a dollar standpoint, but I bet from a power savings the green drives would probably pay for themselves if you have a large group of PCs and intend on keeping them for any length of time. After all, they are gonna be using their PCs one way or another, why not save the company the electricity if it makes financial sense to do so? With the green drives the lower price should make up for the extra power they might use, and as I said this gives your users the ability to have the extra speed when required. Seems like the best of both worlds to me.

My computer is green, but I built it based on cost and wanting to play L4D.

I have an Athlon X2 4000($70?), Asus M3N78 Pro($120), 2x1GB of RAM ($15), 8800GS ($45), a Corsair HX620 ($100), and a 640GB WD HDD($110).

Those prices are from around when I built it, which is just about a year back, and are in CAD.

Just recently I picked up a Kill-A-Watt. It turns out it consumes 170 watts when playing L4D. But if I shut off my monitor, that drops to about 135w. Then I shut off my speakers, 128w. Then I exit from L4D to the desktop, and it only consumes ~85 watts.

Oh yeah, I'm overclocked to 2.6ghz. Turns out it really isn't that hard to make a green PC that plays your target game. Mine only cost ~$500 and it does the job just fine.

My advice - go with a reputable PSU brand. That'd be Corsair, Seasonic, Silverstone, or PC P&C. Seasonic makes the most efficient power supplies, and Silverstone the most stable. (According to oscilloscopes) Corsair rebrands Seasonsic PSUs, and PC P&C is well known for making great(but noisy and not so efficient) single-rail PSUs, which are wonderful for heavy overclockers.

"Why would it need specs? This is a web appliance, not a general purpose computer."

Because for $299 you can get a decent name brand netbook now days, so if I'm gonna spend $299 on a "web appliance" it better provide something a netbook can not

here's a short list of examples:
ASUS Eee PC 901 XP with 8 hr battery life for $298
ASUS Eee PC with Linux for $298
Acer Pink 8.9" Aspire One for $248 = Pink for geek gurl Dell Inspiron Mini 10" Netbook with Intel Atom Z520 Processor for $298

"Why would it need specs? This is a web appliance, not a general purpose computer."

Because for $299 you can get a decent name brand netbook now days, so if I'm gonna spend $299 on a "web appliance" it better provide something a netbook can not

here's a short list of examples:
ASUS Eee PC 901 XP with 8 hr battery life for $298
ASUS Eee PC with Linux for $298
Acer Pink 8.9" Aspire One for $248 = Pink for geek gurl Dell Inspiron Mini 10" Netbook with Intel Atom Z520 Processor for $298

Newegg seems to disagree with your price of $4-$8 for a single disc.

I'm not saying solid state isn't better, only that there's a very good financial reason why companies are still using discs.

Solid state WORM is assuredly cheaper than solid state WMRM

Because I can't think of any mass-market solid-state WORM devices, let's compare solid-state rewritable to optical rewritable. In this case, DVD+RW still comes out far ahead in price/GB: 67 cents per disc.

Er, I bought 3 10 foot HDMI cables, terminated, with ferrite beads, for $10. While I can order 3 10 foot ethernet cables terminated for a bit cheaper (probably $6 or so), that's about it. Denon sells a $500 ethernet cable, but that doesn't mean that ethernet cabling on the whole is that expensive; don't use Monster Cable as your pricing comparison.

Here is an HDMI swithc with 8 ports for $78 (provided you buy in bulk, else it's $87). A 4 port switch from the same site is $30. HDMI cable runs are possible out to 50 feet before they start needing signal repeaters, but the people who require more than that are honestly so far at the edge that it's not worth building a standard to them.

Gaming consoles already have hardware in there to do all sorts of graphics operations in hardware. MPEG encoding is right up their alley.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concept of encoding vs. decoding 1080p MPEG-2 video. There's an order of magnitude difference in computational power required to encode. Gaming consoles do not have that hardware, period. Just because you claim it's right up their alley does not make it so. To put it in perspective, this is an encoder capable of real-time compression of HD signals, and a lousy one at that. Encoders capable of doing proper, broadcast quality encoding in real-time cost thousands of dollars. Anything less than that is going to look like a crappy web video, grainy, pixealted, and washed-out for no other purpose than to solve your imaginary problem. Instead of dumping the framebuffer out to a monitor, you want to dump it to an expensive piece of hardware, encode it, transmit it a few a feet, and decode it. Why? Seriously?

On top of all of that, we'll have video quality issues to contend with, as brand X will use cheaper chips that result in more macroblocking or washed colors on playback. It'll be like the era when we used to have to care about what RAMDAC various video card manufacturers are using because certain ones resulted in visibly worse picture quality. We already have to deal with this to a lesser degree with decoding chips, but now you want to up the ante.

And what happens when we want to use a better compression format to improve picture quality at the same bitrate (such as MPEG-4). Too bad! We're going to transcode to MPEG-2 anyway, so don't waste your time.

Let's face it: A television is a monitor. HDMI is DVI video plus audio. You're conjuring up a ridiculous solution to a problem no one has, your solution costs more, and produces lower quality video as a bonus.

$15 for an 8GB SDHC

$17 for 25 dual-layer DVD+R discs at NewEgg

$9 for micro 4GB SDHC

$14 for 50 single-layer DVD-R discs at NewEgg

i would wager most PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii games could fit on a 4GB or smaller.

But you're up against 30 cent single-layer writable media, let alone pressed media which should be cheaper.

$15 for an 8GB SDHC

$17 for 25 dual-layer DVD+R discs at NewEgg

$9 for micro 4GB SDHC

$14 for 50 single-layer DVD-R discs at NewEgg

i would wager most PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii games could fit on a 4GB or smaller.

But you're up against 30 cent single-layer writable media, let alone pressed media which should be cheaper.

$15 for an 8GB SDHC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000068&Description=8gb&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

$9 for micro 4GB SDHC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000068&Description=4gb&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

i would wager most PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii games could fit on a 4GB or smaller.

$15 for an 8GB SDHC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000068&Description=8gb&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

$9 for micro 4GB SDHC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000068&Description=4gb&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

i would wager most PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii games could fit on a 4GB or smaller.

You've already made this comment before, and I've already responded, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

If you're using a slow 2.2 GHz Quad core, that's not the fault of the industry, that's the fault of YOU. I have already made it clear that the top-end Core 2 Duo chips would run circles around your P4, but apparently you'd prefer to pretend they don't exist. As for your dog-slow quad core, that was YOUR purchasing decision. You can purchase MUCH FASTER quad cores today for reasonable prices, but apparently you're still suck in the year 2006.

The reason Core 2 / Quad destroys the P4 despite having a slower clock speed: Core 2 ups the Instructions Per Clock versus the Pentium 4. The increase is between %60 and %100 more IPC. If you read my previous response to you on the subject, you'd actually know that, instead of continuing to spout your ignorant bullshit.

And if you can't find a video codec with multiple core support, you're looking in the wrong place. Video decode is one of those embarrassingly-easy things to parallelize, and so your "boast" is really just outing you as a lazy bastard who can't take five seconds to search Google.

You've already made this comment before, and I've already responded, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

If you're using a slow 2.2 GHz Quad core, that's not the fault of the industry, that's the fault of YOU. I have already made it clear that the top-end Core 2 Duo chips would run circles around your P4, but apparently you'd prefer to pretend they don't exist. As for your dog-slow quad core, that was YOUR purchasing decision. You can purchase MUCH FASTER quad cores today for reasonable prices, but apparently you're still suck in the year 2006.

The reason Core 2 / Quad destroys the P4 despite having a slower clock speed: Core 2 ups the Instructions Per Clock versus the Pentium 4. The increase is between %60 and %100 more IPC. If you read my previous response to you on the subject, you'd actually know that, instead of continuing to spout your ignorant bullshit.

And if you can't find a video codec with multiple core support, you're looking in the wrong place. Video decode is one of those embarrassingly-easy things to parallelize, and so your "boast" is really just outing you as a lazy bastard who can't take five seconds to search Google.

You've already made this comment before, and I've already responded, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

If you're using a slow 2.2 GHz Quad core, that's not the fault of the industry, that's the fault of YOU. I have already made it clear that the top-end Core 2 Duo chips would run circles around your P4, but apparently you'd prefer to pretend they don't exist. As for your dog-slow quad core, that was YOUR purchasing decision. You can purchase MUCH FASTER quad cores today for reasonable prices, but apparently you're still suck in the year 2006.

The reason Core 2 / Quad destroys the P4 despite having a slower clock speed: Core 2 ups the Instructions Per Clock versus the Pentium 4. The increase is between %60 and %100 more IPC. If you read my previous response to you on the subject, you'd actually know that, instead of continuing to spout your ignorant bullshit.

And if you can't find a video codec with multiple core support, you're looking in the wrong place. Video decode is one of those embarrassingly-easy things to parallelize, and so your "boast" is really just outing you as a lazy bastard who can't take five seconds to search Google.

Not all I7's lack integrated graphics. I am running a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182167 in a low cost server application. It only goes to 1024x768 - not great with my monitor that does 1366x768 Wide Screen, but then most of the time I am using it with a remote desktop connection.

Plus, I don't know of any brand of monitor that comes with a HDMI input.

Here's one. And that's just a single HDMI input, according to the search box for HDMI, they sell 7 monitors with DUAL HDMI input.

I bought these when they had 5x2GB for the same price, but it is still a decent deal. They're not fancy, but they do work well. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820326009 100 1GB flash drives delivered to your door for $412.

DVI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=48&Description=&Type=&N=2010380048&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A9631&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A9630&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A37032

With a nice big Monitor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=20&Description=&Type=&N=2010190020&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46872&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46873&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A47909&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46874&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A23867&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A22582&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21329&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21328&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46875&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21326&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A25151&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A14219&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A18459&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A14220

Motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381

Hell I can make a cheap computer using these parts. It needs a RAM, CPU and a case of course, but that can total to less than $150 more. Add bluetooth module, Wiimote mouse, and Ubuntu with Mythbuntu package and I have a cheap home video server with remote.

DVI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=48&Description=&Type=&N=2010380048&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A9631&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A9630&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A37032

With a nice big Monitor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=20&Description=&Type=&N=2010190020&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46872&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46873&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A47909&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46874&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A23867&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A22582&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21329&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21328&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46875&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21326&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A25151&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A14219&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A18459&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A14220

Motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381

Hell I can make a cheap computer using these parts. It needs a RAM, CPU and a case of course, but that can total to less than $150 more. Add bluetooth module, Wiimote mouse, and Ubuntu with Mythbuntu package and I have a cheap home video server with remote.

DVI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=48&Description=&Type=&N=2010380048&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A9631&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A9630&PropertyCodeValue=691%3A37032

With a nice big Monitor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=20&Description=&Type=&N=2010190020&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46872&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46873&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A47909&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46874&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A23867&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A22582&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21329&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21328&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A46875&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A21326&PropertyCodeValue=3098%3A25151&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A14219&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A18459&PropertyCodeValue=2333%3A14220

Motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381

Hell I can make a cheap computer using these parts. It needs a RAM, CPU and a case of course, but that can total to less than $150 more. Add bluetooth module, Wiimote mouse, and Ubuntu with Mythbuntu package and I have a cheap home video server with remote.

I did some more searching and I kind of realized more of what you mean. I had forgotten for a while that netbooks existed before the EeePC, except they called them ultraportables and charged 2 grand or more for them. I'm sure Intel would much rather you buy something like this than an Atom. Even this probably has a higher margin than the Atom. Initially when I saw the price of the Atom I was comparing it to desktop CPUs, but I can see how power consumption is a large factor in the price of x86 CPUs.

Personally, I'm in favor of ARM shaking up the netbook market, because I think with a well-designed RISC core they can do much better than Atom in terms of power consumption and still provide ample performance. This thing makes me drool every time I think about it... haha. Dual core, superscalar architecture with out of order execution consuming less than a watt under load... now THAT is a mobile CPU.

I did some more searching and I kind of realized more of what you mean. I had forgotten for a while that netbooks existed before the EeePC, except they called them ultraportables and charged 2 grand or more for them. I'm sure Intel would much rather you buy something like this than an Atom. Even this probably has a higher margin than the Atom. Initially when I saw the price of the Atom I was comparing it to desktop CPUs, but I can see how power consumption is a large factor in the price of x86 CPUs.

Personally, I'm in favor of ARM shaking up the netbook market, because I think with a well-designed RISC core they can do much better than Atom in terms of power consumption and still provide ample performance. This thing makes me drool every time I think about it... haha. Dual core, superscalar architecture with out of order execution consuming less than a watt under load... now THAT is a mobile CPU.

$800 for a gaming PC? I don't think that much was needed for a long time, unless you had to play the latest game on your 2600" screen with a high resolution. For roughly $300 these days, you can build a machine to play any game you want on a 19" screen. You don't really need anything more than a GeForce 9 (~$100), and a high end X2 (~$60). The other ~$140 is more than enough to get some RAM, hard drive, dvd burner, motherboard, especially if you find a deal on newegg or the like.
This here which is quite a decent machine is only $287 ($322 before rebates). Just add a DVD burner for ~$25, and you're all set.

Wall Wart Linux Server - $99
USB Hub - $15
USB VGA video card - $50
USB flash drive - $35

Building your own nettop computer - priceless!

Exactly. a P4 will NOT struggle browsing. in fact my 3.5ghz single core (no HT enabled) P4 Kicks the crap out of all dualcore gaming rigs. Dualcore and Quadcore is useless for gaming.. raw Ghz is what is needed and my really old computer kicks the crap out of the new stuff in gaming.

No. Take a look at this review here. The EE 965 is 3.73 GHz dual-core, and the Core 2 Duo E6700 is 2.66 GHz. If you extrapolate the results to account for the 1.4 difference in clock speed, the Core 2 Duo E6700 is %65 to %75 faster than the P4, clock-for-clock.

And just in case you don't believe me, you can check the gaming performance, which is single-threaded. When not GPU-limited, the Core 2 is up to %110 faster than the P4 at the same clock speed.

For general use, you would need a 4.4 GHz Pentium 4 to match a Core 2 Duo at 2.66 GHz (not all that fast today).

For gaming, you would need a 5.6 GHz Pentium 4 to match a Core 2 Duo at 2.66 GHz.

For reference, you can get a 2.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo (even faster!) here for just over $100. Not a lot of dough for blistering performance, eh?

P.S. if you are disabling HT on your P4, you are doing yourself a disservice. The I/O latency on the P4 is high, and the branch mispredict penalty is huge. Every time this happens, the P4 HT can switch threads in a single clock tick, while it will otherwise waste dozens of clocks purging the pipeline / waiting on I/O. This is exceptionally good for multitasking, but is also good for newer games that actually use 2 or more threads. Sure, it took a hit in older single-threaded games, but newer games should show a perforance increase with HT enabled.

...and if its a machine that will have a bunch of drives, I'd go with 800 to 1000 watts just in case.

I used to feel the same way about PSUs, but then I picked up a Kill-a-Watt off newegg, and checked how much power my computers were actually using. Now I realize I don't need nearly as much PSU as I thought.

Corsair HX620 (very efficient)
Athlon X2 @ 2.8ghz
Asus M3N78 Pro
2x1GB DDR2-800
Asus 8800GS
4x Seagate 320GB HDD
1x DVD

Samsung Syncmaster 940BW
2.0 Speakers

Power consumption when playing Left4Dead? 170 watts from the wall. If I shut my monitor off, it drops to ~136w. If I shut my speakers off, ~128w. If I get out of Left4Dead and leave it at the desktop, only ~90 watts. (though once I turn the Monitor/Speakers back on, it's back up to ~130w)

I think the efficiency on most cheap PSUs must really blow; if you go with a quality Corsair one, you really don't draw a lot of juice...

But then again, Athlon X2's and 8800GS's are relatively low power, and Asus makes very efficient boards.

I poked around on Newegg a bit, and found the SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 3850. It's $100 plus shipping, but it has dual-link DVI and it's almost undoubtedly more powerful than your existing card (which is nice, even if you don't need it). The VisionTek Radeon HD 2400PRO would probably work too, if you'd rather not spend $100, but there seem to be a lot of complaints about driver compatibility.

Now I want one of the HD 3850's.

      --- Mr. DOS

I poked around on Newegg a bit, and found the SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 3850. It's $100 plus shipping, but it has dual-link DVI and it's almost undoubtedly more powerful than your existing card (which is nice, even if you don't need it). The VisionTek Radeon HD 2400PRO would probably work too, if you'd rather not spend $100, but there seem to be a lot of complaints about driver compatibility.

Now I want one of the HD 3850's.

      --- Mr. DOS

Radeon 3850

Radeon 2600 XT

Another Radeon 3850

"For $200 I can get a card that will play Crysis, STALKER Clear Sky, etc at a reasonable resolution. Try doing that with a budget card."

RTFA Crysis, high settings, 1680x1050... 32.7 fps from the $100 Radeon 4770. Anyone want to argue that 1680x1050 isn't a "reasonable resolution"? And remember this was a benchmark, so no doubt there were 100 guys on the screen moving and shouting and explosions and all that stuff that never really happens when you're playing normally, crouching behind a tree trying not to be sniped.

If that's not enough, spend another $100 and run 1900x1200 at 43fps

And we haven't even touched the 20% fps gains from overclocking: "At 1680x1050, with 4xAA, you're looking at a greater-than 20% boost - nothing short of incredible."

Yes, I bought one and it's amazing for $100. Wonder what I'll be buying in 2-3 yrs? A $70 card?