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Another Ars Ultimate Budget Box
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
Here's a quick glance at the final specs:
80 gig SATA HD
DVD+-RW
520 megs DDR
Sempron 2800
Onboard GeForce 6100
15" LCD
+case+speakers+keyboard+mouse
That price is including a reasonable TFT. The box itself is a little under $350, less if you already have mouse, keyboard, speakers etc.
It also has PCI-Express when many of the cheapest Dell and HPs I've seen don't have any way to upgrade the graphics.
They keep listing these at ~150 for the board and processor. Fry's regularly sells (in their mid-week ad) a $69 board AND processor with video. This weekend's "better" Sempron + Processor + Video (x200) is $119.
The Deskstar 80 is nice, but 250 Deskstars have been as low as $49 after rebate, and there are currently 200 gig drives that are free after some rebate-price-matching -- See places like Fatwallet.com.
2.53Ghz Celeron, 533 FSB
512MB RAM
XP Home
80 GB Drive
CD-RW drive
15" Flat Panel LCD
The price? $399. Why, again, would I pay $525 for this "ultimate" budget box?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DB110RF1&s=dhs
/512MB DDR / 80GB HD/ 15in flat panel /XP home
... I usually steer clients towards OEM boxes ... because It is impossible for me to make it worth my time to build a budget box for them.
celeron D 325 / intel extreme graphics 2
however one huge and lame problem would be only 3x PCI slots (no agp or PCI express slot for video upgrades)
but if you didn't need a gaming pc.. this thing is like $437.94 shipped (free shipping right now) when it comes to low end pc's
that said if the computer was for my personal use... i would build it rather than get the dell.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Most of the big vendors (HP, Dell) offer system "bundles" that offer similar specs for $100-200 cheaper.
I recently purchased an HP CTO bundle through CompUSA. After rebates (yeah, I know, rebates suck) it was $300 + $89 (shipping/handling) + tax. The specs are very close to the Ars system (faster CPU, no DVD burner, 40G drive). It would have cost an extra $30-40 to upgrade the optical drive and hard drive, but the ones I got are all I needed for the "appliance" tasks I an using the machine for.
Plus, I didn't have assemble anything (not like that's difficult, though).
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
Not to nitpick, but XP Home actually isn't included in Ars' price. It's only mentioned after the $525 total. So with XP Home, the total comes to $606. You're right though, it does include the LCD.
Nevermind the fact that they don't include tax and shipping on those parts.
I can get a Dell Dimension 3100 through Dell Small Business for $500 (+ $24 shipping) with the following:
Processor: P4 Processor 521 w/HT Technology (2.8GHz,800FSB)
OS: Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
Memory: 512MB DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz -1 DIMM
Dell Service & Support Plans: 90 Day On-site Economy Plan
Keyboard: Dell USB Keyboard
Mouse: Dell® 2-button USB mouse
Hard Drive: 80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
Monitor: 17 inch E176FP Analog Flat Panel
Video Card: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900
Sound: Integrated 2.0 Channel High Definition Audio
Network Interface: Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The grandparent post said they could build a gaming PC for this much (with some scrounging), while the parent post disputed this. I've been playing BF1942 and even Battlefield 2 on a PC I built from scratch 2 years ago for ~ $700. The only components I scrounged were the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I'll bet I could build the same system today for $550.
A JETR9250R
The low-end graphics cards at my local store, Central Computer, have 256MB of video RAM and very capable cores, and now cost well under $80. Here's an OEM Radeon 9250 for $70
http://centralcomputer.com/itemdetail.asp?item=VG
Games need decent video cards, but do not need much else. I'm running an old AMD Athlon XP 2500 and it doesn't break a sweat on BF2. The closest I can find to this dinosaur, the Sempron 2600, is $72 retail from NewEgg.
--Pat