Building a $200 Linux PC

WesternActor writes "Computers are getting cheaper to buy every year, but there are still sometimes advantages to building them yourself. ExtremeTech has a story about how they sought out the parts for a $200 computer that (of course) runs Linux as a way of breaking the budget barrier. They even test it against a commercially available eMachines nettop to see how it compares in terms of performance. This probably isn't something everyone will want to do, but it's an interesting example of something you can do on the cheap if you put your mind to it."

Comments

What about atom?

[mangu]

For the price they paid for CPU+mobo they could have got a mobo with an Atom CPU soldered in. That socket doesn't come for free and, after all, when was the last time you had a CPU upgrade? By the time you want more performance you will most likely get a whole new system.

Re:What about atom?

[FreonTrip]

I think there's a market for a cheap Atom-based Linux box used for internet browsing, but the Athlon II X2 245 is literally at least four times faster at everything. The prices for dual Atom-based boards are also a little bit high for what you get, so from a value proposition what they've done makes sense.

For what it's worth, I upgraded my CPU about two months ago - from a 2.6 GHz Athlon64 X2 to a 3 GHz Athlon II X2 - and it's been decently peppy. More importantly, it let me take the old CPU and pop it into a cheap Linux box of my own. :)

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have got a dual core atom for $79.99, vs the $98.98 their system cost, but then it would be an Intel system and the article specifies that "there was never much question that this build would be AMD-based". They paid $18.99 for not questioning the well-known fact that AMD offers a better price.

Re:What about atom?

[julesh]

That socket doesn't come for free and, after all, when was the last time you had a CPU upgrade? By the time you want more performance you will most likely get a whole new system.

Why? The only things they've really cut corners on here are graphics, memory, and CPU. All of these are upgradable without losing the rest of the system, so why would you get a whole new system when you didn't need to?

The motherboard may be cheap, but it's not lacking in power and can support a much better system than the one they've put together here.

Re:What about atom?

[sortius_nod]

I somewhat agree, however the performance difference is massive between an Athalon and an Atom. For a fully featured computer, you really want a proper processor.

I've looked down both paths a lot in the past, and you pay for flexibility. That being said, it's about the same price, so why not go with a decent processor?

Re:What about atom?

[rolfwind]

By the time you want more performance you will most likely get a whole new system.

Which, with an atom, will be a whole lot sooner than with a more powerful chip. If you're building your own system, then it's likely a desktop and that means it has to be able to handle desktop tasks and not just netbook ones (perhaps even act as a MythTV box, etc).

But you're right, I almost never upgrade the CPU. I go for ram first, and I found a good, small SSD is worth much more in perceived speed than incremental CPU upgrades. An atom is 32 bit only IIRC, so there is no upgrading beyond 4GB ram at most (Windows 32 it's 3GB, not sure how Linux handles it on 32 bit systems).

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they spent $20 to get a system that's five to ten times faster than the Atom would be yet still be within the $200 budget. Even if they could use the diff to get another meg of memory it'd never make up for it in practice.

Re:What about atom?

[FreonTrip]

Newer Atoms fully support x86_64, but will not be quick.

Re:What about atom?

[houghi]

All the times I really wanted an upgrade (about every 3-4 years) the new CPUs needed a new mobo, as the slots of the new ones where different. In the end a new system was just easier then to hod on to the old outdated hardware. At least then I would have a complete system to give away.

Re:What about atom?

[BagOBones]

ATOM processors are VERY slow compared to the dual Core they chose, unless you pair the ATOM with an integrated GPU on an ION board you would easily go over budget trying to cram in a GPU.. Then you are also stuck trying to use GPU accelerated applications or you suffer horrid performance for multi-media..

Other than physical size they system they built vastly out performs a ATOM solution.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with buying an Atom is you will want to upgrade it straight away because they are so fucking slow.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ATHLON, damnit! ATHLON! Not "Athalon".

Re:What about atom?

[Tubal-Cain]

An atom is 32 bit only IIRC, so there is no upgrading beyond 4GB ram at most (Windows 32 it's 3GB, not sure how Linux handles it on 32 bit systems).

Not that it matters much, this being a budget PC and all.

Re:What about atom?

[O('_')O_Bush]

Were you only upgrading with Intel processors?

The AMD AM3 processors are backwards compatible with AM2/AM2+ sockets and AM2+ processors are backwards compatible with AM2 sockets.

AM2 came out in May, 2006.

Re:What about atom?

[Smallpond]

He set these two constraints:

• The CPU had to be dual-core
• it just needed to fulfill the basic everyday requirements ...Web browsing, e-mail, file creation and manipulation

So immediately we know the author is clueless.

Re:What about atom?

[bami]

The only reason I'm considering upgrading my Atom HTPC (from where I am typing this post) is so that slashdot doesn't freeze my whole browser while loading a story in a tab. Sure, I've fixed it now by setting it to the old no-javascript page, but it's account tied so now it's both crap on my HTPC as well as my laptop.

For the rest, I can play 1080p with intel onboard graphics, can browse the internet and listen to music, all for under 50 watts, and the system was 300 euro 2 years ago , when the atom 330 was launched. The only problems are youtube in fullscreen mode, or slashdot.

Re:What about atom?

[XanC]

Actually the Atom, when bundled with the Nvidia ION, is capable of being a high-def Myth box. I've set up a number of the $200 Acer Aspire Revos for this purpose. Was even able to get a Windows refund too (although I haven't actually received the check yet, so I don't know how much of one).

Re:What about atom?

[jawtheshark]

I've got one of these Atom 330's too. 4GB RAM (can only use 3.5GB though... Meh) Anyway, do you use Windows or Linux. I used it for a while as a primary desktop running Ubuntu 9.04 (I think, it was around September 2009, so it sounds correct). It was unbearably slow... Slower that many dumpster-sourced machines I've used and I'm a proud dumpster diver. My brother currently uses it, but I dumped XP on it. No speed complaints at all. I think the NVidia driver for Linux was really bad for the ION GeForce 9400M that was included.

Compared to a Atom D410 based motherboard (Intel D410PT), I used for building a new desktop for my mother in law. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (was out by then) runs beautifully on it and the thing is just a single-core machine. Including DVD-RW, 250GB HD, 2GB RAM and a very sweet design case (only thing my MiL cared about) it came in around 250€.

I'll be getting back my Atom 330 system soon, as I found a nice laptop in the dumpster for my brother (P-IV Mobile 1.6GHz) and he'll get that instead. Comes with a Windows XP Pro license too. ;-) So, if you run Linux on you Atom 330, I'll be glad to hear what you did to get it running decently.

Back a few years, I did give me the same challenge....Or at least similar: 500€ If I could do it, my I'd build my sister a new PC and gift it to her. I did manage. The machine still works, but she now uses a Core2Duo desktop I found at a liquidation sale (store got bankrupt). I offered 300€ for all their computer hardware and this included that fully working E6600-based machine. Sweet :-)

Re:What about atom?

[ZosX]

Why? Dual core cpus give a quite noticeable increase in system responsiveness. Even if you are only writing e-mail or browsing the web. Sure mozilla isn't going to run any faster (actually with multi-threading this is changing too), but how windows (or linux in this case) responds to you will be certainly improved.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

The problem with upgrading just the cpu is that you're throwing out a cpu. Most people will upgrade both the cpu and motherboard, and keep the old ones as a spare, or make them into a headless file server, or give away the whole thing.

Also, most people would be better off buying a cheap dual-core laptop $479 - 3 gig ram, dual core, 320 gig hd), refusing the MS install (-$55) and getting a refund on Windows, and they also won't have to buy a monitor (-$100), keyboard and mouse (-$25) mouse, ups (-$40), or wireless networking to steal wifi since they're so cheap ($25). So, laptop $479-$245=$234 vs their machine ($192) = $42 (and you don't have to pay shipping on the laptop or assemple it), for twice the hd space and 3x the ram - or you can sell the 2 gigs of ram to someone else and you're ahead of the game.

Re:What about atom?

[bami]

Not linux I'm afraid.

I'm using it as a samba box/torrent client/htpc, and I didn't want to wad through the "omg only patent-free" dickwadery that is linux (Yeah I know, get them from some repository, but I'd rather just install one codec pack and be done with it).

Windows XP Professional, with 2 GB of ram, but with Intel Extreme Slideshow, instead of the ION board (that came out a couple of months after I purchased mine). Everything else on it flies (XP boots in what, 14 seconds or something)

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

Oh, almost forgot - the laptop also has a dvd burner - their el cheapo box has NO optical drive. So, a cheap optical drive is $25, so the laptop purchase is a no-brainer instead of their cheap POS.

Re:What about atom?

[JWSmythe]

    In skimming the article, they wanted to have flexibility to upgrade. You could go from something like an 2.9Ghz Athlon II x2 (which they used), to a 3.2Ghz Phenom II x6 That's a pretty decent upgrade.

    I built my new desktop for Christmas (subsidized by friends and family as their presents to me). I went with an Asus motherboard with a AM3 socket, and an Athlon II x4. I actually intended to grab a Phenom II x4, but grabbed the wrong one. Oops. In some quick digging online, before taking a drive back to the store, it seems this CPU is can be overclocked to be rather comparable to the Phenom II x4, except it saved $100. I've been very happy with it, but will buy a good Phenom II eventually, as prices come down.

Re:What about atom?

[maugle]

No, AMD's AM3 processors are potentially backwards compatible with AM2/AM2+ sockets and AM2+ processors are potentially backwards compatible with AM2 sockets. Getting a newer processor to work in an older motherboard may require the motherboard vendor to release an updated BIOS, and they might not do that.

I found this out the hard way.
Fuck you, Gigabyte.

Re:What about atom?

[JWSmythe]

Nah, no one ever accomplished those simple tasks before multicore processors were available.

    </sarcasm>

    Really, if they wanted a basic machine, as they indicated, they'd go with the cheapest processor, 128Mb RAM, etc, etc. You can set up most Linux distros to work in very tight constraints, and going with the slowest cheapest processor available new, and the smallest stick of ram available, may have come out cheaper.

    Quite a while ago, when 133Mhz Pentiums were the norm, I was looking at an old machine that someone had given to me. It was an old 386 server. I was pondering "what will I do with this piece of shit", and finally put Linux on it and took it out for a test drive. It was pathetically slow, but it did the bare minimum that he specified. I didn't use it for much, since I had a blazing fast 200Mhz machine for my normal use. Who'd ever need anything faster. :) Eventually, it made it's way to the dumpster.

Re:What about atom?

[Cylix]

My last rig was an AM2 system and it's a bit simplified to say that you need to only upgrade the processor.

The only time in my life in which I have purposefully upgraded the processes was when I used the planned obsolesce due to budget algorithm. This algorithm works on the basis of monetary limitations which directly limit the capabilities of the equipment available. ie, I could not afford the shiniest of the shiny.

The general philosophy was to build a new system with something borrowed, something stolen and then some things new. Using the planned obsolesce algorithm I would under spec the processor to something very affordable.

This meant I was on a purpose set upgrade cycle of 4-6 months. It was hoped that during this time I could accomplish two things. My wallet would grow over time and through sheer of will I would force market prices to fall. Invariably, within 4 - 6 months prices would dramatically shift and I could upgrade my rig to it's full potential.

Since those dark times my build strategy has changed and I usually just build the rig as I wish. This means that generally upgrading the processor will not yield that much performance. Even worse is that purchasing a new processor that has greater support for faster memory and newer board designs means I would under utilize it's capabilities. In essence, it's a bit wasteful to purchase just a processor because there is more under the hood then simply cycles.

There are other areas to eek out performance or substantially increase beyond the proc. There are bus speeds, memory speeds and even faster IO ports. To the extent that one waits to upgrade the divide usually widens proportionally. Sometimes they even make a fancy new DMA channel and slap on a new name.

So yes, while I could have upgraded my AM2 system to an AM3 there were substantial improvements in the design. Most notably in my case were memory speeds had doubled from my installed module. There were several other improvements, but let us just say things had improved.

Re:What about atom?

[cynyr]

why's that? dual core is nice even for that, so that you can run a flash app(farmville) and skype at the same time. simply unloading system processes to the second core is a huge gain in the way the system feels.

Re:What about atom?

[Cylix]

I should also note that I had substantial issues upgrading my AM2 system. I purchased a new quad core Intel proc. I had substantial issues lining up the pins and when the dremel failed to produce favorable results I went to see the local computer shop.

They were completely horrified and helped educate me on some changes in the world. Eventually, they sent me home with a brand new 200 watt power supply and serial mouse.

When that failed to work I decided to go to radio shack (the shack!) and see if they could get me on the right track.

They were completely horrified at both the previous shop and the things I had done. Eventually, they too sent me home with a brand new cell phone and a subscription to subscription to satellite tv service. They said to ask the sat installer for assistance when he comes out next week.

Re:What about atom?

[mangu]

the Athlon II X2 245 is literally at least four times faster at everything

Depending on what you do, four times faster may be imperceptible.

I have two systems with dual core Atom ITX mobos, one with the 330 chip and another with the 510 chip. The slower board I use as a file server and music player, it has 2 GB memory and 1 TB hd. It's in a small case bolted to the wall behind my desk and runs 24/7. It has no keyboard mouse, or display, I access it through NFS and ssh.

The 510 system has a 1 TB hd and 4 GB RAM. I recently did an upgrade to my desktop system and the new mobo had neither a parallel printer nor an RS-232 serial port. I still have equipment in my electronics hobby shop that uses those interfaces, like my multimeter and PIC development system, so I put together a small computer to use in the shop.

My experience has been that these two systems have all the CPU power I need for the tasks I created them for. I even tested them briefly with XP. although they only have Linux installed now. I found that it's possible to run DirectX 8 games in them but DirectX 9 is too slow. They can display decent video up to 480 lines but it becomes choppy at higher resolutions. This gives an approximate idea of the possibilities of such systems.

Re:What about atom?

[jawtheshark]

Thanks for replying anyway :-) Didn't have the impression that HTPC stuff was so hard on Linux. The rest, Samba and Bittorrent are actually easier on Linux... At least in my opinion.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they get a new monitor? You can find one at a garage sale for $25 if you really want a cheap computer. Also, just because the laptop has a battery, does not mean the desktop needs one, and the same for wifi. In addition, it is not easy to get a $55 Windows refund anymore.

So while your analysis works for some use cases, it does not necessarily for a significant amount of them.

As a side note, why subtract from the laptop instead of adding to the desktop? While that does get you the right difference, the number you get is useless ($234 for a theoretical laptop without its desktop monitor, keyboard, or mouse). It would be much clearer if you gave a number for the desktop including necessary components.

Re:What about atom?

[bzipitidoo]

Have you used a 133MHz Pentium recently? I tried. Firefox 3.5 took 30 seconds to come up. Stellarium took 5 minutes(!) and when it was at last running, it was so slow it was unusable. The frame rate was something like 0.25 frames per second. How ever did we play Doom on a 486?

Re:What about atom?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Did you see the CPU that they used? A 2.9GHz, dual core, A64? That doesn't compare to the latest Nehalems by any stretch of the imagination; but it will absolutely annihilate the Atom at everything except power draw.

Not to mention the fact that most of the Atom motheboards have pretty limited expansion. Not many people replace their CPUs; but being able to add a bunch more RAM, without throwing out your existing stuff, is a very convenient upgrade.

Re:What about atom?

[Seth Kriticos]

I think there's a market for a cheap Atom-based Linux box used for internet browsing, but the Athlon II X2 245 is literally at least four times faster at everything.

Indeed, it's around 4x faster at everything, including sucking up electric power and converting it to heat.

The atom has a TDP of 8-14 W while the Athlon II is between 25-65 W. If you let both machines run for two years, then the combined purchasing price + the running cost put the Athlon in a very unfavorable spot, especially if you don't need the processing power on a regular basis.

If you have a good reason to get a fast, power hungry CPU, then fine, but otherwise is would be a waste. Which is what I was wondering in the article about: what's the purpose of this kind of setup? Ignoring the running cost, noise output and some other factors. They seem to have been bored.

Re:What about atom?

[misexistentialist]

getting a refund on Windows

Easier said than done

Re:What about atom?

[bzipitidoo]

Don't use Gnome or KDE. Or XFCE either. Those are heavyweight desktop environments. XFCE claims to be light, but its really towards the heavy end of medium. I've been using LXDE. Seems fairly snappy on a Zotac Mag (64bit Atom + Nvidia Ion) and a Gateway netbook (64bit Atom + cruddy Intel integrated graphics). EDE sounds interesting, but last time I tried it, didn't do much more than any old window manager could.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they spent $20 to get a system that's five to ten times faster than the Atom would be yet still be within the $200 budget. Even if they could use the diff to get another meg of memory it'd never make up for it in practice.

I agree that another meg of memory is unlikely to help. :)

Re:What about atom?

[Darkness404]

Depends on where you live though and such. For a college student this is a pretty great deal because electricity is free, in many other places if you pay rent you get free electricity. For a lot of the unemployed, they can't afford to spend a bit more for less at the moment because they simply don't have the cash, on the other hand the electricity costs will come when they have a job to pay for it, etc.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the Atom, when bundled with the Nvidia ION, is capable of being a high-def Myth box.

You don't even need the Ion chipset. I've got a 1st-gen Atom D330 with an nVidia 8400GS in the PCI (yes, PCI) slot which will play back full 1080p x264/AC3-5.1 content without breaking a sweat. I average about 10% CPU usage, with occasional spikes to 25% (of 400% available), when playing back using a vdpau-enabled mplayer through my LAN. I'm guessing it's primarily the AC3-5.1 decoding that's causing CPU spikes. TMK the 8400GS is the only PCI card by nVidia capable of decoding video streams on the card. Once you've got the video card doing the heavy lifting, it is simply a matter of keeping the 133Mbps PCI bus unsaturated (which is pretty easy with a video stream that runs, maybe, 15Mbps max)

I don't know how old/slow a system you could use, but I suspect about 500MHz and >= P3 would get the job done. It'd be interesting to see just how little CPU power is actually necessary, with a PCI card doing the decoding. As for new Atoms, I can't comment on their performance. I see they are almost all down to 1 hyperthreaded core now, and a 32-bit instruction set , now. Oddly enough, the N270 shows as the only Atom possessing the SSE4 instruction set, but I suspect that is a misprint...

Re:What about atom?

[sznupi]

Actually, for typical uses it compares rather nicely - it's really hard to notice much of a difference and/or if there seems to be any, it's also likely not really due to the CPU. Basically, CPU almost doesn't matter nowadays, unless for gaming (not really the case here) or exporting files after video editing, a process which is of "batch type" no matter how fast the CPU is (and considering their choice of OS, video editing also didn't have high priority)

Atom OTOH happens to struggle sometimes even in quite "normal" usage.

Re:What about atom?

[sznupi]

PS. With Fusion it will get really interesting - high chance of becoming "good enough" baseline for games, I guess. And in video editing it might even simply destroy everything else.

Re:What about atom?

[Darkness404]

Really, if they wanted a basic machine, as they indicated, they'd go with the cheapest processor, 128Mb RAM, etc, etc. You can set up most Linux distros to work in very tight constraints, and going with the slowest cheapest processor available new, and the smallest stick of ram available, may have come out cheaper.

Sure, but you can't -do- much with it. While its true you can go cheaper, you'd get a much crappier system. Do you really want a system that can't even reliably run Ubuntu? I could find a Pentium II, install elinks and browse the internet, but I couldn't -do- anything. Plus, $200 for a system is pretty much an impulse buy for the majority of people, its pretty cheap and it has enough power to work. Other than the board only supporting DDR3 RAM rather than being able to load it with 8 GB of DDR2, its probably the best cost to benefit system available.

Re:What about atom?

[Bing Tsher E]

Let's spell those Brand Names correctly. Corporate Marketing Executives weep when you don't.

Re:What about atom?

[Bing Tsher E]

The only reason I'm considering upgrading my Atom HTPC (from where I am typing this post) is so that slashdot doesn't freeze my whole browser while loading a story in a tab. Sure, I've fixed it now by setting it to the old no-javascript page, but it's account tied so now it's both crap on my HTPC as well as my laptop.

I can't figure out why I'd want to use the new bloatware Slashdot.

This is basically a text experience anyway.

Re:What about atom?

[Bing Tsher E]

Programmers weren't writing 'modular re-usable' code that their bosses will be shit canning anyways.

Re:What about atom?

[jawtheshark]

I use LXDE on my Asus EEE 701 4G. Still, I expected more from an Atom because it basically is a P-III and from my experience a P-III in the 1GHz range works just fine, given enough RAM. The problem is, as I said, the NVidia drivers. The Intel drivers on the D410PT work just fine and drive Gnome without any problem.

Re:What about atom?

[mrwolf007]

Also, most people would be better off buying a cheap dual-core laptop $479 - 3 gig ram, dual core, 320 gig hd), refusing the MS install (-$55) and getting a refund on Windows, and they also won't have to buy a monitor (-$100), keyboard and mouse (-$25) mouse, ups (-$40), or wireless networking to steal wifi since they're so cheap ($25). So, laptop $479-$245=$234 vs their machine ($192) = $42

Ok, let me get this straight.
I need an ups???
Never got one of those for my home box in 25 years.
New monitor?
I still got my good ol 17" CRT connected (as secondary monitor) and an HD TV (yes i know, not that many DPI, but i actually prefer to have a bit of space between me and the screen).
And no, i dont need wireless on my stationary box.
So there are at least 160 bucks which wouldnt flow into my calculation.
And my box is diy, too. Components between 1 and 4 years old (except for the 17", thats 10+).

And you got too take something else into account. What if something breaks on a laptop?
Display? You are screwed.
Even something as simple as a keyboard. Desktop? No prob. Laptop? Yea sure. Best chance getting the some model defective on ebay.
And no, even a good laptop keyboard and touchpad dont compare to a real keyboard and mouse...

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Solder? What? Are you made of money?

Re:What about atom?

[BitZtream]

So you ran a massive bloated pile of crap on an old machine and it performed poorly?

No freaking way? Who would have thought that?

Re:What about atom?

[sznupi]

Interesting how you capitalized "core"...Intel marketing must be damn good, indeed ;)

Re:What about atom?

[macraig]

If that's the way you're spec'ing and building your systems, you're doing it poorly; you're not buying the right components to plan for progressive upgrades. Case in point: my Asus AM2 motherboard started out with an Athlon 64 in it, later an Athlon X2, but now it's actually sporting a Phenom X4 9850, and I just recently discovered that Asus once again updated the BIOS to support even most of the AM3 CPUs. Sure, I don't get ALL the functionality of those CPUs from this motherboard, but then later I can toss that motherboard and replace it with one that does, and I'll already have the CPU (and been using it).

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

Why would they get a new monitor? You can find one at a garage sale for $25 if you really want a cheap computer.

s/monitor/computer/g;

Also, is a machine really all that usable without a dvd? I didn't add that into the cost equations.

But if you're really cheap, you can get p4s and athlon64s if you go dumpstersourcing. jawtheshark keeps finding good machines , and it won't be long before dual-core machines end up in dumpsters as well.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

Only because people are lazy. Get out your camcorder, make a video of you refusing the agreement, and installing linux, and tell microsoft you want your money back. What's the big deal?

Or if you want to get more than Microsoft will refund, find someone who wants a legit version, and do a dd if=/dev/whatever_windows_partition of=/their_bare_hard_drive-partition#2, and give them the license sticker.

Even simpler, sell them the original hard drive with the install files on it, and use the money to buy yourself an even bigger drive for your laptop (and this way Microsoft can't even try to claim that it's tied to the hardware - the hardware it was on went with the OS). A 320gig laptop hard drive with a valid new windows license should net you enough to buy a 500gig to 640 gig laptop hard drive.

Re:What about atom?

[sznupi]

Indeed, "there is more under the hood then simply cycles" - the rules have changed a bit with the proliferation of multicore CPUs. From 2 to 6 cores will be a tremendous upgrade down the line. Or from 4 to 8.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a college student this is a pretty great deal because electricity is free, in many other places if you pay rent you get free electricity.

You may not be getting a bill from the electric company, but you certainly are paying for it indirectly through your tuition/rent.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

You overstate the power difference (by omitting an actual calculation). If we use an overblown assumption of, say, 10 hours a day at max load, and round up a bit to say the athlon uses 60 watts more than the atom... 60 * 10 * 366 * 2 = 439.2 kwh. At 10 cents per kwh that'd be about $44 difference in power use over two years.

In practice, the *total* power that CPU would use over two years is probably less than that. (Very rarely is a desktop computer normally used at max load; for example, I'm running a chip that maxes out at 65w right now, and I'm running several things at once - IRC, messenger, torrents, music, firefox with a bunch of open tabs and using plugins, and I'm floating around 9-12%. Not even gaming or watching hi def video pushes me to 100%). And if you set your computer to go to sleep if it's idle for long - which is the default now in win7, I think - you can leave it "on" all day but it'll spend all night only drawing 2-4 watts to keep RAM refreshed.

In that light, a 25-65 watt chip in a desktop is an odd thing to complain about. Complain about the CPUs that pull 95-125 watts, or the video cards that pull 45-180 watts. And if we were truly serious about the opposite extreme, we'd all be running Arm Cortex A9s - quad core 2 ghz chips that max out at... 1 watt total.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

So let's do it with a $299 netbook.

$25 credit because the $200 box has no dvd - that's a serious lack.

AND since you now have a recent laptop, you can actually use your big-screen tv at 1920x1080. Try doing that with the crappy diy $192 special.

Also, there are plenty of instructions on the net on how to replace screens and keyboards, though you most likely won't have to if you have half a clue. The only people I know who have broken screens are dummies who leave the laptop on the car roof and drive away. Your diy would probably need a new hard drive after something like that.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

In some instances an AM3 CPU can even run in a AM2 board. My Phenom II X4 955 is running on an ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe. However, I have to manually set the clock multiplier from within Windows with a separate program, as the BIOS isn't perfect and causes the CPU to run in a safe mode. It's still a modern CPU running in a ~4 year old motherboard, which I am only doing because my main one died. I was really surprised I could still use my CPU with the board.

For those interested there's both an official ASUS BIOS release and a community hacking effort to continue support for the board.

Re:What about atom?

[Seth Kriticos]

And if we were truly serious about the opposite extreme, we'd all be running Arm Cortex A9s - quad core 2 ghz chips that max out at... 1 watt total.

There is a lot of movement in the ARM market, so maybe we will do exactly that in a year from now. They aren't on the market yet. I'd love to have one of those for an aux computer, and only turn on my main machine when I need the horse power.

Re:What about atom?

[Nursie]

Meh, my eee 901 has no problems with gnome. Hell, it can even run compiz quite happily too!

Re:What about atom?

[mrwolf007]

You still cant compare it.
Do you need a new monitor *EVERY* time you buy a notebook? Of course.
Do you need a new monitor every 2-3 years for a PC? No.
So lets rather go with your original 479€ figure for a cheap laptop.
At that price i can built a superior desktop INCLUDING monitor and keyboard/mouse.
After 2-3 years i can upgrade, at a far lower cost.
If i spent the same i will then have a dual monitor setup and have *highly* superior box.

As for:

Also, there are plenty of instructions on the net on how to replace screens and keyboards, though you most likely won't have to if you have half a clue.

The problem is not replacing stuff (not for me at least).
The problem is getting spare parts. And in my experience the displays happen to need replacing a lot more often than stand alone tfts. (But then again, you dont usually carry a monitor around).
Personaly i recommend desktops unless the mobility is required.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even simpler, sell them the original hard drive with the install files on it, and use the money to buy yourself an even bigger drive for your laptop (and this way Microsoft can't even try to claim that it's tied to the hardware - the hardware it was on went with the OS). A 320gig laptop hard drive with a valid new windows license should net you enough to buy a 500gig to 640 gig laptop hard drive.

I'm pretty sure This won't work because Windows checks to make sure it is running in the same hardware. If it boots up at all, you have to call up Microsoft and explain why they should let you use it.

Re:What about atom?

[Darkness404]

Sure, but no matter how much energy you are using you are paying the same rate. Its like getting an infinite amount of gas for $50 a month and deciding to drive a hybrid, if you don't have any cap, go all out and get the most power for your money.

Re:What about atom?

[r_jensen11]

If you let both machines run for two years, then the combined purchasing price + the running cost put the Athlon in a very unfavorable spot.

I ran through several scenarios for building a new computer vs. using my 5-year old P4. I found that payback time would be about 2 years for it to make more sense to build & buy vs. maintain the status quo.

Then I changed uptime from 24/7 to 6/6 (given that I have no need to have the computer on during the vast majority of the day). This would allow me to have enough uptime to have the computer act as a mythtv server and record any of the shows I want to watch.

Long story short, sometimes it's just easiest to save money by turning the computer off rather than creating a new system.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

we ran it as a single task w/out all teh fancy libraries for teh fancy tube viewers..

Re:What about atom?

[PRMan]

Actually, Firefox is pretty dreadful on my single-CPU EEEPC lately. It tends to lock itself up even if it's the only thing running. This happens on all the single-CPUs I run it on.

Re:What about atom?

[PRMan]

You can't give them the license sticker because the license number is in the CMOS/firmware. You install Windows with the "HP key" or "Dell key" and it automatically finds the license number on the machine. That's why OEM licenses are given at a discount. They are not transferable.

Re:What about atom?

[jedidiah]

> Then you are also stuck trying to use GPU accelerated applications or you suffer horrid performance for multi-media..

That's fine as long as you stay away from Adobe.

If you try to use Flash as a TV replacement, it will be a problem. Otherwise, the Atom/nv9400 will probably be adequate.

Fortunately, Linux multimedia software not written by Adobe actually takes advantage of acceleration features.

My IONs play BluRay rips quite well.

Re:What about atom?

[jedidiah]

> Not linux I'm afraid.
>
> I'm using it as a samba box/torrent client/htpc, and I didn't want to wad
> through the "omg only patent-free" dickwadery that is linux (Yeah I know,
> get them from some repository, but I'd rather just install one codec pack
> and be done with it).
>

Are you f*cking kidding? Windows is a MESS for this sort of thing.

If I need something in terms of codecs, the distro just sorts itself out.

This is a far cry from having to go to some electronic red light district and then having the crap not even work right.

Windows 7 MCE gave me newfound appreciation for Apple despite of all of their recent nonsense.

Re:What about atom?

[kbielefe]

Linux uses PAE, which basically lets your system have up to 64 GB of RAM, but each process is limited to 4. It's available for Windows 32 as well, but not the editions people buy to put on a $200 computer.

Re:What about atom?

[kenh]

That's $20 for a second GIG of RAM - no sweat, just showing your age... ;^)

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quad cores are even better. What's your point?

Re:What about atom?

[kenh]

Atom MBs are nice, but they are built fo rcertain performance/cost/environmental constraints - they are a compromise system for a desktop system.

You pay a premium for the Mini-ITX form-factor.

You pay a premium for it's low-power envelope.

You pay a premium for the fanless operation.

An Atom CPU core is not performance equal to a Core2Duo or similar AMD offering.

At $89 (list) a top-of-the-line D510MO is a very nice tool to address certain problems, but that extra $20 can buy a much more capable MB & CPU/Heatsink combo, either the AMD solution they propose (or anything similar) or an Intel E5300 and $40-45 MB.

You could save $20 or so, and probably upgrade the RAM to 2 Gigs of DDR2 RAM, the performance would be compromised pretty severely, A mATX MB offers the chance to add (typically) a 16x PCIe graphics card, and a PCI or 1x PCIe (or both) add-in card. Also, the ability to upgrade to a quad-core CPU down the line give the machine plenty of room to "grow".

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

Where do you get 479 euros - I'm talking 479 dollars Canadian - 450 US.

And you can buy cheaper - they have a nice one at Future $hit for $360, but lower spec (but it still has a dvd burner screen, mouse, keyboard, speakers, battery and is portable - and it will use less energy than you will with your 10-year-old crt. And you're going to have to replace that crt soon anyways). Oh, and you also have dual monitor capability built right in - and at the full 1920x1080 for hdtv. And you can actually pop a dvd in and play it, which you can't on that $192 system - no dvd. And you can lug it to the living room or den to watch the dvd on the big screen instead of that 10-year-old 17" crt.

A friend of mine wanted to build himself a quad-core box this winter. 3 x 1TB hard drives, 8 gigs of ram, dual 24" lcds. It was cheaper for him to buy an HP desktop from Future Crap than it would have been to build it himself, and he gets a better warranty than if he does it himself (one of the lcds had a stuck pixel - they took it back and gave him another). Why do you think almost all the beige-box guys are out of business? They can't compete on price, and they can't compete on warranty.

Re:What about atom?

[WaroDaBeast]

You might wanna add DFI to the list... My old LP UT NF590 SLI has no official support for Phenom II CPUs when Asrock has managed to do so on an nForce 3 motherboard.

At least Gigabyte's site is easier to browse... What's your motherboard model name, by the way?

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

Do I have to explain everyLittleTeenyWeenyObviousDetail? :-)

You pull the brand new, never-before-booted hard drive, with the install files on the second partition, out of the laptop and sell it. The new owner can install just fine - Windows has never seen the laptop.

There's bound to be some poor sucker stuck with a Vista box who would be happy with a legit upgrade and a bigger hd than what they have.

Re:What about atom?

[Minwee]

Also, most people would be better off buying a cheap dual-core laptop $479 - 3 gig ram, dual core, 320 gig hd), refusing the MS install (-$55) and getting a refund on Windows, and they also won't have to buy a monitor (-$100), keyboard and mouse (-$25) mouse, ups (-$40), or wireless networking to steal wifi since they're so cheap ($25). So, laptop $479-$245=$234

Why stop there? If you're buying a cheap laptop for $479, you won't need to fill up your pickup truck with gas to pick it up, so that's -$80 right there, and you certainly won't have to buy a case of beer for your friends to come over and move the couch for you, so -$27. While you're at it you can choose not to buy five large pizzas and the entire computer will be FREE!

What a bargain!

Re:What about atom?

[maugle]

Unfortunately, I don't remember the motherboard model, and I should also add Biostar's name to the List of Shame (not my direct experience, though, I like to think I learn faster than that). Basically, no matter what the brand, check the list of supported processors for the latest BIOS of your motherboard before you go and buy a shiny expensive new CPU that should work in it.

Re:What about atom?

[jozlod]

AND since you now have a recent laptop, you can actually use your big-screen tv at 1920x1080. Try doing that with the crappy diy $192 special.

the onboard will run fine at that res for any 2d stuff, games are a different story, but it will be fine with anything else, even hd movies are not a problem. onboard video has come along way, and at any rate, what sort of video do you think a cheap laptop has, will most likely be the same integrated stuff anyways.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

You can buy a cheap netbook at the local store for $300, and it will include a dvd burner (unlike their $200 POS), as well as keyboard, mouse, and screen.

build-your-own is now more expensive than buying a pre-built branded pc. So sell the old monitor you were going to use with the $200 POS for $20, sell the keyboard and mouse for $5, sell the table you were you were going to sit all that on for $25, save $50 on shipping - and you're at the same price for a better machine. Use the wifi (which the POS doesn't have) so you don't need an internet account, and you're ahead.

Re:What about atom?

[RAMMS EIN]

``The atom has a TDP of 8-14 W while the Athlon II is between 25-65 W. If you let both machines run for two years, then the combined purchasing price + the running cost put the Athlon in a very unfavorable spot, especially if you don't need the processing power on a regular basis.''

On the other hand, the TDP is (as far as understand it) an upper bound on what the CPU could draw. If you do need the processing power on a regular basis, then you may get close to the power figures stated - but then the Athlon II allegedly (I didn't verify the claims) also gets you a lot more processing power. If you don't need the full processing power (the more likely scenario), then you will also not use as much power. The Athlon II CPUs in this chart use about 7 W when idle. I don't know what an Intel Atom uses when idle, but I wonder if it leaves a very large difference. At some point, when you want to save power, the best thing to do is to simply turn off the computer.

Re:What about atom?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, I'm typing this(and typed the above) on a 2.0 GHz dual core A64. Even assuming no architectural tweaks, or more cache or anything, we are talking only 2/3s the speed of their $200 box, and performance for all basic applications is just fine.

Once I threw a $30 graphics card in there, it even plays the games I care about on adequately attractive settings.

I just wished to acknowledge that(unlike in the P4 days), the A64 is the price/performance winner, not the performance winner. The vast majority of the market is better off with the price/performance winner; but the performance high end hasn't been AMD's for some time.

Compared to any of the atoms, though, it isn't even fair(unless thermal dissipation is a primary concern). Not only are the atoms worse clock-for-clock, the A64 is clocked almost twice as high.

Re:What about atom?

[yuhong]

I see they are almost all down to 1 hyperthreaded core now, and a 32-bit instruction set [intel.com], now.

Nope.

Re:What about atom?

[yuhong]

Even standard server don't have it, you have to buy enterprise server. And of course the memory controller would still have to support more than 32 address lines.

Re:What about atom?

[jon3k]

Considering Microsoft just licensed ARM you might be surrised.

Re:What about atom?

[jon3k]

It's not nearly as bad as when people refer to Xeon processors as "Xenon".

Re:What about atom?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Annoying, "Xenon" also refers to a processor...

Re:What about atom?

[Nethead]

And if you had me install your DirecTV back when I took a break from core networking to see the world again I would have taken the time to pull out my wirewrap tools and soldering iron and got your box working. Would have even snagged a 320GB SATA drive from a DVR and hacked it in.

SATA ain't nothin' new. We had serial drives on the C=64.

Re:What about atom?

[jon3k]

Wow, as is apparently "Xenos". At least I can tell people they're talking about an ACTUAL processor now, just the wrong one.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with upgrading just the cpu is that you're throwing out a cpu. Most people will upgrade both the cpu and motherboard, and keep the old ones as a spare, or make them into a headless file server, or give away the whole thing.

Indeed, my current C2D setup is the result of a gift of the mobo, CPU and RAM from a friend who upgraded to an i7 setup. In turn, I gave my old AMD AM2+ based mobo, CPU and RAM to another friend who wanted a basic HTPC (my old mobo had onboard NVIDIA HD-capable video and HDMI out).

Geek hand-me-downs are great; everybody wins! :D

Re:What about atom?

[CAIMLAS]

Absolutely - the Athlon II X2 is, aside from a horribly confusing name (IMO), an incredible value proposition when paired with a cheap board. You get not only increased speed, but 64 bit processing and VT extensions enabling you to do quite a bit more.

The only real downsides are power use (relative to the Atom options) and the need for a fan - thus allowing the Atom boards to retain their largest benefit.

Re:What about atom?

[sznupi]

"Fair", fairness? So...comparing to Nehalem is similarly unfair on such grounds? ;)

Re:What about atom?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I was using "isn't even fair" in the idiomatic sense of "the parties would be extraordinarily unequally matched, the domination of one by the other would be so complete, and so unsurprising, as to make the comparison hardly worth it".

I can't think of an abstract moral notion of "fairness" that would apply to inanimate objects; which quite arguably makes the idiom really weird, in context; but idioms are sneaky like that...

Re:What about atom?

[lena_10326]

And judging by your post we immediately know you've never surfed the web with a single core PC side by side with a dual core PC. (See... browsers have these things called threads, yea, threads... that's what we call 'em. And when they run on separate CPUs that make web page go faster.)

Re:What about atom?

[sortius_nod]

Rage much?

Re:What about atom?

[Lord of Hyphens]

You can't give them the license sticker because the license number is in the CMOS/firmware. You install Windows with the "HP key" or "Dell key" and it automatically finds the license number on the machine. That's why OEM licenses are given at a discount. They are not transferable.

Incorrect in my experience (from a technical standpoint): an OEM Windows install key will just work with an actual windows install CD/DVD (although for XP you need a genuine OEM CD--which Newegg sold). Now, legally, you are correct -- OEM licenses are not transferable from box to box.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the Z500's/N200s show 32 bits, 1C/2T. It's pretty rare to see an offering of anything with a N40x or a D50x.
I'd say the more correct trite answer is "yep".

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only because people are lazy. Get out your camcorder, make a video of you refusing the agreement, and installing linux, and tell microsoft you want your money back. What's the big deal?

Or if you want to get more than Microsoft will refund, find someone who wants a legit version, and do a dd if=/dev/whatever_windows_partition of=/their_bare_hard_drive-partition#2, and give them the license sticker.

Even simpler, sell them the original hard drive with the install files on it, and use the money to buy yourself an even bigger drive for your laptop (and this way Microsoft can't even try to claim that it's tied to the hardware - the hardware it was on went with the OS). A 320gig laptop hard drive with a valid new windows license should net you enough to buy a 500gig to 640 gig laptop hard drive.

The copy of windows that came with your computer is an OEM version. You will NEVER get a refund from MS for an OEM version. The only way you could potentially get a refund on Windows is if you purchased the retail copy, or if a full retail copy was provided with the system. In which case you have to return it to the retailer, not MS.

Re:What about atom?

[WingCmdr]

Considering Microsoft just licensed ARM you might be surrised.

Yeah, I would be surprised at how lame a 2 GHz ARM can run under windows. Under Linux, that's a different story.

Re:What about atom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Socket 939?

Re:What about atom?

[Just Some Guy]

in many other places if you pay rent you get free electricity.

Electricity in an apartment is free in exactly the same way as food on a buffet is free: you've already been charged for it, whether or not you actually consume it.

Re:What about atom?

[julesh]

AND since you now have a recent laptop, you can actually use your big-screen tv at 1920x1080. Try doing that with the crappy diy $192 special.

The integrated Radeon X1250 on the board is capable of 1080p output.

Re:What about atom?

[julesh]

Why would they get a new monitor? You can find one at a garage sale for $25 if you really want a cheap computer

$25? My local computer shop sells them reconditioned for $15. My local freecycle list has people desperately trying to give them away for nothing.

Re:What about atom?

[Rudeboy777]

You can add DFI to that list but it won't get much future reference. They are out of the motherboard market.

Re:What about atom?

[FreonTrip]

The Athlon II also lets you use an AM2+ board, which is nice for those of us who bought a lot of DDR2 and don't want to see it go to waste. Never dismiss the value of hardware reuse in a down economy.

Re:What about atom?

[Methuseus]

The Radeon 1250 in the $192 DIY can run 1080P with no problem, unless you mean 3D.

Re:What about atom?

[Theoboley]

Runs perfectly on my 5 yr old single core, and my atom in my netbook... It's probably just you.

Re:What about atom?

[wastedlife]

I would bet that MS is licensing ARM for use in some sort of portable(phones and portable games) or embedded device(ATMs and kiosks), not for desktops. They are far too entrenched into Intel to switch. One of the selling points for windows is the backwards compatibility and the vast swathes of proprietary software. If they produce a Windows desktop OS for ARM, they lose all of that. They would then be playing catch-up to open-source, which has plenty of software ported to ARM and other CPU architectures.

Re:What about atom?

[aztektum]

I bought an Acer AR1600 (199.99), threw the XBMC Live edition on it, keep the ION driver updated manually and that thing can do 1080p video just fine. With 3D accelerated Flash coming along, I have no doubt it would make a perfectly useful desktop PC for e-mail/web. So sure in fact, I recommended it to a friend when he asked about buying a computer for his 70ish age parents w/o breaking the bank. Threw another 1GB stick in to max it at 2GB and they do just fine (mine has the stock 1GB).

Though they did buy a diff mouse/keyboard since the one that comes with is just plain horrid. If someone at Acer is reading, take that crap out and drop the price 20.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

The copy of windows that came with your computer is an OEM version. You will NEVER get a refund from MS for an OEM version. The only way you could potentially get a refund on Windows is if you purchased the retail copy, or if a full retail copy was provided with the system. In which case you have to return it to the retailer, not MS.

Hey everyone, Steve Ballmer is trolling slashdot again! Shouldn't you be doing something productive, like not launching yet another failed product?

$52.50 refund for OEM version of Windows Vista
Getting a $199 refund for an OEM bundled version of Windows in Small Claims Court
How to get your refund for OEM Vista
OEM refund for Windows
OEM refund from HP for Vista

Someone will give you back your money - try everyone along the supply chain and you'll eventually get a winner - then pass the info along to the next person.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

With what cable? You have a desktop, not a laptop. And no DVD. And no wireless, so you can't just surf the net from your couch.

Buy a pre-built laptop - this "project" is a false economy.

Re:What about atom?

[tomhudson]

And how do you plan to get the content (1) into the computer and (2) from there onto the screen? You have no dvd player, you have no wireless, and if you have the box set up in another room (because desktops are noisier than laptops) you're going to need a VERY long cable - and (1) the picture is going to suck as a result, and (2) the cable is going to blow your budget.

Just buy a laptop and be done with it.

Re:What about atom?

[WaroDaBeast]

Well, the fact that they're no longer making motherboards is a direct consequence of not being able to make good motherboards. Ironically enough, mine's got an nVidia chipset, and nVidia is out of the chipset business as well.

Who'da thunk it?

Re:What about atom?

[mrwolf007]

Where do you get 479 euros - I'm talking 479 dollars Canadian - 450 US.

Talking into account the prices here are always including VAT theres practicly no difference between the dollar prices and the euro prices.

And you can buy cheaper - they have a nice one at Future $hit for $360, but lower spec

Well, i also made the mistake of getting one of those cheap laptops once.
So they do survive the guarantee period now and then.

(but it still has a dvd burner screen, mouse, keyboard, speakers, battery and is portable - and it will use less energy than you will with your 10-year-old crt. And you're going to have to replace that crt soon anyways).

Of course i will have to replace the CRT sometime.
If i had to bet, though, it will still outlast that 360$ laptop you mentioned.

Oh, and you also have dual monitor capability built right in - and at the full 1920x1080 for hdtv. And you can actually pop a dvd in and play it, which you can't on that $192 system - no dvd. And you can lug it to the living room or den to watch the dvd on the big screen instead of that 10-year-old 17" crt.

As i already said, the big screen is hooked up to my box anyway.

A friend of mine wanted to build himself a quad-core box this winter. 3 x 1TB hard drives, 8 gigs of ram, dual 24" lcds. It was cheaper for him to buy an HP desktop from Future Crap than it would have been to build it himself,...

Weird. I always seem to be able to build them some 10-20% cheaper.
Though i usually invest a bit more and get a good mobo, case and power unit.
Not having the box fail is worth more than waiting for a replacement.

Re:What about atom?

[LWATCDR]

But the chip sets that Atom uses tend to be power hungry. Also you will get better GPU performance.
And Atom can struggle just with Flash Video. With the Athlon it will be no problem.
It just depends on what you want. I would go with the Athlon II X2 as the best compromise. unless you really want a to use a small form factor for cheap.
Also the Atom will work better for a Hackintosh if that is what you want.

Re:Are we still on this?!

[blai]

No, Linux is nothing like iOS

$200???

[dskoll]

That's crazy-expensive. We recently bought 6 second-hand little HP desktops for $69 each. They only came with 512MB of RAM, so another $15 each upgraded them to 1GB, and they are perfectly serviceable desktops for our sales and admin team.

The CPU is slower than in the story (single-core Athlon 64 at 1GHz), but performance is just fine.

Re:$200???

[tgatliff]

I think you would agree that performance no longer is a problem is most cases... Meaning, those HP desktops most likely will perform just as well (and long) as the new ones of today. Pretty sad if you think about it...

Re:$200???

[pinkj]

They explained that they wanted to create a box for $200, but still be able to upgrade. The mobo is AM3 with DDR3 support, so they could skimp on the CPU and RAM for now with the intention to upgrade with recent technology in the future. They didn't mention it, but it seems they wanted to build a box with new parts as oppose to second hand ones.

Re:$200???

[Doctor Memory]

Yep, my wife's machine is a 5yo Gateway laptop with a 3GHz P4 and 1.5G of memory. For lots of stuff, it runs faster than my 2.2GHz dual-core machine at work. Lots of stuff is still single-threaded, and even though that's changing, there's often a critical path that can't be partitioned. Faster CPUs still == win much of the time.

Re:$200???

[blackraven14250]

That's a fairly standard way of doing a $X build while writing an article on the web.

Re:$200???

[O('_')O_Bush]

A 3 GHz P4 is slower on single-threaded applications than most 2.2GHz single/dual core processors (AMD Athalon/Core2) simply because P4's had high clocks but a poorly designed and underperforming architecture that made instructions take more cycles and memory accesses more frequent than on the Athalon/Core2's.

What you see as "faster" is probably a combination of perception, dependencies on networked software, and background software overhead (anti-virus, outlook, etc) that tends to bog down business computers.

I say this, because a company I work for bought a set of Dell XPS computers a year ago (small project was required to spend around 6k/computer for the amount to be high enough to justify procurement), each with Core2Quads, 8gb+ of ram, bunch of other toys with massive screens, blah blah...

Anyhow, the XPS's run about like a 3 GHz P4 desktop-replacement-laptop my mother bought back in 2005.

*Both* feel like they have a small fraction of the power of an AMD 64 X2 4400+ (2.2ghz) based desktop that I built back in 2007.

What I'm trying to say is that your claim doesn't make any sense from an architectural standpoint if you're familiar with the P4 architectures, and for good reason, since what you perceive as speed has to do with many other factors than the processor and thread handling behavior.

Re:$200???

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you can buy a significantly slower and crappier used PC for less than it would cost to build a new, better one? That's both insightful and informative. Thanks dskoll.

Re:$200???

[Rockoon]

..and considering that the AM3 will hold both the Phenom II 1055T and 1090T, which are both 6 core enthusiast monsters.. I've got to give them +++CREDIT TO TEAM+++ .. the machine is upgradeable all the way to the current bleeding edge.

Re:$200???

[Doctor Memory]

The only real numbers I took are for repaginating a Word document I was working on. My work machine took ~34 seconds, my wife's machine took 30. Not a hard-core profiling job, but both machines were similarly loaded (no heavy background tasks). My work machine has 4G of memory, my wife's has 1.5G, both were using about 800M before I launched Word.

I was surprised my wife's machine seemed faster, as it has a 5400RPM drive and my work machine has a 7200. So I assumed the difference must have been due to CPU speed, since if any significant swapping had happened, the disk speed advantage would have kicked in. (The document I was working on was on a USB drive in both cases.)

Re:$200???

[Lord Ender]

Wow. Our sales team would go apeshit if they got anything with less than eight gigs of RAM. I guess you aren't selling anything related to infotech?

Re:$200???

[PRMan]

+++CREDIT TO TEAM+++

Hey, watch those 3 pluses buddy, you just made me get a NO CARRIER!

Re:$200???

[owlstead]

You are just comparing hardware Try comparing software as well. Most enterprise PC's have many things added to it like network drives with Word templates (or even your "profile"), virus scanners etc. Maybe it is trying to see if there is an update of the software on the LAN. Or maybe it's just other versions of Windows/Office. This is why you cannot do simple comparisons like these anymore, computers are just to complex for that.

Re:$200???

[dskoll]

We sell software. Of course, our sales people run Linux on their desktops, not Windows, so 8GB would be absurd.

Re:$200???

[dskoll]

Except the $69 machines we bought are not crappier than new ones, and they are not significantly slower, either. (I erred when I quoted the clock speed: It's actually 1.9GHz, not 1.0GHz.)

Plus, we keep arsenic, lead and assorted nasty organic chemicals out of the landfill... that's 6 new computers that weren't manufactured.

Re:$200???

[Anonymous Coward]

" P4's had high clocks but a poorly designed and underperforming architecture"

hahaha excuse me, but, what the fuck did you just say?

Re:$200???

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with old is it's old (prone to failure) and slow and inefficient (no frequency scaling). Even the single core Sempron 140 flies in comparison to what you bought, and the CPU is AM3 socket and costs $30. It is possible to build a cheaper box then they did. I built a single core Sempron 140 for about $150. It replaced a 10 year old 650MHz Athlon (slot A, lol) in comparison it flies. For its purposes, it is very efficient (30W during idle, 60W peak, both at wall socket). I honestly think that the dual core is overkill for 1G RAM. Unless there is a very specific reason to need a dual or quad or hex core system (eg. software development, gaming, and other CPU-bound software), single core is more than enough for regular email and web surfing especially if you are on a very tight budget!

But AM3 socket is a win-win. You can have a cheap processor like Sempron 140 and then upgrade it to a quad core for $100 if you need it. There is almost no reason to even consider Intel if your budget is $500 or less for a system.

And if you need massive parallel system, you can get 48-core system for about $100/core with 10W/core rated thermal power!! Search newegg for the g34 socket.

This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[adosch]

Linux has always had the extreme flexibility to run on a wide range of processors types not to mention still get a nominal amount of performance and use out of something that is deemed 'obsolete' by Moore's Law. That's why I don't do bleeding edge hardware at home unless I have an absolute need for it (e.g. gaming, or some bloatware application that needs that type of horsepower) and it works great to be a bargain-basement shopper. Do I find this article surprising? Not at all.

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[value_added]

Do I find this article surprising? Not at all.

I'd generally agree, but it's nice to see an article like this. The biggest mistake attributable to new users is making uninformed hardware choices. If the hardware is fully supported, and there's an write-up somewhere on the web confirming that, then the rest is easy.

That said, what's missing from the article is the dmesg output. A quick search suggests that the motherboard has onboard Realtek RTL8111B NICs, and those NICs aren't supported by FreeBSD. Whether that's the case, or whether it matters, I don't know, but it does underscore the need to know what it is you're buying before you buy it.

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[loufoque]

That's why I don't do bleeding edge hardware at home unless I have an absolute need for it (e.g. gaming, or some bloatware application that needs that type of horsepower)

firefox?

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[Hatta]

To be fair, XP would run just as well on this hardware. I wouldn't run it, but it's certainly a viable option. Don't even need 64 bits with just 1 gig of RAM. And who doesn't have an old XP license lying around?

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[sznupi]

That's not really exclusive to Linux; the other OS can do fine on quite frugal hardware, too - what seems to make the biggest difference is indeed the style of software. Take some care to have efficient one, and it's fine.

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[avgapon]

RTL8111B is old news and it's supported by FreeBSD. Where did you search?

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[BitZtream]

onboard Realtek RTL8111B NICs, and those NICs aren't supported by FreeBSD

I think you should probably recheck your sources, my FreeBSD 8.0 machines seem to have no problem with this particular nic.

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[Nethead]

Agree. Never had a problem with anything saying RTL on FreeBSD.

Re:This has always been a plus for Linux, so?

[CAIMLAS]

Indeed. I regularly 'compete' with friends to find the best bargains.

If you've got a case and a decent PSU that hasn't been damaged yet, it's quite feasible to get a similar system for under $100. Newegg had a special on an AM2 board with an Athlon II x2 CPU for something like $65 shipped last week. $20 for 1GB RAM and $25 for a small SATA disk and you've got quite the useable system - yes, I realize that's not going to cut it for most geeks, and it won't store much porn, but it's one hell of a lot of system for $110, and quite doable on a fairly regular basis if the person has a pre-existing monitor/keyboard/mouse (as almost everyone does).

Supported Hardware

[digitalhermit]

With the right hardware Linux is perfect for old hardware. You can customize and tune it quite a bit better than most other OSes. However, the caveat is that the hardware must be decently supported. For example, I have an old laptop with an ATI Mobility 7500 on which I installed Centos 5.5. Normally I'd just grab the FGLRX installer from ATI and remake a module, but in this case, the modules don't work properly. As a result, I'm using a non-accelerated video driver which is painfully slow even for non-intensive graphics such as scrolling a terminal window. I'm not conceding defeat yet. It might be a matter of putting the correct hardware ID into the source and re-compiling or it might be something else entirely. Luckily I know how to do that, but sometimes it's a chore. Not difficult to do, certainly, but a PITA.

On the other hand I have some old single-core AMD Athlons running some virtual machines via Xen and KVM. Even after years of service, they still do a very good job. On a nightly basis they run some software rebuilds in some VMs and in others run DNS, LDAP, fileservers and mail. I have imported the VMs into a newer quad-core system, but until they die, they use less power than the modern machine.

Re:Supported Hardware

[FreonTrip]

If I remember correctly the Mobility 7500 was never supported by the fglrx driver. It's a mobile derivative of the original Radeon core, so you're probably stuck with using the 'radeon' driver in X.org. Adding the PCI ID to the source, recompiling, and keeping two fingers crossed should do the trick; if it doesn't, get in touch with the developers. Good luck!

Re:Supported Hardware

[Doctor Memory]

When we moved, I put my old Sun workstation (single core 2.4GHz Opteron) in storage. It took longer to find a house than I expected, so I wound up building a quad-core box. When we finally got moved in, I was quite surprised to notice that my old box actually felt faster than my new one. I put it down to OpenSolaris being tuned for the Sun hardware, plus having a proper graphics card (nVidia Quadro vs the on-board Radeon 4200 on my quad-core box). So now I'm working on setting up my new box to use as a compile/compute server and doing all my editing/surfing/etc on my old one.

Re:Supported Hardware

[jmknsd]

Wasn't the 7000 series the last card ATI released the source code for?

I would imagine that it would work very well.

Re:Supported Hardware

[sznupi]

Your GFX chip is quite nicely supported by open "radeon" X.org driver (wasn't ever supported, IIRC, by fglrx). I'd consider it some hiccup that it wasn't simply autodected.

Re:Supported Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

The M7 is fully supported by the open-source radeon driver. Just edit xorg.conf and switch from "vesa" to "radeon". But make sure fglrx is removed.

Re:Supported Hardware

[Eil]

For example, I have an old laptop with an ATI Mobility 7500 on which I installed Centos 5.5. Normally I'd just grab the FGLRX installer from ATI and remake a module, but in this case, the modules don't work properly.

Have you tried a different Linux distribution? Hardware support and other kernel features come a lot slower to CentOS/RHEL than other distros because they have to backport everything to the older kernel. CentOS is great for servers but when it comes to desktop/laptop hardware support, Fedora and Ubuntu are a better bet.

Re:Supported Hardware

[antdude]

Isn't this why NVIDIA's closed drivers still superior for this? I had problems with ATI drivers for Radeon 9800 Pro back during Red Hat Linux v7.x days. I gave up. NVIDIA was SO much better and easier! I don't care if it is closed binary. I just wanted speed, so I could play native port Linux games!

Re:Are we still on this?!

[tgatliff]

Ummm.... It depends what you are doing. Yes, if you want a basic browser with flash, go down to walmart and buy a computer. If you are building a group of opencv (computer vision) frame processing servers, then linux is the only way to go.

Overall, though, I agree with you that the thought of pushing linux desktop PCs is a little puzzling. It is not really what they are best at, and the only reason I ever use one for browsing is because I vertigo anytime I look at a Vista / Windows 7 desktop.

Cheap Building can be quite demanding

[Anonymous Coward]

Last winter I put together a 100 euro (~130 dollar) gaming(!) rig.
Took a oc-friendly last-generation graphics card, (~30e), low-end Intel core2 CPU (~25e), random used LGA775 Board (~25e) and 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM (~20e). All 3 off ebay.

I got a IDE-Harddrive, CD-drive and PSU with IDE-style connectors laying around (who uses IDE these days anyway?) and repurposed an old case.

With the graphics card and CPU oc'ed (CPU stable at around twice the stock frequency with boxed cooler) it's a quite veritable rig. Though not every setting can be maxed out, it performs well with any new game.

Re:Cheap Building can be quite demanding

[Tubal-Cain]

PSU with IDE-style connectors

I think the term you're looking for is "molex" connector.

How much disk space do they need...?

[julesh]

[160GB] would give us more than enough room for the OS, and still leave us lots of space for files--no, we wouldn't be able to store our entire photo or MP3 collections, but we wouldn't be hurting for space either.

How many photos/MP3s do they have? I mean, jesus. I maintain a server here for a 3-person software development company where we also have all the personal data of all 3 employees, and we haven't come close to filling our 400GB RAID array. We have

OS install = about 4GB.
MP3 collections for three people = about 60GB, representing nearly 11,000 tracks.
10 years' worth of digital photos for two people (the other doesn't have a camera) = about 10GB.

When they say "photo collection", they're actually talking about porn collections, aren't they?

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[kevinmenzel]

Well my "mp3" collection is over 400GB - though that includes quite a lot of FLAC and WMA-lossless... just saying... (And that represents over 30,000 tracks)

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[couchslug]

"10 years' worth of digital photos for two people (the other doesn't have a camera) = about 10GB."

Depends on what sort of photos you take. Da spouse has over 100GB of painted bunting photos alone (RAW images mostly).

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[Mikkeles]

Buntings as in birds or buntings as in flag materials?

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buntings as in baseball hits!

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[ZosX]

I have an mp3 collection approaching over 350 gigs. That's over 40,000 MP3s, OGGs, and FLACs. 20,000 raw photographs on a drive: 150 gigs (and that's just this past year). Heck the 140gb partition I have for my system barely holds windows, CS4 and a few (admittedly large) games. Its only got 40 gigs free right now. Heck I have about 100gigs of PSX ISOs alone, whereas all the 8-bit and 16-bit roms ever released fits somewhere inside the space of like 10 gigs. I never got into collecting PS2 and XBOX ISOs thank god!

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[timmans]

10 years' worth of digital photos for two people (the other doesn't have a camera) = about 10GB.

I currently have 12.5GB of photos of my 13 month old son...

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[cynyr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Bunting I assume.

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[Hatta]

Oh, so your wife is interested in photography, eh? Snap, snap, grin, grin, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more!

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[SmilingBoy]

10 years' worth of digital photos for two people (the other doesn't have a camera) = about 10GB.

This is not a lot. Given that most cameras now take pictures that use around 4 MB, this would be a collection of only 2500 pictures, or only 250 pictures per year. If I am on holiday, I might take 250 pictures in a day! Plus taking videos is very easy these days, and after each vacation I end up with videos coming up to 10 GB easily...

Re:How much disk space do they need...?

[tehcyder]

>blockquote> When they say "photo collection", they're actually talking about porn collections, aren't they? No, it's only when you start on videos that porn takes up all that much space. Or so I've heard.

Is this news?

[Neoprofin]

Did anyone else notice that they forgot to mention in their final summary the possibility of buying the pre-fab eMachine for $100 more then installing Ubuntu on it and having a system with:

Much better performance
Much smaller form factor
Wireless keyboard and mouse
1 year warranty
I also don't like the "higher transfer speed" was attributed to Ubuntu not to the eMachine running a 5400 drive vs. a 7200, or the face that building your own cheap computer and putting Linux on it is even news to begin with.

Re:Is this news?

[xs650]

Yes, but...then they would have had to change the title of the article to Buying a $300 Linux PC.

It's one thing to disagree with someone's answer, it's another thing to say they asked the wrong question.

Re:Is this news?

[ZosX]

Actually if you had paid attention in the article you would have learned that the e-machine was vastly outperformed by the cheap budget box.

Is the form factor worth the extra $100? I guess that's for the reader to decide. This is news in a way because previously it was nearly impossible to build a decent box with case and power supply for $200. Barebones systems used to bottom out at $300 without a drive and memory. Prices have really drastically fallen on low end goods. People should put their P3s away and start building some decent, usable systems for $100 or so plus some spare parts.

Re:Is this news?

[Neoprofin]

Why not Buying a $1337 PC or Buying a PC?

My largest complaint is still that building a PC from commodity hardware and putting Linux on it isn't really newsworthy.

not much of a challenge, how about $150 computer?

[rubycodez]

assuming all new components, with motherboards available for under $40, should be able to build $150 PC (monitor not included though)

If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Windows 7 Home Premium retains for $199.99 it obviously has to run Linux otherwise it would be a $400 PC.

I remember reading an article about 15 years ago that said the operating system used to account for 2% of the cost of a PC but by then it was 10% of the cost. It seems that thanks to falling hardware prices and rising prices from Microsoft we've now hit the point where the operating system can be 50% of the cost of the PC.

For purely economical reasons children should use Linux exclusively in schools. As things stand the education system is just generating customers for Microsoft which allows Microsoft to charge whatever they want for the products. I say this as somebody who uses Windows exclusively and who's pissed off at the prices Microsoft charge for their retail software. If I'd grown up using Linux I'd have saved myself a lot of money.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[DAldredge]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754&cm_re=windows_7_home_premium-_-32-116-754-_-Product 99 for a copy not 199.99

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Windows 7 Home Premium retains for $199.99 it obviously has to run Linux otherwise it would be a $400 PC.

I remember reading an article about 15 years ago that said the operating system used to account for 2% of the cost of a PC but by then it was 10% of the cost. It seems that thanks to falling hardware prices and rising prices from Microsoft we've now hit the point where the operating system can be 50% of the cost of the PC.

For purely economical reasons children should use Linux exclusively in schools. As things stand the education system is just generating customers for Microsoft which allows Microsoft to charge whatever they want for the products. I say this as somebody who uses Windows exclusively and who's pissed off at the prices Microsoft charge for their retail software. If I'd grown up using Linux I'd have saved myself a lot of money.

Well, here's the thing. That 199 price you mention? School systems don't pay that because...none of them are buying retail boxes off the shelf. Most would probably have a volume license through a support contract from some vendor, which may be somebody like Dell that covers them top to bottom, or it may be a mix of providers for hardware and software. To demonstrate an economical advantage, you have to consider their real costs, and no, they can't rely on some geek who knows stuff.

Besides, this whole thing about generating customers? There was a time where Apple owned the education market...it didn't transfer over at all, except I suppose to a few niche segments which Apple had anyway.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it that something that is disproved by another post or a 4 second google search modded up like this?

Keep drinking the kool-aid fanbois but your lies are showing.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Bruinwar]

Better yet, if you have (or have a friend/family) with a .edu email address, Win7 Pro for $30! http://www.microsoft.com/student/en/us/windows/buynow/default.aspx I got one copy & it works, upgrading from XP.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Nimey]

It's Slashdot and he said something anti-Microsoft, of course.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[westlake]

Since Windows 7 Home Premium retains for $199.99 it obviously has to run Linux otherwise it would be a $400 PC. It seems that thanks to falling hardware prices and rising prices from Microsoft we've now hit the point where the operating system can be 50% of the cost of the PC.

The AMD Acer Aspire notebook with 15" screen, Radeon 4250 graphics and 64 Bit Win 7 Home Premium is $300 at Walmart.com

Someday, the geek may fathom the mysteries of volume licensing, wholesale versus retail pricing, and the OEM system bundle.

That day can't come too soon, IMHO.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Microlith]

So it would have been a $300 PC, with a full 1/3rd of the cost going to the OS alone.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[XanC]

What's the point of not pirating if you're going to violate the license anyway?

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Kjella]

Since Windows 7 Home Premium retains for $199.99 it obviously has to run Linux otherwise it would be a $400 PC.

Of course, nobody pays $199. That's some bullshit marketing number that everyone gets huge rebates on, it's 50% off at Newegg and probably 70-80% off if you're Dell or HP or Lenovo. Then they bundle it up with various trialware that the trialware makers pay for to make the net contribution more like $0-50 somewhere. I recently bought be a netbook with the XP netbook edition, which I can swear Microsoft sells for almost nothing to sell Windows, not Linux. Of course I wiped it and installed Linux anyway, but that way they don't need to support it, they don't need to stock another SKU and all in all I don't think I could have gotten it much cheaper anyway. But Microsoft got to count it as another Windows netbook sale...

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[VGPowerlord]

Well, the two versions of the retail boxed copy are strange to begin with.

The only apparent difference between the normal retail and Systems Builder editions is that the latter says you can't use it to do an upgrade install... but the thing is, why wouldn't you buy the Upgrade version if you wanted to do an upgrade install?

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[VGPowerlord]

I thought MS had ended that deal. I notice that they no longer offer the option of Home Premium, though... the previous deal had either Home Premium or Professional as options for students.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[cynyr]

Still makes their $200 pc a $300 pc and you still then need to get an AV package :P

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[cynyr]

If you aren't buying a OEM copy, how much is Win7 home premium?
So i'm not sure if i qualify as a OEM when building my on computer not for sale. So to be 100% legal, Newegg has http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116716 Win7 home premium full, 179.99 which is $20 off the normal price. I'm not sure about the requirements to be in full compliance with the OEM license, but i do know that if i install gentoo/ubuntu/fedora/suse i'll be in compliance with the license.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the OEM version which has too many restrictions to be viable for people who assembe their own PCs. If you regularly upgrade your system components you can find that the OEM version will deactivate and Microsoft will refuse to reactivate it. The retail version is the only real option for self-builders and that's retails for $200, or $180 at NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116716&cm_re=windows_home_premium-_-32-116-716-_-Product

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[DAldredge]

Microsoft Security Essentials - 0.00

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Matt Perry]

Since Windows 7 Home Premium retains for $199.99 it obviously has to run Linux otherwise it would be a $400 PC.

Assuming that either (1) your time futzing with Linux is worth nothing or (2) whatever Linux distro you use "just works" with zero futzing around. Option #2 isn't guaranteed but it is more likely if you can pick and choose specific components as they are doing here.

And no one pays retail. Win7 Home Premium can be bought for $150.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[BitZtream]

Schools aren't there to promote your agenda.

They are not there to promote one type of business over another.

They are there to educate and prepare our children for the real world.

Your child, having used Windows in school, has a skill that will be useful at pretty much any business in the known world.

Should your child be brought up on Linux, they'd have a skill thats useful if they are a sysadmin, or happen to work for google or redhat, outside of that, its practical value to someone who isn't a computer geek is less than 0.

Fortunately, people like you with such ignorant view points aren't making such policy decisions.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the disclaimer:

"Use of this OEM System Builder Channel software is subject to the terms of the Microsoft OEM System Builder License. This software is intended for pre-installation on a new personal computer for resale. This OEM System Builder Channel software requires the assembler to provide end user support for the Windows software and cannot be transferred to another computer once it is installed. To acquire Windows software with support provided by Microsoft please see our full package "Retail" product offerings."

I supposed you could build the machine, and then sell it to yourself to get around the resale clause.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

You're sure that it's not root kitted, and you sure it won't fail WGA (in the future).

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[kenh]

First off, DUH! The article conceeds this point almost immediately.

Second, Windows hasn't gotten more expensive in any real sense - Home OS licenses of Win95->Win7 cost about $100 (retail disks), Professional OS from Win2K-> Win7 Professional/Enterprise cost about $200.

Hardware, as you note, has gotten cheaper.

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[DAldredge]

It is a major portion of the system, what is wrong with paying for it?

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

> we've now hit the point where the operating system can be 50% of the cost of the PC

Woohoo! It's mainframe time again!

Re:If It Didn't Run Linux it would be a $400 PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing wrong with paying for it, but..

A school can buy 20 $300 PCs with the probably very good MS Windows OS on them for $6000, or

they can buy 30 $200 PCs with the very good Edubuntu OS on them for the same $6000.

Iz you reals?

[Anonymous Coward]

The budget was $200, how is mentioning the possibility of spending $300 on some non-solution even remotely worthwhile? They also didn't mention the possibility of getting a free computer from someone.

Re:Iz you reals?

[Neoprofin]

Yes, and $200 is completely arbitrary, as is require it to be a dual core, a choice that was never explained or justified for their system.

If they're going to compare it to a $300 system they should at least be fair to it. And better yet people shouldn't make a big deal about it every time someone combines readily available commodity hardware in completely un-new and unexciting ways.

excluding taxes and shipping?

[dirtyhippie]

excluding taxes and shipping is pretty ridiculous. they could easily add 1/4 to the budget, and if saving money (not just "ooh, look what i can do") is really a goal, they would have included it.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

There's this new thing called "teh internets", where it's possible to buy things from out of state, where you don't have to pay any sales tax. Also, I hear that some of the vendors you can find on this internets thing don't charge for shipping on orders over a certain dollar amount. If you're paying 25% for shipping, you're not doing it right.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[Bruinwar]

Unless you live in Ca, Tn, or NJ, Newegg will not collect the sales tax. As of today shipping those parts = $25 which I agree he should of included. However, watching for deals at Newegg, Tiger, Amazon, ect... you can usually get free or discounted shipping.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[Fireshadow]

I would disagree. Taxes and shipping are variables withing your control. In the US, buying off the internet means one doesn't pay state taxes usually. On shipping, just shop (on newegg anyway) from the items marked "Free Shipping". One of the cheapest ways to get a case.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[Fred Ferrigno]

Two things:

1. Here in California, it's hard to bypass the sales tax because most of the major retailers have a local presence. The places that don't aren't necessarily cheaper, and if they are, they tend not to be places I'd trust with my credit card.

2. Most states with sales tax also have use tax that covers out of state purchases. You're supposed to report them when you file your state taxes. As an individual making small purchases, you're unlikely to get caught for it, but it's technically illegal.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're contrasting with pre-fab systems.

Pre-fab systems need tax and shipping too.

So the decision is rational, not ridiculous.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[int69h]

Many states also have a usage tax to combat exactly what you're suggesting.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

should of

Read a book, dipshit.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[DuckTales253]

Taxes and shipping are variables withing your control. In the US, buying off the internet means one doesn't pay state taxes usually.

I would disagree. Here is the policy for Pennsylvania (PA) which should be similar in most other states of the USA: Question: I purchased taxable products over the Internet, but the dealer didn't charge PA Sales Tax. Do I have to pay the tax? Answer: Yes, you must pay a Use Tax. Use Tax is due on purchases where PA Sales Tax has not been paid. The vendor may not have enough contact with Pennsylvania to require the firm to collect PA Sales Tax. However, that does not relieve the purchaser of his or her obligation to pay the tax. To report the transaction and pay the tax, use form PA-1. Is use tax new? No. Pennsylvania first imposed use tax in 1953. All states that impose sales tax also impose use tax.

Re:excluding taxes and shipping?

[dirtyhippie]

Yes, in some cases you can get shipping free and avoid taxes, but they did not claim to do that in their search - they merely said they excluded those costs. Including those costs would have made finding components more complicated, and the fact that they didn't even show the final actual cost makes the whole article seem like more of a gimmick than anything else.

Totally Annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

How long is it going to take writers and publishers to figure out that putting something on like 5-10 pages instead of a single page will drive people away?

A horrible design choice, fit for some bottom of the barrel PC design story.

That's what my computers always cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, 200€ actually, but anyway. This is pretty much how I've built the computers for myself and my family for quite some time now:
- 50€ for Case + Power Supply
- 50€ for Motherboard that has Audio, NIC and GPU integrated
- 50€ for CPU
- 50€ for RAM

Some of the pieces could be a little bit less or more than 50€, but in general that's how it goes. And we've always been perfectly happy with the performance of the machines.

Re:That's what my computers always cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they all boot from USB sticks?

Re:That's what my computers always cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they all boot from USB sticks?

For installing the Operating System they do (I can't remember the last time I've used my CD/DVD-drive), but the hard drive is usually taken from the old machine that the new one is replacing, as is mouse/keyboard/monitor.

Re:That's what my computers always cost

[nstlgc]

You're right. To hell with keyboards, mice, hard disks, speakers, optical drives and heck, who needs a monitor anyways!

Re:That's what my computers always cost

[Arthur Grumbine]

And as a major benefit, it appears you run your OS (I'm guessing Damn Small, or Puppy Linux?) on a RAMDisk, making it extra speedy. Of course the inability to save local docs is also sure-fire virus protection. If it wasn't for those pesky boot times...

Used

[michaelmalak]

I get computers for the school staff for $90 apiece at http://www.techcentercomputers.com/ P4, 512MB, 80GB, XP.

Re:Used

[Just Some Guy]

I'd pay an extra $110 to build a server system that would be many times faster and use far less electricity. The latter alone would make the return on investment worthwhile.

Re:Used

[owlstead]

That's great during winter time!

Re:Used

[bill_mcgonigle]

I get computers for the school staff for $90 apiece at http://www.techcentercomputers.com/ [techcentercomputers.com] P4, 512MB, 80GB, XP.

I recently shut off an old P4 I had just doing asterisk (I virtualized it onto another machine) and my electricity bill was reduced by $42/mo.

A 200$ PC makes news in slashdot? Is this '95?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, the mind boggles.

Getting hardware for 200$ that is very able to run all sorts of non-flashy game things does not even strike me as special.

It's just a matter of going to your favourite online shop and click the parts together. Hardware is cheap these days, wow, the authors there and the guy who put it on slashdot just learned something new.

The rest of the crowd just shrugs and says "Tell me if you make that below 50. Today, not in two years!"

But really... why is this news? It would have been 1997 or so.

Re:A 200$ PC makes news in slashdot? Is this '95?

[grandmasterlee]

It wouldn't be slashdot without an irrelevant story every now and then for people to sharpen their contempt on.

Mod parent down

[Nimey]

If you're putting together a system anyway, you can use MS's OEM pricing, which is about half of the $200 parent quotes.

I can get it cheaper yet because the university I work for has a licensing agreement that, among other things, lets me download a copy of Win7 Pro for $66, or Ultimate for $90.

Re:Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

So what kind of computer can you put together with the remaining $134.00, that's just as zippy as a Linux box? Still waiting for that answer smarty pants.

Re:Mod parent down

[Nimey]

Of course it still costs more than free, but it's not quite so bad as claimed.

Why not just buy a used $200 PC?

[Simonetta]

I don't see the point of this entire article. Why not just buy a used $200 PC and install Linux on it? Or just keep the Windows and install Linux as a dual-boot (If possible)? There are millions of used $200 PCs available. Nearly all will last another five years at least with normal use.

Re:Why not just buy a used $200 PC?

[Nethead]

Exactly. My wife and I use refurbished HP laptops that I got from a local laptop dealer for about $225 each. We've both have 2GB RAM, 80MB drives and built in WiFi. Nice commercial tank laptops with real serial and printer ports (I geek and ham on those.) For storage we have a WDLive box ($99 Costco) with a 1TB USB drive ($98 Costco), makes a nice file server and services the old 90's TV and stereo system we have.

Slow, yeah, but it works for us. I run linux, she runs winders. Worth upgrading? Not really. I don't video game so it surfs just fine for me.

So as it is now, I have no real use for a "tower" box. Maybe if I was hacking some hardware thing that required a bus but then I'd likely use the old Pentium-Pro that I'm holding onto for sentimental reasons. (and I still have some old ISA wirewrap cards with 8255s addressed and ready to go.)

I had a nice new Thinkpad dual core with 4GB at my last contract job, and it was nice. But I don't need to have dozens of .xls files (ports and IP maps) open with 20 ssh sessions going on at home.

I'll use tech when it fits me, not when it's sold to me. Yeah, I've got only IP phones in the house but old stuff works fine 99.99% of the time.

Re:not much of a challenge, how about $150 compute

[mariushm]

Motherboard with video and sound integrated - 40$ , CPU - 37$ , case + psu - 30$, memory 20$

We're at 127$ right now, well maybe at 135$ if we include mouse+keyboard

The hard drive is what would push us over the edge, so how about we just replace it with a 8GB memory stick that's 13-15$ ? 2 GB for the OS should be enough (you would install a Linux in much less space if you want to) and you still have 6 GB left for documents and files.

Where's the monitor/etc.?

[Jon Abbott]

This system is not useful as a desktop if it doesn't include a monitor, keyboard and mouse. The cheapest monitor I see on Newegg is a $99 Hanns-G HW-173ABB 17" LCD monitor, so that would push the price up to $300. The cheapest keyboard and mouse set is about $10. Speakers are about $5. New total is $315 excluding shipping. There's also no mention of whether the integrated sound works in Linux, and whether the integrated video works well (or if Ubuntu resorts to safe graphics mode). I would not be complaining if they had mentioned any of these things in the article.

Re:Where's the monitor/etc.?

[Just Some Guy]

This system is not useful as a desktop if it doesn't include a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Do you typically replace old systems (so that you can reuse their peripherals), or do you just keep adding to your basement desktop cluster over the decades? I wouldn't normally ask, but this is Slashdot.

Re:Where's the monitor/etc.?

[ZosX]

That was kind of my thought as well. It didn't seem like they spent any time looking at the actual linux compatibility of the hardware they were sourcing.

Re:Where's the monitor/etc.?

[Jon Abbott]

Do you typically replace old systems (so that you can reuse their peripherals), or do you just keep adding to your basement desktop cluster over the decades? I wouldn't normally ask, but this is Slashdot.

Neither... I used to stockpile old cables, monitors, etc. but eventually gave them all away on Craigslist. My complaints above were mainly to raise awareness of folks in my situation (who no longer keep spare parts lying around), or those who are starting from scratch.

Re:Where's the monitor/etc.?

[Anonymous Coward]

This system is not useful as a desktop if it doesn't include a monitor, keyboard and mouse. ... There's also no mention of whether the integrated sound works in Linux, and whether the integrated video works well.

To be fair, if you don't have a monitor or a speaker, how would you tell if the sound or video isn't working?

Re:Where's the monitor/etc.?

[amorsen]

If you get to keep bits of the old computer, why not keep at least the hard drive and the case? Then we're down to a $150 computer.

Re:Where's the monitor/etc.?

[Just Some Guy]

That's an excellent point, too. I've evolved the same system for over a decade by upgrading a bit here, a bit there... It was only in the last few months that I replaced the case, which had been the only remaining original part.

cheap hardware == problems down the road

[rsilvergun]

foxconn branded boards look good on paper, but they fail in about year. Like everyone keeps saying, just buy a well built Intel Atom based system.

Re:cheap hardware == problems down the road

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize all intel branded desktop/sff boards are in fact manufactured by foxconn?

Re:cheap hardware == problems down the road

[avgapon]

Just read this series of articles to see how the Atom hype is just... well, only hype.
http://www.ixbt.com/cpu/intel-atom-architecture-1.shtml
http://www.ixbt.com/cpu/intel-atom-architecture-2.shtml
http://www.ixbt.com/cpu/intel-atom-architecture-3.shtml

Re:cheap hardware == problems down the road

[bartwol]

foxconn branded boards [...] fail in about year.

On what do you base this assertion (e.g. sample size)?

Or you can go refurb

[Sporkinum]

I ended up getting a refurb HP for my wife for $250. I came with an Athlon II X4 620, 3 GB ram, and a 500 GB HD, and Windows 7 Home Premium. I think it would be pretty hard to build it yourself for that price.

BTW, she didn't like Windows 7, so it is running 64bit Kubuntu 10.4. I still left 7 on the machine though.

Re:But it's not cheaper is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a cheaper deal because the University has a licensing agreement, which means that the University subsidized your cost. Soooo, I have to ask is it really cheaper if you're offloading the cost to another entity? Any way you play it, Microsoft is going to get their money, all that's going on here is yet another marketing scheme of pretending something is cheaper when it's not.

Re:Why not a used $200 PC? answer: Video

[Anonymous Coward]

An old $200 pc might not be able to play any high-def video with an underpowered graphics card, ditto flash as well.

on the curb / dumpster Yes you can find CRT there

[Joe The Dragon]

on the curb / dumpster Yes you can find CRT there or just use a old one you have laying around.

Nothing too surprising here

[Just Brew It!]

It has been possible to build a system at that price point for a while. In fact you could've probably done it even cheaper a year or two ago when RAM prices were ridiculously low.

My main concern with this build is the PSU that came bundled with the budget case. If the case + PSU was only $30, the PSU is almost certainly a total piece of crap; it'll probably be dead within a year. Hopefully it doesn't take the motherboard with it when it goes.

Linux HW Support gets better with age

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently purchased a new computer. It came with Windows7 x64, great, I need signed drivers. Then I tried to connect my 3 yr old "Brother" all-in-1 printer/scanner/fax machine. No Win7 drivers. The website didn't have any Win7 x64 drivers either. So I connected it to my Linux Server (really just desktop hardware running Ubuntu Server x64 and LXDE environment (not the full Lubuntu bloatware).

The printer drivers were loaded with trivial effort, so at least that works. Further, I share the printer on the LAN, so anyone can print to it that either creates PDF or PS files or has the drivers. Simple. Useful. Sane (scanner project) isn't quite ready for most people, IMHO, but it is getting better. As for faxing, the built-in scanner/faxer just works without any computer, so that isn't an issue. My old hardware that still works fine keeps working under Ubuntu.

Re:on the curb / dumpster Yes you can find CRT the

[Jon Abbott]

If you're going to dumpster dive for a CRT, why not just dumpster dive for the whole computer? :^)

Maybe I'm missing something?

[socz]

- They wanted to build a $200 PC... that runs linux

- They wanted to have at least the slowest dual core because it runs better than a single core. I'm no expert (obviously), But I'm fairly confident my P4 3ghz with HT can beat the slowest of dual cores... ESPECIALLY when the programs don't run more than 1 thread.

- System has to be upgradeable. I don't know what system you build wouldn't be upgradeable. This is sort of a given when building your own no?

- Not doing windows? Why, because you don't want to have to pay/steal a copy of it? I want to see a $200 "PC" so I can play battlefield 2142. This is starting to seem like non-news to me and a waste of time.Oh yeah, and they're "going with linux" because the price point for software is "free." No, it's not "FREE" because many people have spent countless hours to produce some bad ass shit and for you to say it's free (without cost or effort to you) doesn't make it so.

- It only needs basic functions? Why not run *nix in console? You can have IRC, FTP, network drives, mail programs, document editing, compiling!, even a web browser! Am I missing something here? Even my PHONE can do all this.

- So, they talk about thinking of the future and upgrade-ability, so they go with foxxcon & AMD???????? Yes, since they're known for their uber high quality components, yah! I avoided them when building my bsd atom server for MANY reasons I found. Lowest cost FTW!

- Even with the low cost in mind, making it a useful device by limiting its HDD is ridiculous, especially considering their price point now. Its not even even able to save a small % of your music collection!

- They're concerned about quality so they end up with a rosewill case/ps. Here's a tip for you gang, if you're worried about upgrading and cost, don't buy a pos PS which is one of the most expensive components you'll have to regularly have to be replacing. I don't know about all of you, but I stay away from rosewill. Look at their reviews - for any product. They might win cust award, but that isn't because they're good products, but rather because they're cheap. I just never had a good feeling for their products. Recently though, I did buy a sata dock for $14 shipped! It is rosewill, and I am not surprised. The power button and ejector feel like trash, and I do wonder if my unit will go out like many others have. It is literally the only thing I've bought from new egg in many years that I think won't last more than a few weeks. Nothing other than power supplies have gone out on me, and i have built manyyyyyy computers for both myself and others with new egg parts. Never got a DOA from them, so I choose wisely (so far!) But I'm confident rosewill will hold true to its QC

- They skimp on the OS and CD drive????????? This makes NO SENSE TO ME! I guess you better add "Not able to rip music from the 2000 cds I own" to the list of things you can't do (#4). Why ubuntu? Because it's trendy? Because it works? Because there's so many 'flavors' of it? Why not throw fbsd on it? I promise it'll be more useful! Ok I can't promise that, as it really depends on the user. (That was my obligatory shout out to BSD). Oh yeah, and everybody has an ubuntu image bootable from usb stick!

- $192.95. That's is their estimate? What about shipping? Shoot, my server cost less than that then since I waited for the deals I wanted to pop up!

Check out what I did:

- My "rational": I need to get a server up. longggg story short, 5, to 3, to 1 computer that did all my things finally died. I was overseas and a buddy took over all hosting for me. I finally decide to stop mooching and throw it back on my box... but I will colo my box with a buddy who has fast inet. That means it has to be great in the power consumption area - don't want him to have the huge bills I did. I dig around the AVN forum because they're great! Check out their lists on builds.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'm fairly confident my P4 3ghz with HT can beat the slowest of dual cores

HAHAHA. No.

Oh, wait, it could beat a dual-core Atom. But a dual-core Athlon II like in the article? Never.

PS. The box you're speccing is $100 over budget and slower.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[ChrisMaple]

The word you are looking for is "rationale".

200 -- No Thermopylae Pass

[DanMelks]

$200 is a reasonable target.
Last year, I bought a computer I intended to keep for several years: the cpu/mb/ram cost me $120 from a box-mart. Now, I'll throw in another 70 to 90 dollars for case/psu/kbd/mouse depending on styles and wattages.
In addition, I often see pre-assembled towers for $150. If you need a computer for cheap, talk to your friendly neighborhood nerd/geek/dork. (except that if you are here, you likely are that person: yes, we are pretty much doomed)

Pentium 4, are you serious?!

[eddy]

I'd only accept a P4-based computer if it came with a SIZEABLE stack of cash.

nightwatch

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, few years ago everyone was building their own PC at home. Now it's a challenge no one but few geniuses can undertake for fame and glory. I'm speechless.

Price points are very different today

[Shivetya]

I just picked up an Acer One netbook from Target for $199 this week. Windows 7 basic (lose some features I could care less about). 10 inch screen LED lit, 1024x600, 1.66 Atom processor, 1g ram, 160g hard drive, and wi-fi.

Why would I want to build anything with prices like that? Best of all, its very portable, has lasted almost eight hours on a charge, and the keyboard is good too.

Re:But it's not cheaper is it?

[Nimey]

I'm not paying the extra, so I really don't care.

Meh

[saihung]

I built a frankencomputer with the same budget limit, but I used lots of scavenged / recycled / outdated components where it didn't matter much. So the keyboard is an old discarded iMac jobby, the mouse is a no-brand PS/2, the monitor is a Viewsonic 21" CRT that someone left at the curb on recycling day, and the case was an extremely ancient IBM Aptiva. As long as it's ATX, it will fit (in this case, from 1998, and it made no difference). I also limited my new purchases to the absolute essentials, and picked everything else up from the discount / return rack. Result? I spent the same as they did, but have an optical drive, 2 gigs of ram, a respectable video card, and an Athlon II X4. Shweet.

New vs. second-hand

[dskoll]

Yeah, I know the article wanted all-new parts. But I prefer second-hand because it's usually much cheaper, usually just as reliable as new (except for power supplies and hard drives) and better for the environment. You're saving boxes that would end up in the landfill or some illegal third-world "recycling" dump.

Re:But it's not cheaper is it?

[JohnRoss1968]

DUD GIVE UP..
If you keep responding soon they will break out the other reasons not to use windows (no matter how much you prefer to do so)
Such as........
Every time you boot Windows God kills a kitten.
Windows makes LOL cat cry
ect ect ect......

Just remember Linux is Faster , Easyer to learn and use , And its Free. And that is why everyone is using it instead of Windows ...errr wait a sec

I won't buy off the rack anymore, I can't afford

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't buy off the rack anymore, I can't afford to. The first pc I bought had problems with the monitor. I went through four years of hell looking at a monitor that would start OK, but within about 10 minutes, the horizontal and vertical deflection would go to roughly twice what should be normal, and the brightness would get to less than half of normal, and it would shift around, the circuits trying to compensate. Four years I tried to take it back 'oh, its fine, we found nothing wrong with it', but loaner monitors would be fine. The next computer I bought (HP) was under powered, and came installed with a bad dvd reader. They were all bad (the model of dvd reader had problems), but there was no replacement from HP, and they refused to look at it. After that, I built my own, with quality parts. I don't necessarily mean high end, I just mean quality (will last maybe 8 or 10 years of normal use). The first computer I built ran 8 years before I upgraded (the thing still runs, I just don't use it as my main computer anymore). The current computer I'm using I also assembled myself (I don't say built, because I used to build computers too, including making up the circuit diagrams and wiring in each chip onto the circuit board... that was a computer I built). This computer has been running like a top for 18 months. I am considering the switch to liquid cooling, but thats the only change I see. No component failures, no anomalies, no weird behavior (in spite of the fact that the vendors pay only the slightest notice to Linux).

$199 buys you a fully functional netbook...

[Phizzle]

Seriously, instead of reinventing the wheel, hit the ads and dealsites, you can find a solid selection of 10.1" netbooks for 199 or less delivered without tax. Oh and to all the folks saying to run ancient CRTs - environment aside, you going to spend a load on powering that thing. My Acer n280 cost me 199.99 landed, and it runs Backtrack 4 just fine ;)

Re:$199 buys you a fully functional netbook...

[Gavagai80]

A 10.1" netbook isn't practical as a primary computer for anyone without superhuman vision. I've got an 11.6" netbook, but spend all my time on my 23" desktop instead where I can actually fit a decent amount of stuff on the screen at a readable size.

Cheap PCs... bah

[whereiswaldo]

I call bullshit on the "cheap web browsing computer" idea. Web browsing today requires good hardware if you want to go to video sites, plus browsers take up hundreds of megs of RAM (over a gig, even) and a fair bit of CPU.

If you want to visit static HTML sites, fine, but I doubt that's what most people today are into.

Not sure I understand the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I want a $200 pc.. What am I doing with this? Giving it to mom and dad? If that's the case they should buy something with a warranty and the ability to call someone else as I have a job... The only use I see for this is for kids, and I would much rather just use hand me downs/ used rather than dealing with all the effort to price out, assemble and maintain a whitebox..

$300 Quad core

[OrangeTide]

2.5Ghz quad, 800GB(64MB cache), 2GB DDR3-1333, HDMI out, crappy case.

$75.99 AMD Phenom 9850 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor HD985ZXAJ4BGH
$59.99 Western Digital Caviar Green WD8000AARS 800GB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$69.99 MSI 760GM-E51 AM3 AMD 760G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
$47.99 Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model CT2KIT12864BA1339
$39.99 Foxconn TLM776-CN300C-01 Black/ Silver Steel MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case 300W Power Supply
------
$283.95

shipping it works out to about $300, more if you have to pay tax.

Re:$300 Quad core

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several things wrong with your build.

1. DDR3 memory only works with AM3 AMD processors.
2. The Phenom I is a powerhog and has poor per thread performance. For the same price, you can get an Athlon II X3 which has one less core, but uses less power and has higher per thread performance thanks to a higher clock speed.

I call bullshit on your call of bullshit.

[OrangeTide]

a dual core 1.6GHz Atom(330 for example), about the lowest end CPU on the market, it's a real dog, slower than the crap AMD was shipping 5 years ago. With 2GB ram installed, it is fine for HTML5, Video and Flash. I have seen ordinary adults and kids get on one of these crappy computers and play all their little flash games and watch their movies including netflix HD which seems to be a real pig. If you want to visit static HTML sites then a Pentium II with 256M is probably fine. (Firefox will run on Windows98, and it is fast). For the real web experience you need a $200 computer or better.

Try observing the experiences of ordinary people with these low end computers. If they can use it happily, without frustration, then it is safe to say that it is good enough.

Simple

[mrwolf007]

Updates wont break the "crack".

failed to understand the requirements

[OrangeTide]

a netbook is not really upgradable like a desktop, so it fails one of the key requirements in the $200 desktop challenge.
It's funny you bring up the environment. Netbooks are viewed as disposable by users. When it stops working or if a newer slightly faster Atom comes out, people slap down another $300 or less for one. I realized quickly after I was buying a new netbook every year that if I spent a little extra on a small Core 2 Solo laptop with some decent specs and resist the urge to upgrade for two years and be money ahead. (Acer 1410 - it's getting almost as good battery life as my EeePC 1000HE)

Re:failed to understand the requirements

[BitZtream]

Yes and expecting to get all the features of a $500 device for $200 with no trade-off makes you a rather retarded fuckwad.

People buying netbooks every year are retarded as well considering they haven't exactly changed much since they came out other than a Windows upgrade. The performance today is barely different than when introduced.

Re:failed to understand the requirements

[Phizzle]

Since I tend to spend about 8 months out of the year traveling, my netbook IS my PRIMARY computer. In terms of "expandability" and functionality - 2GB of memory and 500GB of drive space is adequate, webcam is adequate, and 3G wireless is adequate as well. In terms of power consumption and the environment - whenever I can, I run solar charger, which is not very viable with a desktop. So in terms of functionality, cost over lifetime, and power, coupled with the flexibility offered by the ultra portable format - this is a hard to beat combo. Oh and to the gent below, I havent needed "superhuman vision" to use the 10.1 screen - not everyone *needs* a 23" screen - which btw puts you over the $200 price point anyhow.

Re:failed to understand the requirements

[OrangeTide]

I'd take a 10 to 13 inch screen over a 15+ inch screen in a laptop. I can't get one of those monster laptops into a position where I can open the screen all the way and type comfortably when I'm sitting in an airline seat. No problem for my little laptop. The laptop I mentioned that I paid about $450 for is not a monster, it has a 12" display. It is like the other netbooks in form factor (and fairly thin too), but with the distinction that it doesn't have an Atom in it.

My argument was those $200 laptops were costing me about $300-400 a year, so they weren't such a good bargain for me.

Simple.

[BitZtream]

Wait for sale at BestBuy.
During Sale, go buy $200 nettop.

Or if you don't want the accessories like monitors and keyboards, just pick any random computer store to go buy the parts for an atom PC for $200.

Its not like $200 is a hard target to hit.

DIY to safe money? No

[mrwolf007]

While you can sure safe money on a diy-box there are far better reasons for that approach.
Most pre-assembled boxes fail on a quite a couple of choices.
Case:
Unless you are getting some overpriced gamer boxes the case is crap! Hassle to upgrade, cheap materials, lots of edges you can cut yourself etc...
I will be keeping my nice Chieftec tower for the next couple of iterations. Exchanging drives is a lot faster, everything is easy to to get too, nice cool and quiet (with the extra ventilation).
Power Unit:
One of the mayor sources of annoyance. Choosing an efficient and quiet one sure is relaxing.
Mainboard:
Mainboards happen to be the number one source of failure in PCs. Even rather expensive boxes usually have cheap boards since they cant advertise them (more ghz? No. More cores? No. More memory? No. More reliable capacitors? Ever see something like that in a description?)
The mobo is the component i never safe money on. Its supposed to handle the next cpu as well and i rather keep a good mobo than getting the next asrock or similiar.

Do i safe money compared to a similarly specced box from a retailer? No.
But i know its more reliable and easy to upgrade, so i do safe money in the long run due to upgrading and have less hassle replacing sub-par components.

Re:DIY to safe money? No

[Just Brew It!]

Ahh, another fan of Chieftec tower cases -- I agree, they're great! Built like a tank, removable drive cages, good ventilation, plenty of space to work inside. I picked up several of them at a clearance sale a few years back, and still use them. Both of my main desktops (home and work) as well as my home file server live in Chieftec full towers.

The one thing they definitely don't have going for them is portability. When I built my son's system a few years ago, I used one of my Chieftec tower cases. Unfortunately, about a year ago he started getting into LAN parties; that Chieftec is a PITA to lug around! So we swapped his full tower for a smaller, lighter mid tower.

Re:DIY to safe money? No

[Anonymous Coward]

Mainboards happen to be the number one source of failure in PCs.

I call bullshit on this one. Care to cite. Anecdotal evidence doesn't count in this case.

Re:DIY to safe money? No

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to enjoy assembling my own PCs. Then I got married with kids and pets and poultry. I am sure that given time I could assemble a PC from scratch that would marginally cost less or be marginally more whatever. However, figuring my bill rate and the time required, it's currently a better deal to have someone else assemble it. I have plenty of other things to be doing than screwing with the guts of a computer when I'm not being paid to do so.

Case: I have two dells and an HP. They might not be as shiny or easy to open as the Sonata case, but there were no cut fingers adding gigabit ethernet or additional hard drives.
Power Unit: I don't hear it, I hear the harddrives when they occasionally seek. Oddly this was the same issue with the last system I assembled myself. As for the power supply in the last system I assembled, by the time I was ready to upgrade the mainboard on it, the existing power supply was unfit for the task.

Mainboard: I guess i could be anal about them. I fail to see the point, the HP's mainboard is from the OEM mainboard division of the company that made the main board in the last system I assembled.

Caveats. I'm not a gamer, the wife and kids are gamers. And the wife and kids now burn enough time with zynga crap online, that they've forgotten the games they have that require fancy graphics adapters.

Reliability: The HP and Dells have proven much more reliable than the 2nd mainboard and CPU upgrade for the last system I assembled myself. A used Super Micro I have in my ghetto colo has been much more reliable than the previous colo boxes I assembled myself.

Upgrades: I wish I could easily upgrade the Dells to virtualization capable CPUs, but that was my mistake during ordering. By the time it'll really matter, those systems will be handed down to my parents and my inlaws and the kids will be off to college with laptops that I deem to be acceptable.

Re:DIY to safe money? No

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "save", not "safe". (just informing, since you seem to be using it consistently..)

Problem

[ceraphis]

Computer manufacturers or parts manufacturers will never push the idea of custom built computers to the uninformed masses. There's much more money involved in pre-built systems, even more when you stick an atom in a net-top instead of a much more capable c2d. Computer manufacturers make more money from markup, and parts manufacturers can streamline the production process straight to the manufacturer, possibly even at a premium.

Re:But it's not cheaper is it?

[sznupi]

We do pay it, in the end. Especially in cases of such dumping @education.

http://www.tekknoloji.com

[tekknoloji]

thanks admin ....

$200 Quad-core linux box

[Anonymous Coward]

I built a couple of $200 linux pc's this year. I went to my local microcenter, so no shipping costs. I got an Althon II X4 620 for $96, and got a free, if old AM2+ gigabyte board with onboard nvidia graphics (nouveau works great). Add a gig of ram ($25), a 160 gig hdd ($40), and a case ($30) for a total of $191+tax. I used an old optical drive, crt and keyboard/mouse, but I could have fit all bu the crt in if I went with a cheaper proc.

I did this several years ago

[AusIV]

About four years ago I built a Linux desktop for around $150. I found a bundle on TigerDirect that had a case, power supply, CPU, motherboard, and a 256 MB stick of ram for $120 after several rebates (which I managed to collect after a while). I bought another 512 MB of RAM, threw in a graphics card and hard drive from an old box, and I was done for $150 (it would have been under $200 even with the other parts I added). About 2 years later I decided it was underpowered, so I spent a more sizable chunk of change to build a better one.

I assume that given Moore's law I could build a computer considerably better than that one for a similar amount of money, but I haven't had much need to build on a tight budget since then.

ARM is almost here

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for the Cortex A9 SoCs before buying a new cheap Linux machine. Tegra 2 should be out by the end of the year. Other SoCs should follow. They will cost only a few watts. The price of electricity adds up over time. Save money, wait some time.

Diss'ed Intel parts too quickly, IMHO

[kenh]

I took the bait and looked for comparable Intel parts, and found that a similar-priced Intel MB isn't hard to find - there are several $39.99-45.99 Intel MBs at Newegg.com that could be sub'ed without impacting performance greatly (including a few that support DDR3 memory), and if they would browse over to Microcenter.com for their CPU they could have gotten an Intel E5300 CPU for the same money ($59.99). Microcenter.com also has a cheaper dual-core Celeron E3300 that costs $40, which would free-up a twenty dollar bill to bump RAM from one to two Gigs. (The dual-core Celeron E3300 supports Virtualization, if that is interesting to you) Either a 2 Gig DDR3 DIMM or 2x 1 Gig DDR3 DIMM kits are available at Newegg.com for $45, just $20 more than the single 1 Gig DDR3 DIMM, and with $7.05 left over from their $200 cap, a $45 MB is still under budget.

Intel offers similar-priced component choices, so discounting Intel wasn't that obvious - it was a result of their choice of vendor for their supplier...

Understand, I'm not faulting them for using the AMD Athlon 245 CPU/MB they choose, I'm only commenting on the tone of the dismissal of Intel options...

Or... wait for the blue light special at Frys.

[Rene S. Hollan]

I've picked up $200 computers at Frys with mobo, RAM, HD, case, and PS for that little. They were "low end", for the time, of course (single core Athlon, 265 MB RAM, maybe 80 GB drive), but that was four years ago. They came bundled with Lindows at the time, which I immediately replaced with the Linux distro du jure.

The problem appears that no one bundles Lindows, or Linspire, or non-Winbloze anymore, and few want to pick up a system without an O/S. And, those that would probably don't mind building their own to save a few more shekels But, pre-built hardware at that price point is certainly possible. The size of the market probably makes it too small to be worthwhile.

CPU upgrade?

[alizard]

from my experience when one is ready to upgrade CPU and memory, it's generally more cost-effective to replace the motherboard as well. Particularly since even if one's CPU socket is compatible with the CPU upgrade, one can bet against the motherboard vendor putting out a BIOS upgrade. And especially since memory goes legacy and gets more expensive after 2 years.

I've had a certain amount of practice with this, I got my current Athlon Agena quad-core 9600 computer with SSD for the OS and apps and a terabyte HD for /home in 1999. Oddly enough, there isn't a single original part left in the system, which started as a K6-350 with a 6G HD.

I think I've managed one actual CPU upgrade in that length of time, and I found out after doing that ... that there was no way to get firmware that was actually stable with the new Duron 1800 (replacing a 900) in that motherboard. So I replaced the motherboard.

I'd say don't figure on a CPU upgrade to a motherboard you're buying new now unless you are planning it for the next year and you know the CPU you are planning to replace is already supported in BIOS.

The more interesting article - the $300 computer

[kenh]

I'd be interested to see what 50% more money would do for performance - I'm thinking a low-end i3 system would be possible, given a cheap enough case... A suitable Intel MB can be had for $100, third-party MBs go for as little as $80. The i3-530 CPU can be had for another $100, figure $55 for 2 Gigs of DDR3 RAM and that leaves $45 for case/PS.

Drop the requirement for a case/PS (say you're upgrading an older desktop), you can go to 4 Gig of RAM and still be under $300.

The system I'm imagining would be an Intel i3-530, Intel DH55TC w/ whatever 4 Gig DDR3 is on sale for $100 or less...

The Intel DH55TC appears to run fine under the latest Ubuntu - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Intel_DH55TC

Re:Why not a used $200 PC? answer: Video

[Minwee]

An old $200 pc might not be able to play any high-def video with an underpowered graphics card, ditto flash as well.

So put a $40 graphics card in it.

Seriously. I think you're overestimating the requirements a bit.

Anyone else read "Foxconn"

[Anonymous Coward]

and think "suicide".

I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole if I could help it.

Nets... they said.. WE'LL PUT UP NETS! ARF ARF! Now our workers have to kill themselves somewhere else!

Yes, but with better QA

[rsilvergun]

when foxconn brands it's own stuff it's the seconds, the stuff that barely passed inspection. The Intel stuff is generally the A grade (although there's been some crap lately...).

Re:not much of a challenge, how about $150 compute

[RAMMS EIN]

I wonder if Linux can work reliably off an USB stick, though. A couple of years ago I decided to start using only flash memory for storage and got a couple of CompactFlash cards and USB card readers. Contrary to what I expected, system boot time actually increased a lot, and after a while, the system would just freeze while performing I/O. I gave up and went back to using harddisks.

New, custom-built, $200 PC

[evilviper]

Who needs to build it yourself? Last time I needed a new system, sites that allow you to custom configure a new PC were cheaper than buying the parts separately.

3BTech has a new, low-end PC starting at $170 (shipped): http://3btech.net/3btecocospam.html

These guys might be a good choice as well: http://www.ascendtech.us/

You should still expect to have to open the thing up and re-attach the fan that's flopping around, and the like, but even with that, it'll save you a lot of time, and maybe some money.

Re:on the curb / dumpster Yes you can find CRT the

[sensei moreh]

No need to dive. Saw a CRT sitting on a particle-board computer desk along with a keyboard, 1m long ethernet cable, and a power cord adjacent to a dumpster in Bismarck, ND yesterday. Left the CRT but grabbed the keyboard, ethernet cable, and power cord

Re:not much of a challenge, how about $150 compute

[rubycodez]

works fine if configured properly (beware logging, temp files and swap) and right type of wear-leveling done in the stick with high cycle time memory. I've made a few server/appliances that have been working fine over two years now

Athlon II X4 and buy less other stuff

[OrangeTide]

oops. good catch! I had no idea that they were non-AM3 Phenoms. I usually flip through the manuals for things like RAM and mobo compatibility before I actually buy it. But I skipped that step when it was only for the sake of slashdot.

It's not so much about performance as to show that you can also build a quad-core on the cheap. Power is not a concern for this build so we can ignore that as well.
So an Athlon II X4 is about $100. If you dropped the amount of RAM to 1G you could still afford an X4 on the same arbitrary budget, so I would go that route so that it can still be a quad. (for no other purpose than to be a quad). Or you could get an 80GB drive for $36 and save about $24 over the 800GB, I would probably do that to avoid going below 2GB ram.

Re:Why not a used $200 PC? answer: Video

[Methuseus]

The onboard video they chose can do HD video no problem. Flash it may have an issue with, but then again, so will some high-end graphics cards.

Now, build something that runs under 30 watts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the point of "cheap" when it is going to cost you in the long run?

I know I paid way too much money for it now, but I cannot build a PC with the quality and performance of the new Mac Mini server that runs under 30 watts of power while serving multimedia and downloading torrents. Now consider that I am saving about $225 a year from running a PC 24/7 (average 300 watts) to running a Mac Mini 24/7 (average 30 watts), I can make up the cost difference in 3 years compared to this Linux box just from saving energy.

I still use my PC for stuff like gaming and ripping Video, but I turn it off after a few hours while my Mac server runs 24/7. If you are going to build a Linux box you are going to want to use it as a server too, but spending more money up front will make up in the long run. But the problem with the PC industry is there is zero focus on "quality" for off-the-shelf components. Comments like throwing a 300 watt power supply into a cheap box make me cringe because nobody realizes how much energy a typical PC wastes and how much money they can save by getting something better built.

Re:if you don't have any cap, go all out

[beanluc]

There are reasons to conserve besides "it doant cost me so much". Ever hear of externalization? It cost *somebody*. I can argue that it cost *everybody*.

As the ancestor said: "If you have a good reason to get a fast, power hungry CPU, then fine, but otherwise is would be a waste"... of electricity if not of money.

Re:LittleTeenyWeenyObviousDetail

[beanluc]

OEM OS's don't come "never-booted". Every time I've booted a new computer with an OEM OS, it's already installed - not just some installer files waiting to be run. Where do you think all the crap like "Lenovo ThingMonitor Utility #'s 1-10" and "Dell FactoryReset My Disk Utility" come from? They're installed, at the factory, after the OS, before I ever see the hardware. First thing I do any time I get a computer with OEM OS installed is blank the drive and install the OS from optical.

The only surprise...

[petrus4]

...is that it ran Ubuntu as easily, inside 1 Gb of ram. Gnome is a disastrously bloated beast.

My two computers are each single core 3 Ghz; one with 2 Gb of ram, and one with 1.

Although I am currently using Ubuntu, more commonly, I run FreeBSD, and with only a few X conceits, (Firefox, Eterm, claws-mail, and the fact that I find screen bothersome, and running mplayer in X is also less bother than using SVGAlib) am to computing as the Amish are to non-electrical persuits. My X wm under FreeBSD is ratpoison, I use mplayer for media files, Firefox for watching YouTube, claws for mail, and vim and ed as text editors. Occasionally I'll even fire up lynx in an Eterm, because I enjoy dodging Flash spam on some sites. I could also run OpenOffice, (which I don't, because I consider office suites to be primarily for technophobic Boomers, to be truly blunt) and record/edit video with ffmpeg/avidemux; or if I wanted to get fancy, open movie editor.

About the only thing I don't do is game, although World of Warcraft runs just fine on it if I feel the urge, as does Quake and a number of older games that I still find satisfying.

Simplicity is good for the soul. :)

Re:LittleTeenyWeenyObviousDetail

[tomhudson]

Actually they're not "pre-installed" they're slipstreamed into the install files on the install partition.