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Building 2011's Sub-$200 Computer
adeelarshad82 links to PC Magazine's recent account (updating a similar quest detailed last year) "to see if a decent PC could put together for less than $200. Turns out that between some great deals, an AMD processor, and a Linux OS, it can actually be done." They actually come out with a decent-enough system for that money — but omitting an optical drive in a full-size desktop computer build seems something like cheating.
You can get an eeePC netbook for $199 RETAIL at Best Buy...Best Buy!!! I know this is talking about desktops, but it just doesn't seem that surprising...
but omitting an optical drive in a full-size desktop computer build seems something like cheating.
It's 2011, dammit, why do people still use optical drives?
"omitting an optical drive in a full-size desktop computer build seems something like cheating"
Optical disks? How quaint! :)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
And it has Linux on it? Crap, at least get Win XP.
That's right, if you want crap, get Win XP. That was too easy.
My optical drive broke down about 3 years ago. I've never had to replace it. So I agree, for some, it might not be needed at all.
Because the people that put out content for the computer ship on them. A cheap 4G mem stick is ~$4, to press 4.7G DVD costs them pennies. Until there is a useful way to allow customers to DL onto their own memory sticks, optical will stick around.
but omitting an optical drive in a full-size desktop computer build seems something like cheating.
It's 2011, dammit, why do people still use optical drives?
Because they want to.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Probably more important than an optical drive
I can unequivocally say no. We sell a lot of little desktop computers without an optical drive. They come with Ubuntu usually and maybe 1/3 of our customer base gets one. They are extra. The minimal configured systems are without keyboard, mouse, monitor or optical drive and run $249. People are not renting DVDs any longer and most have never watched a DVD on the computer in the first place. Some areas have a higher than usual younger user base (Portland) and there is more demand for an optical drive (or at least there was) in these region. Elsewhere though most people do not watch movies on the PC.
What is this "Audio CD" you speak of? Is it like an Audi TT?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It is if you want anything with serious horsepower. Sure, a commodity PC will work fine for most things but if you want 8 cores and 64gb of ram with multiple video cards you'll be better off building it yourself.
your spelling is about as good as your thinking.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
It's 2011, dammit, why do people still use optical drives?
Possibly because, just because it's 2011 doesn't mean all past cds/dvds are magically converted into usbs.
Dammit archaeologists, it's 2011! Why are you still reading clay tablets!
I built a better system (WITH A VIDEO CARD AND OPTICAL DRIVE, PCMAG) for $189 on Pricewatch.
AND YOU CAN GAME ON IT.
But you forget about monitor pricing.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Missing:
- keyboard
- mouse
- network cable
- monitor?
- USB key to install from
- Friend to copy OS onto your USB key
- taxes (for those lucky to have them)
I think the real cheat is any budget that involves a mail-in rebate.
The article starts out about financial difficulties and then provides a price that doesn't reflect the walk home price. 3-6 weeks you might make that money back IF you are lucky that the rebate was honored.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
I'm currently on a bit of a "get legit" roll when it comes to my media. All my software is acquired legally via the net so that's OK, it's just stuff like movies and music that I still require an optical drive for. Why?
1. I like my music in FLAC format. There are very few digital music stores which sell in this format. My favourite by far is http://bandcamp.com/ but they don't have much mainstream/big-artist stuff.
2. Even if I didn't have a preference for FLAC, there aren't any legal digital music stores around which service my needs with at least a high-bitrate MP3. I don't want to use iTunes because I don't want to deal with AAC (I can convert them but I don't want a dependency on iTunes anyway). Amazon still hasn't, for whatever reason, opened an MP3 store here in Australia yet despite promising to open up to the world many years ago.
3. You can forget about any legit digital movie stores selling non-DRMed stuff either.
So what do I do? I buy music CDs and rip them to FLAC. I buy DVDs and use HandBrake to convert them, or just play them directly with VLC. Both of these cases require an optical drive, and until such a time occurs that physical sales of media are completely abolished, I will continue to do this. UNLESS... a suitable online store apears in my area which sells non-DRMed music AND video of what I want, in my preferred format. At this rate that's going to take a very long time (if ever), so I do what I can to stave off piracy.
you could of gotten a amd board with a newer ATI chipset with DVI for about $15 more and for like $30 more a AM3+ board.
It fails because you need to load an OS from somewhere, from something, so you need to include the cost of the USB stick and time/cost of downloading Linux. I didn't see the cost of HD cable either. CPU Heatsink? Minor stuff but it all adds up. 2 GB of ram? pfft. Why have a HD at all? boot from USB and use Network storage.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
To instal Windows? To install most versions of Linux? To install a large number of commercial products (E.g. Photoshop)? To boot from a live CD when having boot problems? To install the free stuff that comes with computer Magazines?To play BD movies (I don't live in US and I prefer not to pirate everything)
null
> It's 2011, dammit, why do people still use optical drives?
Because the lightning fast internet connection that (I'm assuming) you have isn't available in every household on the planet.
It's hard to feel 2011 when you have a 1997 internet connection at home.
People also have boxes of CDs and DVDs. You don't need a burner but you definitely need a reader.
Except when you want an archival copy of something.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
With all of the features, each DVD would be 3-4 gigabytes, so 30 would be 90-120 gigabytes. That would be quite a bit of my Linux partition.
Beagleboards are 149.00USD and Pandaboards are 179.00USD you then just need an SD card 4G or better. I run a pandaboard myself for some D-Star ham radio stuff.
1) Itunes - sure there are plenty of great media players and what not for linux... but if you have an ios device whether its a new ipod, ipod touch, iphone, or ipad (and literally tens of millions of completely normal people do, they need itunes).
My dad uses Winamp to sync his iPod. He wants to manage his music the way he wants to do it, and not the way Apple tells him to do it. Now granted, Winamp is Windows software, and while I don't know of or care to find similar software for Linux, saying it requires iTunes is false.
2) TurboTax etc... yep its just one week a year. But millions of completely ordinary people do their taxes with this type of software.
TurboTax doesn't do anything particularly funky with respect to Windows. I see no reason why this couldn't run on WINE. You could argue that most people would have no clue how to run an application through WINE. You could also argue that it's trivial to learn to just prepend 'wine' to the command line, and not much more difficult to make an icon in gnome/kde to do so.
3) Miscellaneous Toys - from the child friendly Barbie photo manipulation software that came with the Barbie camera to setting up your new Logitech universal remote to an AppleTV to programming a Lego Mindstorms creation with LabView.
Lego RCX units and Harmony remotes can be programmed on Linux using 3rd party software. Technically, Harmony remotes are programmed on the Logitech servers, through a web application, and the only thing the software is used for is to transfer the profile to the device. LabVIEW offers OSX and Linux versions of all but their bottom end interfaces, and what is someone doing worrying about a $200 computer when they're going to use it to interface with IO boards that start at that price and go way way up? The AppleTV is itself a computer, capable of accessing the iTunes store directly. It has no need for interaction with a PC. If you're talking about streaming content to it, well then there are mechanisms for doing that in Linux too.
4) Video games - Believe it or not, lots of perfectly normal people play everything from World of Warcraft,to Left4Dead, to the copy of Bejeweled or Riven they picked up at Walmart for $7 as an impulse buy.
A quick check puts some 5000 games and applications on the Platinum and Gold compatibility list for WINE. Yes, people will be afraid of things like WINE, but suck it up and put out a little effort if you want to avoid that $100 Windows OEM license. WOW, L4D, and Bejeweled are all on the Platinum list, meaning it works perfectly out-of-the-box with no special configuration.
5) Peripherals - Printer fax scanner copier combination devices in particular still suck with linux. Getting printing going is usually relatively straightforward, but anything else is a complicated crapshoot.
I can't speak to other print companies but HP offers the HPLIP drivers, with support for some 2000 different pieces of hardware. Using it, I had absolutely no trouble getting printing or scanning working on my all-in-one unit.
100 CD + 30 DVD (if they are all full, and all your DVDs are 9 GB, which I both don't think reflects reality) would add up to 340 GB. I really hope that this new computer has an HDD bigger than 340 GB, otherwise, many people will complain about it!
Since moving to Linux 2 years ago, both Windows and OS X are crap.
60mb/sec? I've never gotten over ~20, even in linear-read from a drive I know can do 80.
Still, even a typical SD card is usually a bit faster than a CD due to less seek time. Which is important for installing or booting.
Local backup is useful, especially for data you don't care to publish or have anyone overwrite. Fiscal data and GPG keys, for example, can be usefully stored on permanent media.
While you can't put usb sticks in a wallet, you CAN put sdcards in one. Specifically one made for trading cards.
I would love to see sdcard media get sold in bulk packs like cdrs are. There is a slight problem with capacities not rounding evenly with optical formats... (640-700mb cdr : 1gb sdcard. 4.5gb dvd : 8gb sdcard. 9gb dvd : 12/16gb sdcard) but the form factor is much smaller, you can store waaay more data in a similar sized wallet, and they are less easily destroyed by frequent handling.
Yes. I KNOW they are more expensive. I also remember when cdrs cost over a dollar a pop. These devices don't have to be blazing fast to replace optical media, and while I know it won't be a popular subject with the demographic here, it WOULD work quite well with software firms, because sdcards have to be able to support special hardware drm features to be spec compliant. (This means that your spiffy boxed 3d game you bought off the shelf can chug slowly on install, use your fast sata drive at runtime, and use the sdcard as a dongle to verify game purchase, all in the same package. I am surprised that no software house has tried it yet.
The cards themselves don't need to be fast really, so cheap organic semiconductors, like those used in flexible displays that can exceed amorphous silicon speeds could be used to make the bulk pack cheapo ones.
Like any product, as long as it remains a niche, specialty product it will be expensive, but when it becomes a widespread multi use product, economies of scale drive down the price. I can easily see flash going that way, especially for slow but cheap sdcards.
I've done quite a few system builds using this AMD bundle deal that Micro Center has had going on for some time now. Every single system works flawlessly, even the ones with the Powerspec case/power supply (more business if the PSU does fail, and I haven't seen one take a motherboard out yet.)
Phenom II X2 560 Black edition: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0347369 $87.99
Biostar A780L3G AM3 760G mATX Motherboard: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351634 $FREE
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500gb SATA 6.0gbps: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0352164 $49.99
Micro Center branded 2x2gb of DDR3 1333: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0353218 $19.99
PowerSpec TX-381 Micro ATX Computer Case: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0330536 $24.99
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500w PSU: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0295037 $37.99
Samsung 22x SATA DVD-RW drive: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0293049 $21.99
Grand Total of $255.10 after tax.
You have an overclockable dual core CPU (I wouldn't push too far with the stock heatsink and with that motherboard, but a little bump to 3.6 GHz shouldn't be an issue.), better graphics than the system in the article, twice as much system memory (4gb vs. 2gb), an optical drive, an actual decent power supply, a case with a handle on it, and I could probably go on, but i'd hope you all get the point. A whole $45 more before tax, not including the lame $8 mail in rebate for the power supply. Definitely worth every penny, and this is all something you could pick up and have together in a couple hours assuming you have a store close to you. Most would likely pay $40+ for the convenience alone. I also didn't shop around too much. Better might be possible.
My optical drive broke down about 3 years ago. I've never had to replace it. So I agree, for some, it might not be needed at all.
Then you're not a gamer. Not every game is available on Steam.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Hear hear for your correction of the bogus "here here" - people are really loosing their hold on English grammer.
But yes, you do need to read CDs or DVDs on a computer, and USB drives are really just fine for that, plus you've probably got one left over from some previous computer by now.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
CD / DVDs aren't at all a reliable media for backups. I wouldn't recommend anyone to do that, especially for financial data. If you need a backup, do it with a USB hard drive for the local one, and also send an off-site backup over the wire. That is, at least 3 copies (if you include the one you are working on).
If it's not on Steam, it's on Pirate Bay.
Not this hardware abi driver interface bullshit again, you bring it up all the time.. and it is addressed all the time. ( I think this is the third of fourth time I've replied to you on this topic on /. alone, usually long write-ups but don't have the time today)
While this is old, it is something you may find interesting. In short, you don't want a fixed abi, what you want, are stable drivers.
Network scanning or just via the USB cable?
I have both USB and Network scanning (wireless) just fine. No special actions necessary. Just asked Fedora to find the unit.
What about faxxing?
yup, not a problem.
Does the automatic document feeder work? What about duplexing?
Yes, the automatic document feeder works. Yes, duplexing works.
When you say you had no trouble getting it working, is that because you like me know what your doing... or could my mom do it too with no trouble?
My wife and daughters have no problem adding software or hardware to our linux boxes. My wife is not a computer tech, nor are my daughters.
Now, I dont think anyone is in any position to state that your mom or anyone else can do something without trouble. My Father uses linux. My Mother uses linux. They are in their late 60's early 70's.