CHEAPEST Homebrew PC on the planet

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ozzymud · #1 Post by **ozzymud** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:22 pm

Was just chatting in another thread about pc part prices in the US versus UK and other places. In a moment of boredom, I "built" a complete PC from just a single vendor, my requirements:

Price, 1st and foremost it had to be CHEAP.
All parts should be new (not reconditioned, only new with full warranty)
The machine should be "capable" of browsing the modern day web (doesn't have to be fast, but must meet general minimum requirements, i.e. Intel Pentium 4 2.33GHz, Athlon 64 2800+ for Flash 10)

Here is what i came up with at newegg (note there are parts here that wouldn't be my 1st choice, but were influenced by "CHEAP"):

Code: Select all

Motherboard: BIOSTAR N68S Micro ATX $34.99
CPU: AMD Sempron 130 2.6GHz Socket AM3 45W Single-Core $29.99
Memory: Crucial 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) $14.99
CD/DVD: LG CD/DVD Burner Black SATA OEM $19.991
Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Bare Drive $38.99
Case: LOGISYS CS206BK Black Computer SOHO Case w/power supply $29.99
Monitor: Hanns-G HW-173ABB Black 17" 5ms Widescreen LCD $79.99
Key/Mouse/Speaker: DCT Factory Black Wired Keyboard/Mouse/Speakers $14.99
OS: Linux (Any Flavor) $0.00 (Ubuntu will even ship a $0 CD for free)
Software: ALL used from OpenSource/Free sources

Total: $263.92
Shipping: $21.09
Grand Total: $285.01

Give or take $20, I dont think a more cost effective solution is available in the US...

What would this machine (similar specs or better) cost me in the UK? Japan? AUS?

Just curious if someone else would waste a few minutes

I know some other things like memory or hard drive size or CD reader only could be sacrificed, but 256/512MB & 80GB(slower) hard disk would make it not comfortable, and the burner is a decent backup solution.

pianowizard · #2 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:41 pm

Why not just get this $279.99 (+ $9 shipping) Dell Inspiron desktop:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... spiron-570

AMD Sempron 140 (2.7GHz), 2GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HDD, Win 7, 1-year warranty.

And $279.99 is just the list price. Every now and then it's on sale or there is a coupon.

ThinkRob · #3 Post by **ThinkRob** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:31 pm

You should be able to do a lot better.

Foxconn R20-D2 Intel Atom D510 Intel NM10 Intel GMA 3150 Barebone - 129.99
Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner - OEM - 19.99
Seagate Barracuda ST3250312AS 250GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive - 36.99

Total: 186.97 + shipping (< $10.00)

You can shave about 30 bucks off of that if you're willing to go with some open box parts.

craigmontHunter · #4 Post by **craigmontHunter** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:35 pm

I get refurb systems - my grandfather just got a Thinkcentre m55, core 2 duo 2.31ghz, 1gb ram, DVD ram, 80gb hdd for 200$ - it does what he needs, and I got his old system - 50$ and scrounged parts later, it does everything I need (that includes light gaming and some programming)

ThinkRob · #5 Post by **ThinkRob** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:19 pm

Oh, you can do a lot better than that if you're after refurbs...

I was responding to the OP's requirement that the machine must be new. I think the config I posted is about one of the cheapest *new* machines that you can put together.

craigmontHunter · #6 Post by **craigmontHunter** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:22 pm

True enough about the new, but realistically if it is used, as is the case with cars and other items, if you are not putting the first scratch on it, you worry less when you do scratch it (not that you want to, but is is not as big of a deal) In terms of the price, I wanted something that was availible immediately, and that had a walk-in store for any issues, since my grandparents like that reassurance. (you also need to remember I live in canada, so I can't access some of the deals from the states), and I wanted it to outperform his old system (p4 2.26ghz, 512mb ram, 32mb ATI video card) - the system we bought fit the bill and had a 1 year warrenty, so we were good there (and it came with xp, which was a requirement of his).

ozzymud · #7 Post by **ozzymud** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:35 am

The Dell is not a homebuilt, the post is more about pc part prices, thus the homebrew portion. anyhow, more wanted replies from UK, Japan, Austrailia... I am just curious what a low end bottom of the line price is mainly on parts... afaik they don't have newegg over there (newegg is generally the cheapest place to buy all parts in one place in the US)

The atom is a sweet platform, I guess i should have made upgradability part of the equation... or mentioned standard PC (i.e. not a mini or other single board computer, although you can get AM2+ mini-itx boards, there aint much room for upgrades later.) That Foxcon would fit the bill NICELY for a through away machine though, especially for the price, but still I intended more for seperate parts

Anyhoo, more about parts of a whole then the whole deal + prices elsewhere...

Also I seen the Seagate, but having ordered a couple of those, they sucked, $2 was part of my +/- $20 fudge factor

And 19.99 CD is the same price as the LG, when I added the LG, shipping was the same... I see it is now free shipping... so it wins

The one example in another thread was I found a popular Asus motherboard on NewEgg, in the UK, the best price was like !$30! more in US funds... was wondering if that was the norm.

EDIT: @ThinkRob.. also, you forgot keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor... i edit my newegg shopping cart to remove case/cpu/motherboard and came to a $298/$314 shipped price. And my Price would have been a few $ more then what's in 1st post, just noticed i had an OEM CPU, so no fan/heatsink

killer · #8 Post by **killer** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:19 am

With VAT in the UK at 20% it is highly unlikely that anything here would be cheaper than in the USA.

hunterman223 · #9 Post by **hunterman223** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:22 am

killer wrote:With VAT in the UK at 20% it is highly unlikely that anything here would be cheaper than in the USA.

You've got that right... Anything electronic is almost always more expensive when the currency is converted to USD. I say always be because something out there in some PC corner shop might be cheaper than the US, but I haven't found it yet.

I miss Newegg...

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ThinkRob · #10 Post by **ThinkRob** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:16 am

ozzymud wrote: EDIT: @ThinkRob.. also, you forgot keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor... i edit my newegg shopping cart to remove case/cpu/motherboard and came to a $298/$314 shipped price. And my Price would have been a few $ more then what's in 1st post, just noticed i had an OEM CPU, so no fan/heatsink

Why indeed I did! Good catch.

Personally I'm a major fan of Atom for kiosks, standard office deployments, etc. due to the excellent power efficiency and low heat/noise output of such a box. If you're after anything reasonably-demanding though (light gaming, HD media playback), you'll want a "real" desktop CPU -- but if it's just basic work, the power savings make Atom a good choice IMHO. Those watts add up!

Now personally if I needed to get my hands on a solid desktop and save a buck in the process, I'd get one from IBM's certified used via the shareholder purchase program. There's almost always a decent system there for a bit under $200.00, and you can get a monitor for $50.00 or less on eBay. Keyboard and mouse I'd salvage from the local thrift store for about $2.00 (assuming I didn't already have a decent stock of them...)

pianowizard · #11 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:47 am

ThinkRob wrote:Personally I'm a major fan of Atom for kiosks, standard office deployments, etc. due to the excellent power efficiency and low heat/noise output of such a box.

Do you know of Atom computers with PCI slots? If such computers exist, I may want to try one in the near future, but I do need them to have at least one PCI slot. PCI-e won't work for me.

ozzymud · #12 Post by **ozzymud** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:13 am

Store bought PC? No clue... homebrew, plenty of motherboards do... see:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... tel%20Atom

Or snag the barebones ThinkRob suggested, add memory,optical, & hard disk.... then you got a full pc (sans monitor,keys, mouse, speakers)

ThinkRob wrote:Foxconn R20-D2 Intel Atom D510 Intel NM10 Intel GMA 3150 Barebone - 129.99

It uses one of many atom motherboards with a single PCI slot.

pianowizard · #13 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:38 pm

ozzymud wrote:Store bought PC?

Yep, I was asking about turn-key PCs. I don't want to have to build anything.

About two years ago I almost bought a Lenovo Atom desktop that had one PCI slot. But then I started reading reviews about it and all of them said it's quite slow. All Atom CPUs were slow back then, but I bet there are a few relatively powerful ones now.

hunterman223 · #14 Post by **hunterman223** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:46 pm

pianowizard wrote:...but I bet there are a few relatively powerful ones now.

As far as benchmarks, at the moment I believe the Atom D525 dual-core is as good as they get. On paper it is slightly faster than a high-end Pentium M Dothan found in older ThinkPads, of course benefiting from being dual-core which benchmarking does not fully take into account.

pianowizard · #15 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:10 pm

hunterman223 wrote:As far as benchmarks, at the moment I believe the Atom D525 dual-core is as good as they get.

Are you looking at this page: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

The D525 has a benchmark score of 713, while the desktop that I am contemplating replacing is a 2.53GHz Celeron with a score of 320, which is a pretty significant difference. Further, this Celeron machine uses PC3200 DDR1 RAM, whereas computers with the Atom D525 would probably use DDR2 or even DDR3. So if I upgrade to the Atom D525, there should be a noticable performance increase, while power consumption would probably go down a little. My main concern is really power consumption, because in terms of performance this Celeron machine is good enough for what I do. My requirement for a PCI slot is because I want to keep using a certain PCI video card.

hunterman223 · #16 Post by **hunterman223** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:22 pm

That's the site, i use it quite a bit.

Yes, that would definitely be noticeable for everyday stuff, especially with the newer ram and the dual core capability. Intel quotes 13W TDP on the D525, which is pretty impressive. I don't know your specific model, but the older Celerons are definitely not known for their low power consumption. Mini ITX is a good form factor as far as heat goes too. What will you be using the system for? I'm going to go out on a limb and say nothing intensive,

but paired with a good hard drive it won't be a bad system for light stuff. What OS will you be running?

Edit: would that Celeron be a Celeron D 325? The benchmark site doesn't list a model, so I am only guessing based on clock speed and introduction date. That model has a TDP of 73W, so that is an impressive difference.

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pianowizard · #17 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:12 pm

hunterman223 wrote:would that Celeron be a Celeron D 325? The benchmark site doesn't list a model, so I am only guessing based on clock speed and introduction date. That model has a TDP of 73W, so that is an impressive difference.

Yes, it's a Dell Dimension B110 with a Celeron D 325 CPU. What does TDP mean anyway? Does it refer to the processor's typical power consumption, or the upper limit?

hunterman223 wrote:What will you be using the system for? I'm going to go out on a limb and say nothing intensive, but paired with a good hard drive it won't be a bad system for light stuff. What OS will you be running?

I run XP Home on this Dell B110 and do very light stuff, primarily Office, Photoshop (the simplest editing you can imagine), Acrobat Pro, and watching low-res videos. I never get on the internet on this computer. I do such simple tasks on this machine that it's hooked up to just one 2560x1440 monitor, which is very minimal for a resolution addict like me LOL!

hunterman223 wrote:Mini ITX is a good form factor as far as heat goes too.

I found some Mini-ITX units on eBay but all of them use low-end Atom processors. When I looked up the D525 Atom, all I found were ultra-tiny desktops that wouldn't work for me. This is frustrating!

hunterman223 · #18 Post by **hunterman223** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:07 pm

pianowizard wrote:What does TDP mean anyway? Does it refer to the processor's typical power consumption, or the upper limit?

Here is a good explanation of TDP:

Code: Select all

Tdp in watts refers to the amount of thermal energy a heatsink has to remove and dissipate in order to keep the cpu operating at the safe/optimal temperature. The greater the TDP the more heat a cpu heatsink is going to have to dissipate.

So basically the lower the TDP, the less heat output and less power consumption.

I think XP would be a good OS for an Atom system. I don't think Windows 7 would run very nice, IMO. An Atom would be perfectly suitable for all of those tasks. You will notice faster loading times, less lag, boot up, etc. too, which is always good. Wow, just ONE monitor, LOL. I have never owned more than one monitor at a time, and the highest res has been 1680x1050 on a 22", but I am becoming an addict as well. I love 1440x900 on a 14", and I wonder about higher resolutions, but I wear glasses and don't have the best eyesight.

Back on track:

Are you really bent on purchasing a "ready-made" computer? It would really be best to get a barebone, drop in the HDD, RAM, and an optical drive, all for $225. That way you get a decent system with the dual-core Atom CPU, and it would be dead simple with hardware setup taking 5-10 minutes. What do you mean by "ultra-tiny"? Any Atom system I've seen is quite small.

pianowizard · #19 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:26 pm

hunterman223 wrote:Are you really bent on purchasing a "ready-made" computer? It would really be best to get a barebone, drop in the HDD, RAM, and an optical drive, all for $225. That way you get a decent system with the dual-core Atom CPU, and it would be dead simple with hardware setup taking 5-10 minutes.

Actually, after second thought, I like your idea. This one seems particularly appealing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856119037

Unfortunately, the PCI slot doesn't supports full-height cards.

hunterman223 wrote:What do you mean by "ultra-tiny"? Any Atom system I've seen is quite small.

For example: http://cgi.ebay.com/Foxconn-NetBox-Atom ... 1e6247c7e1

ozzymud · #20 Post by **ozzymud** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:39 am

A turn-key is not far from a home brew is NOT far off from a barebones...

barebones = case, powersupply, motherboard/cpu/fan

This is the case i use for mini-itx:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811154091

Is a case with power supply (supports 1 full height card)

Add to that one atom motherboard/cpu/fan and there is a barebones...

Plug in memory, hard disk, optical drive... install an os, there is a turn-key system.

Here is mine without the cover (it's known as toybox on my home network, it's purely a for fun box that I play with OS's, hardware, etc on)...

5MB: http://conradshome.com/mini_itx/images/Img_0681.jpg
4MB: http://conradshome.com/mini_itx/images/Img_0682.jpg
3MB: http://conradshome.com/mini_itx/images/Img_0683.jpg

VERY easy to assemble (make sure your optical drive is a shortie).

Building your own system you eleminate problems like you mentioned, finding a system that has what YOU want, not what someone else designed (i.e. half height cards only)

And if you catch the bug....

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mi ... 54&bih=676

hunterman223 · #21 Post by **hunterman223** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:01 am

pianowizard wrote: Actually, after second thought, I like your idea. This one seems particularly appealing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856119037

Unfortunately, the PCI slot doesn't supports full-height cards.

Yes that's the one I was looking at. I just forgot to add a link.

I think if you need full height PCI something like this would work, but I have never used or even seen a riser card before. It looks like it just adds a right angle, so it might work. May I ask what you need Full Height PCI for? Maybe you could get the same thing in a half-height card.

pianowizard wrote:For example: http://cgi.ebay.com/Foxconn-NetBox-Atom ... 1e6247c7e1

Wow, that's small. That would make for a great server system, but yes that does have it's limitations. It's a great concept that you can have a fully functional computer in the size of a router.

I think ozzymud has the right idea though. A barebone is not far off from a turn-key PC, and a homebrew PC is not far from a barebone. It would literally add 5-10 minutes to the build time, and you for sure get what you need instead of messing with pokey riser cards which could end up covering up the CPU heatsink, or who knows. I'll put together a "prototype" with newegg and let you know what I find.

hunterman223 · #22 Post by **hunterman223** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:21 am

Okay, here we go. I'll have to post the URL's manually since I can't seem to find a "share cart" or anything like that.

Optical Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827135204

Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136073

Case & PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811154091

Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148235

Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128452

Of course adjust the memory and hard drive for your needs. Otherwise this would be a great system for you.

@ozzymud, do you know how many SATA power connectors are on your PSU? This build assumes 2, one for the optical drive and one for the hard drive.

ozzymud · #23 Post by **ozzymud** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:12 am

hunterman223 wrote:@ozzymud, do you know how many SATA power connectors are on your PSU? This build assumes 2, one for the optical drive and one for the hard drive.

20+4 power
4pin mb cpu
3 ide
1 floppy
and... 2 SATA

And I would prolly go with the fanless Intel motherboard, the PS sits just over the cpu, it might be close... Mine has an old C7 board and there is about 1 inch tween the fan and bottom of the power supply... your intel 525 board has about twice the height heatsink on the cpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813121442 (same price as the fan cooled mb)

That intel board is fanless, and the power supply in the case has vents on the bottom, perfect for fanless. Note that board also uses SO-DIMM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820226018 ($4 cheaper too

)

Mine (click for larger 5MB image):

hunterman223 · #24 Post by **hunterman223** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:29 am

Good find. How cool does your CPU usually run with no dedicated fan? Fanless would make for a nice quie system though.

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ozzymud · #25 Post by **ozzymud** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:36 am

Like i said, my only mini is a Via C7, it has a fan but the heatsink is REALLY short... If i were to use this same case for a D525 I would most definately go with a fanless board. I would expect this one to run around 40C...

pianowizard · #26 Post by **pianowizard** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:55 am

Guys, thanks for the suggestions. Actually, I already looked at all these mobo and case options last night, but eventually decided to stick with my Dell B110 for a while. I read some of the reviews of these mini-ITX cases and quite a few of them reported serious issues, especially with the PSU and cooling. This Dell has been extremely reliable so far and has incredible cooling. I will consider upgrading to a DIY Atom PC when the 320GB hard drive is close to full -- this Dell only uses IDE HDDs and so when I need a bigger drive I will need to upgrade the entire machine. It will probably be another year before this drive gets full.

craigmontHunter · #27 Post by **craigmontHunter** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:08 am

That is one thing I have noticed about the dell desktops (I have seen/worked on) - they have excellent cooling - it keeps the system very cool, and is dead quiet - you can't even tell the sytem is running, even after hours of full loading. The only time I have seen one get really loud was my neighbours, which sounded like a vacuum running all the time - I pulled out the dust rhino, refreshed the thermal paste, and it is dead quiet once again

.

hunterman223 · #28 Post by **hunterman223** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:33 am

pianowizard wrote:Guys, thanks for the suggestions. Actually, I already looked at all these mobo and case options last night, but eventually decided to stick with my Dell B110 for a while. I read some of the reviews of these mini-ITX cases and quite a few of them reported serious issues, especially with the PSU and cooling. This Dell has been extremely reliable so far and has incredible cooling. I will consider upgrading to a DIY Atom PC when the 320GB hard drive is close to full -- this Dell only uses IDE HDDs and so when I need a bigger drive I will need to upgrade the entire machine. It will probably be another year before this drive gets full.

Really? Where are you seeing those reviews at? Are they for that specific case? IMO mini-ITX cases are supposed to be greatly efficient with cooling and power consumption. As with anything, if you buy a case with an integrated PSU you are taking a risk, but it's probably the same make that they put in your Dell. For a few bucks more you could get a decent PSU from Corsair, Antec, or Seasonic.

Edit: Are you reading Newegg reviews? Most of those are dependent on the type of motherboard and PSU combination. As ozzymud said, using a board with a heatsink and fan will leave pretty much zero space, so that could have been the problem with those reviewers. The only decent brand of SFX12V PSU on Newegg is this one made by SeaSonic. Rated 5 stars, and SeaSonic is a trusted brand.

@ozzymud: Do you know off the top of your head the manufacturer of your PSU?

ozzymud · #29 Post by **ozzymud** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 6:21 pm

Not off the top of my head, but, I got it right here and a phillips screwdriver [nice benifit of homebrew, no warranties to void

]...

*reaches for tool, pc, camera *

Ok, It's an "Allied" 250W never heard of that

But Apex has the exact same part #...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817154024
Although that one is only 1 SATA connector. Apex's site shows it with 2... http://www.apextechusa.com/products.asp?pID=42 so I'm guessing it is a rebadged Apex.

Click for 9MB hi-res:

pianowizard wrote: this Dell only uses IDE HDDs and so when I need a bigger drive I will need to upgrade the entire machine

I would not throw out a machine cause of that, you can get a SATA-->IDE adaptor for a few bucks, then put any SATA in there you want.
$4: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/sata-to-id ... card-12537 (I have personally used this in an Xbox original, can verify it works) adds very little length to the drive too

Or get a SATA PCI card...
$17: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/via-4-port ... -card-4706

Newegg reviews (reviews in general) need to be taken with a grain of salt, There are quite a few morons out there, I am amazed at how many times people will totally muck the easiest thing up then try to blame the parts. Unless a review has OVERALL bad stuff said about it, I normally don't pay attention to the newbies.

In the case of mini-itx, look for people reviewing them when used in a proper enviroment, media server, myth SD frontend, NAS, router, car PC, old school M.A.M.E. box, etc... NOT the people trying to use them as a desktop replacement, myth HD frontend/backend combo, gaming rig, modern arcade M.A.M.E. box, etc...

Also, notice that this power supply is only 65% efficient, so it will cause your machine to use more power... i.e. your 15W cpu will draw like 24W, If your looking for green, get an %85+ PS (80 PLUS GOLD Certified).

Also, one awesome thing about newegg, They make returns easy when something doesn't work like it is supposed to, although that has been few and far between for me (ain't had to send a part back in years and I spend $1000+ there anually)

pianowizard · #30 Post by **pianowizard** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:22 pm

Well, I instead of building an Atom machine, I bought this Dell Optiplex 760 desktop:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &viewitem=

However, I like my Dimension B110 so much that I am keeping it as well. I will probably set it up in my lab for my students to use.

The next thing to get will be a PCI riser so that I can put my PCI video card into this Optiplex 760.