DSB's Dirt Cheap PC Build

[DontSayBanana]

CPU

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AMD Athlon II X4 945

I'm guessing you went for the phenom after all? I can't find an athlon 945 when I try to google it. Are you using the stock cooler?

Duh.  Phenom, yeah.  Stock cooler, but the core temp seems to only run around 30-35C under normal usage- keep in mind that this is a 95W CPU, not a 125.

[DontSayBanana]

Actually, thinking of the stock cooler, that's the one gripe I have with the combo of motherboard and case- the CPU fan socket is literally mounted right under the corner of the top case fan.  I ended up having to pull the cooler off and reverse it so that the wires for the CPU fan sit over the RAM sockets instead of getting chewed up by the fan blades.

[Vricklund]

Actually I was more concerned about noise than temperature when using the stock cooler. I've always thought the corsair hydro series looks interesting. But it wouldn't be a true budget build if you got one of those. Also don't bother with a cd/dvd-rom, I don't think I've used a disc more than a handful of times in the last five years or so. How much have you spent so far?

[DontSayBanana]

I had to estimate because I couldn't find the invoices for the mobo or the CPU, but so far, I've only spent about $255 before shipping, and most of the pieces shipped for free.  That's including the hard drive, which seems to be stuck in postal limbo at the moment.

As for noise, it's definitely not silent, but it's also not a jet engine, either.  With all the fans that are mounted on that beast, they can afford fairly low RPMs.

Speaking of which, the absolutely awesome thing about that Challenger case is that it comes pre-drilled for water-cooling (openings for the plumbing loop in the rear, and lots of mounting spaces for hose brackets on the sides and top of the case).  Definitely one of the nicest budget cases I've ever come across.

[DontSayBanana]

So, I'm counting down the days until I can grab a video card.  I loaded Ubuntu 12.10 on the rig, and in the process, I discovered that it DOESN'T like the GeForce 7025.  Add to that the difference in quality between the GeForce 7025 and the Mobility Radeon HD 4250, according to PassMark, and I'm going to say it's going to take another $100 before I can really do any kind of gaming.  At least (I'm still not sure whether to plop down for a Win7 OEM disc or be satisfied with the stuff I'll be able to run under Wine).

[Josquius]

ubuntu is wonderful in theory though with drivers and all that its often more trouble than its worth.

Try tinyxp if you want something quick and light.

[Vricklund]

So, I'm counting down the days until I can grab a video card.  I loaded Ubuntu 12.10 on the rig, and in the process, I discovered that it DOESN'T like the GeForce 7025.  Add to that the difference in quality between the GeForce 7025 and the Mobility Radeon HD 4250, according to PassMark, and I'm going to say it's going to take another $100 before I can really do any kind of gaming.  At least (I'm still not sure whether to plop down for a Win7 OEM disc or be satisfied with the stuff I'll be able to run under Wine).

The geforce 7025 shouldn't be a problem, as far as I can see it's supported by the nvida open source drivers. If there's some sort of bug then maybe you could use the nouveau drivers?

[viper37]

So, I'm counting down the days until I can grab a video card.  I loaded Ubuntu 12.10 on the rig, and in the process, I discovered that it DOESN'T like the GeForce 7025.  Add to that the difference in quality between the GeForce 7025 and the Mobility Radeon HD 4250, according to PassMark, and I'm going to say it's going to take another $100 before I can really do any kind of gaming.  At least (I'm still not sure whether to plop down for a Win7 OEM disc or be satisfied with the stuff I'll be able to run under Wine).

I have one to sell.  Radeon HD 5850.  Contact me if interested.

[DontSayBanana]

The geforce 7025 shouldn't be a problem, as far as I can see it's supported by the nvida open source drivers. If there's some sort of bug then maybe you could use the nouveau drivers?

Both the proprietary and the nouveau drivers are massively buggy.  I suspect the issue is less the drivers themselves and more Unity 3D (especially the decision to remove access to Unity 2D).  It looks nice, but Unity and Compiz both throw utter bitch-fits if, say, I try "unity --reset."  In theory, the 7025's fully compatible with the OpenGL 2.0/Pixel Shader 4.0 spec, but I suspect there are some compatibility hacks, rather than native implementation.

From the fresh install, it took me probably about 4-5 hours of fighting with different combinations of the drivers and reloading the linux 3.5.0-17 headers and source to get Unity to load fully (the first couple times, the display was completely bugged out to the point of unusability- the rest of the times, it loaded without a window manager and occasionally glitched back to unusability after a couple minutes).

Long story short, there are known bugs with Ubuntu 12.10 and nVidia embedded chipsets that I should have researched before the install; I got it working, but it's HIGHLY unstable.

[Faeelin]

So, what are you looking at pricewise for this?

[Vricklund]

So, what are you looking at pricewise for this?

I had to estimate because I couldn't find the invoices for the mobo or the CPU, but so far, I've only spent about $255 before shipping, and most of the pieces shipped for free.  That's including the hard drive, which seems to be stuck in postal limbo at the moment.

That's a 3GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM for $255 - what would that kind of performance cost in an apple store? It blows my mind when thinking about how inexpensive computing power is these days.

[DontSayBanana]

That's a 3GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM for $255 - what would that kind of performance cost in an apple store? It blows my mind when thinking about how inexpensive computing power is these days.

Yeah, it's pretty nuts.  There's a kid out there who made a Beowulf HPC cluster with his dad by networking a bunch of Raspberry Pis in scratch-built LEGO racks...

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/university-builds-cheap-supercomputer-with-raspberry-pi-and-legos/

[DontSayBanana]

On the minus side, I just brought this monster to $350.  On the plus side, I was able to snag a Radeon HD 6850 for about $100 from Newegg.  Goodbye, hacky recompiled drivers for U12.10, hello being able to play my sandbox games on Wine.

[Vricklund]

That's a 3GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM for $255 - what would that kind of performance cost in an apple store? It blows my mind when thinking about how inexpensive computing power is these days.

Yeah, it's pretty nuts.  There's a kid out there who made a Beowulf HPC cluster with his dad by networking a bunch of Raspberry Pis in scratch-built LEGO racks...

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/university-builds-cheap-supercomputer-with-raspberry-pi-and-legos/

Too bad LEGO is still expensive as hell.

[DontSayBanana]

Note to self: never, ever go with Egg Saver shipment again.

Going from Edison, NJ to Millville, NJ, DHL decided to hand it off to the post office... in Elkridge, MD.