Build a $200 Linux PC | Hacker News Reader

Build a $200 Linux PC

extremetech.com

51 pointsedw51921 comments

At $38.99 for a 160GB drive, they're paying $0.244/GB, which is pretty bad. Of course, at the low end of the price ranges, the price/capacity ratio goes up a lot.

Their part selection still leaves another $7.05 available, which means you could afford a drive up to $46.04. For that price, you could get a Hitachi Deskstar 500GB 7200RPM drive for $42.99 ($0.086/GB). If you don't like Hitachi, there is a Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB for $44.95 ($0.09/GB).

During the evenings I've been working on a site that tracks hard drive prices and price/capacity ratios (http://pcpartpicker.com/partscharts/internal-hard-drive/over...). If you're willing to spend over $80, you can get drives at $0.053/GB.

Whoa. That's an awesome web application/site you got there.

Is implementing dual-core, quad-core price ratio CPU on your list of TODO, and how soon will you implement it?

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. It's still very much a work in progress - I was debating whether I should post the link or not given how much I left to do before it's really "ready".

For CPUs, were you looking for a price/core ratio?

Likewise - Interesting site. Though I think it currently misses some of the info that true DIY builders need. Not just comparison of listed specs but real worlds performance results. Overclockability and best CPU/mobo pairings for that. If you would like to research more about your ~target audience, email me in my profile.

What you've got there is pretty sweet. Certainly worthy of a Tell HN.

Yep.

Ok, I've added it to the overall CPU list: http://pcpartpicker.com/partscharts/cpu/overall-list/

VERY cool website! I noticed that none of the HD links would get a Newegg reseller (mostly Amazon and Buy.com). Is this because you don't have access to Newegg data or are the prices typically much higher?

Thanks! I don't currently have Newegg prices yet, but I hope to add those soon. Their prices are usually competitive and they're known to run some pretty good deals from time to time.

It's really not that impressive of a form factor or specs for this price range today. What's interesting is that Pstammy had a similar budget but had similarly priced components two years ago - http://paulstamatiou.com/diy-200-dollar-pc (sans the dual core but great form factor and larger HDD).

thanks :) Yeah that was a fun mini-ITX project. Since then there are lots of mini-ITX dual-core options.. would be interesting to re-do the same series but with 2010 hardware.

Print version, so you don't have to click through each page: http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D25299...

Huh, that link is now (or has been all along and I didn't notice because my browser was pulling up the cached version?) redirecting to the regular, paginated, version of the article. Does anyone know how this is done (HTTP referrers?) and/or how it can be circumvented?

All my desktop PCs were assembled by me from random parts when I was in school. As long as you can read about compatibility between parts online, you can assemble desktop pc without any problems. The only time i bought assembled PC was when I switched to use laptops =)

And yeah - assembling PC yourself gives you opportunity to drop microsoft tax completely!

But also note that sometimes the "microsoft tax" manifests as a discount. Getting a cheapo Dell with windows, at least used to be, just a tad cheaper than assembling a similar spec'd one yourself. But I still assembled my own because it was a fun learning experience and you can focus more on getting a (more) future-proof motherboard and a solid PSU.

7 years or so I built my computer for around this price. It was fairly nice and could play most of the modern games at a mid range resolution. A year or two ago i got a new graphics card, and some more ram, and it still seems able to play the Sc2 demo, and run everything else fine. So, I've had no complaints. Someday there'll be a lot more programs to take advantage of multicore systems, and when that day comes I'll wait a bit longer before buying a new computer. :D

I put together a Linux computer this week based on an Atom D510 (dual core, hyperthreaded). It came to $250 with a 500gb HD, 2gb RAM, case and DVD drive, though I could have saved $30 by omitting the opitical drive and installing from a memory stick. It has the added benefit of being passively cooled -- it is almost silent, the only noise being what is emitted by the harddrive. It's even quieter than my Macbook Pro.

They're missing a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Also speakers.. This is a good setups assuming you have all those parts laying around and not being used by anything else. Otherwise you might also need to get a KVM to share those peripherals.

The missing peripherals will probably add at least $100 to the total.

So for my home dev machine, I got an MSI wind ($120) and a 32gb SSD ($70) and a 4gb stick ($20) IIRC. It's pretty nice, but I don't run X on it, I SSH in from a mac.

I bought one - a used Thinkpad T43 - on eBay a couple of months ago for that sum...

While the T43 is a laptop, and therefore more portable than the desktop built in the article, it is also 5 years old. Unless it was upgraded, it will have a smaller hard drive and slower CPU, giving you less performance.

The T43 is a great computer (I used to own one), but being that the author specifically wanted a machine that was upgradeable, it would not be useful in this situation.

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