Ars System Guide November 2015: Bargain Box

The most affordable system in the Ars Guides somehow makes the most—and <em>least</em>—sense.

Read the whole story

 

[Dandenoth]

With the Samsung 850 EVO on sale right now for only 78 bugs for 250GB, I'd spend the extra 26 bucks for the improvement. At 250GB, you should have plenty of leftover storage for the needs of what most people would use this budget box for.

Other than that, I've built quite a few PC's that look like this for family members. I love these guides, I hope Ars continues to make them, although I wouldn't mind seeing them a little more frequently.

 

[maxwell]

This places the Bargain Box squarely against the cheap, pre-built boxes from the big OEMs. Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and their ilk all benefit from vast economies of scale that the individual builder could never hope to achieve. By the time the big OEMs add up hardware discounts alone, building it yourself is a so-so idea in terms of value, at best. Add in the cost of the operating system, and the equation really goes out the window.

Indeed, a basement flood and a severe time crunch led me to pick up a couple of $349 Acer SFF desktops for family purposes. Once I added the SSD's ....very pleased with my first non-home-built PC's. Maybe I'm just lazy/old but the OEM units in this price range do work really well.

I see the bargain box more of a "i've got a few components, can I finish it off and make a working PC" type of plan. I have the case, a power supply and a video card that survived the flood. So for a few hundred I can make a working PC out of it, maybe get a Linux server going or something...

 

[solomonrex]

It's obviously a philosophy that you include the accessories, but it's getting pretty hard to justify when you're spending a quarter of the 'build' on a component (monitor) with no relation to the PC build that everyone can replace cheap or free. How many old HDTVs and LCD flat panel monitors are out there? Compared to actually free Windows?

It's really a less than $300 PC and in 2015, it's stretching relevancy. Those chips are really poor with little benefit in space or energy. If you're dropping all the way down to $299 for grandma, then do a mini-pc, because this isn't worth upgrading anyway. Or obviously, a tablet. No reason to give grandma a big, empty box that's still slow when you can get a celeron/Pentium NUC for roughly the same price ($140 for case, mobo, chip).

So it's easy to complain, what would I recommend?

Aim it at a basic office/MOBA gamer PC and make every dollar count for performance. Minimum chip would be unlockable pentium, or FX because it will be viable longer. Get a smaller/cheaper HDD and case can be even cheaper (though I got this exact case for my own budget box, I'm upgrading a lot more, like SSD and GPU). Mobo can be the newer 1151 model, but still cheap.

A budget steambox might make more sense as a 'baseline'. It wouldn't need accessories or OS, it's about the right price to compare to consoles and low end PCs and performance needs to be maximized. It's a good approach, because it hits the reasons people build PCs.

I don't want to be too critical, but I think even as a baseline this needs to put a reasonable floor on performance/expandability.

 

[mikus42]

I can't recommend gigabyte motherboards right now. The BIOS is a wet, hot mess. It's the most incoherent train wreck I've seen. I have had to flash the BIOS twice. The first time was just to get it to recognize RAM in all four slots.

I am an IT prof at a community college and have purchased Gigabyte motherboards for my PC hardware lab for the last 10+ years. They are off the buy list now,

 

[colin1497]

maxwell[/url]":3k2ajtgw]

This places the Bargain Box squarely against the cheap, pre-built boxes from the big OEMs. Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and their ilk all benefit from vast economies of scale that the individual builder could never hope to achieve. By the time the big OEMs add up hardware discounts alone, building it yourself is a so-so idea in terms of value, at best. Add in the cost of the operating system, and the equation really goes out the window.

Indeed, a basement flood and a severe time crunch led me to pick up a couple of $349 Acer SFF desktops for family purposes. Once I added the SSD's ....very pleased with my first non-home-built PC's. Maybe I'm just lazy/old but the OEM units in this price range do work really well.

I see the bargain box more of a "i've got a few components, can I finish it off and make a working PC" type of plan. I have the case, a power supply and a video card that survived the flood. So for a few hundred I can make a working PC out of it, maybe get a Linux server going or something...

Exactly, recycling components is the biggest reason building works so well. I still have a case I bought 15 (?) years ago in my main desktop, and I'm on the 3rd PS, but the 2nd one powers a more utilitarian box elsewhere in the house.

If you're building for someone else and not recycling, OEM or a slick SFF bare bones will take you a long way and save a lot of time and effort.

 

[Bongle]

solomonrex[/url]":2vdewr79]
It's really a less than $300 PC and in 2015, it's stretching relevancy. Those chips are really poor with little benefit in space or energy. If you're dropping all the way down to $299 for grandma, then do a mini-pc, because this isn't worth upgrading anyway. Or obviously, a tablet. No reason to give grandma a big, empty box that's still slow when you can get a celeron/Pentium NUC for roughly the same price ($140 for case, mobo, chip).

I don't know about that. Some of the garbagey low-end chips are _really_ garbagey. When you're in this price range, its easy to step on a landmine of a really terrible processor. A couple years ago I bought a laptop for a charity donation (robotics team that I volunteer with) and didn't do my homework, so we suffered for a couple years with something barely faster than an abacus. I'm sure if I'd done a bit more research on the various cheap laptop processors at the time, I could've done much better.

Just last month I finally bought the team a new laptop, and the difference between the CPU scoring 900 passmark points and 2600 points (what I ended up with for $450 CAD) was simply doing my research, as the units were otherwise identical spec and price-wise.

Example:
The recommended processor for this build scores 2848 on passmark's CPU list.

A $250 Intel NUC with a Celeron 847 from newegg scores 953. That's 1/3rd the performance for no savings, and the NUC still needs memory, HDD, accessories, and a monitor.

A $350 NUC from newegg scores 1800ish, but still needs RAM/HDD/monitor/keyboard.

Personally, for grandma, I'd value the processor to chew through all the malware. Or get her a nice tablet.

 

[solomonrex]

Bongle[/url]":1g3vup3e]

solomonrex[/url]":1g3vup3e]
It's really a less than $300 PC and in 2015, it's stretching relevancy. Those chips are really poor with little benefit in space or energy. If you're dropping all the way down to $299 for grandma, then do a mini-pc, because this isn't worth upgrading anyway. Or obviously, a tablet. No reason to give grandma a big, empty box that's still slow when you can get a celeron/Pentium NUC for roughly the same price ($140 for case, mobo, chip).

I don't know about that. Some of the garbagey low-end chips are _really_ garbagey. When you're in this price range, its easy to step on a landmine of a really terrible processor. A couple years ago I bought a laptop for a charity donation (robotics team that I volunteer with) and didn't do my homework, so we suffered for a couple years with something barely faster than an abacus. I'm sure if I'd done a bit more research on the various cheap laptop processors at the time, I could've done much better.

Just last month I finally bought the team a new laptop, and the difference between the CPU scoring 900 passmark points and 2600 points (what I ended up with for $450 CAD) was simply doing my research, as the units were otherwise identical spec and price-wise.

Example:
The recommended processor for this build scores 2848 on passmark's CPU list.

A $250 Intel NUC with a Celeron 847 from newegg scores 953. That's 1/3rd the performance for no savings, and the NUC still needs memory, HDD, accessories, and a monitor.

A $350 NUC from newegg scores 1800ish, but still needs RAM/HDD/monitor/keyboard.

Personally, for grandma, I'd value the processor to chew through all the malware. Or get her a nice tablet.

Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I was wrong, totally misled by the branding. I didn't realize the NUCs were so compromised or the Celeron had such a range of performance.

 

[Old_one]

I've got one axe to grind: no backup storage. A good 4TB hard drive is $100 or less-- attach it to a USB 3.0 port, put a complete bootable copy of your system on it and voila! I won't bother to rehearse the reasons for a complete local backup and I'll even resist the impulse to point out that you really ought to have two.

 

[thomsirveaux]

solomonrex[/url]":64q5rwox]

Bongle[/url]":64q5rwox]

solomonrex[/url]":64q5rwox]
It's really a less than $300 PC and in 2015, it's stretching relevancy. Those chips are really poor with little benefit in space or energy. If you're dropping all the way down to $299 for grandma, then do a mini-pc, because this isn't worth upgrading anyway. Or obviously, a tablet. No reason to give grandma a big, empty box that's still slow when you can get a celeron/Pentium NUC for roughly the same price ($140 for case, mobo, chip).

I don't know about that. Some of the garbagey low-end chips are _really_ garbagey. When you're in this price range, its easy to step on a landmine of a really terrible processor. A couple years ago I bought a laptop for a charity donation (robotics team that I volunteer with) and didn't do my homework, so we suffered for a couple years with something barely faster than an abacus. I'm sure if I'd done a bit more research on the various cheap laptop processors at the time, I could've done much better.

Just last month I finally bought the team a new laptop, and the difference between the CPU scoring 900 passmark points and 2600 points (what I ended up with for $450 CAD) was simply doing my research, as the units were otherwise identical spec and price-wise.

Example:
The recommended processor for this build scores 2848 on passmark's CPU list.

A $250 Intel NUC with a Celeron 847 from newegg scores 953. That's 1/3rd the performance for no savings, and the NUC still needs memory, HDD, accessories, and a monitor.

A $350 NUC from newegg scores 1800ish, but still needs RAM/HDD/monitor/keyboard.

Personally, for grandma, I'd value the processor to chew through all the malware. Or get her a nice tablet.

Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I was wrong, totally misled by the branding. I didn't realize the NUCs were so compromised or the Celeron had such a range of performance.

Yeah the NUCs use Celeron U chips, which are usually 1-point-something GHz parts with no Turbo Boost at all, and Turbo Boost is the only reason some of the better U parts can replace older mainstream desktop CPUs. The desktop Celerons at least approach 3GHz with the same architecture, makes a huge difference.

 

[thorpe]

Your 2008-09 system guide helped me build the computer I'm typing this on. I'm now due for an upgrade.

When will the next, higher-level guides come out?

 

[baobrain]

My concern is with that richland apu.

Isn't it pre GCN or am I mistaken? Because if it is, amd will no longer offer driver optimizations for it.

 

[Neopassive]

mikus42[/url]":2pouds54]I can't recommend gigabyte motherboards right now. The BIOS is a wet, hot mess. It's the most incoherent train wreck I've seen. I have had to flash the BIOS twice. The first time was just to get it to recognize RAM in all four slots.

I am an IT prof at a community college and have purchased Gigabyte motherboards for my PC hardware lab for the last 10+ years. They are off the buy list now,

I second this. The last 3 Gigabyte motherboards I have owned were incredible poor build quality, and their customer support is entirely non-existent.

 

[SuperDave]

Vote of confidence here for that cheap little TPLink TL-WN822N. I pull my wifi signal through a tin ceiling from the living room below (100yo house), and the TPLink is *significantly* more sensitive than the similar (and more expensive) Netgear it replaced. It's available OTC at Microcenter for the same price as online, and is IMO $20 well spent.

 

[David T.]

Thank you for this guide Ars. I hope you continue to do the bargain box in the future.

 

[PRMan]

thorpe[/url]":1xdn8sju]Your 2008-09 system guide helped me build the computer I'm typing this on. I'm now due for an upgrade.

When will the next, higher-level guides come out?

Well, I just bought a i7 4790k ($299 on Black Friday) and an Asus Z97-A/USB 3.1 board ($95 after rebate at NewEgg). I am pairing that with 16GB DDR3, an Nvidia 650 Ti Boost, various SSDs and a case I just got a great deal on for $30. I have a new PS already that I got free after rebate a couple years back.

Sure, it's not a Skylake, but the performance is nearly identical to the fastest Skylake chip and it's quite a bit cheaper (especially when you don't have to upgrade the RAM to DDR4). This should keep my gaming going for the next 5+ years (I might need to upgrade the GPU at some point, but DirectX 12 should help, and right now I am playing almost everything at full or nearly full settings at 1920x1080).

 

[heyduard]

A full discussion of what might be a DIY storage server is beyond the scope of the Bargain Box, particularly if you require ECC memory in your storage server. And in that case, you will need a different motherboard/CPU combo entirely.

This. That would be great article aka The Bargain Storage Box. With the computing device in every pocket campaign promise, I was wondering if DIY could be competitive with a HP microserver for household needs. I know folks have put together systems, but i am concerned about bitrot in the largish family photo collection and electronic documents. Having not built a system since the AMD K6 days, I find the choices a bit over the top, especially with Intel's sku's and AMD naming conventions. Not to mention the plethora of vendors for every widget. Trying to keep up on Tom's and Anandtech can be quite the chore.

Thank you Ars for these guides. I think there was a FreeNAS guide, but as they say, memory is the first to go.

edited for speeling

 

[Kerry56]

Sad to see a build guide without an optical drive of any kind mentioned, but I suppose its considered obsolete tech by the vast majority these days. I have too much important stuff backed up on discs to do without one, and still use a Blu-ray drive for ripping, so I can format shift. I'll still be putting an optical drive in any future build, but then, I have eight drives or more sitting around these days, including a couple of Blu-ray burners.

 

[bluevaping]

I guess building a budget box is a good learning experience. But you can just buy a budget all in one one sale. HP 22TW $379. 4 Gen. Celeron. R5 M330 Graphics, 500 GB HD and 1080P Display, Speakers, DVD, Webcam, Wifi, Keyboard, and Mouse. And no extras for installed OS.

 

[neodorian]

PRMan[/url]":eym5r3cy]

thorpe[/url]":eym5r3cy]Your 2008-09 system guide helped me build the computer I'm typing this on. I'm now due for an upgrade.

When will the next, higher-level guides come out?

Well, I just bought a i7 4790k ($299 on Black Friday) and an Asus Z97-A/USB 3.1 board ($95 after rebate at NewEgg). I am pairing that with 16GB DDR3, an Nvidia 650 Ti Boost, various SSDs and a case I just got a great deal on for $30. I have a new PS already that I got free after rebate a couple years back.

Sure, it's not a Skylake, but the performance is nearly identical to the fastest Skylake chip and it's quite a bit cheaper (especially when you don't have to upgrade the RAM to DDR4). This should keep my gaming going for the next 5+ years (I might need to upgrade the GPU at some point, but DirectX 12 should help, and right now I am playing almost everything at full or nearly full settings at 1920x1080).

Probably too late now but for anyone else, that CPU is only $249 at Microcenter (not Black Friday, just their usual deep discounts on CPUs) and they knock off another $20 when you buy it with a compatible mobo. Those guys have some of the best deals on processors since they use them as loss leaders. The smaller stuff (RAM, peripherals, etc) may be a few bucks more than Newegg but when you add in the shipping it breaks about even if you're building a whole system.

Either way, the savings on just the CPU/mobo will go a long way to buying an OS license if you are going with Windows and don't have an old install disc around/don't feel like installing then upgrading/want to do things the more "legit" way. Plus if you have one nearby you have a convenient place to do any returns or exchanges should you run across an unfortunate defective product. Beats all the shipping and RMA nonsense of an online-only vendor.

Just beware your wallet if you go into one of those stores. It's like if Newegg was a supermarket and you had to run a gauntlet of cool peripherals, Arduino parts, and computer accessories to get out instead of sodas, candy bars, and tabloids.

 

[dtremit]

Kerry56[/url]":3l0fo71y]Sad to see a build guide without an optical drive of any kind mentioned, but I suppose its considered obsolete tech by the vast majority these days.

Not obsolete, perhaps, but no need to have one in every system. A single USB-attached drive will serve most entire households well.

 

[dtremit]

neodorian[/url]":38awxfbo]
Just beware your wallet if you go into one of those stores. It's like if Newegg was a supermarket and you had to run a gauntlet of cool peripherals, Arduino parts, and computer accessories to get out instead of sodas, candy bars, and tabloids.

That's not quite fair. They also have (highly caffeinated) sodas, candy bars, and (Linux) tabloids!

 

[Danrarbc]

dtremit[/url]":3rfxycpq]

Kerry56[/url]":3rfxycpq]Sad to see a build guide without an optical drive of any kind mentioned, but I suppose its considered obsolete tech by the vast majority these days.

Not obsolete, perhaps, but no need to have one in every system. A single USB-attached drive will serve most entire households well.

No need for it to be USB even. Once you've shifted the format you can stream or copy the resulting file anywhere. I've had issues with the USB drive reliability.

 

[continuum]

I've got one axe to grind: no backup storage

Generally speaking we've never considered this in the System Guide, but that is a good point-- we might consider at least a quick mention.

I think there was a FreeNAS guide, but as they say, memory is the first to go

Indeed there was, mostly on software. We actually mistimed that one for a subsequent hardware guide, doh!

When will the next, higher-level guides come out?

We'll have to check the schedule...

I don't know about that. Some of the garbagey low-end chips are _really_ garbagey. When you're in this price range, its easy to step on a landmine of a really terrible processor.

Indeed++;

We discussed it in a fair amount of detail in the Bargain Box itself, but we could've spent even more time on it if we wanted to. Particularly in this generation (with the latest Kabini and Bay Trail low-end chips that hit last year), the performance hit on the really low-end stuff compared to Richland/Kaveri/Haswell/whatever is pretty significant even if they're sold under the same brand name!

 

[Chemical Tribe]

It is hard to really justify building a computer anymore, at least in the cheap segment. Look at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

You can upgrade the RAM if you wish, add a 2TB laptop HDD if you want, but for $234, with a 32GB emmc drive (still faster than any spindle drive), and Win10 ($110 right there), built in wifi b/g/n and BT 4.0 and the Pentium in there is decent enough, and the size of the computer is tiny, why buy anything else?

I built a computer around that SoC. It can boot Linux in 5 seconds with LXDE and a Samsung 250GB EVO drive. Win10 isn't far behind. Use the Asrock N3700 ITX board, and it is totally silent.

It is 2015. Building computers for light users with huge cases, socket motherboards, power supplies with fans who never swap out any parts is so last decade.

 

[TheIcemanCometh]

Old_one[/url]":1bao2yb1]I've got one axe to grind: no backup storage. A good 4TB hard drive is $100 or less-- attach it to a USB 3.0 port, put a complete bootable copy of your system on it and voila! I won't bother to rehearse the reasons for a complete local backup and I'll even resist the impulse to point out that you really ought to have two.

You position does not meet the stated goals of the Bargain Box: "there's only one goal for any Bargain Box: provide essential computing needs that most light users will encounter".

Backup storage is a luxury for this use case.

 

[anowack]

heyduard[/url]":22dd0cz3]
This. That would be great article aka The Bargain Storage Box. With the computing device in every pocket campaign promise, I was wondering if DIY could be competitive with a HP microserver for household needs.

For whatever it is worth, I'd also be really interested in an article like this.

 

[Thordane]

Dandenoth[/url]":r7l557ti]With the Samsung 850 EVO on sale right now for only 78 bugs for 250GB, I'd spend the extra 26 bucks for the improvement. At 250GB, you should have plenty of leftover storage for the needs of what most people would use this budget box for.

Other than that, I've built quite a few PC's that look like this for family members. I love these guides, I hope Ars continues to make them, although I wouldn't mind seeing them a little more frequently.

I don't have enough bugs to afford the EVO

 

[eggie]

But for the enthusiasts who believe every single part matters, those who want to know exactly what components they're using and can justify a few bucks more to that end...

...reliability matters.

Newegg's customer reviews for the RAM & mobos are alarming, and I can't believe any savvy buyer would choose those products. Isn't the point of this Buyer's Guide to help readers pick better hardware?

 

[daggar]

For a ridiculously varied take on the Ars' system guide tiers, I recommend http://logicalincrements.com . They outline (near pointless) builds from under $200 to $4000 absurdities.

And when you're looking for parts, http://pcpartpicker.com is your friend.

Edit: linkified.

 

[GhostRed]

Overall, not bad for money, but I wouldn't put a WD Blue or Green drive in another system ever. I've had 3 drives ever completely fail on me, far before their predicted end-time and every one of them was a WD, 2 Blue, 1 Green (the Green was in an external USB ONLY used for external music storage - luckily I had backups).

I'd like to point out that Seagate has a 1TB Hybrid (SSHD) with 8GB/NAND available for $66 on Newegg.

 

[evan_s]

sprockkets[/url]":2jxziorf]It is hard to really justify building a computer anymore, at least in the cheap segment. Look at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

You can upgrade the RAM if you wish, add a 2TB laptop HDD if you want, but for $234, with a 32GB emmc drive (still faster than any spindle drive), and Win10 ($110 right there), built in wifi b/g/n and BT 4.0 and the Pentium in there is decent enough, and the size of the computer is tiny, why buy anything else?

I built a computer around that SoC. It can boot Linux in 5 seconds with LXDE and a Samsung 250GB EVO drive. Win10 isn't far behind. Use the Asrock N3700 ITX board, and it is totally silent.

It is 2015. Building computers for light users with huge cases, socket motherboards, power supplies with fans who never swap out any parts is so last decade.

That is what they recommend avoiding in the article. It's basically a tablet turned into a small box with no battery/screen and you certainly are sacrificing performance vs an actual desktop processor. This is an ATOM processor but intel stopped calling them that because people associated them with slow poor performing Netbooks. If you are going to go for something cheap and slow might as well go really cheap and get something like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

$85 after rebate.

 

[Hamilcar]

Since I have two failed WD Blue drives on hand, I second the 'avoid WD' recommendation; if you can find a Hitachi (nee' IBM) drive, that would be the spinning platter to choose.

Personally however, I would strongly recommend stepping up to a 240GB (or 128) SSD. If you lie in wait on Ben's or similar, you should be able to pick up a 240/256GB SSD for around $50-60.

With the advent of decent downstream bandwidth and Steam/GoG (or, I suppose, Origin), installing/uninstalling games as needed (onto a smaller drive) seems quite feasible.

If you're used to using nothing but spinning platter drives, beware; once you have an SSD, you will never go back. IMO, solid state drives are the most noticeable day-to-day upgrade to hit PCs since dual-core processors years ago.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

evan_s[/url]":2wsgqvo1]

sprockkets[/url]":2wsgqvo1]It is hard to really justify building a computer anymore, at least in the cheap segment. Look at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

You can upgrade the RAM if you wish, add a 2TB laptop HDD if you want, but for $234, with a 32GB emmc drive (still faster than any spindle drive), and Win10 ($110 right there), built in wifi b/g/n and BT 4.0 and the Pentium in there is decent enough, and the size of the computer is tiny, why buy anything else?

I built a computer around that SoC. It can boot Linux in 5 seconds with LXDE and a Samsung 250GB EVO drive. Win10 isn't far behind. Use the Asrock N3700 ITX board, and it is totally silent.

It is 2015. Building computers for light users with huge cases, socket motherboards, power supplies with fans who never swap out any parts is so last decade.

That is what they recommend avoiding in the article. It's basically a tablet turned into a small box with no battery/screen and you certainly are sacrificing performance vs an actual desktop processor. This is an ATOM processor but intel stopped calling them that because people associated them with slow poor performing Netbooks. If you are going to go for something cheap and slow might as well go really cheap and get something like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

$85 after rebate.

Of course they did, because they are stuck in the past. It is like complaining a new V6 mustang is slow, when it has more hp than the old Z05 V8 Camaro.

Have you used such a setup? I have, and you won't notice difference between it and a core i3 system. Benchmarks don't tell the whole story anyway. I'd rather it start up quick, sleep quick, and open programs quick. Can it play video, in HD? Good. Mine is h.265 accelerated. The 4 core cpu though is still better than the system you posted, you'll have much less hassle with win10 preinstalled.

Problem is the old school hard drive slows everything down. It is asinine to use such a drive these days.

If you want to build such an old style setup, go ahead. But don't use the crappy parts mentioned here. That's a waste of time. Buy a skylake cpu.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 24G3KG0145
$50 motherboards are crap. Buy the new ones for skylake around $100.

Otherwise the suggestions here are really lame. That's why I mention that Intel system, because I guarantee you, it will outperform the system here as configured. If you are going to build it all out, don't skimp $75 and end up with a two gen old cpu and such a slow hdd.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

Hamilcar[/url]":3uzsoxcp]Since I have two failed WD Blue drives on hand, I second the 'avoid WD' recommendation; if you can find a Hitachi (nee' IBM) drive, that would be the spinning platter to choose.

Personally however, I would strongly recommend stepping up to a 240GB (or 128) SSD. If you lie in wait on Ben's or similar, you should be able to pick up a 240/256GB SSD for around $50-60.

With the advent of decent downstream bandwidth and Steam/GoG (or, I suppose, Origin), installing/uninstalling games as needed (onto a smaller drive) seems quite feasible.

If you're used to using nothing but spinning platter drives, beware; once you have an SSD, you will never go back. IMO, solid state drives are the most noticeable day-to-day upgrade to hit PCs since dual-core processors years ago.

Problem is WD bought them out. Maybe they still are an hgst design though.

Really stinks cause WD used to be good too. Even Samsung has a better egg rating for their laptop drive with 2tb capacity.

 

[Hamilcar]

sprockkets[/url]":2t7ozj5s]
Problem is WD bought them out. Maybe they still are an hgst design though.

Really stinks cause WD used to be good too. Even Samsung has a better egg rating for their laptop drive with 2tb capacity.

They do appear to still be using HGST/IBM designs; at least, if the Backblaze data is to be believed.

Seagate, of course, is to be completely eschewed if at all possible.
43% annual failure rate on 3TB 7200.14 drives? No, thank you!

 

[zogus]

I used to build PCs until about 10 years ago, after which I switched to laptops and Macs. The only time I miss the build-your-own scene today is when I fantasize about pulling out a bad hard disk, putting it in a good machine and rescuing sectors, something I haven't actually needed to do since 2004.

I can understand people still building PCs for gaming, but the type of people who need these low-end desktop PCs seem to be beyond my imagination. Can someone show me an actual use case for these that aren't better served by plain low-end laptops?

 

[Peevester]

maxwell[/url]":3e0f6ocr]

This places the Bargain Box squarely against the cheap, pre-built boxes from the big OEMs. Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and their ilk all benefit from vast economies of scale that the individual builder could never hope to achieve. By the time the big OEMs add up hardware discounts alone, building it yourself is a so-so idea in terms of value, at best. Add in the cost of the operating system, and the equation really goes out the window.

Indeed, a basement flood and a severe time crunch led me to pick up a couple of $349 Acer SFF desktops for family purposes. Once I added the SSD's ....very pleased with my first non-home-built PC's. Maybe I'm just lazy/old but the OEM units in this price range do work really well.

I see the bargain box more of a "i've got a few components, can I finish it off and make a working PC" type of plan. I have the case, a power supply and a video card that survived the flood. So for a few hundred I can make a working PC out of it, maybe get a Linux server going or something...

Mostly I agree - these days if I'm doing a "custom" build, it's starting with a barebones system (mobo, power supply, case) that looks nice, and I'm just populating the board, and then plugging in some drives and maybe a video card out of the spares bin or an older machine. It's a pain in the butt to start totally from scratch - if I never again have to get out the nippers to get a motherboard to fit right, it won't be soon enough.

The last PC I set up (at home I'm all mac) I had Falcoln Northwest do for me (fragbox with a lot of changes), and it arrived working, tested, perfectly clocked, and fully updated - just had to plunk it down and plug stuff in. It was a really nice experience.

 

[alxx]

solomonrex[/url]":1j4kol14]

Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I was wrong, totally misled by the branding. I didn't realize the NUCs were so compromised or the Celeron had such a range of performance.

Don't forget that they are mostly laptop chips and You're paying a premium for the small size.
The low end nucs are fairly terrible for performance.
The high end i7 won't beat a similarly priced desktop but if you are space constrained or want to mount the box on the back of the monitor are great.

Have 1x 2820 nuc(fedora), 2x i5(ubuntu server), 1x i7(win10) plus a few more i5's and i3's for a customer.
The 2820 can play hd ok with vlc but drops a few frames.

 

[disorder_of_magnitude]

thomsirveaux[/url]":1gpxlvn7]

solomonrex[/url]":1gpxlvn7]

Bongle[/url]":1gpxlvn7]

solomonrex[/url]":1gpxlvn7]
It's really a less than $300 PC and in 2015, it's stretching relevancy. Those chips are really poor with little benefit in space or energy. If you're dropping all the way down to $299 for grandma, then do a mini-pc, because this isn't worth upgrading anyway. Or obviously, a tablet. No reason to give grandma a big, empty box that's still slow when you can get a celeron/Pentium NUC for roughly the same price ($140 for case, mobo, chip).

I don't know about that. Some of the garbagey low-end chips are _really_ garbagey. When you're in this price range, its easy to step on a landmine of a really terrible processor. A couple years ago I bought a laptop for a charity donation (robotics team that I volunteer with) and didn't do my homework, so we suffered for a couple years with something barely faster than an abacus. I'm sure if I'd done a bit more research on the various cheap laptop processors at the time, I could've done much better.

Just last month I finally bought the team a new laptop, and the difference between the CPU scoring 900 passmark points and 2600 points (what I ended up with for $450 CAD) was simply doing my research, as the units were otherwise identical spec and price-wise.

Example:
The recommended processor for this build scores 2848 on passmark's CPU list.

A $250 Intel NUC with a Celeron 847 from newegg scores 953. That's 1/3rd the performance for no savings, and the NUC still needs memory, HDD, accessories, and a monitor.

A $350 NUC from newegg scores 1800ish, but still needs RAM/HDD/monitor/keyboard.

Personally, for grandma, I'd value the processor to chew through all the malware. Or get her a nice tablet.

Wow, thanks for pointing that out. I was wrong, totally misled by the branding. I didn't realize the NUCs were so compromised or the Celeron had such a range of performance.

"Yeah the NUCs use Celeron U chips, which are usually 1-point-something GHz parts with no Turbo Boost at all, and Turbo Boost is the only reason some of the better U parts can replace older mainstream desktop CPUs. The desktop Celerons at least approach 3GHz with the same architecture, makes a huge difference.

"

When you say "the NUCs" use Celeron U chips"
it sounds as if you`re saying ..its the only option..when buying a NUC

I`m pretty sure i3 thru i7 processors are available..
it might take another hundred or two ( i3)..for memory and a HD..as well as cost of a display
but they`re certainly not all celery chips
and a much more powerful system to be had for a little more spent