So in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint (i think that's californian for "cut a few bucks off my power bill") i started thinking about replacing the garage server. It's a dual p3 that you can hear through the wall in the gest room, so i've been thinking about yanking out the drive and dropping it into a new AMD64×2 box. Why that? Because it's faster and it also uses less power. Plus it doesn't emit the kind of high frequency whine that probably keeps the mosquitoes out of my garage.
Granted, i really didn't have any big intention of getting a box today. i just wanted to go over to Fry's for an hour and price out how much it would cost. By the time i found a small footprint case (it's going on a shelf 10' off the cement floor so the anti-earthquake bungee cords have to hold), microATX main board, power supply, memory, CPU, fans, etc. were priced out, i figured it was going to cost me around $400.
Hmm, perhaps my footprint isn't that big afterall.
Still, i was kinda curious how cheap i could get a system online. It turns out: Damn Cheap. Mind you, there are even cheaper boxes had i wanted one.
Holy Crap! i remember when it was CHEAPER to build your own. Now building your own PC is along the same lines as building a kit car. Unless you're going to build a serious hotrod to throw money at, don't even bother.
Well, yeah. I wouldn't run this for anything other than a CPU loosely tied to a bunch of disks that I can run a MySQL server and a few NAS items on, but that's kind of the point. (Heck, if I could get one without any sound or anything other than rudimentary video, I would.) I figure the corners cut are exactly the same ones I'd make.
I'm also well aware that they buy their parts in bulk and that drives the prices down too, but Holy CRAP, pc's are getting cheap.
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Those systems are good for a "garage box". The manufacturers cut too many corners for me to be comfortable with a cheap box as my main system, though.