How cheap can you make this PC?

A

acelenny

Member
Ok, I am looking into upgrading my computer (partly due to issues) but I have no experience in building one. I thought it might be a good idea to have a go at building a dirt cheap system with Linux on it. I am looking to spend as little as possible for everything a fully functioning computer, that is capable of basic things like playing a DVD and browsing the internet, needs (excluding a monitor, keyboard, etc).

Any suggestions are appreciated.
 
This build is about £350 - this is pretty cheap but the RAM hikes the price up. If you're prepared to use cheaper RAM or use one stick of RAM instead of two, you could save a bit of money.

Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-DS2 motherboard http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...hipset/microatxformfactor/ga-f2a88xm-ds2.html
AMD A6-6400K http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...mda4a6a8a10seriesfm2socket/ad640kokhlbox.html
Crucial 8GB 2x4GB 1600MHz RAM http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...pc3-128001600mhz/bls2cp4g3d1609ds1s00ceu.html
SanDisk 128GB SSD http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/.../solidstate/120gbto200gb/sdssdp-128g-g25.html
Samsung DVD-RW drive http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/opticaldrives/satadvdwriters/sh-224dbbebe.html
Corsair CX430M http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cp-9020058-uk.html
Fractal Design Core 1000 (may need to get another case or buy elsewhere since Novatech won't have stock until January 29th) http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/cases/fd-ca-core-1000-bl.html

This should do everything you need. :)

Could save money on the RAM by getting something from here: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/memory-pc/novatech/ I know it's 'no-name' RAM but it's good enough. As long as it's DDR3 it'll work with the board. Ideally you want 1600MHz or 1866MHz, but 1333MHz will be fine for a basic build.
 
Well the SSD hikes the price up, too. A 1TB traditional HDD would shave a bit more off. As far as RAM goes, could really get by with 4GB if you had too and make a 2-4GB Swap partition (though if the OP will be using a Debian or XFCE-based build, even that's overkill).

Most Linux-based builds require far less system resources than a Windows-based one. Meaning, you'll get basically the same speed from slower parts.

Seriously though, if all you're looking to do is surf the web and watch DVDs, then you don't need any crazy fancy stuff.
 
Even cheaper would be better, especially as this is just going to be a trial system that I could mess up with in experience. I.e a 120gb mechanical hard drive and 2gb of ddr2 ram qould be fine by me. also, please use the most basic computer terms possible.
 
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/memory-pc/ddr3pc3-106001333mhz/ct25664ba1339.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/harddrives-internal/sata1tbto1.5tb/wd10ezex.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/cases/cas-731.html

Swapping out the Case, Drive, and RAM with the cheapest options on that site. If you checked Newegg you'd probably find a bit cheaper for certain stuff too.

Just FYI, I've been using Linux since 2006 and have *never* created a Swap larger than 2GB, even when only running 1 GB of RAM. You'd be amazed how little resources an XFCE-based distro actually uses.
 
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Since the 1TB drives are only £45 new, you may as well get one of those. If you want smaller, look on eBay for used stuff.
 
acelenny said:
Read the top of the thread, I want to build a cheap system so that when I get round to building a replacement for my current computer, I can do so with some previous experience. Better to mess a cheap CPU up than say, an i5 that cost 150 pounds.
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I knew you want to build one.
But the fact is, it is hard to beat the price with this kind of dirt cheap pre-build if you only need a system to play DVD/ browse internet.
 
I don't need it or want it, I just want to make sure that when I get round to building a system, costing 600-1000 pounds I know enough from previous experience not to do something stupid such as touching the gold part on the base of the processor.
 
You can actually do that without hurting the CPU but I wouldn't reccomend it :P Here's what I would do. Go look used, or maybe use your old PC. Disassemble it completely, then re assemble it. Building a computer isn't hard as long as you take care.
 
PCunicorn said:
Here's what I would do. Go look used, or maybe use your old PC. Disassemble it completely, then re assemble it. Building a computer isn't hard as long as you take care.
Click to expand...
Now there's a good idea. By doing that, you'd also learn how to disassemble a machine too. :good:

Novatech have some good 'barebones bundles' you could look into - you'll need to add a hard drive and a DVD drive, but you can buy them separately. Look here for the barebones http://www.novatech.co.uk/barebonebundles/

Something like this for example is only going to be about £200 once you've bought a hard drive and DVD drive for it http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/barebones/bb-53004b.html
 
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http://www.logicalincrements.com/
This site is really great. You can select UK and it'll come up with a £208 build.
I wouldn't necessarily tell you to follow it blindly, but it generally only uses quality components.
I use Ubuntu here and there, but mostly on Intel platforms with a dedicated GPU. Have you researched APUs compatibility on Linux?
 
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The bare bones system looks good and i may even have an old hard drive somewhere now that i think about it. Also, I did try to disassemble a very old PC I inherited but it was pre-built of course and so it was ridiculously difficult to dismantle and in the end I was unable to extract the motherboard, the hard drive and the optical drive because they were so tightly machined into the case.

Also, if I tried to dissemble my current PC (it was built by a friend i bought it off) what chances are there that I could get someone who knew what they were doing to put it back together without any lasting damage/replacement cost?

Oh, and I have not checked compatibility as I do not know what to look for or where to look for it. Out of interest, what are the main Linux variations, I have heard of a few but any links to sites with good information on tehm would be much appreciated.
 
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You are seriously over estimating the difficulty. As long as you remember how you disassembled it you can re assemble it. The biggest issue will be the header cables. Just remember where you unplugged those.
 
I probably am overestimating the difficulty but i would rather do that than be reckless. Either way, thanks for the advice, at some point I'll get round to it. Hopefully nothing will go wrong!
 
Disassembling the barebones from Novatech is going to be basically the reverse of building a brand new system using those parts. Those machines are easy to disassemble, take it from somebody who did it about two weeks ago. ;)
 
I find this thread interesting because I had the same idea. Since my old AMD X2-3800+ only could see 2 gigs of memory I was running into memory shortage so I wanted to build me a good system but I had to build a quick budget system first.

After asking around on the tech forums I learned that a Sandy Bridge Celeron (G540 for $50) was a terrific performer so I went for it. I built a system for $200 but that was before the memory price hikes (I even got the memory for my i5 system before then too, whew). That was for the case, PSU, CPU, motherboard and memory. I used the HDD and the DVD-RW out of the AMD system.

The Celeron did perform very well. It handled browsing, some games and movies without breaking a sweat. I took almost a year buying good parts for the i5 system and now I'm using it. Before then I upgraded the Celeron system to an i3. The i3 really worked very well.

EDIT: Hmm... I even got a pic. :)

 
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