Affordable PCs

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I have a bunch of old PC’s around the house, I just can’t seem to get around to the recycling them, thinking at a minimum that I have data on that hard disk that I need to recover or at least validate that I don’t need it anymore.

A little while ago, I ran across this show, revision3, and I thought – I have a few (actually 3) cases with various really old technology inside. I’m talking IDE disk drives here. I can use this idea from revision3, and taking a step in that direction, put modern technology inside an old skin. After all, I don’t really care what the outside looks like, what’s important is that the stupid thing runs; and runs faster than the last PC I bought (for a bit more money, by the way).

Then my son’s PC died and rather than go out and buy something new, I encouraged him to go along with me on this adventure…

Here is what I bought (right from Amazon) shipped right to my door.

• Intel Pentium Processor G3220 3.0 GHz LGA 1150
  BX80646G3220 $58.99
• ECS Elitegroup Micro ATX DDR3 1600 LGA 1150 Motherboard
  H81H3-M4 (1.0A) used $34.99
• Seagate Barracuda 1 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s
  NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST1000DM003 $53.99
• Kingston Value RAM 4GB 1600MHz PC3-12800 DDR3
  Non-ECC CL11 DIMM SR x8 Desktop Memory (KVR16N11S8/4) $39.74
• EVGA 430W 80PLUS Certified ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply
  100-W1-0430-KR $34.99
• Total: $222.70

Yes, like the guys building the gaming PC, I could spend a bit more money and put in a high end graphics card for rendering a PC game fast enough, but I myself don’t need any more than this. There is VGA and HDMI on the motherboard. I think my son will finally opt for the graphics card, because he does do games and stuff. (a PNY 750TI is $140 extra)

But for the basics, including for example, the idea of a video recorder (a PVR or DVR) – this is enough. And, what I have also discovered with my son is that this thing is really quiet! Yes, there is a fan on top of the CPU to pull heat away, but outside the case, it is very quiet.

If you have a bunch of cards to put into the PC, maybe this isn’t for you. There is one slot for the graphic’s card, two slots for memory (the 4gb memory I bought is on one stick). There is power for just about any SATA you would reasonably put inside, 2 hi/2 low SATA connections, 6 different USB connections (inclusive of 2 USB3). All in all, pretty sweet for this price.

You will need a DVD drive to install Windows (which he already had from the old computer) or a bootable ISO copy of the DVD on an external drive and I already had a Windows 7 license to use, otherwise you might have to spring for the Windows software (+ $100). If you’re doing Linux, then you won’t need that.

Hope this is something useful for you.