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Just out of curiosity...

S

Spacehead

Lifer
... i was looking at the listings of "barebones" systems at PriceWatch. I happened to copy this only because i recognized the mobo listed:
Bare Bones Assembled
-ECS K7S5A ATA100
-AMD ATHLON XP 2100 266FSB
-W/ 3D SOUND
-10/100 LAN
-ATX MID 300WATT
-2-DDR/2-SDR ATA100
ONE YEAR WARRANTY
PHONE ORDER ONLY-
$196

Now, a few questions.
To get one of these "barebones" systems up & running, you would need:
Video- the above example doesn't have it but most have onboard sound, video & LAN
RAM- how much would a system need if it was only for DC projects? Would you need more than 256mb?
OS- good time to learn Linux? Can you get a 2nd hand copy of 2K cheap?
Also, & very important, how reliable are those dealers that sell systems on PriceWatch? Anyone ever buy from them? Which one to buy from?

I'm just thinking out loud here, i'm not going to buy anything. I still need to up grade my own system(which should be done shortly). I was just curious if one of these might make a cheap cruncher in the future.
 
There are many ways to make cheap crunchers. Grab a board with integrated video and lan. These include boards with the SIS740 and VIA KM266 chipsets. I have used the ECS L7SOM and found it to be great for cheap crunchers (gives some limited overclocking capability).

Example:

All prices from PC Supply Source:

ECS L7SOM $66.00
AMD Athlon XP 1800 $77.00
Dynatron HSF $8.00
128MB PC2100 DDR $34.00
300 Watt PS $27.00

Subtotal $212.00 (Free Fedex Ground Shipping)

All you would need is to pick up some used cheap older hard drive and you got a crunching machine 🙂
 
Unless you're involved in Distributed Folding(?) where the -Fast(?) parameter requires a minimum of 256meg of memory, you can very easily get away with just 128meg for any other project(so far as I know.)

Since I haven't learned Linux yet, I've been buying up Win98s to keep everything legal. 😉
 
Really, if all the system is going to do is SETI or something, 64Mb memory should be enough. I would recommend 128 however, since you might want to use it for something else down the line.
 
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