[SGVLUG] Sweet spot for price/performance for new barebones system?

[Christopher Smith]

Dan Kegel wrote:
> It's that time again... I'm shopping for a new computer for
> my wife.  Usually I write a note to lula at lula.org with my
> research, but this time I wrote a web page with the notes
> instead, and am sending it here (since Lula is inactive).
> Here are my notes:
> http://kegel.com/new-computer-2008.html
>
> My conclusion so far is that Core Duo e6550 is the
> cheap-but-fast CPU to get.  It seems to be 3x faster
> than my wife's current CPU (Athlon XP) without
> being crushingly expensive.
>
> I haven't looked at graphics cards yet, but she is
> currently using a crappy old PCI video card, and
> hopefully she can continue using it.
>
> So, is this a good set of components, and is newegg the
> way to go?  Or should I walk over to PC Club and see
> if they can assemble this?
>   
Ars' system guides are always handy:

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200803.ars/2

While Ars' system is a bit pricey compared to your budget, if you drop 
the monitor, graphics card, and operating system from their budget it is 
quite competitive.

I'd give newegg the thumbs up if you are going to build from parts. 
Always consider going with the system integrator route. 
Dell/HP/whathaveyou frequently have nice, quiet and compact systems 
available.

Definitely seriously consider integrated graphics solutions if you don't 
care about playing reasonably modern games at high performance. 
Particularly with Intel's graphics chips, you get excellent Linux 
support, lower power consumption and better performance characteristics 
than "a crappy old PCI video card". ;-)

Seriously consider AMD for a low-end system. As you can see from Ars' 
guide, you can often pick up a motherboard and CPU for the price of an 
Intel motherboard, and the performance is still fairly impressive 
(indeed, sometimes better).

These days people worry about power consumption (probably more than they 
should, but still). Aside from CPU, you might want to consider lower 
power offerings in other odd areas (integrated graphics, as I said 
before, and Wester Digital's new "Green Power" hard drives, as well as 
some of the newer motherboards with better power efficiencies).

--Chris