Cheap PC for Study purposes.

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shadow_man

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Hi Guys,

Looking to build a really really cheap extra PC for studies / testing os's etc.

Primarily it will be used for Linux / Unix. I dont want to have multiple os's or vm's on my main machine (Q6600), so I need something to muck around with when I do my Solaris exams.

Would a dual core suffice? What would you guys recommend. Need to do this on the cheap.

I have casing / power supply already.

What can you recommend thats cheap?

Thanks

J
 
dual core e5200 would be perfect I have one of those for messing around with and it works like a charm just put 4gb or ram in the machine at least
 
if you wanna do it cheap i would say buy your parts from PCinternational? they have pretty good pricing for their parts
 
You can get a quad core AMD AthlonII for about R1000 these days, just add a R600 mobo and some RAM and for about R2000 you have a kick ass quad core that will overclock insanely nice on air.
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies - I'm in CPT and I have access to Sahara / Rectron and a few others.

I don't see any of the cheap quads that rouxenator mentioned - am I missing something?

J
 
Why not just use Virtual machines (I see that you do not want to)? Rather spend the money on lots of disks or something....
 
Well I have an old P4 (socket 478) and run VirtualBox without issues. Even my netbook kicks ass with VirtualBox (Windows / Linux). Any PC with more than a gig of ram will work.
 
Why not consider a used one? Check the classifieds, there might something that works for you. Could save a bundle. A spare machine doesn't always have to be a new machine. I could have sold you my old machine (motherboard, RAM, CPU, heatsink), but I suspect a AthlonXP 3200+ won't do it for you. :D
 
Why not get a Intel Celeron 430... its like R300 - R400 brand new and overclock it...

I wanted to do it with the family computer but the mobo is this terrible Jetway that

costs less than the 430-_-
 
Just remeber that Semprons over 3500+ (754s) are often Athlons that have better power management - discovered that when I got my wife a 3800+ Sempron and kicked my 3Gz P4 butt
 
AMD is also much more generous when it comes instructionsets and extentions. Most Semprons even will support 64bit and hardware virtualization.

If you want to invest in the most bang for your buck right now you cannot go wrong with the AthlonII 620 Quad. It costs R1k, will overclock extremely well and runs on either AM2 (DDR2) or AM3 (DDR3) boards. It kills off the 8200 which costs a whole lot more and is from inthell.
 
Rouxenator said:
Cause its an intel and an AMD Sempron will beat it easily.
Click to expand...

you shoulda quoted the rest of the post... but ill tell you why you shouldn't get the Sempron;

  • very few people overclock it... or at least post their results
  • the 430's cheaper (not by much and it can depend on store:erm:)
  • the AMD doesnt actually beat it... nevermind easily... and especially for the purpose that he plans to use it for
  • last but not least jsheed's gotta Q6600... who in their right mind will abandon Intel whilst owning one of these (in terms of price performance)
 
You should really go and read up on the AthlonII X4 620.
No way you can get better performance for that money.

EDIT :
Today : Athlon X2 6000 | 2 x 2GigDDR2-800 | Seagate 7200.11 750Gig & Seagate 7200.12 1Tib & Samsung 1Tib| Radeon 4200 onboard | Cooler Master eXtreme power 550W | Asus TM-230 mATX case | Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit

Tomorrow : AthlonII X4 620 | 4 x 2GigDDR2-800 | Seagate 7200.11 750Gig & Seagate 7200.12 1Tib & Samsung 1Tib| Radeon 4200 onboard | Cooler Master eXtreme power 550W | Asus TM-230 mATX case | Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit
 
Last edited:
why go for a quad core cpu? is this rly needed for a simple linux machine?

i say grab a cheap R600 mobo, an athlon II 245 and a few gigs of DDR2-800 RAM.

Throw in a nice cheap gfx card, maybe a 4670, or you can even use onboard gfx.

http://www.prophecy.co.za/micro-gigabit-ddrii-dual-channel-p-33466.html

look at that mobo, R470 and with dx10 onboard gfx! :D

altho i dont use linux myself, i have heard something about amd having bad linux support?
 
Subversion said:
Throw in a nice cheap gfx card, maybe a 4670, or you can even use onboard gfx.

altho i dont use linux myself, i have heard something about amd having bad linux support?
Click to expand...

ATI usually does not play well with unix/linux.

K@k unless you are referring to the newly required ATI.
 
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