Budget PC and Budget Buster idea submissions

[MediaMan]

GHoosdum is already in there like a dirty shirt with his prowess for a budget system...His killer rig should be a knock out.

Let's see what the rest of you got.

Remember...check the thread at the top of every forum including this one for details and email your submission ideas to

mediaman@short-media.com

Times a ticking and I know you guys know how to build for cheap and dream big bux!

[GHoosdum]

hehehe... I love the Budget PC idea.

For the Killer Rig... I'm not sure I know how to spend that much!!! :eek:

...but what does "in there like a dirty shirt" mean?

[Al_Capown]

...but what does "in there like a dirty shirt" mean?

Uh... sodomy of course!

[GHoosdum]

I sure hope not!

Back on topic: MM, you'll definitely have my submissions in your e-mail box by the deadline!

[SimGuy]

Lets see if you can top $20,000 USD for a killer rig :D

[Geeky1]

I can. When I get a chance, I'll throw something together.

[GHoosdum]

See... I can't do that kinda thing. I can make a budget PC... that's what I'm good at... that's why I love the "Help me find a deal" forum... To me, a $2000 PC is a "Budget Buster," because I can't afford anything right now! I'll politely bow out of that part of the competition.

[Thrax]

I've been in the process of building both for the last three days.

[MediaMan]

Just a little clarification for anyone.

All parts must be ready to go off the shelf. These must be parts for the PC. It may be true that a PC can be plugged into a home theatre amplifier but let's restrict it to parts that are purely made for the PC.

Same goes for TV's. You may suggest using a 40 inch plasma screen...it'll work but stick to using a CRT or LCD flat panel in your budget and budget buster configuration examples.

No funky DIY projects either. EG: take a black and decker drill, acetylene welder and a six pack....

PS: 21 days to close of submissions. I've got a lot of PMs boasting some pretty good machines...both ka-cheap and ka-ching. I'm looking for more....



:)

[SimGuy]

$46,000 USD and climbing :)
Damn I want one :D

New Lincoln LS... or Short-Media Super Computer.......

[Thrax]

**** it. I'm just going to put up the specs for a Sun E10K. $1.5 million.

[Straight_Man]

Hmmm.... Maybe I will say something about the "cheap" side. Like, a CD-RW instead of a DVD to start. NewEgg has this 52x32x52x Liteon CD-RW for $41.99 SHIPPED, at Qty 1.... Oh, at Qty 20 they are at $37.99 each last I looked, and at ANY QTY shipping is free-- I picked up some to resell LOCALLY....

OTOH, someone at Bell Microsystems wqent nuts and bought too many 3.00 GHz P4's, they are selling them for about $175.00 to VARs right now....

So, MM, do these have to be single qty prices, can they be VAR prices, or can they be precenned systems (look at the Monarch 2000+ economy system at Monarch Computer, then the 2003+ updated ones). For instance, if anyone wants a cheap WinModem there is this thing called a USR5699B which is not a BAD little faxmodem. In whitebox ship form it is under $25.00 right now.... And Belkin actually sells Generic cables for printers, those IEEE 1284 Compatibles are under $7.00 each for 6' if you know where to look and they ARE double-insulated.

John.

[Geeky1]

Simguy... $100k+ (for a WinXP-powered system), and climbing :D

[a2jfreak]

Does that qualify as a "PC?"

I guess it's all up to MM, but I sure wouldn't consider a $1.5M system a "PC."

Thrax said
**** it. I'm just going to put up the specs for a Sun E10K. $1.5 million.

[Thrax]

Geeky1 said
Simguy... $100k+ (for a WinXP-powered system), and climbing :D

Methinks people are just putting random **** on there for no other reason than they can find a way (However small), to justify it.

Therein, I change my mind and would like to request my ability to be a judge, keeping my $22,000 exercise in functional/practical components to myself.

[Geeky1]

Thrax... I'm afraid you're mistaken. However, I won't be able to reveal how until after the article is published (when you can either see it in the article, or I'll post it...)

[Thrax]

Just PM me. I don't feel like assembling the system any more, and I can guarantee you won't be seeing an entry from me.

[SimGuy]

$100 K! Holy **** :D

And I thought my WinXP $46,000 USD PC (yes, it's a PC that can actually be taken to a LAN by 1 person) was packed!

[Geeky1]

my mistake. I opened the .xls I'm using to track it all after thrax asked me to PM him... it's actually more like $140k. And growing.

[a2jfreak]

Geeky: beowulf clusters of quad Xeons cooled by LN2 doesn't count!

[SimGuy]

No clusters here or LN2 cooling. Everything is contained inside one readily available system chassis that doesn't look ass-ugly. NO, it is not a rackmount.

Everything inside is perfectly justified, from the hard disk to the CD-ROM drive to the sound card.

You aren't going to believe your eyes... literally... when you see the visual support systems in my system.

True, it's half the cost of the PC, but when you see it, you'll **** yourself, I kid you not.

Can't give away any ideas to the competition though... :D

$45,899.18 USD :)

[Geeky1]

a2j, this is a single computer. If I were doing a beowulf cluster, the cost would be in excess of 12 figures (100 billion). :D

[MediaMan]

Remember that I am not sharing information with anyone. All submissions are kept confidential until the article comes out.

I also have to have verifiable links in the budget (and a total). That means...if I have a credit card in hand...I can click ADD TO CART or give them a call and order it like any other John Doe. No special business license. No secret security rating.

There it is...there's the price...order 2 please.

Super duper, custom made, one only, made to order titanium diamond PC cases forged in the engines of the Space Shuttle don't count...unless it's a section in Directron that I failed to discover.


These PC parts have to be readily available and all submissions have to have USD prices, links to the parts and a total.

100k...wow...that one I gotta see. I just want to see the link to the processor that says

Processor...new low price....$45,987.00....ADD to CART


heheheh.

[MediaMan]

Still looking for more submissions people. Geeky1 has definitely set out to build himself the best damn PC under a ridiculous price....the big one I won't even tell you about but it would be fun to build.

Let's see what you got!

Remember...just don't stuff a bunch of parts in a box. Put some thought behind it as I'll be questioning your motives. :)

[MediaMan]

We are getting down to the short and curlies here. Looking for that mass email load of submissions. Cmon SM'ers...I know you've got them hiding ready to send to me.

mediaman@short-media.com

[Geeky1]

Give me until 11:59:59.99 PM PST on 10/31/03 :D

[Armo]

hey now u got mine

[SimGuy]

You've Got Mail :D

[Armo]

yall should post who submitted for which category, im interested to know who my "competition" is :)

[SimGuy]

Budget-Buster PC Only.
I can't be cheap when it comes to PC's. It doesn't feel right. :D

[Armo]

i did teh old budget system, and with mine u get a helluva bang for ur buck

[MediaMan]

Simguy.... :eek2:

:D


Everyone else? I know you've got submissions waiting to be emailed in. Just a few more days before I start to compile.

mediaman@short-media.com

[SimGuy]

MediaMan had this to say
Simguy.... :eek2:

:D


Everyone else? I know you've got submissions waiting to be emailed in. Just a few more days before I start to compile.

mediaman@short-media.com

MediaMan is now a believer! I told you that the display technologies were incredible :D

[Armo]

i think the most ammount i could put into a system that is practical would be about $5000, more than that and its too much lol

[SimGuy]

$5,000 USD ($6,500 CDN) would build quite a nice performance game system.

Prometeia MachII... 2 GB's RAM... 24" LCD... 1 TB Drive Space...

I'm watering at the mouth just thinking about it :D

[Armo]

if u really want to make an expensive system use Itanium2 processors

[SimGuy]

I'd rather take a Cyrix MII over an (t)Itanic2. :D

Itanium2: Intel's performance-part answer to a muscle car with a broken clutch: It ain't going anywhere. :D

Nah.... P4 EE 3.2 with the Prometeia MachII reaches ~4.3 GHz. Inefficient or not, that's damned fast.

[Armo]

ya but the Itanium2's start off at about $3000 lol :)

LOL look at the specs on this server

4U Chassis with Intel® Itanium® 2 SBNMB000 Motherboard
System bus: 400 MHz, 128-bit wide, 6.4 GB/s bandwidth
Four Intel® Itanium® 2 1.5 GHz processors each with 6 MB L3 Cache
32 GB DDR 266 MHZ ECC/REG Memory for Itanium® 2
8 PCI slots, 4 USB, 1 Serial, 1 Video
Integrated Ultra 320 SCSI Controller
Up to three 73 GB U320 SCSI 10K Hard Drives with SCA-2 connectors
Integrated Intel® 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet
1-2 redundant hot swap 1200 Watt Power Supplies
IPMI Server Management version 6.0
Slim Line LS-240 Floppy Drive
Four Processor Power Pods with Y Cable (one per processor)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Installed (Standard Edition: media and documentation.)
Intel® Software Development Tools including Fortran and C++
compilers, VTune™ Performance Analyzer, KAP/Pro, Native Itanium support, thread analyzer and Math Kernel Library



hehehe i found 1 even better, the hp 9000 64-way with 64 itanium 2's and 512 gigs of ram for $700,000-2$2.2 million

[Geeky1]

*s******* 3 72GB hds? Hehehehehee... that's not a server. That's a palm pilot.

[Armo]

WHAT THE CRAP dood lol, they are 75 ultrascsi 320 hdd lol

[Geeky1]

You haven't seen what I've got up my sleeve yet. :D

[SimGuy]

The most I could muster was $66K USD.
That is without going completely and utterly over the edge :D

[Geeky1]

~$145K and growing.

Yes, I went completely, utterly over the edge. :D

[a2jfreak]

MM said he's going to ask you to justify this stuff and that it can't be "specialty" items unless the "specialty" items can be found right along side the "not-specialty" items.

/me has his doubts as to whether $145K uses truly "not-specialty" items and can be truly justified as a home PC.

[Geeky1]

Justification is simple:
The goal here is to have the fastest possible PC that's still useable as a desktop/workstation, is it not?

Therefore, everything is justified simply by the fact that it's the best/fastest on the market.

And no, it doesn't use "specialty" components. It does use some server/workstation stuff, but nothing that's not available off-the-shelf.

[GHoosdum]

Well, I just sent in my submission. Guess what I did all day at work today instead of my job? ;)

Budget PC, just a shade over $500, without using any component that I consider crap. Boy that nickel and dime stuff (like optical drives and peripherals) really adds up! It's a tough challenge!

[Armo]

HURRY PEOPLES! submit them then submit to my mastar budget system :)

[Geeky1]

Done (finally!). Final price? Let's just say that if you gave them $151,000.00, you wouldn't get much change.