Desktops Are Worthless.....

That should be expected of someone who has a family of 4 working on 5 ThinkPads, doesn't it? Actually, what I should say that desktops are "worth......LESS", and not worthless. Maybe it reflects my old guys computer experience from way-back of working on them in the IBM PC-AT/XT days, but we have 3 (not counting servers) desktop computers in the house and it's about to become 4! OK, 1 and some time soon it'll be 2 are actually HTPCs, but of course they are really desktops that just don't sit on or under a desk. 

So, what do I mean; desktops are worth less then? For those who don't haunt Craig's List or looking at the desktop listings on eBay OR have been given any number of old machines by people because they heard that you are a "computer guy", then you might not be aware. Aware of what? Aware that the market for desktop computers and computer parts is ridiculously low or non-existent! 

Which gets me to why a guy like me would also have a desktop workstation. Other than the fact that the parts are so amazingly cheap for the kind of power you get, there are just some things that notebook computers don't do very well. One is the ever-present issue of file storage. Yes, I do in fact have a 4Tb+ home server for that, but I'm not talking about archival storage, I'm talking about temporary storage that is essential when you do a lot with media like photo, video and music. The fact is, that mechanical storage for notebooks runs twice what it is for desktop. The other issue is, you can't just throw a bunch of drives in a case, so you end up with USB 2.0 which is waaay sloooowww! My other issue goes back to working with media as well. It's all fine and good to web-surf or do anything text-based with a 15" or even 17", but to do anything effective, you really need at least a 20" monitor and in my case, one 22" WUXGA (1920 x 1200), one 20" UXGA (1600 x 1200), plus another WXGA+ (1440 x 900) display when I need it. Try that with a notebook computer of any kind! 

But it's not my desktop that got me going for this post, but some friends of ours who came home from a camping trip last week to find that they'd experienced a surge which killed half the outlets of their "surge protector", along with everything plugged into them. So, after looking at their situation, it was obvious that replacing the fried power supply of their 10 year old (socket 423, P4) Gateway wouldn't have been very efficient use of money. I told them that my guess would be that they could replace it with a MUCH newer MUCH faster machine for about $100-120. And my standing rule of thumb on electronics is to replace anything where the costs will be close to half of replacement. So as part of this conversation, I started doing research on the usual suspects of eBay and Craig's List. Thirty minutes later, I had confirmed my suspicion that with $100-150 in hand and some patience, anyone could get into a relatively powerful and a MUCH more up-to-date desktop computer. 

Specifically, if you want a fairly powerful socket 775 or AM3 dual core computer capable of running Windows 7 well, you can go one of two routes. There's the preferable (at least to me) route of finding a "generic" computer with nice components, but people who build these things tend not only to know what they are doing, but the worth of what they have, so these machines usually to sell for around $250. And although, they are typically worth every penny (and more), but it's not the price-point that our friends would be comfortable with at the moment. The second route would be the "name-brand manufacturer" build (such as HP, Dell, etc.). The fact of the matter is that because they sell so many that they surplus in the thousands at a time from large entities like, school, corporations, and the government. This drives the price down to half of what the specs would otherwise indicate. A good example would be an HP DC7700 workstation class machine equipped with a socket 775 MB, Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo CPU, 2Gb of RAM, 160Gb hard drive......all for $99! Really! I can take a another $100 and really heat this thing up, but it'll do fine as a family computer just as it sits. 

 

The important thing here is the Core 2 Duo fitted to the Intel socket 775. That particular socket started back in the "Prescott" P4 days. We want the later versions with a chipset AFTER the 8xx era (in general) so that it'll not only physically accept, but RUN the latest Core 2 Duo CPUs. If you are a regular "family" type user, there's nothing that you'll do that the newer C2D processors can't. AND this socket will even take the quad core ones as well. Just give it plenty of RAM! 

Now, another thing to watch out for. Take a close look at the image of the run-of-the-mill HP/Compaq business computer above. No....I did not flip the image. Remember when I said that I'd rather purchase a "generic" built computer? The reason is that the large manufacturers for whatever reason like to use parts customized to their specifications for their production purposes, such as  a weird power button header, odd drive mounts, unusual power supplies and worse of all, a non-standard MB layout. Many Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, and HP desktops use a board layout called BTX (which is backward versus ATX which is standard), so if you ever want to replace it with a newer board...you're out of luck! So, look for one with a normal layout such as some Dell Vostros and HP DCs. The other is if you are lucky enough to live near a metropolitan area or have a friend who does, then run a search on eBay for that area. Why? Desktops are heavy and it's expensive to ship them. PLUS make certain that you find a dealer that is OK with a  "local pickup" (message them and check), some of them jack up their shipping and handling (S&H) price to make more profit and don't allow pickups. That $100 whiz-bang desktop doesn't look like such a good deal with $40+ of S&H tacked on to it! 

In the end, I'll probably get them that HP which is located in a nearby suburb being sold by a dealer that's already told me he's OK with a "local pickup". That E6300 is a Core 2 Duo processor running at !.86ghz built on the 45nm process making it a pretty cool running CPU. A 160Gb drive is plenty for them, and since this machine is new enough to have SATA ports, throwing in bigger drives later will be easy. I checked and the MB has the PCIe slot necessary for them to put on higher powered video cards down the road as well. 

What a great (and cheap) way to go....as long as you aren't a gamer that is!