[Gllug] Custom Linux PC Builder in SE London

[Pete Stean]

I did some exploring around this issue - I've been building machines for
myself and for friends for the last few years and keep up to date on the
latest products/trends/overclocking issues etc (I tend to build on a "price
of a meal and a bottle of vodka" basis - it's never turned into anything
commercial).

Anyway, what I've noted is that you have to be a bit careful with pre-built
systems that are *not* from major manufacturers (DELL systems etc), because
what I find is what most of these plain box shippers do to keep the price
down is skimp on one or two key components. I was having a conversation with
someone recently who had found a nice machine, Core2DUO, Geforce 8600
graphics card etc, all quite high spec, that came with a "no name" 450W
PSU... !  I'm not even sure that a PSU like that would give him enough
constant power to boot the system and keep it going under load. El cheapo
motherboards are another skimping measure.

All I'm saying is that building for yourself is still the best bet if you're
looking for value for money in my view - a quick post on one of the
appropriate overclocking enthusiast boards will yield positive results I'm
sure - in fact on the UK-based site I'm thinking of you''ll probably get
people providing you with product lists and pricing etc so you don't have to
go back and do lots of research on what the best new products are   ;)

Build it yourself, you know you want to ;)

Pete


On 26/07/07, James Roberts <jr at stabilys.com> wrote:
>
> Wulf Forrester-Barker wrote:
> > I'm currently looking at getting a new PC...
> > It is a long time since I built a PC from scratch and don't really
> > want to get into buying individual components this time round. I would
> > also like a blank system rather than one that comes pre-installed with
> > Windows and one that I know will work with Linux (specifically Ubuntu
> > as my present distro of choice)
>
> It's not custom and may not suit everyone (does not support fancy
> graphics cards) but we have bought several of these for workstations,
> starting price GBP 149:
>
>
> http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&kc=305&l=en&oc=SC074401&s=bsd&sbc=pedge_sc440
>
> That's a Dell Poweredge SC440 in case that ridiculous link does not
> work. I'm not a Dell fan but...
>
> With a Core Duo oops Xeon and ECC RAM, no OS, performs rather well and
> properly engineered. The buying price (depending on spec) is cheaper
> than we can buy equivalent parts (and we are dealers). We are running VM
> instances under Debian Etch on them with no issues so far. I'm typing
> this on another of them.  I have not tried Ubuntu as such.
>
> Might interest someone...
>
> MeJ
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