I’ve been using the rig for about 6 months and I’m really pleased with it. One problem to report is that the DVD drive sticks every so often probably because it comes out vertically.
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Conclusion
Quick recap on the left over parts:
K9N SLI Motherboard
4GB RAM @ 800MHz
XFX Geforce 8500 GT
Barebones Dell Poweredge T105 Server
Athlon X2 5200+
As you can see I have a barebones server to sell and a almost a full desktop, so what I decided to do was to buy a cheap: case bundled with a power supply, DVD R/W and a hardrive speculate to accumulate and all that. I managed to build the rig using the new case in under 1\2 an hour which is a record for me.
Firstly this is what I had to spend on the case and harddrive:
Western Digital WD1600JS 160GB SATA hard drive £24.98
ALIEN STYLE GREEN ATX CASE WITH 450 WATT PSU £20
LG DVD R/W £12.50
Secondly this is what I managed to get on ebay for my newly built PC and barebones server:
Dell PowerEdge T105 Server – BAREBONES ONLY £59.52
AMD Dual Core 5200+ 4GB RAM GeForce 8500GT PC Bargain £172
Conclusion
Total expenditure to date: £597.17
Profit from selling redundant parts: £174.04
Actual cost of new rig: £423.13
So as you can see my rig cost me a little over £400. However I have the added bonus that it is built to spec for exactly what I want to do namely Visual Studio 2008, virtualization and gaming. With the Opteron processor being designed for servers I can run three virtual servers and play Crysis with no problems at all!
In this day and age is it still worth building your own PC? I would say yes because like when you build a custom car, house or anything, if you tailor it to your own needs it will always be better. If you visit any of the overclocking forums such as http://www.overclock.net/ Those rigs at the bleeding edge using the latest parts will always outperform a PC you buy from a shop. PC ‘s from major vendors are usually mass produced as cheaply as possible and the parts need to be easy to support.
Did I save money? Yes for £379 from Dell I would of got an Inspiron 545 dual core, with integrated graphics and 2GB of RAM. To almost match my spec from Dell it would be an upgraded Inspiron 545 or an entry level XPS 430 for £599. All I would say is – if you want to save money and time know what parts you want to source up front and be prepared to spend time sourcing/testing the parts.
Good luck with building your own rig.
