10:00 AM
Paul Bauer
A few weeks ago my dentist had two old Windows XP desktops crap out on him. Normally I would have recommended that he go to Dell and purchase some new desktop PC's and call it a day. Well, most OEM desktops come with support for only Windows 7 or Windows 8, and finding drivers for Windows XP is a pain in the ass.
Since he is running a Windows 2003 domain, and refuses to pay the money to upgrade to a Windows 2008R2 domain, Windows XP is still the OS of choice for all of his office PC's. That's where custom builds come in, and that's what I did for him. I built him two awesome desktop computers to run Windows XP.
Well since I wouldn't recommend running Windows XP to you, I would certainly recommend building one of these awesome PC's for use with Linux. Since you can pretty much run Linux off of an old soda can and a battery, these things will scream if you put Bauer-Puntu or your favorite distro on it!
Here's the list of parts you will need:
- Cooler Master Elite 361 Case
- Gigabyte Intel H77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX Mother Board
- 8GB RAM Kit
- Intel I3 Processor (Socket 1155)
- DVD Burner
- Case Fan
- 500GB 7200RPM SATA Drive
The case doesn't have a lot of frills, but it's very well made, and fairly small so it doesn't take up a lot of room. Also, the power supply is in the front of the case which is interesting, and saves space when you are installing the mother board.
The most expensive parts in this list are the processor and the mother board which is to be expected, but since I opted for the Intel I3 instead of the I7 I saved my dentist a few hundred dollars, and still gave him plenty of performance to run Windows XP. That will also be plenty of performance for most Linux installs as well.
All in all, for a little over $400 you can't go wrong here, especially for a Linux system.
