Robin Hoods Playground

I was going to build a captastic, low-power consuming desktop for ubuntu but even when I add up the cost of the cheapest components, I could still just go to Best Buy and get something better for less....and these include the OS expenses...what gives?

$37 Sempron all the way, $45 mobo, $30 opt drive, $10 internal card reader bay, $40 case & power supply, $20 ram...scrounge a HD. I mean that sucks but it'd be fine for ubuntu. Then I go to 'Computer site USA' websites for shits n giggles and they've got dual core processor systems w/monitors and printers for $300

And the 'egg wants $30 s/h...

It's not like the good old days when building and oc'ing could save you tons and tons. Although, you could save a lot if you were building a massive rig...as for some reason those are rediculously overpriced at places like best buy when you do simple math on the components being used.

cheap labor man

that all there is to that.

It's true that OEM PC's are getting pretty good for cheap, but if you want a system that is highly OCable, customizable, and future proof, you still have to build it yourself.

UPDATE: Ok so I figured another route to go, total cost estimated ~ $125

The build will essentially be a mobo, cpu and power supply/case...thats it. The OS will be combined with the hdd via a 4gb flash drive. I've used it before and it runs remarkably stable booting and using Ubuntu off of a memory stick. So now it's a mobile, keychain-computer with drive encryption in case I lose it.

What's pretty sweet is that when I boot off the stick, all my other HDDs on my big ass computer show up and are navigable, video streams at appropriate speeds w/sound synched fine. Plus the OS comes pre-installed with office/gimp and firefox (vlc through a quick install)...i mean really, what more is there?

I COULD theoretically use a pico-itx mobo and use it as a macbook air, all i would need is to buy a proprietary optical drive to lug around

I love these pico boards, they're just considerably pricier than micro atx
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yea man
that sounds cool