[geeks] Wow, PCs are cheap...

[Nadine Miller]

On Aug 28, 2008, at 9:42 AM, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 07:57:03AM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> Just a quick follow-up: The Vostro 200 I ordered arrived yesterday,  
>> looks
>> and runs great. I decided to load Vista Ultimate (give my father in- 
>> law a
>> bit of eye-candy) and will load Office 2007 as well.
>
> Speaking of, I just built a system around the Intel Atom mini-itx
> motherboard (although it's in a cheap MicroATX case).  So far, I've  
> been
> able to put the OSx86 stuff onto it without problem.
>
> Pictures and details later.

Cool, Bill, looking forward to your report on the process.

Further investigation of the Foxconn mobo at insanelymac revealed some  
unresolved issues.  So I'm still guessing that building something from  
scratch is the path I'll take when I get some funds together.

So far my investigations have given me this short list:

AsRock Wolfdale1333-D667
Asus P5GC-MX 1333
GIGABYTE GA-945GM-XX (though there are reports of CPU issues vis-a-vis  
enabling both cores on some models)
Foxconn P9657AB-8EKRS2H (some folks have reported a fast system clock  
which appears to be a bus speed issue)
ASUS P5L-MX
ASUS P5B-MX (reported that on-board video doesn't work so need a  
secondary card)
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4
Intel DG31PR (must add video card to get CI/QE)

I've removed the ECS board from consideration for two reasons: a)  
reports by friends on very early failures with ECS boards and failure  
of the company to make good on warranty claims, and b) number of  
returned, re-shrink-wrapped ECS boxes at Fry's.

Key decisions points for me are price point, vanilla kernel support  
(this allows you to use a retail OS X install DVD, though you have to  
"install twice" to get it, iirc), 4GB RAM support, on-board video, and  
support for 45nm CPUs.

=Nadine=