Blog - Barebone cube PC
Barebone cube PC
Lately I'm contemplating to buy a new PC. My old IBM Aptiva 850MHz has been giving signs of aging and it's getting about time to replace it.
I was thinking of just getting a new case, motherboard, CPU, graphics and audio cards, memory, etc. separately, and fitting in my current HD, DVD+RW and other stuff I can reuse, however last weekend I went to the Sofmap used store in Shinjuku and found some rather good-priced barebone PCs that seem like they may be my best option. I would then avoid choosing motherboard, graphics and audio cards, and I could still buy my CPU (there were some good prices on used ones) and memory separately.
I should be able to get away with spending only about ¥50,000 for what feels (and most importantly: speeds!) like a brand new PC.
Requirements checklist for barebone PC:
- IEEE-1394/Firewire built-in port for my iPod
- Room for 2 HDs (a third slot wouldn't hurt so that I could fit in a floppy drive, but I don't even own a floppy disk so this isn't a requirement)
Other stuff I need to buy:
- Used CPU 2GHz+ (probably Celeron since I don't care so much for speed)
- Memory 512MB (or more if I find a good deal)
Now I'm not so much into buying used CPUs, but they have a one month warranty and prices are considerably lower. Also I believe that if it's not already broken, it's not more likely to break than one out of the box.
Some barebones at Sofmap (pictured is the MSI Mega 400, about ¥25,000)
Barebone rankings at Kakaku.com
Posted on July 29, 2004 at 11:17 | Tweet
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New computer!
Following my impulse of the last week or so, yesterday I went and bought a new PC! After having checked...
October 27, 2006 at 11:41
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Don't buy msi, I started fixing computers recently for a local computer shop, they used to sell msi stuff, and the amount of it that i see come back is distubring. The majority of time the blow capacitors on them. Seems they have a tendency to do that more than more motherboards. Grated they have a good feature-set for the price.. they don't have a very good lifespan.
Posted by rumael on July 29, 2004 at 12:28
Thanks for the good advice! I will avoid MSI. :)
If you have any specific brand to recommend I'd be grateful! I'm mostly looking into lower-end/cheap ones. I do no gaming so I don't care much about graphics.
Posted by Patrick on July 29, 2004 at 13:05
Antec's Aria case is cube in shape, but takes uATX motherboards, which opens up one's options a lot (like you could actually get a motherboard with 3 PCI slots and an AGP slot).
Now is an odd time to buy, on the one hand you have Athlon64's which is where the market is heading (esp. since Intel adopted the extended 64bit instruction set). On the other hand, you have PCI-Express buses. Put the two together, and you have pretty much the biggest jump in the PC in over 10 years some would argue. Problem is, PCI-Express systems exist in SFF (small form factor, ie cube) systems, and amd64 systems exist in SFF systems (heck, iWill is coming out with a dual Opteron), but currently there are no x86-64 motherboards with PCI-Express. Give it another few months and there should be. Hopefully someone will release a uATX motherboard, and you'll be all set for a good number of years, with room for expansion, while still keeping it small (something very important in .jp).
If you have to buy now, ask yourself why you can't wait another few months, and if you still do - it's hard to say whether pci-express or 64bit will add more to the longevity of your system, probably pci-express, but you never know.
Posted by grey on July 30, 2004 at 09:45
Thanks for all the details!
Yesterday I went and bought a AOpen XC Cube EX65 (Sporty). AOpen is a Taiwan brand which seems to be popular in Japan, according to reviews at kakaku.com.
It seemed like good quality/price and fits my requirements.
AOpen XC Cube EX65
http://solution.aopen.com.tw/products/XC/EX65/en/
Specs
http://solution.aopen.com.tw/products/XC/EX65/en/specs/EX65.htm
The reason why I couldn't wait a few more months is that I already have, since my screen started flickering due to some problem with the previous motherboard (which has graphics embedded, so I couldn't simply replace the graphics card).
I figured I'd rather switch now than wait any longer, for my own sake. :)
Posted by Patrick on July 30, 2004 at 10:41
what does your cube look like? we used to have a cube computer here, but peter got rid of it for some reason(he's always changing and updating computer equipment around here). but when he's asked to build a pc for people he often gets one of those, depending on the person's needs.
Posted by william on July 30, 2004 at 11:08
I like the PC so much thank you for sharing such a amazing product.
Posted by Martina on August 20, 2008 at 21:12