Building A Cheap Intel Skylake System For Linux Use

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Building A Cheap Intel Skylake System For Linux Use

Here are a few parts recommendations I have if you are looking to build a low-cost Intel Skylake system while achieving decent performance on Linux this holiday season.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=22518

[schmidtbag]

At first I was like "500W is overkill for that system" but for the price you paid and for the quality of the product it seems like a good choice. Too bad those PSUs are only 80+ and not silver, gold, or platinum rated. Michael - considering how many of these PCs you have, I wonder how much your electric bill would drop if you went with gold-rated PSUs. You may have to pay more for the more efficient models but in the long run it could save you money.

[bug77]

I second 500W being too much for this system. You can probably shave a few bucks on the PSU without getting some crappy no-name. Packing it all in a nice mATX case can shave some additional pennies.
Also, does AMD have anything within the same price and performance bracket? They used to, but I've lost track a long time ago.

[Passso]

Also, does AMD have anything within the same price and performance bracket? They used to, but I've lost track a long time ago.

If you value multi-core AMD is a good choice yes. They have fairly good 4 core procs for 80$ (without APU).
But if you prefer faster dual core and low power consumption, Intel is unbeatable nowadays.

[tigerroast]

Could you circumvent the blobbed-up Skylake sound with a mothership's on-board sound chip?

[dungeon]

Also, does AMD have anything within the same price and performance bracket? They used to, but I've lost track a long time ago.

Yeah some with A88x Chipset paired with Athlon 860k CPU + some card of course. If you prefer just APUs (no card) then same mobo do a job, fastest FM2+ combo should be APU A10-7870K paired with 2x2400 MHz and happy overclocking Thats for the black....

With AMD it come down to APUs in black and white boxes If you prefer to do overclocking got black box APU, if you prefer power conservation with cTDP pick white one (like A10-7800, A8-7600, etc...)