In the beginning, there was a very old machine, 1 core at 2.6GHz and a dying SATA II Harddrive.
My grandmother decided to get into computers (basic office stuff), wich is too much for that old greybeard. Next problem is, one front USB at carpet hight. Not a problem when in your 20s, but when you are beyond 80, not good.
The Goal
Fast(er) cheap machine that does office/light web browsing, boots within a day that is not on the floor.
Parts list:
| Part | Price | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Athlon 200GE | 50€ | Cheapest CPU that does not require a GPU and isn´t prehistoric |
| ASRock A320M Pro4 | 60€ | Mainboard has VGA and supports VegaAPUs |
| G.Skill Value 8GB 2666 | 45€ | was cheap and 8GB |
| WD Green 240GB M.2 | 35€ | |
| SeaSonic S12ii 520W | 50 € | No kill like overkill |
| LG GH24NSD1 | 12€ | Generic no thrills DVD drive, just in case |
| Silverstone ML03 | 87€ | Desktop case, a sexy one at that |
Total: 340€
Building it
Now to the why you all are here, the build log!
Parts overview: taken after the build was complete because I forgot
Star of the show:
What a sexy little CPU. Cheap, rather quick and has integrated graphics.
And the house for it all:
Silverstone ML03, an entry level HTPC case. Accepts mATX, 4 half-hight expansion slots and one single slot full hight slot (accesible via PCIe riser, not included). Front is plastic, has an insteresting look to it. Rest is steel.
Ventilation is awesome, despite the closed front. The whole right hand side is open, the front is open and the PSU has its own filtered intake.
Accesories of the ML03:
140mm magnetic dustfilter, front panel USB3.0 to USB2.0 adapter, cable clamp ring, 4 rubber dampers for HDD mounting, the usuall screws and reuseable cable ties (I like them a lot more than velcro straps).
Instruction manual is very well made and helps a lot.
Populated mainboard:
RAM in place, CPU in place, cooler on top.
The position of the M.2 was wrong, should have been the slot on the bottom right… RTFM I guess. FYI: Installing an M.2 in the lower right slot will deactivate Sata port 3.
To get to the next image, 4 screws to be removed:
PSU and board in the case. One of the cable ties is ready to take on cables.
I did it! Fucking cables! Stuffed them under the support for the optical drive. With a modular PSU, connecting the SATA cable for the drive would have been impossible.
Needed two reuseable ties and one zip tie to achieve this:
Finished machine:
Installed Win10, Thunderbird and OpenOffice as requested.
Cinebench score of this 200GE with everything stock on 2666MHz RAM: 334
