01-14-2005, 08:16 PM
Moldran,Jan 14 2005, 04:50 PM Wrote:Hmmm. As far as I know the barebone market in Germany, you won't get anything with comparable performance so very much cheaper than EUR500. OK, maybe for about EUR400, depends on where you buy. But if what I have read about the Mac Mini so far is true, such a barebone will usually be bigger and louder.
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Well, I just checked avitos.com and you'll find that you can get something close to what kandrathe posted; most come with integrated cards but you can slap a Radeon 9600 for like 50â¬. Barebones boxes seem to be unreasonably expensive here in Germany, but I bet you can beat it shopping around a bit. You do have to buy the box and the parts though, if you buy it pre-built they rip you off.
Another good place to check is http://www.preissuchmaschine.de , they have cheaper barebones boxes there, mainly because of bigger variety (I've just seen one for Athlon XP in a KT266 chipset for 120â¬, bit dated but will surely give the mini a run for its money).
As far as noise, I barely hear any other computer over the roar of the multi-fan gaming machine I use regularly anyway ;)
But the most silent thing I've had is the Celeron Packard Bell I've got running Debian, the only reason I know it's on is because of the light, it's got a big 80 mm fan for the CPU with a large heatsink going so slow you can almost read the text, and the box ventilation is a large 120 mm one. The HD is against the front metal plate so that it acts as a heatsink. I have to admit it's really well built (catched it at a saleoff at my local Saturn, apparently they had some leftover that should have gone some time ago and were almost giving it away :) ).
Quote:I consider the fact that it comes with a decent, yet very easy to use OS the real big advantage. I think for the average user, avoiding Windows is well worth EUR200 and more :)
I can't belive you're in Germany, SuSE man! ;)