[Build Log] Mini-ITX PC - Middle School

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Can't stand that jerk or his videos. His following sucks too. A bunch of whiny children. I made an account on the forums over there and within 10 minutes I was being flamed for being a MOD over here and people were saying all kinds of unkind things. Including the mods and respected members. Terrible place with terrible people. I also noticed about 25% of the people don't actually own the parts they claim to own.
 


One person I talked to had a big fancy rig in their sig block and when I asked about it they said "oh this is what I want to build. Even though is clearly says MY BUILD in the sig.

Others claim to have builds and post about them in the "post your build thread", but then claim to have no camera or a broken camera. Then cannot even manage to answer simple questions about them or even answer them correctly. An example would be someone who posted a build with an r9 290x in it claiming it as theirs and that they use it for CUDA based applications. When someone said AMD cards don't have CUDA, NVIDIA cards do, they quickly said "oh yeah I meant gtx980". Clearly lying about having anything at all.

Just a miserable place to be honest. I only met one or two decently friendly people during my short time there.
 
General OT. This is what happens when I'm busy and can't work in the computer. We will be back to our normal programming as soon as possible.

In case you missed it, my MineCraft Machine proposal was rejected because of local competition offering a much better quad core, multi-monitor support, OS included, modern games computer. I need to market and price my course knowing that.
 


Did miss it 😀

Pfft, they must have used a subpar FM socket based AMD CPU/APU to get the price so low, a shame that that platform performs ABYSMALLY on Minecraft.
 
DonkeyOatie. Did you post a link to the competition or a spec list anywhere. I would be very suspicious of its quality if it can do all that and be cheaper than the MC pc you had speced up.
 
indeed, we didnt have a link of the full specs. but from what I saw your said it's some build that' sbeen "rated" by someone who doesnt know the 1st thing about the new hardware.
1080p and 3 screens, that alone doesnt make any sense.
 
What I said was:

One of the admin. up the line has given me a flyer from another institution, about 20 miles away. They already have a course. It offers:

Modern Quad core processor with overclocking.
8 Gigabytes of memory
1000 Gigabytes of storage
Powerful 450 watt power supply.
Case and motherboard
Operating system
Modern dedicated graphics processor.
Play - the latest games
- on three monitors at once (picture of three monitors with Battlefield ?? spread across three)
- 1080p
- 60+ FPS

Must provide own monitor and keyboard.

I never said that is was cheaper. With all that, I expect it to be a lot more expensive. However, the specs Quad core vs my Dual core, overclocking vs locked, OS vs no OS, runs latest games on 3 monitors, 60FPS, and 1080p, and dedicated GPU when I'm using an iGPU in an i3, may reduce my customers and the school's costs/exposure if I don't get enough people to cover the costs.

No cheap and cruddy AMD system is going to be able to do all that, right?

Back to the computer system. I improved the cable management and put the system back in its case. It works!!!! I have no clue what I did, but it didn't work the first times. Now all I have to do is get the OS on it.
 
Just got onto this thread, enjoyed skimming through the highlights of your progress.
What I would suggest to save money both for the students building PCs and you yourself marketing it to their parents would be purchasing the OS through the Microsoft Store where schools (of any level ) can get discounts on the computers themselves as well as the OS. So the students could purchase Windows 8.1 Pro (the only OS sold in the education store) and put that on for $50-60 US. Otherwise you as a teacher could purchase the OS for them on a trial run per year, but keep in mind each user (teacher/ student id) is limited to 6 OS purchases per year.

I did read other suggestions about using school volume licenses, piracy, or reuse of older licenses, but you might as well offer the latest OS if you can since it supports Direct X 11.2 and is the way to go until Windows 10 which may end up being cheap/free if you have Windows 8.1. Additionally piracy isn't exactly something that parents might like, and using volume licenses probably violates the school/district TOC with Microsoft.

Wow do I wish this was available when I was in middle school, instead of the joke of a electronics class we did have.
 


Don't worry. PIRACY is a total non-option! This site is totally opposed, I'm totally opposed, and the school is totally opposed. One of the parents at school works for Microsoft, so we are looking at the options. Part of the problem is that the school is on Windows 7.

Thanks for the input and welcome to the swamp.

 
My guess would be the Quad core is the athlon X4.

Your i3 system would whip it :)

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i3-4130-vs-AMD-Athlon-X4-760K

The X4 will overclock well, where as your I3 is unable to OC above pushing the BLK a bit higher.

If they are running a "Powerful 450W" power supply they really they cant be running a decent gfx card that could drive gaming over 3X monitors. You would need at minimum a 650W to power the high end graphics setup needed.

It seems to be a bit smoke and mirrors and it really annoys me that this might put yours to a halt!
 


This system in this log has a 450W PSU and can run a GTX970. I think that would run 1080p, three monitors, and 60 FPS, although probably not all at the same time. If I can do it, they can do it.
 
The flyer is with the admin at school. I can probably get a copy, but it's pretty sparse. Some 'build a computer' blurb, the text I quoted, and some contact information.

There is zero information about the system and I have to live here. I plan to compete with them and I need to be very careful how I handle this. I have a whole bunch of 'on-line behavior' rules I have to follow and I'm getting uncomfortable where this might be going. This could cost me my job if things go badly.

I can try to find out the cost/tuition so we have information as opposed to speculation.
 
Certainly I would include 0% of the contact info, that seems daft, if thats what it says, thats what it says, it is just a shame it doesn't include any identifying features.

A 970 gets an average of 29fps in Wolfenstein over 3 monitors, it is higher than I expected I must admit! 20fps on tomb raider etc etc. It isnt what most would consider to be playable.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/19.html Has 5760X1080 benchmarks which is tri 1080p

A 970 is much more powerful than I had realised and likely could run tri BF3 with ease. Infact they bench that as well and it brings in 43fps. Respectable really considereing the real estate it has to render on!

This would be well beyond your budget though, and we could definatly compete once you know what they are charging, would you like us to spec something up that could compete?
 
Thanks for the offer, but no. My MineCraft Machine CAN 'compete' because I can easily upgrade to a Quad core i5 and add a discrete GPU (although I don't want to because it will either be too weak for some uses and need to be replaced, or too powerful for other uses and be cost-inefficient)

The help I was looking for was in hypothetical design of their system. What is the cheapest, best, system that can do what they say they can do?

I know I have added to the cost of my system a little by choosing the H97 motherboard, H81s are cheaper, and I might even have been able to use a LGA1155 configuration to get even cheaper. but I wanted the possibility of Broadwell support. Just how cheap could they go with AMD? One of AMD's strengths is in this area of the market.

I have also xhosen a both better and more powerful power supply to be able to run a top of the like GPU. I know that this is an area where corners can be cut easily, even though I refuse to do it myself.

I spent more than two decades running a computer software and services company. I know how to position my course to compete, either as less expensive, more flexible more robust, greater growth potential... Where-ever my advantage is, I will promote it.

It's clear I need more information.
 
isnt an i3 a dual core that's hyperthreaded? so basicly a quad core...
so when they say, hmm you have a dual core and they have a quad core. you say. my dual core functions as a quad core so it's better than their quad core. in a very polite way ofcourse.

and what I said about the flyer, or a full list of specs. we could actually compâre the price and performance and we could have written a little something about it to show the "department".
I think multiple oppinions from nerds and geeks on tomshardware would mean something no?

my guess is that the system also cheaped out on a PSU, so it wont be running a gtx 970 very well (it's not about the wattage, it's about the amps each rail can take)
 
I would not assume they cheaped out on the PSU. A Rosewill Capstone 450 is a VERY good quality and always on sale for cheap unit. People run gtx970s, 770s, 780s, 980s, 280xs, etc. on them without any issue.

When they say "powerful 450w unit" they mean it and are not lying, more than likely. There are plenty of junk 450w units which can't even produce 450w. There are also 450w units like the Capstone that make 37a on the 12v rail. Fact of it is, although it is labeled as a 450w unit, it can easily make 550w while remaining in full ATX GOLD spec. I would run my CF HD7850s on a capstone 450 without worry.

Point I am making is, you cannot just flame them for saying "powerful 450w PSU" because there is a good chance they are not lying and they really are using a VERY powerful 450w PSU.

Don't hate without even knowing all the info.
 
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