rishooty wrote:I'm pretty well aware. But there's a slight contradiction in this in that there's tons of results for replacement parts. I'm also willing to give up some repairability to have a smaller form factor, if only to have it easier to fix than a laptop. Also, the power supply could technically be replaced by a picopsu. Though I'm not so sure of the picopsu's 5v rails.
[EDIT] I don't know, is the general consensus that I should try to build one myself but try to be cheaper about it? How exactly would I do that. Like what platforms are even affordable.
Once again, just wait and see what appears on Craigslist/marketplace. Your requirements are broad and (aside from the BTX thingy) eminently realistic, so something will pop up sooner or later.
* My MB choices are pretty much Socket 7, Super Socket 7, Slot 1, and Socket 370. Motherboards especially feel overpriced on ebay.
Very much so. Avoid. Apart from Craigslist & co, check vintage sites like amibay.com (global, but significant number of US sellers) and vcfed.org. There are some Deskpro EN SFFs on Amibay for EUR 30 each located in Slovenia, which even after shipping 8.5kg to the US would still be cheaper than local eBay options...
* Beige cases also seem to be expensive in general too. I guess I should just look at a cheap modern case? I only care about having it in desktop configuration or a cube form factor(micro atx). The idea is that when I move out to my new apartment in 2 months, I can have it hooked up to my tv but not stick out like a sore thumb. I'm going to use a wireless ps/2 set and a sewell hammerhead to convert it to HDMI.
* Sound cards other than the vortex or awe64 gold are pretty cheap usually.
Picked up a Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal Vortex II on probably best card) in a larger lot for EUR 15 a year ago, picked up an AWE64 Gold together with two other cards (64b PCI SCSI and NIC, neither of which I need/want) for EUR 25 last Friday. Both from the local marketplace-variant. Do I live in an ideal location? Nope, in fact for this stuff I'd really like to live in the US between NYC and Washington (i.e. not so far from where you live!) or West coast between SF and Seattle - or even in Germany. But I'm patient, watch what pops up and pounce when I see something I want for a price I'm prepared to pay, which is surprisingly often. I'd be very surprised if nothing acceptable turned up within a week or two of checking Craigslist & marketplace every evening.
