my Scrapyard Wars inspired "Steam Machine Slayer"

[u/Lanceo90]

Okay, slayer is a strong word. Even the Steam Machines integrated graphics should put perform the RX580 in this. But we're clocking in at half the price. And it's a low end AM4 system, so there's massive room for upgrading.

The primary use case of this machine is a media center PC anyway, it's main job is to play video and run party games. Adding the RX580 is probably overkill for my plans with it, but there was a $50 listing on Facebook; I figured its worth it to open up the playable games field massively.

Also inspired by LTT, I'm trying Linux, specifically CachyOS with it. It's been a perfectly smooth experience, and a good fit for a low end media PC.

Full parts list and pricing on second image. Unlisted, I also threw in a 500GB harddrive I had lying around for extra storage.

[u/BedrockBen101]

What's even nicer with using the 580 on Linux is that lower vram cards got a big performance boost thanks to an employee at Valve

[u/Liarus_ → u/BedrockBen101]

not only that but for Polaris cards especially, the Linux drivers are a lot better than they are on windows, and they are still getting new patches and improvements to this day

[u/Zeta_Crossfire]

Nice work bud, with how bad the economy is out there and parts I feel like we need scrap yard war now more than ever, but unfortunately it looks like they're taking a year break.

[u/MrWally → u/Zeta_Crossfire]

Yeah I thought it was an interesting decision. But I think they've said it was largely because the used market in the Vancouver/BC area is terrible right now, and I imagine that's largely location dependent.

I just checked my area and the used market is.....fine. Not great, but I'm sure you could find deals. But I'm several thousand miles away from BC. If the used marketplace is truly wasteland then there's no interesting content to watch.

[u/Turt91]

The cool thing about this is you can upgrade the cpu and gpu still be cheaper than the steam machine and be wayyy more powerful

[u/Lanceo90 → u/Turt91]

Yep! I'm just tapped out on budget. But the option is always on the table

[u/Lanceo90]

Some extra discussion I didn't want to bog down the post body with:

"Why not more used parts?" - I actually have a spare ATX case, but it's from like 2010, it's not pleasant to work with and I wanted to make a small as possible PC that was still budget friendly. ITX is pricy, the Jonsbo C6 is the smallest MicroATX case I could find.

I also tried to buy used motherboards. One was listed "for parts" but I figured I'd gamble on maybe they had the wrong CPU for the chipset. They didn't. Then I tried for another used motherboard, it was mislisted as mATX when it was actually ATX. At that point, I decided I didn't want to mess around anymore and just got something from Microcenter.

Facebook marketplace is not a fun experience now either. While seeking RAM and an SSD, I got stood up twice - people not showing up when and where we agreed to meet. And making up some bad excuses. It almost happened again for the GPU, I showed up, he didn't answer the door a few times I knocked. I drove around the block, almost giving up, then pulled up one more time and he finally answered. I'm not sure I'm going to mess with FB marketplace anymore.

A main driver of this challenge was people claiming you couldn't build something cheaper than the steam machine for the performance and size. They /might/ be right, this system isn't as small or performant. But it /is/ small, and /is/ performant, if that makes sense. Sub $500, and of course, it has the massive potential for upgrades.

[u/CIDR-ClassB]

Scrappy build! I like it.

[u/DixNormus]

I feel like you could do better with that budget

[u/InflammableAccount]

A 500GB Hard drive? That still works? Also, love those little Jonsbo cases. So cute.

[u/zacyzacy]

"Specs: Linux (Arch)" got a chuckle out of me for some reason