Some research into the pricing shown below indicates the use of loss leader marketing by Intel in an attempt to buy some mobile market share.
Intel has been caught out at it though and is currently getting down rated to SELL status by Wall Street as it may be seen as proof that Bay Trail is NOT EVER going to be cost competitive in the mobile marketplace. Here are two new bare board contestants and
what it would take to get them Ubuntu 12.10 ready.First contender, the mighty INTEL Bay Trail board by MSI.
MSI J1800i is a Bay Trail board and CPU combo for just $60]
once again, we are shocked at the amount of other chipsets, capacitors and components that a Bay Trail processor requires in order just to function at all.
Bay Trail is really not integrated much at all, actually.The j1800i is very similar to the ECS BAT-I. It features a 64-bit dual-core chip clocked at 2.41Ghz, and only a small aluminum heatsink is required for cooling. With a TDP of just 10W, the Celeron J1800 isn’t going to throw a whole lot of heat. Flanking the CPU on MSI’s new mini board are dual DIMM slots that can accommodate a maximum of 8GB of DDR3 RAM.
You’re limited to two SATA ports for storage, as it doesn’t look like MSI has included an mSATA socket on the j1800i. You’ve got plenty of display options, though, with VGA, DVI, and HDMI all at the ready. Legacy PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports are also provided, as are a pair of USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and a gigabit Ethernet port (sorry, no dual NICs here).
While the MSI j1800i is priced very reasonably at $60, and even after you add in a case and power supply you’re still only around $110. That’s quite a bit cheaper than Intel’s Celeron-based NUC. Add $75 to max out the RAM and pop in your drive, and you’ve got yourself a complete mini-desktop or HTPC for around $250.So, the hook it up and run it price is really about $250 which goes past a lot of large tablets out there right now with better processors.The $250 Bay Trail is the very poorest one of the 3 low cost units compared in this low cost Ubuntu machine review.=====================
Next contestant, the $59 ARM based Odroid U3
$59 ODROID-U3 Community Edition http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138733896281&ta...KEY FEATURES
* The Powerful Linux Computer
* 1.7GHz Quad-Core processor and 2GByte RAM
* 10/100Mbps Ethernet with RJ-45 LAN Jack
* 3 x High speed USB2.0 Host ports
* Audio codec with headphone jack on board
* XUbuntu 13.10 or Android 4.x Operating System
* Size : 83 x 48 mm, Weight : 48g including heat sink
* Package includes the main board and the heat sink
This pupper really needs only a moderate sized SIMM card added to it for storage, or you can spring $40-$60 more to get some 2x faster EEMC storage if you like the quicker effect. Net cost after shipping and SIMM storage would be circa $110.
This 3rd generation unit comes ready to run, and it does OK for Ubuntu 12.10 and other FOSS software uses.
Gaming looks like this:
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Last unit to compare is the current reigning champion of low cost computing, the Dell 780 or Dell 790 coming off 4 year lease at Dell's Auction site or from one of the Ebay based large off-lease resellers. Coming to you with a dual core 3.0 ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 80+ gig hard drive, with a Windows OS for dual booting, 4 gigs of systems memory and a huge 6 megabytes per processor core L2 cache
(big enough to hold Ubuntu whatever version totally sitting right there in the processor cache)
Landed cost with shipping (Black Friday Special) is $80 total, which is an unbeatable value so far.
Additional cost for some really good gaming will be a better grade of video card, which is found here.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202002#topSo, full cost of the totally completed, finished, full gaming PC, ready for Steam or whatever major games would be $220.
Winner for "Just Use Ubuntu & FOSS programs" is Dell Refurb
Winner for gaming is Dell Refurb
Winner for the best "bang for buck" is still the Dell Refurb#2 place goes to Odroid U3 which is everyday available for less than $130 (fully loaded with deluxe options) and it certainly can run your FOSS stuff in acceptable manner at that price.
#3 last place goes to Bay Trail -- it costs too much as it requires a lot of extra purchases, takes way way too much extra stuff to get it running and it is slower than the Dell Refurb unit by quite a bit when it is completed.