iCost-A-Lot

My roommate is an Apple fan and I fully understand why. Apple products are excellent. Great engineering, programming, and design go into each one. However, they're ludicrously expensive.

He recently made fun of me for being a fan of AMD processors. I said I'm a fan because, well, they're usually $100 cheaper than the Intel equivalent. I'd much rather spend that $100 on a good graphics card, power supply, case or whatever.

So as a challenge to myself, I'm going to build a computer that is equivalent to (or better than) the iMac.

Now in order to do this, I'm going to take a standard iMac build. So, let's say one that's only $1199 (21") instead of the more expensive one. Here are the specs on the cheapest one (without adding anything):

- 2.5GHz quad-core i5 with 6MB L3 cache
- 4GB 1333MHz DDR3
- 500 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
- AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics card with 512 MB GDDR5
- HD Webcam and microphone
- Speakers
- 4 USB ports, FireWire 900 port, gigabit ethernet
- (I'm excluding thunderbolt port, that's an apple exclusive as far as I know).
- SDXC card slot
- 8x SuperDrive (DvD+-RW)
- Wireless keyboard and mouse
- Wifi and Bluetooth
- 21" monitor

Out of everything here, I think the peripherals are going to be what drives up the price of the build (webcam, mic, keyboard, etc). I'll try my best to match all of them, but it may be too difficult. If I can't, I'll make up for it in hardware.

Alright, let's get started. First, the motherboard.

Since we're going to be using an i5, it'll have to be an Intel motherboard. This makes finding a cheap, good board harder because, well, Intel isn't cheap. But let's look.

The processor we're using needs a LGA 1155 socket. Here is one I found by Asus:

i5 2.5GHz Quad Core | Cost: $200
Asus Sabertooth P67 | Cost: $219

It has 8 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports. I figured more USB ports would make up for the lack of a FireWire port. I know, not the same, but it's just a port. You can buy an expension card.

Unfortunately, I'm at work and can't review the supported memory list, so I'll be picking memory blindly. I'll check later when I'm off work (read: I probably won't check later). So without looking at a supported memory list, it's an easy decision.

G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz
Cost: $36.99

Excellent. RAM, Processor, and Memory done. All for under $500. So far so good. Now for the graphics card. I'm going to go with a brand I know makes good cards:

GIGABYTE Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR5 GV-R6750C-1GI
Cost: $119.99

I could not find a Radeon HD 6750 that only had 512MB memory, so I went with 1GB. All of the Radeons in that series on newegg had 1GB. So better graphics! Next, let's tackle the hard drive, power supply, DVD drive, and monitor.

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7200 RPM | Cost: $49.99

Hard drives are easy. WD is a good brand. Let's move on.

I don't know the wattage of the power supply on an iMac, so I'm going to go with a 550W power supply. Should be good enough for everything we need.

Antec BP550 Plus | Cost: $79.99

So far, we're at roughly $700. We're only missing a Case, Monitor, DVD drive, and the peripherals. I feel like peripherals may put me close to the price or over. Hopefully they won't.

HANNspree by Hanns-G HF225DPB 21.5" Monitor w/ Speakers
Cost: $119.99

That cost may be a sale price. But this is newegg, more than half of these parts may be on sale when you would normally buy them, so whatever. All of the monitors I saw had a "was: $$$" thing, so let's just stick with it.

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Cost: $59.95

I figure a case that matches the power supply is better and can reduce hassel.

Asus 24x DVD Burner | Cost: $20.99

DVD Burners are cheap and most are the same speed. I'm not entirely sure if this is faster than the iMac one or not, so I'm just going to assume they are the same for now. I'll look into it later (read: After work).

So far, we're at somewhere around $900. So in all honesty, I don't think you'll save much by building your own. You can, and from the looks of things you'll save about $100. I say this because I still haven't added Wifi, keyboard and mouse, and webcam and microphone. Since we're so close to the end price, I'm going to stop here. Most of what needs to be added will be under $100 total, depending on quality.

The most expensive parts of this build are the Intel components. If you were to use AMD components, You'd save another $200, and could get a bit more power. I have a Phenom II Quad core 3.2GHz (overclocks to ~3.8GHz) processor that cost $119. I could have definitely gone cheaper on the motherboard, but I find that cheap motherboards fail more often.

So in all, you'll be safer going with an iMac. Less hassel, and if money isn't an issue. But where's the fun in that?

You will probably never see me in an Apple Store. I even own an iPod Touch and I'll still probably never set foot in one (unless it breaks, then maybe). I'm not against Apple products. They make good stuff, I just prefer having more control over what I'm getting and when I can do with it. My systems usually have Linux on them too (Unless I need it for gaming, then it's dual-booted with Windows 7). I'm also completely unfamiliar with Mac OS. So that's another preference.

I'll edit this post for corrections later.

That was fun. Hope you enjoyed the peak into the iMac as much as I have.

~Rob