$20 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-04W1431-ThinkPad-X220-i3-231...

$30 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X220-Motherboard-FR...

~4-10x Raspberry pee 3 speed, SATA, pcie, 1Gbit ethernet, battery backup. Can get them as low as $10 with one USB port broken (either mechanical or fried).

This is an interesting option. Is it possible run that bare motherboard attached to a compatible power supply and nothing else? I don't see heat sinks on the first link, or RAM, or storage on either.

1GB ddr3 sodimms are pretty much free/garbage(friends, IT at work) due to being outdated and too small for anything, or $4 on ebay including shipping if you cant be bothered to ask around.

Those were just first random links from ebay, you can get better deals if you search harder, for example EU $15 http://allegro.pl/org-sprawna-plyta-glowna-lenovo-x220-core-... whole lower case +wifi +bt +cooling, one usb mechanically broken (out of 3 sockets, 9 more usb available if you solder directly to motherboard in strategic places like camera/mpcie/fingerprint/expresscard/dock connectors). Thinkpads can boot from SD card just like raspberry pee. You boot without keyboard by shorting one pin on keyboard/dock/debug connector.

did I mention full schematic? http://plan9.stanleylieber.com/hardware/thinkpad/x220/x220.s...

mostly open source firmware is also available https://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x220

Thank you for your reply. I made some off-topic comment a couple of months ago on HN about the lack of inexpensive, full x86 compatible SBCs. This gets close to the mark, especially if I can run the bare motherboard or something close to it.

As an aside, the schematics really take me back to a moment in the late 1980s. Radio Shack sold Tandys and TRS-80s at one point, and I remember an especially thick series of binders full of the system schematics for one (or some) of the computers they sold. I was too young with no money of my own then to buy them, and now I really wish I knew what that was so I could find it on eBay. Little did I know that was the end of an era, and not something I'd see the likes of again until today.

UP seem to have a range of x86 boards for comparable prices: https://up-shop.org/4-up-boards

Depends on how cheap, the Minnowboard starts at $150

https://minnowboard.org

There seem to be better-performing x86 Windows Mini PCs available for less. Come in a proper case and with a power supply.

If you need GPIO, I see some mini or smaller ITX mobos available[1], though I don't know how painful it is to get working...

1: http://www.mini-box.com/Jetway-JNF9D-2550

Also https://www.lattepanda.com, around the same price.

I haven't used one, but some of the low-end Liva machines[1] seem viable. Or Compute Sticks of various flavors (depending on what you wanted to do with them - no GPIO on either)

1: http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_LIVA_SPEC.a...

x86 is mutually exclusive with 'well designed'. Arm slightly less so, especially v8, although GPUs are all still 'secret sauce' (except newer nvidia I read). I'd really like to switch everything from x86 to arm sooner than later.

Would you elaborate on that? I've encountered a lot of ARM (and other archs) around, while, on the contrary, x86 seems to have a pretty decent base (excluding some horribile chinese-designed tablets).

I guess they're talking about the SoC/ISA rather than the board designed around it. x86 is generally considered a rather clunky/bad ISA and often sniped by — I don't think the term is really good but can't really find a better one — ISA pedants.