I hate my computer
I really hate my computer. Somewhere between the time I built it and now, it seems to have developed a problem with the memory I put in it or the motherboard I put it in. Sometimes it just erratically bursts into flames and the fan spins at inoperable speeds. And most of the time I’m battling the dreaded BSOD which only supplies me random codes having to do with the IRQL not being less than or equal to something and memory equivalents. When researching these errors I end up with “replace your motherboard” or “replace your memory” solutions.
So what the fuck, I’m going to rebuild my computer from the ground up. I have the money to buy the majority of shit I need but I’ll buy it in pieces within the next few weeks. Let’s take a look at what I’ll be putting together, piece by piece.
A full spec list and parts list after the break.
So I figured I need a new machine. But I’m going to spend that much money on buying a pre-fab, instead I’ll just build a super-PC. Here’s what I’ll put in it:
First, is the case. You have to have a bitchin’ case to put all your shit in, so I decided to go with a classic Cooler Master Elite 330 Mid Tower. This case is every man’s fantasy. It features superior thermal solutions and easy installation. It has a black meshed front panel that forms a “succint” appearance. It’s steel chassis supports the kick ass ATX mobo that I’ll be installing with support for 4 external 5.25″ drives, 5 internal 3.5″ bays and 1 external. The I/O panel in the front takes up a 3.5″ bay and features 2 USB ports, an 2 audio ports and what looks like a 1394 but let me not open my face. It’s a steal at $39.99.
So now that we have the house for the kids to play in lets take a look at the mother of all motherboards. EVGA’s 132-CK-NF78-A1 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI mobo makes me want to wet my pants so bad. It’s rocking the nForce 780i SLI Northbridge and a bad-ass MCP Southbridge. It’s utilizing Azalia’s new audio codecs for sweet 5.1 6-channel on-board audio. It features on-board DUAL gigabit NICs for extra and intra nets and all the bandwidth I can steal. It supports the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 1066MHZ FSB 8MB processor that I’m going to jam into it. At 8GBs of memory support and Vista SP1, I’ll be golden. Cashing in at $229.99, it’s like taking candy from a baby.
I think I might have mentioned it earlier, but the brains behind this whole new monster computer will be Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6700 processor. With its lightning quick 1066 MHz FSB and 8MB of L2 Cache this processor is more than enough power for my needs. It’s bringing an OEM Heatsink and Fan that I might want to upgrade later. It’s recommended for running on this motherboard and it will fit perfectly in that 775 socket.
It’s $272.80 pricetag is easy on my pockets but killer on the competition.
Which brings us to the memory. I think OCZ is doing amazing things with RAM these days and it’s all too true about OCZ’s 4GB PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) kit. I opted not to use the SLI certified OCZ memory because of it’s price (and it’s unavailability at the moment). I went with this titanium cooler kit that’s supposed to be perfectly optimized to run memory-intense (versus Processor intense) programs. It has a great CAS latency of only 4 and clocks at 2.1V.
And it’s $115.50 price hits the spot. Perfect!
Let’s recap, we have the Case, the Motherboard, the Processor, and finally the RAM.
What’s next? The graphics power- house. I chose XFX’s GeForce 9800 GTX+ with 512MB of GDDR3. The 128 cores in the 9800 GTX+ clock in at a new high of 1836 MHz, making it one of the the fastest graphics cards in its price range. It has a max resolution output of 2560 x 1600 which will be great when I put to use the HDTV output (or buy a new monitor). It’s DirectX 10 ready and when running inside my shiny new EVGA nForce 780i motherboard with built in GPU, it will ramp up it’s processing power by 2.8 times the performance.
At $199.99, it’d almost be a shame to not throw it in. Ku-dos!
Now, I already have a hefty 300GB harddrive, but why not more? Right? I’m also planning on buying a MASSIVE internal SATA 1TB harddrive to host all my music and misc. data. I much needed upgrade from my current 160GB external SimpleTech that I got 3 years ago. It’s at a great price right now at $163.99.
Since I’m rebuilding, I thought I’d take the high road and actually BUY my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 this time. I guess the price has gone down and I’d be nice to have the little genuine sticker with the product key on the side of the computer. It’s only $168.99 with in an OEM package, so why not?
Have you been keeping tally? If you haven’t, this whole endeavour will cost me about $1191.25 and some change for shipping.
Let’s go!
