My new computer
Well, first of all, happy new year to all readers :) As some of you may know my current computer is an old Dell Inspiron 8600c laptop. It works great but it's starting to fail quite often (the battery hangs the PC, the hard drive died one month ago,...) and even after upgrading it from 512MB to 2GB RAM the graphic card (and ATI 9600) and the CPU (Centrino 1.7MHz) are starting to feel too old.
So I decided to get a new computer for myself. I bought the Inspiron four years ago because I was studying and I needed mobility but this time I wanted a computer that I would use only when I was at home, so I went for a normal PC. I wanted to save some money buying all the parts and then assembling the PC myself (with help) but as I was quite newbie in hardware subjects I had to spend nearly one month reading Tomshardware and asking questions in hardware forums to decide what to buy. I had also to check availability in Spain and the suppliers I was going to use. The uses for the PC would be mostly to work on Jade and to play so I went for a high-end machine (well, as high-end as I could afford).
This is what I got in the end:
- Case: Coolermaster Stacker STC-T01. Not the prettiest case in the world but I don't care much about that and it's very big and affordable.
- Powersupply: Seasonic 700HM Active PFC. I was told this would be more than enough to handle all the
computer power needs and that it was a good powersupply.
- Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E. I wanted to go dual 8800 cards so I had to choose a 680i motherboard. The Asus Striker Extreme doesn't have many more bells and whistles than this one so I settled for the P5N32-E.
- CPU: Intel Q6600. One of my main interests with the new PC will be to test threaded applications and libraries, so I decided to go for this quad-core CPU. Also it has quite good overcloking potential (G0 stepping). The CPU will have also a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme with a Scythe 120mm fan.
- RAM: 2x 2GB G.Skill 6400 4-4-4-12 modules. I was pretty lost in what RAM to use and I got these ones recommended. They seemed a solid choice, so I got them.
- Hard Drives: 2x WD2500YS in RAID 0 for SO and applications and 1x WD5000AAKS for data. Western Digital has a good reputation in hard drives and I didn't see such a big performance increase using a Raptor hard disk as main (and I couldn't afford two Raptors in RAID 0).
- Graphic Cards: 2x Asus 8800GT 512MB. I had to wait for ages for these cards, they are sold out in most of Spain :( Each one will get also a Thermalright HR-03 GT and a 90mm fan from Akasa.
- Sound Card: SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro. Probably I should have got the cheaper XtremeGamer (not Fatal1ty) but well...
- Speakers: Creative Inspire T6100. I wanted to get a 7.1 system from Creative or Logitech but I decided to get the 5.1 system because I doubted I could place 7 speakers on my small room (I doubt I will be able to place 5, but I have to try :p).
- Keyboard: Logitech G15. Very nice gaming keyboard. I'm thinking if buying a cheaper keyboard to code, but I think I'll try the G15 first.
- Mouse: Logitech G9. A gaming mouse, very sweet thing (I have used it a little and it works great).
- Screen: BenQ FP241WZ. In my Dell I have a 1920x1200 resolution so I wanted a TFT that supported at least the same resolution so I got this 24" BenQ that has quite good reviews.
- Extra things: a DVD writer unit, a normal DVD and a floppy + card reader unit.
That's all :) The rig is not assembled yet (I'll do it next week with the help of some workmates) but I'm pretty happy with it. I have tried the mouse and the screen and they are working flawlessly. The BenQ impressed me specially because I'm used to the 15" screen of my laptop and it's a very big change :)
I must admit I had (and continue to have) some doubts about the choices, but nothing I can do about it now. I thought a lot about going ATI instead of NVidia: choosing two 3870 cards, a X38 motherboard and DDR3 RAM but in the end I went with the 8800GT. I hope I did right although probably at 1920x1200 I won't notice many differences.
And that's it, I hope I'll have it working perfectly next week so I can shelve once for all my laptop (I'll keep using it for lectures, but not at home anymore :)