Ok whatever, so I built up a new computer. Took me forever since I attempted to only buy one or two parts per paycheck but it was worth it. Not really sure why I decided to build again instead of just buying one of them nice Dell XPS gamers. Contrary to popular belief, it's not cheaper and if you're an idiot it could be slower than an refurb'd Packard Bell. Luckily I'm not an idoit and I am totally stoked on this particular combo.
Details details:
Case - Antec P182 Graphite, qty3 120mm fans
Power - PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
Motherboard - EVGA nForce 680i SLi, Passive cooling, Dual gigabit ethernet, HD Audio
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33Ghz , 4mb L2 cache, 1333Mhz FSB
CPU Cooler - Tuniq Tower 120
RAM - Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2 800Mhz
Video - Gigabyte Geforce 8600GTS Silent Cooler, 256MB PCIExpress x16
Display - Gateway HD2200 22" Wide LCD
HDD - Qty 2 SATA Western Digital Caviar 320GB, RAID1 Mirrored, 7200rpm, 16mb cache
DVD Burners - Qty 2 SATA Asus 20X DVD+/-RW with Lightscribe
And finally Windows Vista Home Premium. The goals for this build were:
-A quieter, cooler pc for downstairs. I tried to find a case, power supply, cpu cooler, and video card that had either passive cooling or big slow adjustable fans. In the case are qty3 three speed 120mm fans, qty1 externally adjustable 120mm inside the Tuniq, and qty1 80mm thermal sensing fan in the power supply. Even with all that, this is one of the quietest homebuilts I've heard. And none of those chintzy little minifans on the motherboard or video card that start making a racket after 6 months.
-Fast enough to run Vista and Madden NFL 08. Superb results with both. I didn't spend the extra $200 on a high end 8800GTX because 1) it's loud 2) I'm not a big gamer and 3) I'll add another GTS in SLi someday. Madden runs at 1680x1050 with all the options turned on and looks great. The speed with general computing and browsing is fantastic, mostly due to the minimum 2gig of fast ram that Vista so desperately needs but also assisted by the cool running (only 88 deg f right now!) Core 2 Duo.
-SLi capable. When the time comes that I can't run Madden 2010 or whatever, I'll just pony up another $140 and add a 2nd 8600GTS. No noise impact, plenty of spare wattage, and double the framerates. That's the plan anyway.
-Room and wattage for future megastorage. With 1TB drives becoming normal, there's no reason why a person given the proper time and budget couldn't amass 3 or 4 of those in a RAID5 config. There are a lot of digital photos and HD video in our future so I wanted plenty of space for a couple more drives. If it had not been for this and the SLi, it would have been fun to build a tiny miniATX solution instead.
Anybody wants any more info, send me a shout. For a large premium I'll build YOU an even better one.
