meet Fragarach
So, I built a new PC after years of threatening to do so. Stats are as follows:
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor - Retail
LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA CD/DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
2x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ - Retail
XFX HD-587A-ZNF9 Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity
Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Windows 7 64-bit Professional
Reasoning:
- I desperately needed a new PC.
- If you're going to go Windows 7, Pro will give you XP support. Done and done.
- Intel i5/i7 is HOT, don't get me wrong, but AMD is comparable and at a better price point. I'm not sold on Intel just yet at that price, and if I did I'd have to i7 just to avoid upgrading again in 2 years. Too much cost for the effectiveness.
- Debated going with non-Radeon, but they're so sexy right now (re: highly recommended by both Giz and Ars) it's ridiculous. That I could grab the 5870 for such a price made it all the better.
- DDR3 vs. DDR2 is largely about whether you want to upgrade reasonably later without replacing the mobo. I chose to do so.
- The SSD was largely for shits-and-giggles, as it's pure unnecessary raw speed in a system with 8GB of RAM and a 5870 on top of it. That said, I've seen benchmarks on it for Win7 Pro 64-bit + 38 full programs from a cold boot in 10 SECONDS. SOOOOOO HOT. As it stands, my PC comes up from a cold boot to desktop in <9 seconds. And that's with me yet to optimize the boot process.
- Why build a PC over going with an iMac? Largely, because I like being able to fix stuff myself without voiding a warranty - I had the PS in my existing box die on me late last year, and rather than having to wait on Applecare I fixed it myself in under 10 minutes. I like being able to do that, and that I can build something with the same physical speed (or greater) for $1000 less is awesome. I don't get OS X, sure, but I'm OK with that at this time.
Things that Worked:
- Everything (save the RAM) was correct, fit together nicely, and everything powered up effortlessly the first time.
- I really, REALLY dig on the internal design of the case - it's clean, has slots for 5x EACH 5.25" and 3.5" bays, and none require screws.
- No weird kludging necessary for anything, other than getting the vast amount of cabling tied down cleanly. Still not thrilled with that, honestly, but whatever.
Things I Fucked Up:
- Ordered 4GB of DDR2 RAM instead of 4GB of DDR3 due to building two boxes simultaneously on the same wishlist and deleting the wrong part. Only part I got wrong, sure, but that's $85 down the hole. NewEgg wanted $20 for restock and shipping, so I sold it for $70 to a guy at work. Saved $5, but it was still a $15 mistake. Also, when I went to repurchase I doubled up on RAM, so in the end it cost me even MORE but whatever.
- The SSD is 2.5" and came naked, and I neglected to buy a bracket. Luckily, the local computer shop had a metal adapter for $5. What's more hilarious is that I bought the drive OEM (you know, like most sane people do), and have recently discovered the same drive NOT OEM is +$5 and comes with the bracket. Damnit.
- I ordered Windows off of Microsoft's Ultimate Steal website. What the website neglects to tell you until it's in cart is that that version of Windows Pro is an UPGRADE version, not the actual VERSION VERSION. As all it does is look for an existing Windows partition, though, I installed it once and then reinstalled it over itself and it bought that as valid. So HA. There's also a reghack to make that work, but whatever.
Future Upgrades:
- The board supports 16GB of RAM at a higher speed than I'm running. Upgrade is feasible, eventually, but I don't want to throw down that much on 4x4GB sticks yet.
- The board is Crossfire capable. Once the same 5870 drops significantly in price and I need to, I'll put another card in.
- I can always add new HDs if needed.
- I'll probably put a Blu-Ray player in it eventually, but as of yet I've not a single Blu-Ray disc or player to my name and thus don't care.
- I'll probably want a bigger monitor/better speakers/better keyboard+mouse than my existing, pre-upgrade stuff now. Eventually. It's all decent enough as is, so it'd debatable.
- The case supports another fan up to 240mm in size, but as it stands now it runs at nigh silent and is exceptionally well cooled. Debatable need.
Cost (Parts) ~ $1453
Cost (Fuckups) ~ $20
Rebates (expected) ~ $30
Cost (OS+Office 2007) ~ $150
Cost (Time) - About 10 hours on part choices/ordering, 3 hours for building/rebuilding/reordering, and another hour putting on the OS and getting it to finally work. Haven't installed much on it yet save AV, Chrome/Firefox and iTunes, but I'm slowly migrating data over from the old box and will eventually install Office 2007 as well.
Total Cost - ~$1600 + time
Worth every goddamn penny, thus far.
X-posted on my Facebook as well, as this is just about the only interesting thing I've done in the past month that I'm willing to talk about.
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor - Retail
LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA CD/DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
2x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ - Retail
XFX HD-587A-ZNF9 Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity
Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Windows 7 64-bit Professional
Reasoning:
- I desperately needed a new PC.
- If you're going to go Windows 7, Pro will give you XP support. Done and done.
- Intel i5/i7 is HOT, don't get me wrong, but AMD is comparable and at a better price point. I'm not sold on Intel just yet at that price, and if I did I'd have to i7 just to avoid upgrading again in 2 years. Too much cost for the effectiveness.
- Debated going with non-Radeon, but they're so sexy right now (re: highly recommended by both Giz and Ars) it's ridiculous. That I could grab the 5870 for such a price made it all the better.
- DDR3 vs. DDR2 is largely about whether you want to upgrade reasonably later without replacing the mobo. I chose to do so.
- The SSD was largely for shits-and-giggles, as it's pure unnecessary raw speed in a system with 8GB of RAM and a 5870 on top of it. That said, I've seen benchmarks on it for Win7 Pro 64-bit + 38 full programs from a cold boot in 10 SECONDS. SOOOOOO HOT. As it stands, my PC comes up from a cold boot to desktop in <9 seconds. And that's with me yet to optimize the boot process.
- Why build a PC over going with an iMac? Largely, because I like being able to fix stuff myself without voiding a warranty - I had the PS in my existing box die on me late last year, and rather than having to wait on Applecare I fixed it myself in under 10 minutes. I like being able to do that, and that I can build something with the same physical speed (or greater) for $1000 less is awesome. I don't get OS X, sure, but I'm OK with that at this time.
Things that Worked:
- Everything (save the RAM) was correct, fit together nicely, and everything powered up effortlessly the first time.
- I really, REALLY dig on the internal design of the case - it's clean, has slots for 5x EACH 5.25" and 3.5" bays, and none require screws.
- No weird kludging necessary for anything, other than getting the vast amount of cabling tied down cleanly. Still not thrilled with that, honestly, but whatever.
Things I Fucked Up:
- Ordered 4GB of DDR2 RAM instead of 4GB of DDR3 due to building two boxes simultaneously on the same wishlist and deleting the wrong part. Only part I got wrong, sure, but that's $85 down the hole. NewEgg wanted $20 for restock and shipping, so I sold it for $70 to a guy at work. Saved $5, but it was still a $15 mistake. Also, when I went to repurchase I doubled up on RAM, so in the end it cost me even MORE but whatever.
- The SSD is 2.5" and came naked, and I neglected to buy a bracket. Luckily, the local computer shop had a metal adapter for $5. What's more hilarious is that I bought the drive OEM (you know, like most sane people do), and have recently discovered the same drive NOT OEM is +$5 and comes with the bracket. Damnit.
- I ordered Windows off of Microsoft's Ultimate Steal website. What the website neglects to tell you until it's in cart is that that version of Windows Pro is an UPGRADE version, not the actual VERSION VERSION. As all it does is look for an existing Windows partition, though, I installed it once and then reinstalled it over itself and it bought that as valid. So HA. There's also a reghack to make that work, but whatever.
Future Upgrades:
- The board supports 16GB of RAM at a higher speed than I'm running. Upgrade is feasible, eventually, but I don't want to throw down that much on 4x4GB sticks yet.
- The board is Crossfire capable. Once the same 5870 drops significantly in price and I need to, I'll put another card in.
- I can always add new HDs if needed.
- I'll probably put a Blu-Ray player in it eventually, but as of yet I've not a single Blu-Ray disc or player to my name and thus don't care.
- I'll probably want a bigger monitor/better speakers/better keyboard+mouse than my existing, pre-upgrade stuff now. Eventually. It's all decent enough as is, so it'd debatable.
- The case supports another fan up to 240mm in size, but as it stands now it runs at nigh silent and is exceptionally well cooled. Debatable need.
Cost (Parts) ~ $1453
Cost (Fuckups) ~ $20
Rebates (expected) ~ $30
Cost (OS+Office 2007) ~ $150
Cost (Time) - About 10 hours on part choices/ordering, 3 hours for building/rebuilding/reordering, and another hour putting on the OS and getting it to finally work. Haven't installed much on it yet save AV, Chrome/Firefox and iTunes, but I'm slowly migrating data over from the old box and will eventually install Office 2007 as well.
Total Cost - ~$1600 + time
Worth every goddamn penny, thus far.
X-posted on my Facebook as well, as this is just about the only interesting thing I've done in the past month that I'm willing to talk about.