The New System
by Mike on Apr.28, 2008, under Computer, Happy
Per my previous post, here are the specs for the machine I am building to fill the hole that old sparky left in my heart. Leave your comments and suggestions! I will be ordering parts this weekend, after my bank account settles from the reeling Dell ordeal!
- EVGA Nvidia nForce 750i Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5 GHz 6 MB cache 45nm processor OR
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16 GHz 6 MB cache 45nm processor OR
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.00 GHz 6 MB cache 45nm processor (this one is significantly cheaper than the E8500, and I could always OC it to well beyond 3.16 GHz) … give me your thoughts on these processors!
- ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Heatsink
- 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) OCZ Reaper HPC Edition DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Ram
- EVGA GeForce 9600GT 512MB Video Card (SLI capable, though I won’t initially be running two cards)
- (2) Western Digital Caviar 400GB 7,200RPM Drives (800 GB Total)
- DVD Burner and Drive
- OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 12V 700 Watt Power Supply
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit (the SP0 version is cheaper, so I will get this version, then apply SP1)
- Acer AL2216Wdb 22″ Monitor (to use in addition to my 19″ Viewsonic)
There you have it! Let me know what you think. Though I won’t be lugging this behemoth to classes, it is safe to say that it will be there, ready to handle anything when I am back in my dorm! I’ll post pictures once everything is built. And don’t worry… I won’t pull a Dell and use an ungrounded power line to power this thing! 
April 29th, 2008 on 2:02 am
Oh man… definitely revisit that PSU. I had a Rosewill PSU and it didn’t cut it for long. While it worked… as I added more stuff to my system it quickly became apparent it couldn’t really handle it…. and thus I bought a very nice OCZ 700Watt PSU… worth every penny. I still keep the Rosewill as a spare PSU laying around.
And while I’ve had no experience with EVGA mother boards… they aren’t necessarily at the top of my list if I were building a system now.
For the CPU… you’ve gotta decide how much you need the added threads vs how much power you’ll need out of those threads… but you already knew that. Sorry I can’t help with that decision, heh.
April 29th, 2008 on 2:47 pm
[re=5]Todd[/re]: How about this new power supply? The OCZ GameXStream 700 Watt? I’m liking that better, especially given how much power the system will draw, and that isn’t even running in SLI!
April 29th, 2008 on 4:51 pm
That is actually the one that I got. Yeah… it’s an excellent PSU– quiet, runs cool, and is high quality. The blue LEDs of the fan are also a nice extra
The best thing about OCZ is that they are the same people that make PC Power and Cooling… which are the best power supplies money can buy. These OCZs are pretty much the same quality.
April 29th, 2008 on 10:31 pm
Those specs looks great man! I’m building a similiar mid-range system right now and I went with the E8400, although the new 45nm quads would have been my choice if power consumption (HTPC) wasn’t top concern.
Love the 8GB of ram to blow through Vista and the 9600 is the best bang for the buck you can buy right now.
I think you might want to check out the Seagate 500GB 3.0mps drive with the 32MB cache, I forget the exact model number.
Best of luck with everything and be sure to give us some details once everything is up and running!