A simple matter of…

Well I think it’s about time I started looking for a new PC now that Oblivion is almost upon us.

I don’t seem to have picked a good time to buy, Conroe looks like it could quite severly kick AMDs butt (3Q), and the new AM2 socket supports DDR2 (any _maybe_ DDR3) (2Q). However the AM2 apparently only gets a few percentage points in
speed.

AMD dual cores are also expensive, so I might (shock horror) go for Intel, however I don’t really fancy any of the power hungry (read hot and loud) chips. Perhaps a core duo overclocked nicely? Time for some investigation me thinks, not forgetting that I really want a processor that has the virtualisation goodies in it too.

Disk wise I think I’ve decided on a pair of WD Raptors for OS and current games in a RAID-1 configuration. Then a couple of 300GB disks for media looks like the best price-point.

Graphics card needs to be good, I’d be interested in how two cheap cards in SLI compare to one expensive card. I’ll be going NVIDIA this time since ATI are even worse at Linux support. Hmm - looks like SLI is a definite no go - it’s only seems vaguely useful at the very high end when a single card isn’t fast enough.

The case will be a midi tower to give me plenty of room for disks and fans. However it must be quiet - so large, slow fans, passive northbridge and southbridge cooling, perhaps have a look at quietpc for bits. I also want a case with an exposed front - why on earth do I want a front cover that gets in the way (it’s a computer, it’s going to be ugly) - maybe one of these. Perhaps also some foam.

Zalman may also aquire a new customer.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is supposed to be a good site too.

Order form

Case: Antec P180 (£75 - no PSU) - after alot of reading, I think I’ll go for this case because it has very good reviews and is very quiet (or rather it keeps the bits inside it quiet). Not too bad price wise either.

Hard disks: WD RE2 4000YR (£133 x2) - unfortunately you can’t expect model numbers to mean very much. You need the 400GB model to get the Raptor derived performance. I’m going for the RE2 rather than the SE16 since it will be in a RAID-1 format. It also means 5 year warranty rather than 3.

Processor: AMD3000 (£75) - I’ve decided to hold off getting a dual core processor until I can get either a Conroe (next gen Intel) or AM2 (next gen AMD) chip. So this is basically the cheapest chip I can get. I’ll also buy a cheapish motherboard and reuse my existing memory. It will eventually become a test box/firewall/parents PC. Perhaps a cheap fan such as “Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 PRO” or “Scythe Katana” rather than a stock AMD fan? Perhaps with something like a Zalman fanmate so the speed can be tweaked?
… time passes …
Okay, so it’s now late enough to get a Conroe or AM2 chip Some points worth bearing in mind at the inquirer

PSU: Seasonic S12-430/500 or Zalman XM460 (£36/70/70) - the latter two have PCIe connectors. I’ll also have to check lengths on the Antec P180 case. silent PC review has fantastic articles.

DVD-RW: HP 840b/i (£35) - good DVD writer, Lightscribe too. Must order some disks, but what? Could do with some more CDRs anyway for rescue disks and testing. Also some DVD(-+, Lightscribe, dual layer) - apparently it’s happier with + media rather than - media. ATA not SATA though

LCD: Formac Gallery Xtreme 2010 (£290) - 20″, 1600×1200, good reviews - particularly considering the price.
Dave says:
2 things to be aware of (of course its possible these have changed with the ‘xtreme’ version and a couple of years) 1) Its
DVD-D only, no analog. 2) It only reports a 1600×1200 mode, which confuses my old matrox cards. No problem with a modern card though (and the linux drivers will quite happily get the video card to do the scaling in hardware for lower resolutions)

An alternative would be the Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24″ LCD with 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. Nice

Ethernet switch: Netgear GS608 (£33) - 8 port Gigabit ethernet switch. No jumbo support but plenty quick enough.

Motherboard: dunno yet, ASRock 939 Dual I got for work is good and cheap (£30-35) - significantly cheaper than the later ASRock 939 SLI32 eSATA2 (or Epox EP-9U1697 GLI). Any AHCI SATA chipset seems to be okay.

Graphics card: Nvidia 7600GT (£120-135) or 7900GT (£190-230) - depends on chip speed (and noise). ATI are in my bad books for Linux support, a shame, but it’s their fault. There are some reviews including a couple of silent cards. Furthermore there is always the voltage mod.

The reason: Oblivion (£30). Yummy!

Total cost = £874 + VAT = 1026

Miscellaneous bits to purchase:

• USB network adapter (useful for other machines)
• external USB/eSATA drive for backups and moving data around (IcyBox 351ST-US £30 - SATA->USB+eSATA)
• KVM switch - but how many ports…, and do I go for USB or PS/2?
• FXS/FXO adapter for VoIP
• maybe new shiny printer since mine is dying rapidly (remember to order USB cable) - perhaps one from jamies…
• sound card?
• new USB flash drive with >64MB capacity
• wireless card or access point (not dlink)
• I’ll be reusing the memory from my existing machine (unless it’s AM2 socket) or conroe
• 4-way socket
• USB A-B cable