In case anyone was curious, I thought I'd post the specs for the new computer I built for myself last week. All parts were purchased from Newegg.com .


Case: COOLER MASTER Stacker
Specs: ATX/BTX full-tower, aluminum, silver, side panels, 1 x 120 mm fan, 25.2" D x 9.8" W, 21.1" H

PSU: PC Power & Cooling TURBO-COOL 850
Specs: 850W continuous, 950W peak, dual PCI-E, 6 SATA, 24-pin main connector, NVIDIA SLI Certified, 85% efficiency, MTBF > 100000 hours

Motherboard: ASUS A8R32-MVP
Specs: ATX, dual PCI-E x16, socket 939, ATI XPRESS 3200 North Bridge, 6 SATA 3 GB/s, 4 GB mem. max, dual Gigabit ethernet

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Specs: 2.2 GHz clock, 2 GHz HT, 64-bit, 2x128k L1, 2x512k L2, socket 939, 90nm, 3-year warranty

RAM: Corsair XMS
Specs: 4 GB (4 x 1 GB), 184-pin DDR SDRAM @ 400Mhz, 2-3-3-6 timing, heat spreaders, lifetime warranty

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon X1900XT
Specs: 625 MHz core clock, 1450 MHz memory clock, 512 MB 256-bit GDDR3, 16 pixel pipelines, 48 pixel shader processors, VIVO, 2560 x 1600 max res., Shader Model 3, AvivoTM, CrossFireTM, DirectX 9, OpenGL 2, PCI-E x16

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10
Specs: 640 GB (2 x 320 GB), 16 MB cache, 7200 rpm, SATA 3 GB/s, NCQ, Perpendicular Recording Technology, 5-year warranty

Optical Drive: SAMSUNG DVD Burner
Specs: DVD+R/-R 16x, DVD+RW/-RW 8x/6x, DVD+R DL/-R DL 8x/4x, DVD-RAM 5x, CD-R/-RW 48x/32x, ATA/ATAPI, 2 MB cache, LightScribe, black

LCD: BenQ FP202W
Specs: 20.1" widescreen, 1680 x 1050 max res., WSXGA+, 24-bit color, 300 cd/m2, 60W, 0.258 mm pixel pitch

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 OEM

EDIT:
Mouse: Logitech G5 Laser
Specs: Right-handed, 2000 dpi laser, 6.4 megapixels / second, 500 reports / second, 6 buttons, 1x wheel scrolling, 38 grams of weight

Keyboard: Microsoft B2M-00015
Specs: Ergonomic keyboard w/ integrated palm rest, 103 normal keys, 17 function keys, wired, USB, black

Case Fans: ASPIRE CF12SL-UGN
Specs: 4 x 120mm fans, 25 mm deep, 1800-2200 rpm, 77.26 cfm, 35.48 dBA, 4 pin power, clear green plastic, green LEDs

CPU Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5
Specs: 3.5 grams, conductance: >350000 W / m2 °C, resistance: <0.0045 °C in2 / W, 3-12 °C temperature reduction

CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER RR-UMR-P9U1
Specs: 92mm fan, 25mm deep, copper heatsink, 1800-3200 rpm, 26-36 dBA, rifle bearings, socket A / 370 / 462 / 478 / 754 / 939 / 940 / LGA775, 3-4 pin power

Video Adapter Cooler: ARCTIC COOLING Accelero X2
Specs: 2000 rpm, 9.82 cfm, 0.4 Sone, fluid dynamic bearings, aluminum heatsink, 6 copper heatpipes, 6-year warranty

w0w, how much did that one cost ya?

Um... a lot.

around how much?
$2000?
$12000?
$100000?

Heh, a little more than the first one, and a whole lot less than the last two.

Including rebates:

Case: COOLER MASTER Stacker $209.99
PSU: PC Power & Cooling TURBO-COOL 850 $449.99
Motherboard: ASUS A8R32-MVP $139.99
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ $358.99
RAM: Corsair XMS $134.99 (2 ea)
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon X1900XT $379.99
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 $409.99 (couldn't find a 7200.10 640GB - priced the 720GB)
Optical Drive: SAMSUNG DVD Burner $37.99
LCD: BenQ FP202W $294.99


Total: $2551.90..........or $2361.89 if hard drive is 7200.10 320GB (2 ea)

why not just buy a laptop with that kind of money?

how u can throiw away so much money on a pc is beyon

3K to 5K. I always seem to end up spending that much because I max out a system.

My new toy that I got last week:
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/760A.htm

pretty cool! now if i only had 4K...

lol, I've already got 2! Plus, when you buy a notebook, you spend more money for less power, and you can't do much about upgrading it in the future. My case will easily last me 10 years, because it supports both ATX and BTX motherboards. My PSU, assuming it doesn't die, will last me a long time as well, because it is 850 watts and supports up to 6 SATA hard drives and 2 video adapters. My hard drives both have 5 year warranties, the RAM has a lifetime warranty, the CPU is dual core, the video adapter has a fast core and half a gig of GDDR3... this was made with the future in mind. I don't plan on spending too much more on it for many years to come.

I figure I'm better off spending a lot on a computer that will last me a long time than spending $800 on some piece of junk and then having to buy a new one 2 years later.

@ oli: I will easily get $3k worth of utility out of it. How much you use it and what you use it for determines how much you spend on it. This computer isn't just my gamer; it is my multimedia powerhouse. I will use it for watching, storing, and editing video, music, images, documents, and anything else. It serves as my television, my stereo (and eventually my surround sound), my DVD player, my number cruncher, my video game console, my typerwriter, all in one box. What some people might spend on a motorcycle or landscaping, I spend on a new computer. Everyone has their passion, and this is mine. Sorry if you consider that a waste.

@ Andavari: Nice optical drive! I was gonna go with Plextor, but at the last minute I cheaped out and got a solid, but slightly slower Samsung.

Maybe not this motorbike a Ducati 999R, start drooling!

Hi lokoike,
Really like your setup and will be upgrading to something similar in a year or two.

Couple of things I would change though.I would have DDR2 ram and a couple of 10,000 rpm raptors.

But a couple of years is a long time in pc tech.

At the moment this p4,3ghz,1gig ddr is holding up just fine.

That config should hold up well for sometime, until someone releases something (OS, software, etc.) that requires a stupid amount of processing power and ram.

I figure I'm better off spending a lot on a computer that will last me a long time than spending $800 on some piece of junk and then having to buy a new one 2 years later.

@ oli: I will easily get $3k worth of utility out of it. How much you use it and what you use it for determines how much you spend on it. This computer isn't just my gamer; it is my multimedia powerhouse. I will use it for watching, storing, and editing video, music, images, documents, and anything else. It serves as my television, my stereo (and eventually my surround sound), my DVD player, my number cruncher, my video game console, my typerwriter, all in one box. What some people might spend on a motorcycle or landscaping, I spend on a new computer. Everyone has their passion, and this is mine. Sorry if you consider that a waste.

EXACTLY! Ive been using this argument with my wife, but she aint buying it.................

Yeah, I was thinking about going the DDR2 route, but my processor and motherboard are both socket 939, which doesn't support DDR2. I could've gone with socket AM2 (which supports DDR2), but at the time I bought the parts, the AM2 socket had only been on the market for about 2 weeks, so there wasn't much variety in motherboards. That's the only problem with AMD: they took so long to adopt the DDR2 standard. Intel has been supporting it for many months now. I probably won't upgrade my RAM/CPU/mobo until DDR3 rolls around in desktops. I'll just skip over DDR2 so that I don't have to make two upgrade cycles.

As far as hard drives go, I'm not all that big of a fan of 10,000 and 15,000 rpm drives in general, because of storage constraints. See, I plan on filling my 2 320 GB drives up in a matter of months, so obviously the smaller Raptors wouldn't work out too well for me. But for people who do mostly gaming, they offer plenty of speed!

Out of curiousity (and slightly off topic), do you plan on using Intel or AMD? You'll have to post and/or email me your specs when you get them picked out.


Oh, and I have a few more little parts (fans, CPU and GPU cooler, etc.) that I got for my computer too, so I'll add them to the original list when I get the chance.

The X1900XT =DDD
A little loud, though, didn't want to go a little bit higher and go for the 7900GTX?

The sound wasn't really an issue for me, because I replaced the stock VGA cooler with an Accelero X2 (see edited list). It runs very quiet, and cools better at 2k rpm than the stock fan. Kinda bulky, though!

I was planning on going with NVIDIA for this rig, but I chose ATI for 2 reasons:

1. At the time I purchased my CPU, Newegg was offering a combo deal that knocked $80 off the x1900XT if you buy them together! Couldn't really pass that up...

&

2. Maximum PC ran both cards against each other, and while the NVIDIA won most of the game tests, the ATI beat the living hell out of NVIDIA in the video tests. And since I plan on watching and editing a lot of video with this machine, I figured I could afford to give up a couple FPS in Obilvion...

oooo i just loved dishing out money for my computer, today i finally fixed up my lockup problem ive been having forever with my sli, becuz i was stupid and forgot about cleaning them out and reinstalling the drivers. Which i did after.... reinstalling windows, but at least i didnt lose my music, cuz i hadd it on a partition. Oh and I realized how awesome foobar2000 is, makes my music sound awesome with my mega speaker system. YAY flaming lips and queen. ive been enjoying their music the most.

yeah laptops suck, the only time I might buy one is for college.

Although this question wasn't asked to me I think I'll go with a powerful AMD next time (maybe top of the line, or 1 step down from the top processor) due to my Intel P4 @ 3.2Ghz taking so much juice, and when doing something which I consider simple like encoding music and then having to hear the processor heat buildup start making the fans go into a hyper-fast speed that's pretty noisy for my individual tastes.

At the moment I really don't know!

The AMD is certainl looking good at this stage.

Will post when I'm about to buy anew,be a while though.

Some people have too much money to spend...

850w ?
You wont even use half that.

4 GB RAM ?
XP afaik can only handle 2 gb or so.
And you are not likely to even 1 gb of RAM most of the time.

Silly Eldmannen...

In fact, my Windows XP Professional 32-bit supports 3 out of the 4 GB, and I plan on getting 64 bit edition, which supports more than my motherboard can handle. And of course you would have no idea how much of that would be in use during my normal use, now would you? You see, unlike you, I don't freak when more than 200 MBs of my page file are in use, and start turning things off. I always have a dozen things going at once (P2P, audio, web browser, chat, console emulator, etc.), so I easily use up large amounts of RAM, which is why I bought that much.

As far as the PSU, during normal use in normal temperatures, obviously I don't use 850 watts. But I do plan on getting another large hard drive in the future, an X-Fi soundcard, and possibly another x1900XT and optical drive. Like I stated before, I built this rig with the future in mind. Also, I'm building it with extreme conditions in mind. On a hot day during a LAN party, the room temperature can easily raise over 80 degrees, and I don't want my components fizzling out due to a wimpy PSU. To me, a PSU is one of the most important and fundamental parts, so I made sure to get an excellent one that won't let me down, even in extreme situations.

Yep have heard the 64 bit can handle up to 16 gig of ram but it may be a rumour.

Anyone know for sure?

Apparently WinXP 64 bit edition supports up to 128 GB of memory! Makes my 4 GBs seem kinda piddly, now doesn't it? But that is kind of strange, because I've heard that the 64 bit version of Vista only supports 16 GB... apparently one of my sources is wrong, or MS is just really stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Pr...nal_x64_Edition

Here is a microsoft link that confirms 128 gb

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/overview.mspx

X-Fi or not, you most likely wouldnt be able to tell the difference from an integrated on-board audio chipset.

You can say you preparing for future, but in a month or two, your computer is old and there are new badass stuff to drool after.
Quad-core ZOMG!!!!11 DDR3 ZOMG!!!111 nVidia GeForce 10000 ZXTXGTX 3D Pro eXtreme Fatal1ty FPS+ XP ZOMG!!!!11

You wouldn't know because you don't own an X-Fi board, now do you? Running a separate sound card not only takes strain off your other components, but it also produces a significantly better sound, whether or not you choose to believe it. I suppose you believe that nobody can tell the difference between 800x600 and 1600x1200 screen resolutions either, right? note the sarcasm


Hmm... just a moment ago you were saying that I spent too much money on hardware that I would never use to its full potential, and now you're telling me it will be obsolete in a month. Which is it, Eldmannen? Is my computer too good, or too crappy?

Nothing will last forever, but I can say with confidence that my computer is far more "future-proof" than whatever crap you're running. Sorry if you don't like it, but then it isn't your computer, is it?

S939 is Future-Proof? Why no AM2?

Here, read this.

At the time I was buying parts, there just wasn't much selection in AM2 mobos. I figured I'd be better off with a really good 939 mobo than a cruddy AM2 mobo. I'll deal with DDR1 until DDR3 comes out, and then I'll make the upgrade.

I guess so. In the near future, probably around Christmas time, I plan on upgrading my PC... S939, most likely. I doubt very much I will be getting AM2 for my next rig. Maximum PC did some benchmarks on the FX-62, and apparently, it's fast, but not exactly mind-blowing... not enough of a difference to sweep major changes in the industry.

Slightly on-topic: I don't really like AM2, but this rig is still I.N.S.A.N.E. Check out those specs! Only thing I don't like the the somewhat 'wimpy' power supply.

Of course you could notice the difference between 800x600 and 1600x1200.
But most integrated sound chipset are of really good quality nowadays, sure if you're doing music and use it with external studio components then an high-quality sound card is needed. But you are probably not likely to notice any difference between a built-in soundcard and an X-Fi, it sounds pretty much the same. Someone would notice a huge difference between 16 and 256 colors, but not between 100 million colors and 100 billion colors.

Your downloads wont go faster if you use an network card than if you use a built-in network chipset.


Yes, I said some people have too much money to spend. But I do have to say, that it is an kickass machine.
Cant say its bad.
But technology goes forward very fast.

And yes it is better than whatever I am running, since my computer is several years of old.

I realize that my integrated 24-bit sound is very good. But I am fairly certain I would notice a difference upgrading, due to reviews I have read by people who chose to take the same route. And I've heard that the X-Fi offers unparalleled gaming audio, something that integrated audio has a much harder time reproducing. Most likely my CDs won't sound any different, but when there are multiple sources of sound of high quality sound (such as newer games), that is where the X-Fi really shines.

If nothing else, at least one can be certain that you would never have to worry about choppy sound anymore, since the X-Fi has it's own powerful dedicated processor (APU?). For now, the integrated is fine, but getting a standalone sound card is certainly a potential on my future upgrading list (more so than the second video card, actually).

Oh, and I have no intentions of getting a separate NIC, since my mobo already has dual gigabit eithernet.

@ zaph: I <3 the case on that rig, zaph! My favorite color! Nice specs, too!

On the topic of audio, I never noticed a difference between my friend's audiology and my integrated... however, it does offload some of the workload off of the CPU, which does count for something... he gets maybe 5-15 extra FPS in BF2...