Building a PC that will make the Angels Weep

[35Pete]

I'm transforming my Gateway 2000 2GHz Pentium 4 PC into a monster. Even with the 2 GHz uP and a 266 MHz address/data bus it totally wastes anything I could test at best buy. No matter how modern the processor.

As many of you know I design digital circuitry for a living. Well, here is what I have done so far.

1. Installed 2 GB of DDR (RAM) @ 266 MHz bus speed.
2. Installed a GeoForce 7800 graphics card (one of the best you can buy) with 256 MB of video RAM, 400 MHz GPU core clock (graphical processor unit), 1.25 GHz memory bus, and 40 GB/s memory bandwidth.
3. Soundblaster Xtreme Fidelity Platinum sound card with MIDI interface. Runs at get this....10 giga MIPS per second. Unbelievable audio quality. Unbelievable. Audio SNR is 130 dB!!! (Standard CD playter is about 105).
4. Western Digital 250 GB hard drive at 7800 rpm and access speed under 6 ms.
5. Altec Lansing 4.1 home theatre system for PC.
6. Logictech wireless mouse
7. Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.

This thing is goddamned fast, video is incredible and you cannot put in words the audio. Spent over $1200. Next two things and I am done. New motherboard and a CD.DVD burner.

[stepsukie]

what about the mac mini? lol

[35Pete]

Next two items are Intel Core x Extreme 6800 2.93 GHz processor ($1,200 for the chip!) and an Intel Extreme Motherboard ($250).

Man I cannot wait.

[JLB]

Awesome setup!! Now Windows will crash faster!!!

teehee

[35Pete]

Then I'll upgrade to DDR 667MHz 8 GB RAM.

[JLB]

So how much will you spend to complete your mission?

[smashingt2312]

Very nice, what kind of monitor do you have with it?

[35Pete]

Gateway FPD1730 17" flatscreen LCD.

[smashingt2312]

Gateway FPD1730 17" flatscreen LCD.

Very nice i just upgraded to a 19 inch dell flatscreen.

[35Pete]

Very nice i just upgraded to a 19 inch dell flatscreen.

Sweet. That is an EXCELLENT choice. excellent. What is the max screen res?

[Cornellian]

Hey, I'm doing a build too. My first one ever! The worst part is waiting through the long labor day weekend for the rest of my parts (that, and Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations school has class on Labor Day. Does that make sense on any level whatsoever?)

Just thought I'd share my specs:

1. Mobo - ASUS M2N-SLI ready nForce 570 (an overclocker's dream)
2. Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ socket AM2 (runs at 2.4 Ghz, but I'll overclock to apprx. 2.52 Ghz)
3. RAM - 2 GB of DDR2 @ 800 Mhz bus speed
4. HDD - Western Digital 400 GB, 7200 RPM, 4.2 ms average response time
5. Video Card - EVGA GeForce 7900GT KO (256 mb, 500 Mhz GPU, 1.5 Ghz memory bus, 48 Gb/s memory bandwidth, and a toaster oven)
6. Speakers - Logitech z680 THX 5.1 speaker system
7. Sound card - to save money, I'm going with my external Creative Audigy 2 NX. Still not a bad card; and since my motherboard has onboard optical out, the sound card has optical in/out, and the controller to the z680 has optical in, I'm going to have some pretty low digital loss.
8. Monitor - Dell 2407WFP 24" Widescreen display. 1920x1200 res, DVI in.

The system build sans monitor and speakers cost me $1242.45, including a new case, power supply, fans, a DVD-RW, new speaker wire, a new wireless card, and new optical cables. The monitor was $744 shipped (Dell has since backed off this offer), the speakers were apprx. $249 on eBay when I bought them 2 years ago.

I wound up going AMD; the benchmark difference between AMD x64 and Core 2 Duo wasn't worth the apprx. $250 I saved by going with the AMD mobo/processor IMO.

She's going to be a beaut. :)

[smashingt2312]

Sweet. That is an EXCELLENT choice. excellent. What is the max screen res?

1280x1024 pixels, awesome for watching movies and clips online.