The Computer 2
Look down the page and you'll see my October plans for building the computer. Here I have the way it is actually turning out. Things have gone relatively according to plan.
Processor: LGA775 Pentium 4 550 3.4 gigahertz
Motherboard: ASUS P5AD2 Premium
System Memory (RAM): 1 gigabyte Kingston HyperX DDR2 4300 at 533 megahertz
Cooling: The CPU is cooled by an all copper Zalman s7000 flower heat sink with an adjustable fan in the middle. It looks refined AND cool. I used slightly too much Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound in between it and the CPU. The case has intake fans in the front over the hard drive bays and in the window over the CPU and an exhaust fan on the back. With the PSU's inner fan and the heatsink fan, this makes a total of five fans moving air around the case. wOOt!
Hard Drive: Western Digital WD2000 200 gigabyte, 7200 rpm. I will eventually be adding a 10,000 rpm (fast, fast fast) WD Raptor for the operating system and certain programs, like Unreal Tournament 2004. I'm up to suggestions as to whether I should RAID the two drives, and how. That last sentence is the first incidence I have seen of "RAID" becoming a verb.
Optical Drive: A cr**py CD R/W and DVD reader from Dell.
Floppy Drive: Who cares?
Case: Black Thermaltake Tsunami Dream with side window. I have waxed this case. Yes, automotive wax, like they put on Lincolns and Bentleys. I can see my reflection on the side.
Speakers: a 2.1 Tsunami system whose left speaker jack has recently stopped working. With 7.1 (seven surround sound satellite speakers and a sub-woofer) systems coming out, I think I could stand an upgrade.
Graphics Card: This is the one major component I am yet to buy. Right now I'm using an old PCI card (yes, and actual PCI graphics card) from my Dell just so I can see what's going on. I'm asking for a PCI-Express ATI Radeon x800 pro for my birthday on New Year's Eve. I don't want to pay the $450.
Power Supply: Thermaltake XP480 at 400 watts. This is decent and should run the x800. I got this PSU for only $20 with the case, so if I want a better one, I can resell it and actually MAKE money.
Monitor: 17 inch Gateway curved-screen CRT. I really don't know what I'm going to do about this.
I hooked up the case with UV black lights and blue UV reactive IDE and floppy cables and moles connectors to match the blue lights throughout the case. It looks beautiful, but I need to figure out how to turn off the blue visible light in the exhaust fan, because it is overbearing the black light and ruining the effect. Once the project is done, this machine will be great for gaming and some more distributed computing projects.
Processor: LGA775 Pentium 4 550 3.4 gigahertz
Motherboard: ASUS P5AD2 Premium
System Memory (RAM): 1 gigabyte Kingston HyperX DDR2 4300 at 533 megahertz
Cooling: The CPU is cooled by an all copper Zalman s7000 flower heat sink with an adjustable fan in the middle. It looks refined AND cool. I used slightly too much Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound in between it and the CPU. The case has intake fans in the front over the hard drive bays and in the window over the CPU and an exhaust fan on the back. With the PSU's inner fan and the heatsink fan, this makes a total of five fans moving air around the case. wOOt!
Hard Drive: Western Digital WD2000 200 gigabyte, 7200 rpm. I will eventually be adding a 10,000 rpm (fast, fast fast) WD Raptor for the operating system and certain programs, like Unreal Tournament 2004. I'm up to suggestions as to whether I should RAID the two drives, and how. That last sentence is the first incidence I have seen of "RAID" becoming a verb.
Optical Drive: A cr**py CD R/W and DVD reader from Dell.
Floppy Drive: Who cares?
Case: Black Thermaltake Tsunami Dream with side window. I have waxed this case. Yes, automotive wax, like they put on Lincolns and Bentleys. I can see my reflection on the side.
Speakers: a 2.1 Tsunami system whose left speaker jack has recently stopped working. With 7.1 (seven surround sound satellite speakers and a sub-woofer) systems coming out, I think I could stand an upgrade.
Graphics Card: This is the one major component I am yet to buy. Right now I'm using an old PCI card (yes, and actual PCI graphics card) from my Dell just so I can see what's going on. I'm asking for a PCI-Express ATI Radeon x800 pro for my birthday on New Year's Eve. I don't want to pay the $450.
Power Supply: Thermaltake XP480 at 400 watts. This is decent and should run the x800. I got this PSU for only $20 with the case, so if I want a better one, I can resell it and actually MAKE money.
Monitor: 17 inch Gateway curved-screen CRT. I really don't know what I'm going to do about this.
I hooked up the case with UV black lights and blue UV reactive IDE and floppy cables and moles connectors to match the blue lights throughout the case. It looks beautiful, but I need to figure out how to turn off the blue visible light in the exhaust fan, because it is overbearing the black light and ruining the effect. Once the project is done, this machine will be great for gaming and some more distributed computing projects.
posted by Zak Rogoff at 6:01 PM
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