Yesterday's news

Lately I felt slightly bored, and so I decided to entertain myself by assembling a custom “rig”. I took Jeff Atwood’s latest system as a starting point, and made a few tweaks.

Here’s what I’ve ordered so far:

CPU — $315

I knew that Intel Sandybridge is the latest and greatest processor technology at the moment. I went to the wikipedia article to research the models and arrived at the same Core i7 2600K model which Jeff has used in his build. This basically is the fastest Sandybridge currently available (the 2700K is not available yet as I’m writing this). I did not even consider AMD, not sure why.

Motherboard — $200

Next I went to wikipedia’s article for LGA 1155, which is socket for the CPU I’ve chosen. I’ve also looked at this table of chipsets. From these two I figured I want a P67 or Z68 chipset. From there I went to ASUS web-site (I knew I wanted an ASUS or Gigabyte motherboard), and looked at my options. Both P67 and Z68 had some very good boards but Z68 model line had more choices and looked more “enthusiast-oriented”. Finally I’ve settled on Asus P8Z68-V for $180. It is a full-size ATX board, with the full selection of slots, and all the modern technologies built-in, like USB 3.0, UEFI BIOS and 6Gb/s SATA. It also had standard stuff like the Audio card, the NIC etc. But when I saw that Jeff’s rig uses the Pro version of the same board I decided to upgrade… it only costed me $20 more. The Pro version has 2 extra SATA 6Gb/s ports, two 1394 ports, and an extra USB 3.0 back panel plate. I should have probably stayed with the non-Pro version since I won’t use any of these extra features.

Memory — $118

After reading this wonderful comparison of memories, I’ve decided there’s no point in wasting money on fancy memory, and went ahead with Corsair Vengeance 16 GB kit, the same one Jeff had in his rig. Being 1.5V this particular memory uses less power (=emits less heat), and runs almost as fast as G.Skill Ripjaws-X which costs twice as much.

CPU heatsink/cooler — $75

I wanted a cooler that would have a PWM fan (aka 4-pin fan), because my motherboard can control the speed of CPU fan based on CPU temperature. After some hesitation I’ve settled on Thermalright Archon, one of the best air-based (as opposed to liquid-based) coolers available. It is a little tall at 170mm, and I hope it will fit in my case.

Power Supply Unit — $127

I’ve noticed Jeff’s Seasonic X-760 was too powerful for his needs (he was only using 128W-332W of the available 760W), and since my plans were even less ambitious, I’ve decided to go with Seasonic X-560, a 560W version. Judging by the reviews I’ve seen, Seasonic X series are one of the best PSUs out there in terms of noise and power consumption.

Case — $173

First I’ve ordered NZXT Tempest 410 Elite – a nice-looking $100 case. In the specs they said it provided 170mm of space for the CPU heatsink. It also had some unique features like detachable front-fans and proper USB 3.0 header. But after reading some very nasty reviews I changed my mind and went with Corsair Obsidian 650D — a much more professional case with even more space inside, better cable management and overall higher build quality. I’m still on the edge as to which I should keep — must decide in the next few days, before they arrive, so I can refuse shipment on one of them and get my money back. I will most likely keep the Corsair, don’t want to open the NZXT and realize my CPU cooler does not fit by 1 millimeter.

Videocard — $0

I will not buy an external video-card until next year, the Intel HD 3000 graphic card being built right into the CPU. Out of all the cards available now I’m looking at NVidia 560. My main concern (besides price) is the power consumption, since my Power Supply is only 560 watt I can’t get a super-hungry card. This wikipedia article offers nice comparison of NVidia cards, which includes their TDP. According to my power calculations I need to get a card that would eat no more than 160 watt at its peak.

Total — $1008

This is a little more than $1000 spent so far. This is all I need for now to build my own PC. For harddrive, I’m planning to reuse an old IDE HDD (will buy an IDE-to-SATA adapter for ten bucks) coupled with a 16GB USB drive I have somewhere. For the monitor, I will use my Sony 52-inch LCD TV. The only other thing I will need to get is a keyboard.

Since I already have 5 computers at home (Matthew’s gaming desktop, 3 laptops, an 24-inch iMac — I’m not counting a Playstation 3, a Wii, and 3 iPhones) I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with this one once I’ done building it. Maybe I will sell it on Ebay… Or install Google Chrome OS and run a superfast internet browser on a 52-inch screen… Any ideas?