The customer who wanted this system wanted a high performance system w/ monitor and printer for around $1400. We went through the traditional questions of "what are you using this computer for" and "any special requests"? Basically, he wanted a system that he could easily upgrade, one that was a good performer for the price, price was somewhat important, this was going to be the main system in the house (with several children), he would not be playing major games on the system (i.e. no AfterShock but maybe Flash-based internet games/card games), he preferred to not "have" to upgrade this system for 2-3 years, the system had to have enough space to store music and video (i.e. 1TB), had to have CD/DVD writing capability, etc. Well, I went out and with those requests found prices on several component choices and "pre-built" a couple systems on paper to get a rough cost.
Basically, the 3 systems, a entry-level (~$1100), a mid-level (~$1400), and a super performance (~$2400) included a 21" Samsung Monitor (Samsung 2233SW 21.5-Inch Full HD Widescreen LCD Monitor
) and the Epson Workforce 610 which my wife and I have been extremely pleased with (Epson Workforce 610 Wireless Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer (C11CA50201)
) as their non system base. The 3 systems had was an Asus motherboard base, an AMD CPU, and, if the motherboard didn't have on-board video, an ATI graphics card. The Asus, AMD, and ATI were my own preference choices for various reasons.After talking with the customer on the various options, we choose the new Asus EVO/U3S6 (Asus M4A785TD-V Motherboard
)* {note - Amazon does not have the U3S6, this is the base motherboard link} (the NewEgg link is M4A785TD-V EVO/U3S6). This specific motherboard features USB 3.0 as well as SATA III (i.e. 6Gbs) and has an onboard ATI 4200 video card...and, yes, the USB 3 and SATA III are off-board on a controller card - not a major problem for me. This board also has fairly substantial overclocking capabilities, supports up to 16gb ram, has 5 on-board SATA II ports, and 6 USB 2.0 ports. In addition to 2 SATA III ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, on-board sound (what motherboard doesn't nowadays), eSATA, COM1 and LPT1 ports (? yes, ports for legacy COM1 and legacy LPT1). The on-board video is also decent and can easily be combined with another 4200 off board card for even more performance - and, for what this will be used for, no need to go with a high-end video card. No, this is not the most feature rich board but I know the Asus brand and have been extremely impressed with their quality and their warranty on their hardware and computers. I'll stick with what I trust and use myself. [I've also used and really like Abit boards but NewEgg did not have *any* Abit boards and Amazon did not have any Abit SATA III boards].For the processor, I gave the customer a choice of the AMD Phenom II X2 (Phenom II X2 545 AM3 3.0GHZ 7MB 45NM 80W 4000MHZ Pib
) on up to the X4 (AMD HDZ965FBGIBOX Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHZ Central Processing Unit (Black)
) and several Ghz choices within each of those. He choose the mid-range AMD Phenom II X4 945 HDX945FBGIBOX 3.0 GHz/6MB L3/125W Processor
. For the price, it ended up being the best price point. I went ahead and kept the stock fan/heat sink as I knew we would get a case that had plenty of airflow and I don't foresee this customer overclocking the machine any. And, another good word for AMD, I've never had any problems with their stock fans/heatsinks - it's always been the stock Intel that I've had major problems with.In terms of memory, I told him he would be running 64-bit (i.e. no, he had no choice :)). So, 4gb is the minimum I recommended. He would be running Windows 7 on this machine and the applications he mentioned he may use would not be anything that would tax the memory. So, we both decided to stay at 4gb with the option available to add another 4gb (2x2gb) at a later time. I choose the G.Skill NQ Series F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ Dual Channel - Memory - 4 GB ( 2 x 2 GB ) - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3 - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL9 - 1.8 V - unbuffered - non-ECC
. Even though the motherboard could support the higher speed memory, I stayed with a mid-range speed...I personally have not seen a significant speed improvement for using higher speed memory - there are many other slowdown areas that should be addressed before memory speed is increased (i.e. hard drive RPM speed is a much more significant speed problem than a 300-600Mhz difference in memory speed). And, yet another AMD advantage over Intel for DDR3 memory - AMD allows using dual channel memory (2 memory slots used)...Intel requires ternary channels (3 memory slots used)...again, lower cost for AMD vs Intel and also lower amount of heat dispersed into the case (lower wattage required, etc). Yes, there may be minor differences between dual and ternary channel memory but not enough to make me switch to Intel (and spend more).Next came the hard drive. There were several options here. We ended up, after a long debate, with the Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM SATA II WD1001FALS
. [We had picked a Samsung but NewEgg was sold out when I made the order]. We had talked about the 7200 RPM drives vs the 10000RPM (Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor SATA 10,000 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD3000HLFS
) drives but the price per gigabyte vs performance was a bit much. Yes, 10k RPM drives are FAST but for $200 for 300gb vs $100 for 1TB - not worth it for general use. We also went back and forth over the new SATA III 6Gbps drives but from what I read of the ratings, the speed and performance for those new drives just isn't up to the speed yet and with the standard so new I suggested he hold off and get those drives later after more manufactures get on board (there was only 1 when I did the research - I found none just now on Amazon and NewEgg, so maybe a very good choice to, for once, avoid the bleeding edge!). This drive is in Western Digital's line of similar drives - green being "green" which uses less power and are very quiet, blue which is general use, and black which is a performance drive. After installing this drive into the system, this drive seemed "noisy" compared to others I've used...but, this could be due to the acoustics of the case or the drive itself...doesn't sound bad and not overly loud but can be heard over the fans. The only caution with this drive is that it is not natively RAIDable...there's supposed to be a "trick" out there to force the RLE disabled/enabled but I didn't bother as this drive is currently not RAIDed. Of course you must pay WD more if you want the native RAIDable drive...i.e. not worth it... For the high performance system, I had included in the price 2 1.5tg 6gb drives and 3 of the 300gb 10k RPM drives...The customer wanted to be able to write CDs and DVDs...after looking at the prices ($30 for a DVD writer), and seeing the price on the Blu-Ray Combo drive (
LG Electronics LightScribe 8x SATA Blu-ray Combo Internal Drive UH08LS10 BLACK/RBOX (Black)
), we choose to get the Blu Ray drive. This'll be my first Blu Ray drive installed [hey, I haven't been building systems much lately] and so far so good...haven't yet tested the Blu Ray capability but normal reading seems to be very quick and for ~$90, not a bad price at all for a Blu Ray Player.After how many years of not using a floppy for storage, I decided to not use a floppy drive on this system. Flash drives are much more reliable and cheaper.
I got a generic keyboard and mouse - these are a lot personal preference so I got the cheapest available that worked and they can update as needed.
The power supply is the old reliable Antec Earthwatts 650 (650 Watt ATX12V V2.2 Psu
). I've used these many times in several of my home systems and for repairs and they do a great job. They don't generate a lot of heat and have very reliable components. They're also 80%+ efficient which helps with the electric bill. The only thing I don't like is their cables are not modular, but, they do have pretty much all the cables you'd need. Probably not the best for the tight-fit case but in a large case, modularity is not a problem. For this system and for upgrade reasons, I didn't recommend anything below a 500w so this was the best available choice.The case...ah, this is probably one of my favorite parts of the build. I've really been a fan of Antec cases (I personally have the P180 (Antec P180 Advanced Super Steel Mid Tower ATX Case
) and the P182 (Antec P182 Advanced Super Mid Tower ATX Case (Black/Stainless Steel Trim)
)). For this build, with an unknown amount of heat generated from the CPU, I decided to go with something with a bit more air flow (the Antecs do a great job, don't get me wrong) and something not so heavy (the Antecs are 50lbs+) and something easy to upgrade. I looked at two, an XCLIO Windtunnel with its two huge external fans or the RaidMax Smilodon (RaidMax Elite Series Smilodon 612W - Mid tower - ATX - power supply 500 Watt - black - USB/Audio
) with its foldout motherboard tray. I talked to the customer and we decided to go with the one with the most air flow - the XCLIO Windtunnel. All I'll say is this case is a pleasure to work with. The external fans are beasts and are adjustable and can be powered off at will. The case has plenty of room, great air flow (even with the external fans off), easy to get the motherboard installed, screwdriver-less installation of all drives. Pretty nice. The only gripes I have are the edges are sharp - but that's common with a lot of cases, the hard drive carriers are a bit of a pain to get onto the drives and don't appear as easy to remove once they're on the drives...but, being in a caddy, they're ok (if you're looking at swapping hard drives a lot - avoid!). The DVD drive was a cinch to install. I do wish the power cable for the external fans were a bit longer but other than that, not bad. This case only comes with the external fans, the drive fan and back external fan are optional - but I highly doubt are needed. The case is a bit taller than my Antec P182 and not as weighty (30lbs). Oh, another small thing, be careful of the front panel, lifting the case the panel is plastic and doesn't appear to be able to hold the weight well. The case also has adjustable feet, which is a nice change to the rubber "feet" I'm used to. The front panel is pretty thick and hides the drives and power/reset buttons. The USB/audio ports are on the side...interesting. Unlike the Antecs, this case does NOT have any air filters...and with all the incoming air, internal dust might be a problem. The hard drive did seem loud but not sure if this is the hard drive or the case's fault. Rubber grommets would be a nice addition (i.e. like Antec's P180 series). Overall, I did like the case (yes, against all my gripes - just documenting everything) and would definitely buy it again for another high performance system. The fans are adjustable and are surprisingly quiet! The side panel is a pain to get on at times (goes on but the thumbscrews don't always align) and it does not come off the way most normally do - it comes up (up being case on it's side) , not back (back as in drives towards power supply). Took some getting used to... With it all said and done and everything built, the case temp was <30C and CPU temp <30C (BIOS temps) and the exhaust air was very cool (unlike one of my Intel-based Antec's with air fairly warm). Even with the external fans off, the CPU/case temp did not go above 32C (BIOS temps). A few of the case pics are below...
I had the entire system built in less than 2 hours. Was a fairly easy build and I actually did take my time on it...the case made a huge difference.
Installing software...I installed Windows 7 (upgrade version) [with no prior OS], it installed and it was ready to use in ~15 minutes. Unfortunately, 7 did not like me trying to use an upgrade without an OS already installed (I know, I have not done any clean absolutely no OS installs of 7 before so I thought it would "ask" for an original XP/Vista CD - it didn't). So, Vista 64 install...also took ~20 minutes (yay, not SATA drivers needed! Pleasant surprise!)...then installed 7 on-top of a clean Vista install. Again, less than 15 minutes. Everything else was a cake walk - nothing took over 5 minutes to install...actually probably took longer to download most things than to install them. I installed Avast, Ad-aware, all the "useful" Asus utilities , Java, ATI display drivers, OpenOffice, Google utilities (minus Spyware Doctor as that's caused me problems on several other systems) along with all the LG utilities for reading/writing disks and watching Blu Rays. I also installed the DivX player, which has a decent selection of HD videos and can encode videos fairly well. Of course, Firefox was also installed. Overall, I had everything installed and fully updated in just a couple hours.
General testing went well and the machine performed great. We'll see how well the customer likes this machine :)
For the record, this time NewEgg instead of Amazon had the best prices for the parts where normally it's the opposite. Sorry, Amazon - some parts just weren't available at all at Amazon. And, yes, the total for this system was a little under $1400 including monitor, printer, computer, tax (stupid TN tax of ~$125!) and shipping/handling ($30! - yes, $30 and everything came in about a week).
Since I have no clue (yet) how to arrange these pics, the various pics from the build are below.
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