I talked about it a little bit, but I never got around to posting the pics and all the specs of my new computer that I built mid-July. I’m finally getting some time to talk about it and what it entails. It’s quite the beast. Here are the specs of the system below.
System Specifications
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (skip to)
Motherboard: ASUS M2N-E Socket AM2 (skip to)
Hard Drives: Seagate 7200.10 320gb (2) (skip to)
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC4200 1gb (2) (skip to)
Video Card: Geforce 7600GS 256MB (skip to)
CPU Fan/Heatsink: ZALMAN CNPS 9500 AM2
Monitor(s): Dual 20″ AOC LCDs
Case: COOLER MASTER PAC-T01-EK
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz
- 40-bit physical addresses, 48-bit virtual addresses
- Eight new (sixteen total) 64-bit integer registers
- Eight (sixteen total) 128-bit SSE/SSE2/SSE3 registers
- Including support for 3DNow!™ Professional technology and SSE3
ASUS M2N-E Socket AM2
- AMD Socket AM2
- Dual-Core CPU
- Dual-Channel DDR2 800 Memory
- ASUS Crash-free BIOS 3
- Gigbit LAN
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320gb
These drives are simply amazing. I’ve been mainly a Wester Digital and Seagate guy my whole life, never went for the Maxtor’s after my first bad experience. With this machine, I wanted the best of the best, so I went with dual 320gb SATA2 drives for the best performance for my money. At only a hundred bucks each, these were a steal. Quiet, fast, tons of space, and very stable. I’m quite happy with these drives, I highly recommend them.
Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC4200 1gb
Running dual channel memory at DDR2 800 is simply amazing. The blazing speed of 2gb dual-channel ram is astonishing. I’ve been using PC133 memory for almost 8 years now and this was my first experience with dual-channel memory. Something to note though, when you’re building a new computer, the dual-channel sticks have to be in specific channels to operate with the best performance; so make sure you check the manual to see which channels you need to put them in. These sticks only cost me around $300 for both, so they were also a deal.
Geforce 7600GS 256MB
Next on the list, I picked up a 256mb video card. I had been running on a 128mb video card for quite some time and thought it was time to officially upgrade to the next class of video cards. There were some 512mb video cards floating around, but now that I don’t do much gaming anymore, I didn’t see a need to get one. 256mb was good enough for what I do (mainly Starcraft, Photoshop, notepad, Word, the basics mainly.)
ZALMAN 9500 AM2
Since I had such a killer CPU, I knew I had to go all out for the CPU and heatink to get optimal performance. This baby cost me $70, but it’s worth every penny I invested in it. It keeps my CPU very cool and doesn’t make a sound. The loudest thing in my case are my case fans, which I tried replacing but ended up just leaving because they were pretty quiet already.
20″ AOC LCD Monitors
These might be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I had been living on a single 17″ LCD and a single 19″ CRT before, but ever since upgrading to dual 20″ monitors, my life has been heavenly. These monitors are simply amazing. The color is very crisp and the color is awesome. They don’t weight that much and they are very accurate. I love these monitors. They were a bit pricey at $330 each, but worth every penny in my mind.
COOLER MASTER Praetorian PAC-T01-EK
And of course, we can’t forget the case. This is my baby. This is my mad-crazy-power house system.
September 27th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Looks like a nice rig. I’d get a 79xx vga card, but I game alot :P
September 27th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
Thanks. I don’t do much gaming anymore. I do a little bit, but mostly Starcraft (yeah, I’m old school.) I didn’t spend much on video except my monitors because I wanted to keep costs down.
September 28th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Dual LCD’s are my plan for the next PC, for now the 15.4″ Laptop and 19″ Desktop LCD’s are doing a great job, but a dualie setup on the desktop is just great to have.