For Christmas I built myself a new computer.  I had been struggling along with a Pentium 4 that I had built years ago and decided it was time to upgrade.  Plus, this was a good time to do it as the new Intel Core 2 Quads were reasonably priced and nVidia had finally released a decent video card in the $200-$250 range.  I do my fair share of gaming, as well as some 3d design and modeling, so I needed something that could handle the graphics load.  Also, I wanted to try my hand at overclocking, so I picked parts with those requirements in mind while keeping an eye on the bottom line.


Here's the specs on my old computer:

Processor                  Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
Memory                     1 GB
Motherboard             Intel 865PERL
Hard Drive                 2 x 80 GB in RAID 0
Video Card                nVidia 6800 Ultra

Not too bad, but the processor is single core, and the video card is 2 generations behind.  Plus, I was trying to run Windows Vista on it and it just wasn't hacking it.  You need at least 2 GB of memory for Vista to get anything done.

So, I hit Newegg and put together the specs for my replacement.  In general, Newegg has the lowest prices, so I just did all my shopping there instead of trying to source parts from all over the internet.  In the end, my parts list looked something like this:

Processor                  Pentium Core 2 Quad Q6600
Memory                    4 GB Patriot Extreme DDR2 PC2 6400
Motherboard             nVidia nForce 680i LT SLI
Hard Drive                 320 GB SATA-300
Video Card                nVidia 8800 GT 512MB
Case                          Coolermaster with 550W power supply

I also added a heatpipe tower cooler with 120 mm fan for the processor.  With the 3 fans in the case and the heatpipe cooler I should be able to overclock the processor without much problem.  It runs at a native 2.4 GHz, but I'm going to try and get at least 3.0 GHz out of it.  The board will support two graphics cards, so if I ever want to upgrade then I can take the SLI route instead of replacing my existing card.

Next, I will post some pictures of the build including a special guest star - my son.  Who was a big help.  For a one year old.

Posted by: jcallery at 08:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 395 words, total size 4 kb.