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Off Topic - New Desktop for Chris

Posted by Chris Leckness on 08/19/08 in Opinion

Guardian_170x170 Ok, not really Mobility related, but it’s time for me to replace my aging Dell XPS with something cutting edge, again. I know with Alienware and XPS, you are really paying for a name, then quality gear. I know I could hit newegg and put one together for cheaper than going through a company, but I don’t have to time to really spend on that. I have decided to buy a ready made, top of the line video superstar box. I have narrowed the choices of companies down to CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower.com. They might be the same company for all I know, but I like what i’ve seen for the price at these two. I was looking into the VooDoo from HP, but the sales rep said they won’t be shipping until October.

What do I need?
Well, I like to go top end and ride that machine out a year or two, so keep that in mind. My price limit is $3200. I plan to do lots of video processing, some video game play, and lots of photoshop and such. I want more machine than I need really. Here is what I am thinking so far…

  • 800w Quad SLI Ready Power Supply
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Proccessor Q9550 (4x 2.83ghz/12mb L2 Cache/1333FSB)
  • Intel Liquid CPU Cooling System
  • eVGA NVidia mForce 790i Ultra Chipset Motherboard
  • 8GB OCZ-GOLD DDR3-1333 RAM
  • 128GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Disk (SUPER FAST)
  • Blueray player and DVD-ROM
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 /1gb Video Card

This is what I am thinking so far, but it’s not set in stone. I plan to make a choice early next week.

I can get this setup for around 3k. Anything to add, any suggestions against any choices? Any input would be great.

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Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under Opinion 
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  • Genesis Factor
    First, save money, use a 64-32GB SSD drive. In reality, no matter how you slice it, its really your programs and OS that benefit the most from SSD. Regular files, esp in chunks, the difference is in parts of a second. In all my installs, my programs and stuff NEVER came close to 30GBs.

    With the money you save, do what David said and get an internal drive. External drives are great, but i mean, you want to go SSD, but then bottleneck yourself with USB 2.0 when you have SATA at your fingertips? If you're really worried about speed, get a hybrid drive, or if you're running vista, get an intel turbo cache ($29 on ebay + shipping)

    Buy the 16GB kit since you're going all out on RAM http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DHHX8Q?smid=ATVPDK...

    hehe other than that, nice system. I'm actually building a new system my self. Going opteron 1356 i think. Giving AMD the benefit of the doubt and hanging with direct virtualization as i do lots of computer repair and stuff as well. Sure their stats aren'talways better than intel's. but a 30% boost in FP calcs is nice for my engineering projects :).

    BTW, what about sound man? no audigy? no X-Fi?
  • @Jack Cook: Jack, just think how fast Chris will be able to blaze through his emails now. :)

    Chris, if you do go with 64-bit Windows, be sure to check app/driver compatibility, especially with antivirus/firewall apps. Zonealarm Security Suite, for example, is not compatible with 64-bit operating systems, and 16-bit apps will not run either (though I would bet you don't have too many of those about the house). Also, 64-bit Vista ships with two versions of IE7...the 32-bit-compatible version and the 64-bit version. The 64-bit version will not host 32-bit activeX controls and certain toolsbars/add-ins like the Google toolbar.
  • Walter Lewinski
    So What OS will you be using, Vista 64bit? I think it's the only one that will support that amount of ram. Also, what programs will you be using that will support the 64 bit?
  • It does look nice Chris! Why is it we always want more horsepower than what we really need? .... I guess it the ability to say we have it, that is why!

    Good luck in the decision!
  • I think I will take the advise on the Blueray. The Drive is enough because I have 2TB worth of external drives currently. I can process them on the SSD and move the finished videos to the externals.
  • David Rowe
    Hi Chris,
    That sounds like a nice system. One thing I would do is delete the Blu-Ray and get a DVD-RW. Unless you have a lot of Blu-Ray disks to watch now, I'd wait a while until the player prices come down and maybe even get a writer at that time. Another is to add a big drive. You can keep the SSD for OS and programs, but video eats a ton of space. I'd add a couple of 1T drives at $150-$250 for storage. I know you've already thought about it, but make sure you have a 64bit OS to access that memory.... If it comes in and you don't like the color or something, you have my e-mail ;-)
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