Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Recipe Time

And that's a post title no one would expect from me !

So what's cooking ? Let's take you through the ingredients as you mix them all together.

First. Prepare your work space and implements of choice. Dust free is Good, also make sure it's well lit. Implements should be fit for purpose and if they're magnetic, PUT THEM DOWN AND STEP AWAY ! Magnetic stuff picks up screws ok but if you move Iron through a magnetic field, the change in that field induces an electric current. Which, with sensitive electronics, is Very Bad.

Take your Thermaltake case and add power supply. (Novatech unit or OCUK). Gloves can be useful here so you don't fingerprint the box. For most satisfaction, go for extreme beefiness. Going lean tends to lead to fainting through hunger later.

(if not enough power is available, the system will "Brown Out". Think of it as a pastry which starts to rise and then goes FLUMF - flat as a pancake)

When the trays are prepared, turn your attention to the cake. For today's cake, we'll use an Asus P6X58D-E motherboard as the sponge, with a liberal coating of Intel i7 930 icing on top. Applying the icing is really fiddly, too much pressure or an unsteady hand can lead to big dents in your cake. Dents are bad. (Especially as an Intel i7 930 processor costs £180+VAT!)

So, we have our sponge cake with its icing but the job isn't done yet. We need candles ! Zalman give us the sparkly things here, in the form of a CNPS10X Extreme cooler. Lots of care needed again here to stop the candles breaking through that icing.

What's left ? Hundreds and thousands to sprinkle on that icing, as well as those shiny silvery thingys. Let's bring out the GeForce 460 to make this thing look purdy.

Carefully slide it on to the plate (our box has a plate that you put everything on before fixing it in) we made earlier and we're almost ready.

Add a few wafers (Samsung 1TB hard disc and 6GB of memory) and that cake of our's is almost ready for the party. We're missing music and a movie ! Bring out the blu-ray drive and a screen (by Samsung again) and it's ready to roll.

Back to reality ...

I'm having a thunk about changing my PC stuff again. What I have now has served me pretty well, greatly helped by the upgrade to the graphics from 18 months ago. It is starting to hit the ragged edge of what it can do though, so it's time to start researching now so that when I buy in 6-12 months, I'll be choosing bits from a position of strength instead of ignorance.

I'm quite likely to buy a screen before that though, as my 17" 4:3 display feels very cramped. I can't see the point in buying anything other than a touchscreen compatible display, so it'll be a good few months before I part with any money.

The garbled stuff above is an attempt to say how you put a home brew PC together, helped out by the experience I have with the series of home build boxes I've done before. It does aid if you know roughly what order to put things together in, to anticipate having your access closed off. There's also stuff like needing to Push Really Hard to slot things in, best to do that when you can brace what you're pushing so it doesn't flex and break.

There's a bit more to it as well. The electronics are very sensitive, so it's wise to have a Tame Geek to take you through the precautions needed. Even an innocent finger tip can fry a processor - think of how you jump when you get that spark when you touch the car door and then imagine that spark going into electronic stuff just 45nm across.

Right - The geeks are probably wondering what kind of thing would I get ?

Monitor - at least 22" widescreen, although I'll need a home for my current one before I jump.
Thermaltake TT-V3BLAC box - looks ok, cheap, should keep bits cool and neat, Solid name.
Novatech/OCUK power supply - risky going for a no-name as a bad PSU will break the rest of the bits in the box when it goes bang. But if it's half the price for more grunt ...

Forums are useful as well here, Google is a powerful tool if you're looking for fairly impartial views on kit. Apply X-Files logic though : "Trust No One".

Zalman CNPS10X Extreme cooler - it's worth going for the most expensive, biggest cooler in the shop as it'll keep your system cool while being Very Quiet. I hardly notice my current desktop.
Asus motherboard and Intel cpu - this is a departure for me, the last Intel chip I had was a 486 around 14 years ago. Intel have been making strides forward while AMD have stood somewhat still.
6GB memory - desktop is struggling with 2GB and it's a choice of 3 or 6. 3 would be close to struggle with games, 6 gives a lot more headroom. I'd want to follow my current desktop which has two hard discs (one Windows, one games) but Ultra Fast solid state drives aren't cheap enough yet.
Graphics from GeForce - another change, as I sacked the makers of these around 8 years ago due to breakages and bad drivers. The wheel turns full circle ...

That's most of the bits I'd think of getting. I've mentioned a few hardware makers in this post :

Asus - had a couple of motherboards from these guys and they are Solid. A motherboard is the foundation of a system, you want it to be granite.
Zalman - they look pretty, they keep stuff cool, they're quiet. Cost a bit more but they are 100% value for money.
Novatech - they have a shop within easy driving distance and they earned themselves an excellent reputation from their first store in Portsmouth.
Samsung - these guys will take over the world. They have the best R&D ideas and after 1 monitor, 2 TV's, 1 hard disc which are all high quality, I have no reason (yet!) to go elsewhere. No regrets from going to these guys again.

I've made no mention at all of speakers or keyboard and mice ... These things are so Personal Choice that if someone does recommend one, don't listen. Go to a shop, fiddle with the keyboards and mice, see what you like best. It's your keyboard and mouse and your fingers and hands are different shapes to the reviewer person.

Personal Choice Rules.

I won't be buying new hardware yet ... But I have started thinking about it :-)

PS The i7 930 processor I'm looking at has more than double the memory on the chip than my first PC had for system memory.
PS2 Somebody mention CAKE ?

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