My First Desktop PC

My home computing has been done on a couple of tablets over the past five or six years, but the sad truth is my trusty Travelmate C204 is nearing the end of its useful lifespan: the speaker is broken, as is the Bluetooth radio; the fingerprint recognition has a loose connection; the screen no longer works in tablet mode; the fan makes some very worrying noises; and some of the keys are beginning to go. Never mind that the single-core 2 Ghz processor is woefully underpowered by today's standards, and the 120GB hard drive is... well, I probably have more capacity floating around on USB sticks and memory cards. It did its job of getting me through uni admirably, and even let me run it for days to en- and transcode video without too much complaint, but it's time for an upgrade – not least so that I can play a top-release computer game again!

I've always been a fan of Charles Wright's 'Bleeding Edge' columns in the Green Guide (the TV supplement in the Melbourne Age newspaper), and their quarterly recommendations of what computer components to buy to assemble your own office/workhorse/media/gaming PC. (Buying a homogeneous product isn't for me: I like to customise where possible. Hell, I antagonise over the characteristics of toasters.) You can't get the Green Guide here in Sydney, though, and Charles Wright doesn't run in The Age's sister publication, the Sydney Morning Herald; nor have the recommendations on the Bleeding Edge forums been updated recently: the "coming soon" notice has been there since October.

Luckily, my parents keep copies of the Green Guide for a few weeks, so when I was down in Melbourne over Christmas I found the December parts recommendations and jotted them down.

Heading over to MSY – sort of like the Bunnings Warehouse of computer parts – to check the prices, I noticed that they offered pre-built systems. As I've said, this wasn't what I was after, but they did serve a very useful  base from which to customise my system. (Artificially limiting my choices to the stuff MSY stocks (PDF) made decisions much easier, too.)

My budget was roughly $2000, so I started with the low-end "Battlefield" (PDF) system, chucked out the 'gaming' keyboard/mouse/etc, and picked a better case, graphics card, sound card, SSD, HDD, cooling fan, RAM, monitor, and power supply. If that sounds like I didn't keep much, well, that's almost true – it was really just the processor, motherboard, and optical drive. However, I was worried about accidentally picking a component that ends up being completely incompatible with the rest of the system, so, by starting with something that MSY reckons is compatible and replacing it with a similar (but better) component, I figure I'm in the clear.

Here's what I ended up ordering:

CPU	Intel i7 2600K 3.4GHz 1155 pin	$337
Motherboard	ASUS P8Z68-V GEN3 (B3 chipset)	$219
RAM	2 x Patriot Gamer 2 8GB Kit (DDR3 1333)	$96
Graphics	2GB Radeon HD 6950 Powercolor	$270
Sound	Creative PCI X-FI Xtreme ASUS PCI Xonar DG	$51 $39
SSD (for OS)	Patriot SATA3 PYRO (Sanforce SF-2281) 120GB	$186
HDD	Seagate Green 2TB SATA 2/3	$129
Optical	LG Blu-Ray Writer SATA	$85
Case	Thermaltake V9 Tower Case	$104
CPU Cooling	Noctua U12P-SE2 (120mm)	$74
Power Supply	Corsair TX650	$113
Wireless	Edimax EW 7718 Un 300M	$20
Bluetooth	Inbuilt, I think? Otherwise I'll buy a dongle
Ports	4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 6 x SATA, 1 x eSATA (Inbuilt?)
Monitor	23.6" AOC E2450swh Spk	$150
Software	Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit	$95
Assembly		$70
TOTAL		$1998 $1986

The i7 processor has hyperthreading, which is pretty much useless for games but useful for processor-intensive stuff like graphics/video encoding/statistical simulations; the "K" means the CPU is unlocked should I decide to overclock it in future.

The motherboard was the same across MSY's gaming PCs, so I didn't bother doing much research into it. Seems to be a decent one.

RAM wasn't hugely expensive, so I figured I might as well get a ridiculous amount :-)

The graphics card was interesting: the MSY specs all had dual 1GB cards, but a bit of forum-trawling suggested the benefits depend heavily on which two (cheap) cards you compare to which single (expensive) card. There are also sometimes problems with getting games to use both cards, and you'll definitely use more power. I plumped for the simpler solution and instead bought the best card I could before I thought the prices started getting ridiculous.

None of the gaming systems had sound, so I was a bit in the dark with this choice. The X-Fi Extreme was the better of the mid-range offerings from Creative (based on the specs on their website), but I don't know all that much about it. Upgrading the system to a media PC (e.g with television card and whatnot) is something I may do down the line, but for now I just wanted something a bit better than your entry-level sound card.

An SSD for the OS is a no-brainer these days, and I wanted a decent size so I could keep as many programs as possible on it. The brand is the same as MSY were using.

The HDD, on the other hand, is a slower (5400rpm, versus the normal 7200rpm) spindle that uses a bit less energy. 2 TB should be enough for a few years, I hope...  The MSY specs were using Western Digital drives, but the salesman told me he'd had so many returns that he'd recommend Seagate instead.

I don't remember the last time I burnt a CD; all I really use my current drive for is to rip my music CDs and the odd DVD. Still, it can't hurt, and the LG seems to be what everyone (incl. Charles Wright) recommends.

My original idea for a case was going to be the Thermaltake Dokker, with an Antec Kühler H₂O 620 water-cooling system and two Noctua NF-S12 120mm case fans. (Where possible I'm choosing components that run quietly, so that I can leave my computer on overnight in my room with minimal disturbance.) However, the Thermaltake V9 case got an excellent review, not just because it looks cool, but also because of its ease for fitting components and cooling properties. As the V9 already has three fans installed – two 120mm, and a whopping 230mm – I ditched the Noctua case fans and replaced the Kühler with the Noctua UP12 CPU fan (pretty much a coin flip between it and the Noctua NH C12P).

What all this meant, sadly, is that I have to forego a shiny LED dashboard in the front of my case that would let me monitor and control all the relevant temperatures and fan speeds in my case. I had taken quite a liking to the AeroCool X-Vision, but unfortunately it has three-pin connectors while the V9's fans are four-pin; while you can still plug one into the other, you lose the fan-speed control doing so, making the exercise pointless :'-( 

I upgraded my power supply a little to cope with the beefed up components versus the MSY system I was working from, though according to this very helpful power supply calculator I shouldn't draw more than 450ish Watts at full load. As PSUs tend to be most efficient with a mid-range load (see e.g. this Corsair TX650 review), however, I don't mind if this one is underutilised.

The wireless card is from the MSY specs – wireless on a desktop? –; Bluetooth I thought was integrated (but the MSY guy wasn' sure); the ports are whatever is on the motherboard; and the OS is Windows. Nothing to see here.

I am trying something out with the screen: the offerings in this size/price category are all very similar in terms of resolution, weight, power consumption, viewing angle, etc, but the AOC e2450Swh appears to have a response time of 2ms while the others (Samsung, LG, Philips, etc) all had 5ms. This isn't a brand I've heard of, so it's a bit of a pig in a poke, but they've got a three-year warranty so whatever. What I really wanted, actually, was a screen that rotated 90° to go into portrait mode – I have one at work and love it –, but I haven't found an affordable one of those yet.

Right! So that's what I'm buying. It all comes in at just under my budget, which is excellent – I swear I wasn't fiddling around trying to stay under it, it just happened that way. Of course, by rights I should include the cost of the larger desk I'll need to support this beast of a machine, but never mind that. Soon I'll have a new toy, and I'll hopefully stop dreaming about replacing my not-even-two-year-old Asus Eee netbook with the incredibly sexy Asus Eee Pad Transformer. (At least for a few months.)

UPDATE 12/01:

MSY have told me the sound card I wanted is not currently in stock, and may take a while (several weeks) to order. The suggested replacement is an ASUS sound card almost double the price of what I originally wanted, which I don't think is worth it at the moment. I instead asked for a well-reviewed cheaper ASUS card, but that one appears to be out of stock, too! "ETA unknown."

I can't be arsed waiting weeks on a sound card, so I've just told them to build the system without it and I'll install it myself when it arrives. It could be only a very short time until I have my computer, now! :-)

UPDATE 28/01:

To complement my souped-up gaming PC I've also shelled out for a pair of SteelSeries 7H headphones. I wanted something with at least as good sound quality as my Sennheiser HD202s – now seven and half years old! –, but with a microphone and, ideally, circumaural (around the ear) rather than surpraaural (on the ear) design. The 7Hs fit the bill, and got very good reviews everywhere I looked. The one downside was the price, but it must've been my lucky day as Amazon US was selling them on special for ~AU$85 (incl. postage). C'arn the Aussie dollar!

P.S. Seven and half years ago I bought my Sennheiser HD 202s from JB Hi-Fi for $60. Today, JB sells them for... $75. This is why I shop online now, you tossers.