One-Man PC Production Nov 26, 2007
Ever since my first 386, I’ve been the kind of guy to find a good value/performance PC and then tinker with it as needed. I put an original SoundBlaster in that old 386, had to install a front cooling fan in a Dell Pentium III that was overheating after the installation of a GeForce 256, and threw goodies like ram and a sound card into my most recent Pentium 4 Dell. Although I’ve been very happy with the results of the retail/assembly giants, I got it in my head that building my own PC would be some kind of fun.
After some research on the intertubes, it looked like the biggest advantage to be found in building a PC from scratch is a slight jump in parts quality over the retailers for a similar price. Also, you learn something along the way and you can pick your components to suit your needs exactly.
There are a number of Web sites that publish regular PC build guides based on the latest and greatest goodies. I used a recent High-End Gaming guide from Sharky Extreme; your mileage may vary, of course, and you’re bound to encounter the Internet Standard Unit of Opinions opting for or against any of them.
To simplify shipping, I bought everything at Newegg. Their prices are very competitive, and they had mail-in rebates on several of the items I wanted.
Surprisingly few tools are needed for a full PC build; I had a small Phillips-head screwdriver, a medium-sized flathead screwdriver, a bundle of small zip ties, small cutters for trimming said zip ties, and that’s about it. Also, ground yourself frequently, and always before touching anything you’d hate to fry with a stupid jolt of static.
One site recommended installing the CPU and heat sink on the motherboard before putting the motherboard in the case, the logic being that there’s a lot more room to work when the motherboard is out of the case. I did this, and it was good, but make sure you’ve got some strips of cardboard or something elevating but supporting the motherboard so the heat sink clips can drop securely through the board and reach their resting place (they need about 1mm of clearance to do so).
Having never done it before, I was a bit worried about the amount of force to use on the lever that secure the CPU to the motherboard. The chip drops in place with no force whatsoever, and can be oriented only in the proper direction thanks to some little cut-outs and tabs. Using only the thumb, a moderate amount of pressure was required; sorry to be so vague, I didn’t have anything handy to figure out the Newtons. Easier than setting the average mousetrap, I’d say.
After I put everything together the first time, I plugged it in, hit the power supply unit’s switch and got nothing. I was worried the PSU was DOA, but the friendly folks at Circuit City put it on a little tester and it was fine. I took out all the cards and unplugged all the connectors, and a green light appeared on the motherboard indicating it had power. I then went through the installation piece by piece, checking for the green light at each step. I’m not sure what I had done wrong the first time; perhaps one of the fan connectors was in the wrong way, they’re a one-way-only design but the plastic is fairly malleable and I might have made an error in the first attempt. Whatever the case, after going through it carefully everything fired up as it should have.
The end result is pretty awesome, if I do say so. The case is a big wicked 35 pound hunk of aluminum and Lexan-ish-plastic. It’s fast, particularly for gaming. And best of all, it’s got room to evolve, and since I put everything in with my own two hands I won’t hesitate to tear into it and perform said upgrades whenever the time comes.
I’m still using my old mouse and keyboard, the 22-inch Optiquest monitor I picked up a while back, the X-Fi card from my old PC and a Logitech 5.1 surround setup that’s a few years old. Here’s the list. Mail-in rebates are in parentheses.
| Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum | $130 (-$40) |
| Cooler Master Real Power Pro 650W Power Supply | $110(-$35) |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor | $280 |
| ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard | $205 |
| Samsung 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S203B | $34 |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive | $120 |
| Corsair XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 | $108(-$40) |
| eVGA GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 Video Card | $290 |
| Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders | $112 |
| TOTAL | $1274 |
And here’s the 3DMark06 Score: 3DMark Score 11588 3DMarks SM 2.0 Score 5490 Marks SM 3.0 Score 5292 Marks CPU Score 2583 Marks
For whatever it’s worth, Vista rates the comptuer a 5.6 out of 5.9 possible on the “Windows Experience” scale.
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