The starting point
About a year ago I started to think upgrading my trusty computer which I built three years before. In computer terms, three years is like an eternity and I was soon to realise that all the extra thoughts that I put in building it so that I could upgrade it later reusing as much as possible ... was ... eh ... useless. To illustrate this, my old computer spec was as follows:
- Computer case: AOpen H600A. Chosen so that I could reuse it.
Heat is now a major issue when building your box and so you need a box with good air flow which sadly my AOpen doesn't have. Therefore I needed a new case. - Motherboard: Chaintech Appogee 7VJL KT400
- Processor: Athlon 1800+ 266Mhz bus
- Memory: 512 MB DDR2700
- Video card: Gainward G4 PP Pro
- Hard disk: IBM Deskstar 180GXP 60GB. Chosen so that I could reuse it. Unfortunately EIDE has been replaced by SATA and hard disk space need has exploded. So I need a new hard disk as well. Oh dear!
- CD-RW: Mitsumi CR-485ETE. At last one component that I can keep!
- DVD-ROM: LGGDR-8163B. And another component that I can keep.
- Floppy drive: Sony. And YES you still need one just in case you want to flash your bios or format your hard disk or overwrite your MBR to install a boot loader. So this one I will definitively keep it.
- Speakers: Creative Inspire 4400 (4.1). I regret this choice first) because there are too many cables second) either you have 2+1 or 5+1 but 4+1 is not even listed in most driver or game options.
- Monitor: Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 750SB. Listed as best buy at the time and it did not disappointed me at all. However nowadays flat screens are as good as CRTs and space is one of my requirement as I don't live in a castle with huge spare rooms. Ok so I won't keep this monitor too then!
As you can see the only pieces of hardware that were good enough to keep were only the CD, DVD and floppy drives! What's the lesson: don't listen to the so called computer experts that tell you that a particular computer is good because it can be easily upgraded. That's because either you will upgrade within the following six months (and you have lots of cash to spare) or it will be too late. Computer technology moves too fast! For instance I bought a SATA drive for this new box and a year later I can see that when I will upgrade to a new box, flash RAM hard disks will be common place: 64GB is already on sales now! so image in 2 years time...
Below is a picture of my old box. Notice that ugly beige doesn't age very well. It's now more yellow-ish then beige!
My shiny new box
Right so look below at a picture of my new baby.
The spec is as follows:
- Computer case: Antec P180
- Motherboard: Abit KN8-SLI nForce4
- Processor: Athlon64 4000+ San Diego cooled by Artic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
- Memory: Geil 2x1GB PC3200 Dual Channel DDR. I actually bought some standard (and therefore cheap) memory to start with but they failed and my new rig would not boot up. I was then lucky to find those Geil for less than £100! The lesson is that by adding only £10 for your memory you can avoid wasting some time and some hair (how can you know which compoment is failing when you don't have any spare?)
- PSU: Tagan TG530-U22 530W. Yes I know it has been mounted upside down. This is because Antec case has a separate compartment at the bottom where the PSU and hard-disks are located. The idea been that the heat from the PSU won't spread to the motherboard and other components. In practice because hot air rises, the compartment should have been at the top! Nobody seems to have told the guys at Antec about that simple law of physics...
- Graphic card: XFX GeForce 7800GT Extreme 256MB GDDR3
- Hard disk: Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 (250GB for those who have not yet guessed its capacity). Ample storage for me (I'm not downloading any movie or music!) and quiet in operation.
- Monitor: Sony SDM-HS95P/R Black 8ms 1000:1. Beautiful.
- Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse (version 1) which has illuminated blue keys that look really cool.
Below is a closer shot of my beloved monitor. I thought at first that TFT screens would not be as bright as CRT monitors. But after using this Sony flat screen for just one week, when I switch on the old computer and look at the old monitor I could not believe the difference. The old Mitsubishi looks so dark and gives a green-ish display that is in total contrast with the bright and vibrant colour of the Sony 1000:1 brightness.
Here are some photos of the inside. Pay attention to the skill involved (really? 
) to try to have a clean inside to let airflow run from the front to the back of the case by tidying up cables.
Where is the hard-disk I hear you say. I've moved it into a spare slot below the CD-RW drive. See cutting noise on my new computer to understand why.
Final thoughts
After a year using my second custom-built computer, I realise that I've still made some mistakes in my choice of components. For instance, even if Antec P180 is a great case I should have bought the Akasa eclipse 62. Despite not having any fan included, the layout is more traditional and built quality is top. I've replaced Antec own fans anyway! The motherboard is cheap but then it ain't that great. Finally never buy a PSU without modular cables just for the sake of not having half a dozen of unused cables that need to be hidden away.
Oh well I only have to wait another 2 years before upgrading this box...
