Whistling About Chickens
A couple weekends ago, I assembled a new computer for myself. The one I had been running was only a couple years old, but it was a bare-bones deal from TigerDirect that I got for $500 just to be functionally capable of playing UT3 when it came out*. It came in a tall, ugly, unwieldy case that has one of those stupid doors on the front which needs to remain open all the time so you can stick flash drives in it and eject the optical drive tray; a pointless encumbrance that looks tacky when taken off, and is functionally annoying when on. Needless to say, I never got comfortable with that machine in the way I like to; there is something rewarding about knowing that a machine is what it is because of the parts you personally chose for it.
A little after I got it back in 2007, I promised myself that some day, when I had the money, I could go out and buy myself a new computer that fit me. And I guess that time came late last year when I started ordering parts. Here’s what I ended up with:
CPU: AMD Phenom x4 9750 2.4GHz – NewEgg had a sale. I figured that a quad-core processor for $80 isn’t a bad deal, even if it doesn’t come with a heatsink/fan.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H – Matched all my other parts, and included an integrated gigabit NIC (are any integrated NICs NOT gigabit these days?) Also got brownie points for having an HDMI, eSATA, and Firewire port which I’ll probably never use, but will be pleased to know I could if I wanted to.
Memory: 4x 2GB Crucial DDR2 800 – I dig Crucial for hosting their insanely useful Memory Advisor. I went with this particular memory stick because it ended up being a relatively cheap 8GB of RAM.
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 1TB – It feels good to finally break the terabyte storage barrier. I’ve needed this for a while, actually, so I can better organize the placement and storage on my WD Passports, which act as backup drives (320GB and 500GB).
Optical Drive: LG 22x DVD-RW w/Lightscribe – Generic. Nothing special here.
Case: Cooler Master Elite 334 nVidia Edition – I never realized how many cases were either hideously malformed, had doors on the front, or incredibly boring before I went shopping around for one. I liked the look of this one, and saved myself something like $30 by ordering it from Amazon instead of NewEgg. Got free shipping, too, which is where buying a case usually really hurts.
Monitor: Asus MS238H 23″ 2ms Widescreen LCD – I broke down and purchased a new monitor for I think the first time in my life. I’ve really fallen in love with this monitor, though the ring stand base makes me nervous sometimes.
Keyboard: Lite-On SK-1688U/B – Finding a good keyboard is hard these days, too; I like a big backspace key, stands that actually angle the keyboard up a significant length, and an otherwise clean setup (no multimedia keys or whatever). I ordered three of these, and I’m really, really happy with the results. **
Operating System: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, 64-bit – running XP inside of VirtualBox. I intend to install a Windows 7 VM at some point and see if its worth bothering with.
The mouse and power supply were taken from the old PC, while the heatsink/fan was some fancy-ass Zalman deal that I bought from Computer Renaissance. It came in like 20 pieces and had no instructions, so I ended up spending about an hour with it before realizing that most of the parts were there for other socket types. Embarrassing, but I guess I learned something.
Also, I did get a PCI-express video card of some kind for nice graphics, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. You can see how much I care about gaming on this machine (it runs all my Compiz settings just fine – thats all I really care about).
Eventually, I’ll purchase and install a card-reader/floppy combo drive (oddly enough, the motherboard I got features a floppy drive channel). I always think my case looks empty if there isn’t a slot to insert some kind of media hanging around smack-dab in the middle of it’s front.
I spent the whole weekend installing software, migrating data, and tweaking settings…and I actually enjoyed doing so. Some notes on this process:
- Running Windows in a strictly virtual environment is kind of an experiment for me, but so far I haven’t had any major issues aside from being unable to do full-screen YouTube videos inside of it.
- Installing UT2004 on Ubuntu was of course needlessly difficult, but I found my salvation in this guide. The only thing left is getting audio to work smoothly in it. And maybe installing UT:GOTY as well.
- I really like how Ubuntu has incorporated nice themes, wallpaper, screensavers, etc. into their OS. I’ve mentioned it before, but the “cool” factor is important in any software experience, and the Ubuntu people have done a good job in this regard.
- Compiz, as always, made the experience that much more engaging. I found a great animated skydome that still makes me giddy to see in action.
There is a certain joy in exploring new hardware and software that is difficult to appreciate if you’ve never been in that position before. Trying to get disparate things to work together and then actually succeeding in doing so is an immensely rewarding experience – the kind where you walk away knowing not only that you’ve picked up some new skills, but also had a lot of fun doing it.
*This turned out to be a fool’s errand, given that I ended up playing UT3 maybe three times before not caring anymore
**As a side note, prior to ordering these I’d been using an old grey PS/2 eMachines keyboard that was cracked from me slamming it repeatedly against a desk in anger. The weakened plastic and uneven feet caused it to bounce a little bit every time I typed on it.
Glad you stepped up to quality! Due to the games I run, I’ll never buy anything with less than 3 gigahertz equivalent per core (I still have lots of games that only support 1 core). You should be more than fine though, as you’re not as addicted as I am :)
Ubuntu’s come a long way, and I can actually make everything on my machine work with it now (tried under WUBI a while back) when it comes to hardware. If they can refine it further, I may use it on my Touchbook (once it arrives) if I don’t like their version of Linux.
Nice case, too. That’s like the cousin to my Centurion 5. Coolermaster makes great stuff. Anyways, congrats and enjoy the new hardware!
Ubuntu has come a long way – I’ve tried it every year or so since about 2006, and since about 8.04 I’ve been really content with its performance. It isn’t perfect, but at the rate its been growing, it shows a lot of promise.
Glad to see it has finally met your seal of approval. I think I remember you slamming it before, having tried it a few times and never quite being happy with the results…
You’ll have to bring over that Touchbook when you get it – it looks really interesting.
And I concur about Cooler Master – I’d say that after Antec, they make the best cases/case accessories/cooling devices.
I really like Antec’s “Skeleton” case. However, it would be easy to spill something on it.
My brother has talked about a new computer, I would love to build him one, have to pay the cc off a little more though. I told him one of those nice Phenom processors from AMD would be good, AMD’s processors are so much cheaper than Intel that it isn’t even funny. I have a dual core AMD Athlon 64 3800+ in my main desktop system I built for myself back in 2007, I’m impressed with it. Times 4 though, $80 for your quad-core, that’s quite a steal. I’ll have to read this entry again later, just glimpsed over it–and make some comments on your other components in your recent build. I like the case you chose, however, I’d opt to get a see-thru side panel just for curiosity, my first build ever, big ass Antec 1000 case, it’s heavy, loud, but the side panel is nice. I’m not using it as my main ‘puter anymore though, was too loud and took up quite a bit of space. You got more ram than my main AMD dual core W7 system! I got 6GB!
My colleagues at Computer Renaissance groaned when I told them I had purchased an AMD Phenom. Apparently, they are down on AMD processors and made the claim that they’ve seen many systems with performance problems come through with modern AMD chips inside. Still, I’m happy with it so far. Can’t beat $80.
Also, that case does have a transparent window – it’s green, and in the shape of the nVidia logo. The 120mm case fans that came with it illuminate green when running, too, so it’s a little tricked out.
Lots of memory was a goal with this build – I figured I’d be relying on virtual machines a lot to transition me out of the Windows world, so the more RAM I could pack in, the better. This also pushes me more into the 64-bit world than I ever have been before.
I continually hear people bitching about AMD chips, as if they said “Fisher-Price” under the serial number. Or that guy at Virtual PCs who will probably tell you he once found an Athlon in bed with his wife suffering from performance problems, so he no longer sells any.
In my opinion, most of these complaints are from a sampling bias. * I don’t think anyone can really go wrong with either AMD or Intel. My previous system was an Athlon XP something. I was quite happy with it. I’m now using a dual core Intel something. It’s spiffy. $80 for that chip you bought sounds more than spiffy.
* I mean no offense to the guys at CompRen. Since I moved around the corner, I’ve found them very helpful.
I have also never had any consistent issues with either brand; AMD or Intel, they’ve always worked well for what I needed them to do. Maybe I can get one of my CR friends to comment on the issue here.
I had to laugh about the Virtual comment. Jeff is a character.
Are the folks at CR Intel fanboys or AMD? Hopefully, it’s half and half. It makes for more interesting debate.
Nick
As far as I know, none of us are ‘a fan’ of AMD systems, and the reason isn’t the processors themselves – I think it’s more of a misunderstanding of where they stand. They are a cheap, functional processor, that perform somewhat decently. If you want to build a good system on the cheap, it’s a good way to go!
However, they simply do not last that long. Of course there are exceptions, but from what I have seen in my two years at the store, we come across considerably more dead AMD systems than intel. The difference is large enough that it is noticeable from everyone who works there. There is a much higher rate of motherboard failure primarily. And there aren’t too many old dead 939s, I think it’s mostly that there is a much higher rate of early failure than with intel. It’s very rare for a newer intel system to come in with a dead motherboard, and not surprising at all with AMD systems. It applies more to custom builds (so I can’t rule out the possibility of people looking for ‘cheap computers’ also being people less skilled at building them) but I’d have to say it looks like the same goes for manufacturer models.
When people ask me my opinions, I normally say something along the lines of “If you think you’ll be wanting to get a newer computer every two or three years, than an AMD might not be a bad way to go – If you want something reliable that is going to last you, stick with an Intel.”
I think starting on March 1st, I will keep a log of all computers in their store that are diagnosed with a dead motherboard, and note their age, condition, model, and if it was AMD or Intel. Maybe then I can get some notable numbers.
Thanks for the insight, Katy. :)
I suppose I can see motherboards being more an issue than the processor. I’ve never had a processor die on me, but I recall Socket A motherboards being absolutely horrible back in the day. I concluded that it was mostly because so many of them were made by shit manufacturers and so were cheap by nature, coupled with chipset incompatibilities which resulted in certain processors just not working on some boards, despite the socket matching.
Since that time, AMD mobo manufacturers have grown in number and now include some fairly reputable manufacturers, so I’m inclined to assume that the quality would be better than what it used to be. I’m not averse to accepting anecdotal evidence to the contrary, however.
I would be curious what those numbers end up being. I could see that being a valuable thing not just for us, but any tech professionals.
I second the need for those statistics comparisons between Intel and AMD. I do want to point out that ECS is notorious for making cheaper motherboards. I had a cheap ECS Socket 470 board die on me after 5 years. I think it’s worth noting the mobo manufacturer with the statistics, Gigabyte and Asus are two of the better mobo players out there. Although I’ve heard some good things on MSI as well.
Nick
I’d be interested to know who the chipset is by on the faulty AMD boards. Sis? Nvidia?
I’ll attempt to record that as well on the ones that I get to see in person. :)
Sean,
To follow up my 2 cents on your recent build, no heatsink/fan with the AMD processor is quite a blow. Obviously, you get get a much better one than the generic one AMD typically provides. I bought a big ass Arctic Cooling one off Newegg back in ’07, my last build. Long story short, I suspected the heatsink was the cause of the vibration, turns out it’s the SATA drives, got the grommets in too. Switching the SATA drives around in the cage helped reduce it. It’s weird. Motherboard? Looks good, you could always set up a mirror. My AMD board, the Asus M2N I’m using 2 80GB sata drives for the OS – mirrored, as well as one 320GB SATA I configured as RAID 0 – just for VM data with VMware Server. A second look at the case, yes it is see-thru, very clever, I easily overlooked it initially. The PSU from the old PC put in this new build, how many watts is it? I’ve never had any problems with Crucial, Kybyte, PNY, or Kingston. I think I’ve bought Kingston the most though, just happened to find good deals is all.
How many fans do you have equipped in your new case? Sun’s Virtualbox is gaining popularity, I have it installed on my work computer but it’s painfully slow, the machine here is just a single core pentium 4 processor, easy to push it to the limit. I’ve been using VMware Server 2.02 since summer, the VMware Console Remote plugin though doesn’t yet work with FF 3.6 so I’m forced to use Internet Exploder for the time being. I don’t know why I bother to set up other Linux distros as vm’s as I tend to play with Ubuntu far more than any of the others (OpenSuse, Mandriva, Fedora)
Kudos for getting a board with a floppy controller. The age of floppy lives on….
Nick
I’m not sure what the wattage on this PSU is, and I haven’t had time to check. I might update this comment later with the details.
Fan-wise, I have two internal 120mm fans – one for the front, one for the back. The fan on my heatsink is like the bastard son of Godzilla, so I feel inclined to mention it as well.
The floppy controller wasn’t an influence on my purchase, though it will be cute having one on my PC. I anticipate that I will never use it.
I know we’ve seen quite a few dead ASUS AM2 boards, which is a shame since I’m quite fond of ASUS. I think most of the dead ones I saw were the double-PCI Express x16 boards.
I actually plan to possibly use a similar build to this one for a budget gamer for a friend of mine. For the price it is pretty nice I will of course be having to go with Win7 though.
Considering i will most likely see you at the upcoming lan party i will just ask then about how its treating you.