Geeking Out
To a geek such as I, getting a new computer somehow feels like a rite of
passage. Out with the old; in with the new. Time to move on to better things.
It also yields more than its share of nostalgia, reminding me of those times where hard drives were in expressed in terms of megabytes and a floppy disk was actually useful. The first PC I actually owned (actually co-owned with my wife, before she was my wife) was a Packard Bell 436 SX 33. 33 mhz of blazing power, coupled with an almost 150 mb hard drive and a fresh version of Windows 3.1. Plug in the hampster and watch it go. I’m sure it was a stud in its time but now, almost 10 years later, the average bank clock is probably more powerful.
The new PC on the block will be my fourth and, like its forebearers, it will
be quite a step up indeed. It doesn’t actually exist yet, but all the parts
but the case sit next to me at the moment. I merely await the shell to
house all of this. Here’s the break down of its components.
Be forewarned, only the geek may apply.
Case: CA305 ATX Case Tower
I went a just a little wild on this one. Cool cut out side panel, stylish
duds, and a neon light highlight the package. It should be great to show
off to my geek friends. Those who not so inclined to gawk at cords
will wonder why I’d even want to see inside in the first place. I think they
miss the point.
Motherboard: EP-8K5A3+
The mother board is one place where I splurged just a bit. Take
a more
generic
Epox board and add a couple of cool little extras like
6 channel audio, a built in network card, and 6 USB ports. All of the
additions should save me some work, allowing me leave my soundcard,
network card, and USB hub in my old computer.
It also comes with a cool little RAID controller, which I’ll probably never use,
but I can always hope that it keeps the ants away.
CPU: AMD ATHLON XP 2100+
Beefy enough and its fits right into the sweet spot of the price vs performance
chart (where the latest and greatest is much more expensive than the next, normally small, step down). According to
Tom’s
benchmarks, the little bugger
compares
favorably with the latest Pentium 4 processors, settling in somewhere
between a 2.1 GHz and 2.4 GHz Pentium 4.
That little note is important to me because the processor itself runs at a
mere 1.733 Ghz and I promised myself that my next CPU would have a
“2” in front it. Mission accomplished, at least in theory (and in
AMD‘s marketing).
Memory: Crucial Micron 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM
Speedy ram and good chunk of it. It’s not the fastest you can buy or the fastest
that my motherboard supports but it’ll do fine, particularly since I don’t
plan on making it cry from overclocking (promises, promises).
DVD-Rom:
PIONEER INTERNAL 16X DVD-ROM
I’ve been waiting to purchase one of these for quite a while. Since I
came in almost $200 under my planned purchase price (thanks Chris),
I found a way to fit it in for a very reasonable price. Now I can finally see
what I’ve been missing on the
Shrek
DVD and paint by numbers
using the extras from lastest Disney movie (mom will be so proud).
Hard Drive:
Western Digital Special Edition 7200 rpm 120 GB
Wow. That’s a lot of space; a whole lot of space. The mind boggles at
the possibilities that fill the void. Take 10 gb away because I’m going
to partition it off and place
Red Hat
on it. The rest will be filled
with the usual assortment of games, mp3s, pictures, and games.
I plan on picking up a digital video camera sometime before the child
pops out and I’d guess my future video sessions will fill some of the
room in as well. I’ve said this before (and was wrong) and I’ll say it
again (and be wrong again) but I just can’t imagine filling all that space.
Given my history, that leaves it about 6 months.
Video Card: Radeon 8500
This is one of the few components I plan on bringing over from my current
PC. It’s no longer the fastest thing on the block (actually, it never was),
but it holds its own, even under the stress of today’s latest games.
The new PC should enhance its performance, as the CPU will finally be
able to keep up with the number crunching of the card.
Besides, my use of its built in dual monitor support is one of the coolest talking
points of my current PC. I’d hate to lose that.
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live
The sound card is still a bit up in the air. At the moment, I plan on leaving
it behind. However, if I’m not happy with the sound on the motherboard,
I will quickly bring the Live card over. After all, something sweet
needs to power my rather expensive speakers.
Monitors: Two 19”, one
ViewSonic,
the other from Dell
38” of radiation. Ahh. Who needs the sun?
Speakers: Klipsch Pro Media 4.1
The best PC speakers money can buy, or at least they were until
these came out. There’s something wrong when your PC speakers sound better than
those attached to your home stereo.
That which was left behind: Yamaha 6x CD burner, Iomega Zip drive
I’ve decided to leave both my CD burner and Zip drive on my current,
and quite capable computer. Given that everything is networked together
there really isn’t a good reason to saddle the new PC with either. Now
I can burn CDs while I play games and save the IDE slot that the Zip
drive would claim for something else. Sounds like a good deal with me.
I expect the general speed of my computer to change pretty drastically.
It’s not just the CPU. The speed of the bus, the speed of the memory,
and the fact that the new motherboard, unlike the old, actually supports
ATA 133, giving the hard drive an extra boost, are all contributing factors.
In fact, I have some homework to do to make sure my current configuration
is benchmarked so I properly compare the present with the near future.
That’s it (if you aren’t a techie and are still with me, wake up; I’m about
to end this thing). It’s time to move onto bigger and faster things.
It’ll be a blast to be at least near the bleeding edge for a bit. Too bad
it only lasts about a month. Then it will just be another slow PC hanging
on the coattails of the next big thing. Such is the life of a hardware geek.
Laura
September 13th, 2002 at 12:45 pm #
Sorry, for a minute there I thought I was listening to Porter ;)
You boys and your gadgets!