Matt's Blog

Back in December/January I built myself a new computer. Not that there was anything wrong with my old computer, I just wanted something more powerful. So, I went to NCIX.com, and order the parts. Here’s what I built my computer with:

• Case: Antec Nine Hundred
• Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts 430W
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.2 GHz
• Memory: OCZ Gold XTC PC2-6400 2x1GB
• Graphics Card: Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro 256MB
• Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 250GB SATA2
• Optical Drive: LG SATA DVD Writer

The case comes with 3x120MM Antec TriCool Blue LED fans (2 in the front, 1 in the back) and an Antec TriCool 200MM fan (no LEDs) on the top (you can’t even buy 200MM fans!). The power supply is energy efficient, and powers everything just fine. The motherboard has everything I need, and works great. The processor is awesome, and amazingly overclockable (more on this in a sec). The memory is fast, and shiny (literally). The graphics card runs Aero perfectly, and runs Call of Duty 4 well. The hard drive and DVD writer is fast, and work.

This setup is definitely fast, and it managed to completely install Vista Home Premium in about 15 minutes (running stock).

After I installed Vista, I started to overclock the processor a bit, and managed to get it to 3 GHz, stable. It runs at almost the same temperature as when it was stock, since I set all the fans in the case on their highest setting (which also cools down my room, which will be a nice feature in the summer 😛 ).

Here’s my Windows Experience Index scores:

With the exception of the Graphics card, they’re excellent scores.

I also decided to order a 64-bit disc of Vista, which I installed, and have had no problems with. Since Microsoft doesn’t sell retail 64-bit versions of Vista, if you own a retail copy of Vista, you can buy just the disc (not a serial number) of the 64-bit version of Vista (it’s around $15 w/ shipping, I think). You can find out more about it here

Here’s some pictures of my computer:

As you can see in the above picture, cable management wasn’t a priority while building this computer. 😛

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Sorted under Computers.