{"id":2590,"date":"2011-04-08T11:24:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T18:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/?p=2590"},"modified":"2011-04-18T23:54:40","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T06:54:40","slug":"new-build-karmasalad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/2011\/04\/08\/new-build-karmasalad\/","title":{"rendered":"New Build (@karmasalad)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I’m still in recovery-mode (feeling better today and I didn’t have to take a second dose of NyQuil last night!), I thought it’s nice to slow down and show off… lol my new computer build! (To Sheryl<\/a>‘s beau, Peter<\/a>! Enjoy ze specs… ;))<\/p>\n

I haven’t retired my old machine (AMD 64 Athlon X2 – which has been a reliable buddy for over 7 years!) but my older workhorse passed about 3 moons ago (AMD Athlon, circa 2000).<\/p>\n

Here’s what I splurged on (and tacked some new debt because of it! O_o I should be able to pay it off in a month or two, though — provided I don’t go on any more out-of-town trips!)<\/p>\n

Processor: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz<\/a> (8M L3 Cache LGA136)
\nCPU HSF: Corsair Hydro Series H70<\/a>
\nMainboard: Asus Sabertooth X58<\/a>
\nRAM: Corsair 6 GB PC3-12800 1600MHz<\/a> (240-Pin DDR3 – Triple Channel)
\nGraphics Card: EVGA nVidia GeForce 9500GT 1 GB<\/a><\/p>\n

HDDs:
\nSAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache<\/a> (SATA 3Gb\/s)
\nWestern Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache<\/a> (SATA 6gb\/s)<\/p>\n

PSU: Corsair 750-Watt TX Series 80 Plus Certified<\/a>
\nCase: Rosewill Challenger ATX Mid Tower<\/a> (included 3 Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, added 120mm Fan on side)<\/p>\n

DVD Burner: LITE-ON SATA DVD Writer<\/a><\/p>\n

OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit<\/a> (OEM)<\/p>\n

HDD Notes:
\nI actually installed the OS on my slower SATA (Samsung) HDD. Why? Because at the time, I was in a rush to get this machine put together to start using it for my new client. Then I realised that I wanted an even<\/em> faster drive, and I did try to reinstall the OS on the WD SATA\/6 but was having trouble with the mobo detecting it as SATA\/6! To this day, it’s still connected to my mobo via SATA\/3 port \ud83d\ude41 I’ll do more research about that later.<\/p>\n

Taxes, taxes, taxes:
\nAs you can see, I got most of my parts off Amazon.com — I have a Prime membership which means I didn’t have to pay shipping (and no tax is charged either!) So I easily saved a good $100 just by not paying the sales tax ^_^ I also was able to get on deals when I got the parts off NewEgg (rebate offers, free shipping weekend) but the caveat was paying sales tax because they are a California company. :\\<\/p>\n

Temperature notes:
\nBefore getting the case and Corsair H70 water-cooling HSF, my idle temps were at 43\u00b0-46\u00b0 C (got it down to 41\u00b0 idle with the window wide open!) for the CPU, 55\u00b0 C for NorthBridge, 40\u00b0 C for Mobo… They were running pretty hot and it didn’t help that the first time I put the machine together, I used the stock HSF’s pre-applied thermal paste (it was at 50\u00b0 C at that time!) I got it semi-lower after using some (reliable) Arctic Silver 5 and messing with the Vcore voltage (removed it from auto and set to 1.23v), but all that work’s moot thanks to the Corsair H70. Now my idle temps are 31\u00b0 C for CPU, 46\u00b0 C for NB, and 29\u00b0 C for Motherboard — albeit CPU still at 1.23v.<\/p>\n

I’ll probably do more tweaking later on, but I’m glad I’m running the CPU at least under 40\u00b0 C when idle. Haven’t run it at full-load (too lazy to install and test using Prime95… LOL) Plus, I really want to figure out how to make my SATA 6gb\/s HDD work to it’s fullest potential, and not just (currently) a data drive. >_< I guess by the time I do so, the SSD prices are going to drop! LOL<\/p>\n

Now I just gotta get sick again so I’ll have time to find a game to test the prowess of this machine… for research, of course \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I’m still in recovery-mode (feeling better today and I didn’t have to take a second dose of NyQuil last night!), I thought it’s nice to slow down and show off… lol my new computer build! (To Sheryl‘s beau, Peter! Enjoy ze specs… ;))
\nI haven’t retired my old machine (AMD 64 Athlon X2 – which read more »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[205,3],"tags":[355,354,353,352,356,357],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2607,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions\/2607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radragon.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}