So recently, my brother came to Brockville. I had been considering upgrading some of the parts in my computer, but the requirements of the parts were such that I`d need to replace many parts. And so, my nearly three year old computer was getting to the point where upgrading it would be too much trouble.
This gave me the opportunity to do a favour for my brother and give him a really decent computer for him and Amber to use, while also giving me and excuse to buy a new machine.
Here`s what he ended up getting:
- Intel Core i7 920 Processor
- MSI Motherboard
- Antec Nine Hundred Case
- Antec 600W Power Supply
- 6GB Ram
- Geforce 9600 GTS 512MB Video Card
- Western Digital Black 750 GB Hard Drive
- DVD Burner
- Windows 7 Professional 64bit
I decided to keep my current keyboard and mouse, as well as my monitor. My brother ended up getting those pieces himself.
I bought a custom built computer from NCIX.com (my favourite computer store).
The specs are as follows:
- Intel Core i5 2500K CPU
- MSI P67A-C43 Motherboard
- Corsair Graphite 600TM Case
- Antec Truepower 750W Power Supply
- Kingston HyperX 8GB Ram
- Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card
- OCZ Vertex 3 60GB SSD
- Samsung DVD Burner
- Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Once I add my 1TB Western Digital Black hard drive to the machine, as well as my other hard drives, I should have a pretty good machine that will last me another two or three years.
I can`t wait to see how the SSD performs. For those that don`t know, an SSD is basically a RAM drive, and RAM is really fast at reading and writing data partially because there are no moving pieces. Traditional hard drives still use what amounts to a more advanced record player, with a moving reader head on platters.
I am having NCIX build the machine as well. They do a much better job of cable routing than I do, and they`ll test everything before I receive the machine, which limits the amount of potential returns due to equipment failures that I`ll have to make. They contacted me last night to ask if it was okay for them to ship the video card separately due to the size, weight and flimsy PCI express connector. They wanted to make sure I felt comfortable putting it back in the system. To me, this means that they are almost ready to ship the beast.
At the end of the day, I get to feel good that my brother has a reasonable computer, and I get to pick up a new machine. Now if only I had not spent so much money recently…
My old computer was named IO. I liked the multiple meanings. Input/Output, IO – a moon of Jupitor, and IO – greek mythological character. I would love help selecting the next name of my computer.
Malcolm's Ramblings 
8 responses to “Bought a New Computer”
Nice setup. I’ve been slowly downgrading these days as things break. One of these days I’ll find some $ to build a shiny new system again… been a while heh.
I usually like putting it together myself, but I’m thinking I might make the leap to liquid cooled for my next upgrade (whenever it ends up being)…so I dunno… I should really take stock of all the random parts I have laying around here, I might have enough for a couple almost decent systems I could sell for cheap or something… maybe finally get a new motherboard/cpu, and start the process of joining this generation of computing 😀
Well, it was funny, when I was assessing my old computer, I was like… “it wasn’t too bad at doing what I needed it to do.” As for liquid cooling, I was considering going that direction this time around, but decided against it. Even the low/no maintenance systems are just too much of a question mark for me.
I should have run some tests on my old machine to get some numbers from it to compare to my new machine to see if it was really worth the cost or not with regards to performance.
What are you running currently?
I name my computers after fictional spacecraft; my old laptop is Sulaco (the Marine’s ship from Aliens), the Mac Pro is Agamemnon (Captain Sheridan’s ship in the war against President Clark in Babylon 5). I have yet to name the new shiny MacBook Pro, though. I may opt to just name it Sulaco, and decommission the old MBP.
There are few fictional spacecrafts that I really loved… The Whitestar and the Defiant being the only two off the top of my head…Whitestars were numbered, not named and the Defiant, despite being an interesting ship was part of the Star Trek shows that I think is right in the middle of the list of ones I’d want to watch ever again. (Voy, TNG, DS9, Enterprise, TOS)
AND I didn’t hear you got a new MBP!
I never really watched DS9, suppose I should. White Star didn’t feel right (as they were numbered), but I have settled on a name: Nebuchadnezzar.
And yes, I got a new shiny MBP. i7, 8Gb, high-res anti-glare screen… zoom zoom. Think I’ll put in a hybrid drive too.
Sounds like a sexy machine. Though, as you know, I probably wouldn’t buy an Apple laptop again…lol. Your machine’s name is impossible to write though… I dunno why, but I like “simple” names for my computers.
It is. I never need to write the machine’s name – just just appears on the network. 😉
[…] My post on purchasing my new computer – Bought a New Computer. […]