custom build configuration
custom computers
building the best pc you possibly can.
flat rates 35/hr(res and comm)/rapid completion of jobs
transparent financials- I order most of my parts through newegg.com
the motherboard is perhaps the most important part of the pc...choose with care. i go to places like techreport.com, motherboards.org, anandtech and tom's hardware to find the 'state of the art' in parts
I like dfi/asus/gigabyte boards. for intel the 965 chipset is usually the standby and the new 680i is ok but still a bit new...places like extremesystems have lots of postings pertaining to best running systems.
most boards support sli and or crossfire and quad core as well. choosing a motherboard that has a proven pedigree with lots of favorable reports from reviews on newegg is a good starting point as well.
My goal as a system designer is to get the most for the least, optimize the system, choose the parts that hit the price to performance curves most completely without compromising anything if possible. obviously this depends on your needs and i will bend the build filter to focus on the most important factors that influence your specific needs.
A long winded way of saying you can get a damn good board these days for around 140 on average 100 on the lower end and a bit over 200 for a top end asus, top of the line boards go for upwards of 300 and server boards that support 2 cpus average around 300, the opterons are still good for servers no doubt but intel is starting to pile up a bit of a lead due to overclockability of its core2duo processors and also the quad core xeons....for server consolidation and application frameworks like vmware this is a great combo. dual quad setups will be common within a year...and cheap too. software development is still catching up but support is filtering down from the enterprise and developer levels to the smb and consumer markets. with 8 cores available you can do rendering much faster (povray) but developers are going to have a feast with possibilities of running multiple smp os and still have up to 4 virtual machines running a variety of operating systems (linux/w32/osx/bsd/aix/solaris)
Ram has fallen drasticallly in price- running 64 bit versions of common operating systems allows you to run 4 gigs, you may only need 2 gigs- suitable 2 gig ram for a prototype system is typically priced around only 90 dollars right now
power supplies- having read myriad review i am partial to antec power supplies due to their high efficiency- this will save you significant money in the long run just on electric bills thereby justifing the initial slightly higher price. about 90 bucks
for video cards the choice is either nvidia 8800 in its various flavors (250-350) or the newer ati cards that are direct x 10 compliant....the gpu race is competitive with nvidia having a slight lead and better driver support. no real need to run sli in my opinion unless you are folding at home or absolutely need the fastest framerates, for network gaming or workstation use.
A good aftermarket cooler is worthwhile- 40 bucks, thermaltake make some nice compact models, going pro consists of water cooling, some boards have hot chipsets that can be cooled to eliminate bottlenecks and improve stability...a good pump/waterblock/radiator setup is around 180-200 bucks if you want to get anything good- a solid pump (70), best block (40-50), rad (30), relay set (20), chipset block (25)
optical mouse such an improvement over old mice with rollers and such...wireless is a decent option as well...wireless kb and mouse allow you to control pc from video you pump over to your tv for example. optical mice can be had for around 10 bucks the fancier wireless combos (fully compatible with linux) run to 80 bucks...
24 inch lcd monitors are the new sweet spot- resolutions of 1280x1920 enable you to watch hdtv, 1080p video with nearly 2 milllion pixels.....compared to 1 million pixels with 720 displays....great for games as well---the latest video cards like the 8800 have more than enough power to drive games and render video- fast frame rates with everything on highest settings!
For drives i would have to say at least 2 drives running in a raid0 array I use imaging software like g4l to make backups to external media...disk i/o is the most common bottleneck in todays systems, in fact this is a popular upgrade and cheap too- cheap raid cards to pci express models (a hot setup in lieu of sli) with hardware raid...they are all good. most mb support raid using onboard controllers....you will see massive speed increases using raid. i think for the time it saves at the end of the day that it is definitely worth it. for business and enterprise run a hw raid solution (areca/3ware) and use at least raid 5 with a hot spare.
seagate barracuda 7200.10 drives are excellent and have a 5 year warranty. recommended.
if you want sound get some good speakers- Logitech THX Z-5300e 280 Watts RMS 5.1 Speaker – Retail 130 bucks- awesome sound.
for cpu the intell 6600 is currently the best overall about 220 at current pricing- some enormous overclocks with mild tuning.
mb 140 gigabyte 965p/dfi infinity dark 965/msi 650i/evga 680i (all quad core compat)
core2duo 6600 220 (subtotal 360)
2 gigs of ram 100 (subtotal 460)
cooler 40 (subtotal 400) (water add 200/phase change or tec add 170-600)
optical mouse 10 (subtotal 410) add another 10 for kb or 50-60 for wireless kb+m
video 300 (subtotal 660) can be optional for some applications...onboard or 100 dollar 7800gs or ati 1950
24” high def compatible samsung or acer or benq lcd display.....500 (subtotal 1160)
2 500 gig seagate sata II 16 meg perp drives 7200.10 5 yr warranty, booming perf and space, expandable 250 (subtotal 1410)
antec high efficiency power supply 100 (on average) (subtotal 1510)
for cases you can use about anything but i love the thermaltake armor...big beefy case with lots of roon and good cooling 120 bucks (subtotal 1630)
so there you have it a totally complete extremely fast optimised system....everything is included....
systems usually take about 2-3 hours to get working from bare parts, windows loads in like 9 minutes. i charge 35/hr flat rate for res/comm and dev work so tack on 150 to the price and usually about 1-2 hrs of backend time to configure pre-build depending on your needs. a caveat- not all bleeding edge systems are always perfect and complication can arise with such new tech- the pre build research is intended to allec\viate and preempt any potential problems and incompatibilities.
quad core will add about 400, dual dual core opterons on socket 1207 run a bit over 2k as well.
if you just need a cheap system figure around 600-700 but that is more than adequate for most everything including vista.
dual core processors have really changed the landscape, the pent 940 d just dropped in price about 50 buck and is now less than 100 dollars, or new arch with allendale at slightly over 100
the 6600 will usually be more overclockable to add to the default speed increase as well as double the cach which does make a difference.
all these machine have gigabit networking built in so to take advantage of this you need to have a gigabit switch (pref with jumbo frame support(9K))
this is another big time saver if you have a busy network and is a worthwhile upgrade just for the time saving and productivity increases. these are commodity items now- economies of scale have kicked in and a good unmanaged gigabit switch is around 50 bucks now.
I can help you on the software side of things and make sure all you i's are dotted and t's are crossed with respect to a stable and productive machine. i can set up servers and offer a host of services for networks, servers, and application frameworks. opensourceservers.com
shep (207) 671-4786 // (207) 409-4038
opensourceservers@gmail.com