cK-Gunslinger's Journal: Current Desired PC

I think I'll start posting the specs of the machine I wish I had here. It might be fun to see how it changes over time. Also, some obscenely-rich, anonymous benefactor just might want to buy something for me. =P

This one is about $5k.

-- $430 Athlon64 3200+ (2.0 GHz / 64-bit / 1MB L2 cache)
-- $220 Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP Socket 754 nForce3
-- $300 1024MB (512MBx2) DDR PC3200 (400MHz)
-- $460 AGP - ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256MB
--- $80 PCI - ATI Radeon 9000 64MB w/ DVI
--- $80 PCI - ATI Radeon 9000 64MB w/ DVI
-- $210 Creative Labs SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro
-- $290 Logitech Z-680 (5.1 surround w/ THX & Dolby)
-- $130 36 GB - WD Raptor - Serial ATA / 1000rpm / 8MB (raid0)
-- $130 36 GB - WD Raptor - Serial ATA / 1000rpm / 8MB (raid0)
-- $100 120 GB / 7200rpm / 8MB cache (data)
-- $160 200 GB / 7200rpm (backup)
--- $65 52/24/52 CDRW
--- $60 16X Pioneer Slot-loading DVD
-$1,200 20" Viewsonic VP201s LCD - 1600x1200 / 16ms
-- $420 17" NEC MultiSync LCD1760V-BK LCD
-- $420 17" NEC MultiSync LCD1760V-BK LCD
-- $110 CyberPower OfficePower 1100AVR
--- $35 1.44MB Floppy + Media Card Reader
--- $60 Logitech MX700 Optical Wireless
--- $40 Logitech Cordless MX 104-Key
--- $95 ATX Mid-tower
-- $120 Antec 550W True550

I guess I could have gone with an Athlon 64 FX51, dual Opterons, or even 3+ GB of ram, but I didn't want to just spend money for the sake of spending it. I think this CPU/MB/RAM combo would be rather nice, without being overly ludicrous.

I did go a little overboard on the video/monitors, however. =P I'm tired of my cheap 17" CRT, and I've always wanted a multi-monitor configuration for programming and general desktop usage. The 20" LCD was about the only one I could find with a 16ms pixel response time. Since I'd probably play quite a few games on this, I'd want something that worked pretty decent. I think the Radeon XT can drive most games at 1600x1200, so I can run the monitor at its native resolution. I also added a pair of 17" LCDs for the left and right monitors. 17" are at a pretty decent price point now, but I can't figure out why they all use 1280x1024 resolution, instead of the more standard 1280x960. Oh well. They'd mainly be used for web browsing, documentation/reference, or debugging anyway.

I think those 10K rpm drives in a RAID 0 config would probably speed up disk access quite a bit. Maybe it can speed up those horrible level-load times from which most games seem to suffer. It only gives me ~70GB of space, but that should be plenty for the OS, applications, and games. The 120GB can hold just data (music/video/graphics) and the 200GB can serve as backup.

I splurged a little on music hardware, as well. I've always had cheap sound cards and cheap speakers. For once, I'd like to have something a little better. This combo should be great for music listening, DVD watching, and gaming.

The rest is pretty standard, quality stuff. I topped it off with a heck of a Power Supply, simply because of all the drives in the system.

And yes, I probably will run the *dreaded* Microsoft WinXP on here. Why wouldn't I? That would let me run a *lot* of games. I'd probably dual boot Linux (Mandrake) as well, just to see if I can get it setup to use all the hardware. Also, I enjoy progamming in a *nix environment moreso than in win32.

Comments/suggestions welcome...