white noise

One more component showed up today, a 80 GB SATA 3Gb/s hard drive. It’s the Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 and has a 8MB cache and NCQ. Sure, I would’ve prefered a 16MB cache, but those jump up in price a fair bit. This little guy should be nice and speedy for the OS and core applications. I’m still debating whether to pick up another one for RAID 0 or maybe RAID 1. I’m also still shopping for a deal on 250-300 GB SATA 3Gb/s to do the heavy lifting.

Purchased from newegg.com

The next piece just arrived, the A8N32-Deluxe motherboard from Asus.

This is one killer board – two x16 PCI express slots, 6 SATA II ports, on-board RAID controller, on-board 8 channel audio, dual Gb LAN, and so on. It’s probably a bit more than I needed for a dead processor line (939 socket), but it’ll serve me well through the next chip gen or two before I switch.

Asus really provides a great package – lots of cables, OC and tuning software, extra external ports to install if you wish (fire, usb, game, serial). It looks great, too, with the black PCB and copper heatpipe.

Purchased from newegg.com

OK, it’s not really part of ‘the build’, but it will be part of the system. I picked up a new 19″ LCD monitor today. I’ve been looking at getting one for a couple years (remember my VIAO laptop has a 12″ screen), but I’ve gotten more serious lately with the build happening now. After much debate (what’s new) I decided on the Sony HS95P.

I really wanted something a little higher-res and/or widescreen, but $140 in rebates swayed me to this one at well under the $400 mark. Its feature set is pretty average (1280×1024, 4:3 ratio, 12ms response, DVI and VGA in, decent contrast and brightness), but the picture is AWESOME. Super crisp, and super deep. I’m a big fan of Sony’s XBRITE treatment and this monitor is no exception.

Purchased from CircuitCity.com

Piece number 3 rolled in today…2 GB of RAM. Since I’m looking forward to using an Athlon X2 processor I opted for 2 sticks of DDR 400.

These XMS sticks aren’t the very top of the Corsair line (they don’t have any LEDs), but they’re close considering the price. They’re spec’ed to run at 2-3-3-6 timings, which is pretty good for $176. They should be pretty tolerant of overclooking, too (though I might have to relax the timing a bit).

Purchased from newegg.com.

Piece number 2 arrives – the power supply. I decided on the Hiper Type-R 580W in chrome. SLI certified, aviation style connects, up to four SATA drives, what more could you ask for?

This thing is sweet! No pimp LEDs, but the chrome cladding is slick – even the fans are chrome. Seriously, it looks like a great unit and it came with a great assortment of cables in braided red sheaths.

Purchased from Xoxide.com.