New Rig Code Named Quasar

I finally broke down and did it; I built my new rig. After about a month or more of dealing with a dying horse, and then having to use my old Dual AMD MP system again, I’ve got a new game-worthy rig. I went middle-of-the-road this time, too–not that I hadn’t last time as well, but this system is even more so. Why?

Well, I settled for the 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, instead of the 3Ghz. The main reason was cost, of course. For not really that much more performance but with a much larger price tag the 3Ghz just didn’t make sense. Besides, with the money I saved, I was able to drop more cash in other areas.

But, I think, the best decision I made, besides the processor, was on the case. Again, I went with a Lian-Li. For the money it simply had everything I was looking for. In fact, from what I can tell, it’s basically the same case I had before from Lian-Li, albeit and updated one. Now, instead of two 80mm fans in the front, it has one 120mm, and (my favorite design feature by far) it has a 120mm sticking out sideways over the PCI cards. I think that’s the nicest touch, because it keeps the cards and the board nice and cool. Also, the 80mm fan in the back can be used inconjunction with a duct that is supposed to sit over the CPU and funnel air out through the back. I took the duct off, however, as it didn’t really sit exactly over the CPU–about half of it did. And, well, I’m not a huge fan of air ducts anyway.

The motherboard I settled on–after having looked at probably 20 different boards–was the Asus P5K-E. The reviews I read were fairly positive. The board seems stable and not lacking in any features, particularly in the case of USB. The board has, in total, including the connectors on the board, 12 USB ports. It has a Firewire as well, and front HD audio ports. Oh, that reminds me, the Lian-Li case can utilize both AC97 Audio and HD Audio standards Also, the P5K-E has two external SATA ports on the back.

Speaking of the back, there are several ports missing that would otherwise normally have been there on older boards. There is no parallel or serial ports, and only one PS/2 port for the keyboard. Legacy connections, except for an internal floppy and IDE connector, have pretty much been weeded out. And I’m not complaining since most of my stuff is current. With six SATA internal connectors, plus the two external, there is plenty of room for expansion.

Oh, speaking of that as well, I went legacy free on my optical drives. None of them are IDE, now. I bought an Asus DVD-RW and an Asus DVD-ROM that run off of SATA. And, yes, I did put in a floppy drive just for the heck of it. The hard drive, obviously, is SATA as well. I went with a 320GB, just because, well, it was cheap, and is, of course, plenty of storage for me.

Now, for the most exciting part of the build to me, the video card. I didn’t go crazy on the video card, either. I went with a 7600 Nvidia-based card–a fanless model no less. Normally, I’d think twice about a card without a fan, but Asus did such a fantastic design on it that it’s probably not going to have heat issues–the heatsink is huge and covers both the front and part of the back. Plus, with the 120mm fan blowing cool air across it, I’m definitely not worried about overheating.

And after having had the computer running for several days now my assumptions have been proved correct: the system runs cools. In fact, the case is cool to the touch, which is rare for an aluminum case. I’m pretty impressed so far. I definitely think I made the right decision over all. Here’s a run down on everything:

CPU: Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz (Socket 775)
Memory: 2GB Corsair DDR2 800Mhz (2 sticks of 1GB)
Mobo: Asus P5K-E (P35 chipset)
Optical Drives: Asus SATA DVD-RW, Asus SATA DVD-ROM
Hard Drive: Western Digital 320GB SATA
Floppy: NEC 1.44
Video Card: Asus 7600GS Nvidia w/512MB (fanless, PCI Express)
Case: Lian-Li 60B-Plus II
Power Supply: OCZ 600GXSSLI 600watt

Halloween at Work

Well, it’s been a week since Halloween and I’m just now getting to this post. I’d meant to do it earlier, but I was too lazy to even log in to the site. Besides, I’ve been busy–or, truthfully, I feel exhausted. Anyway.

My department at work thought it would be cool to have a Halloween party. And it was. A whole bunch of us brought things into eat–all of which were mostly creative and having something to do with Halloween. I did Graveyard Gravel, which was really chunks of fudge covered in powdered sugar and cocoa powder. I got the recipe from somebody at work. And, I wish I could say I was the one who made it, but, well, mama said she’d do it. LOL She didn’t have to twist my arm

As you can see there was plenty of food. One of the ladies in the business office made some punch that had hands and fingers floating in it, which we titled “Dragon’s Blood”. The bodyparts were actually frozen pieces of said punch; she had shaped them using plastic gloves. I wish I had a picture of it, since when some of the fingers fell off the hand, it looked like the hand was giving the finger Below is a picture of probably the coolest item on the table: the Mummy Cake.

Yes, the mummy’s wrappings are actually icing. And it was good; then again, the cake was chocolate, which was exactly what I like. Again, a lady at work made this. Anyhow.

My favorite part of the day was scaring the big boss. A girl in the business office had brought this cool Scream costume. She wore it for pretty much the entire day. Well, the boss was in a meeting for most of the morning and hadn’t seen the costume. It was hilarious when she came into her office, and girl wearing the costume was sitting in her chair and turned around. She screamed, too Well, sort of…It was funny.