Last Friday I finally got all the parts for assembling my new computer. I had originally decided to pay a store to build the machine for me, but because I couldn't get all the parts that I wanted from the one place, it meant that I really had to build it myself.
Last Friday myself and the supervisor from work put together all the parts to form the new computer, myself learning a lot of things along the way. See the new album in the Gallery for some pics. In the end I had my assembled dream: a relatively powerful computer, but still within the realm of affordability.
Here's what it composes of:
- Antec Solo Case
- Antec 500w NeoHe Power Supply
- Gigabyte 965P-DS3P motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor
- Asus Silent Square CPU cooler
- 2GB Kingston DDR2-667 RAM
- 640MB Leadtek 8800GTS Graphics Card
- Western Digital 320GB SATA2 Hard Drive
- Pioneer SATA DVD Drive
- Compro T750 TV Tuner
- Viewsonic 20" Widescreen LCD
It's a pretty good machine; it's relatively quiet whilst still being powerful, which is exactly what I was wanting. I have named it Trogdor, because it is the Burninator (at least of all the computers that i've ever had).
However, getting the software on it in a acceptable state was another issue altogether. I installed Windows Vista Home Premium on it last Sunday, and since then began installing other things.
However not everything went smoothly. The TV card did not login under the 'power-up' scheduling, and DVD playback looked crap. After installing many other DVD decoders to try and solve the playback issue, it turned out to be the graphics card drivers which nVidia seemingly haven't got right yet. *sigh*
So last night I installed everything from scratch again because i wanted a clean slate without all the after-effects of my rampant installing of MPEG decoders etc.
This week I also bought Supreme Commander (the spiritual successor to Total Annilation that i've been waiting a long time for, and also one of the main reasons which i wanted to and built the computer in the first place). I can't wait to see how it will run.
Anywho, i'm off to play with my new toy. 😀