I’ve finally got her up and running, and boy she is a beauty! At 21" long and over 24" high, weighing approximately 1.5 tons (seriously, the case is huge), Starbuck has arrived in this world and made me the proud owner of a badass new desktop.
Of course, I have pics and specs:
CPU: Intel i7 950 3.07 GHz
Memory: 12 GB DDR3 SDRAM @ 1600 MHz
PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro 800W
HD: 1 TB SATA/600 7200 RPM 64MB buffer
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X58
GPU: EVGA GTX 460 1GB
Case: Cooler Master HAF X full tower
DVD drive: Asus 24X DVDRW
OS: Windows 7 Professional
Monitors: 25.5" Asus widescreen and a 19" Dell standard dual monitor set-up (had these before I got the computer)
This is my first custom build, and there was a bit of a struggle getting the motherboard to recognize all the memory (it kept posting 8 GB out of the 12 GB I installed). Turns out there is a long list of reasons this can happen including but not limited to: incorrect BIOS settings, too much tension on the heat sink, not enough tension on the heat sink, CPU mis-seated in the motherboard socket, faulty memory, faulty CPU, faulty motherboard, etc. After playing with it all night and even returning memory sticks for a different brand on the motherboard manufacturer’s “approved list” (I didn’t even know such a list existed when I first bought the components), I finally figured out the problem - it was actually a design flaw in the way Intel designed the 1366 CPU socket, and I had to reseat the CPU to fix it.
But anyway, now it’s recognizing all 12 gigs and I’ve been installing my programs onto it including the OEM version of Windows 7 Professional (which only cost me $130 from Newegg instead of the almost $300 retail price). Sooooo nice having a clean install of the OS with no crapware/bloatware pre-loaded onto it for once!
Also, I eventually plan to upgrade to 24 GB of RAM since the motherboard supports 6 slots of triple-channel and I am only using 3 right now. That was the reason for getting Windows 7 Pro instead of the Home Premium version, since the latter only supports up to 16 GB of RAM but Professional allows much more.
She is indeed a beast. Now I need a really graphics-intensive game to test with… lately I’ve just been playing SC2. (gaming wasn’t the primary reason for getting the higher-end gear: I do video and effects processing/editing that sucks up system resources like no tomorrow. But I game sometimes too)
Of course, not to just make this all about me feel free to share your own custom builds.
