Microcenter is pretty cool in that they will build you a decent system with a decent warranty. However, if you want to go all out, I recommend Advanced 2000, in Crystal City. They have much more trick hardware for cheaper. No warranty, though, beyond non-working parts. When I build mine, I’m probably going to have it shipped, because you can often get the tweakier stuff only over the Internet.
Want my system recommendations for today? These are based largely on a system a good pal of mine is building. I don’t have an accurate price, but all told, it should come close to $2000, give or take a few hundred. Warning: there is more than a little geek-speak below. You asked for it, remember.
AMD Thunderbird AYJHA (“y”-core) 1.4 GHz CPU
Millenium Glaciator heatsink with Delta 7K fan and Arctic Silver thermal paste and copper shim
Epox EP-8K7A DDR Motherboard
Crucial, Mushkin, or Corsair 256 MB PC2100 DDR RAM
GeForce 3 video card (cheapest you can find)
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 PCI audio card
Creative/Cambridge 5.1-ready speakers
60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive (my pal insists on IBM, I’ll settle for Maxtor)
Plextor CD burner (or equivalent with Burn-Proof technology)
Generic DVD-ROM drive
A halfway decent Network Interface Card (NOT Realtek OR 3Com, if possible. 3Com’s problem is the fucked up drivers that ship with Windows 98.)
Antec 1030 server case w/ 350 watt PS and 3 fans–black
NEC MultiSync 19" monitor–black
Keyboard, mouse, floppy, etc., black, in my friend’s case.
You can cannibalize a lot of the peripheral crap from your old computer, if you like. I usually do. My buddy is going for the full pull, with teflon-coated, rounded IDE cables, an Intel NIC, a laser-mouse, and a ZOOM modem, which I happen to like a whole lot.
Notes:
This system is designed to be overclocked as high as possible without active cooling like a peltier or a waterblock. Hence the “y” core Thunderbird, which seems to have the potential to run at 1.6 GHz or higher with air-cooling alone. The Epox mobo can only be overclocked using archaic jumper settings, but it is extremely stable and it does not use the VIA southbridge which appears to be the problem with many AMD systems and SoundBlaster cards. Counting all the fans, this mother should move well over 100 cubic feet per minute.
Why AMD? The answer is simple. AMD chips allow you to defeat the multiplier lock on the chip, allowing you to select the highest possible front side bus AND chip speed simultaneously. Intel chips have a fixed multiplier which to date has not been defeated, limiting your overclocking options to raising the front side bus. And AMD chips and the DDR memory they use are cheaper than the P4 and that Rambus shit, which you should avoid on principle alone, the bastards.
We expect some notable BIOS revisions which should improve the Epox’s memory bandwidth somewhat. If not, no biggie–we’re going to try to run this puppy at a 150 MHz (300 MHz DDR) front side bus or greater anyway, but we’ll be happy with anything stable over 145 or so.
The GeForce 3 just broke the sub-$300 barrier this week. Woo! It will be worth every penny if you buy it right now and don’t read the tech pages in October/November when a faster card comes out.
While it is not really an issue any longer, you should keep in mind that AMD chips need a minimum 300W power supply. Scottie said it best. You need more powehdrrr.
Remember, you interface with your computer through the monitor. You want a big monitor. You want a big monitor. You want a big monitor. To go below nineteen inches borders on the criminal when the NEC MultiSync is out there for a mere $300. You can compromise on virtually any facet of this system except the 19" minimum. Once you have it, you will never go back.
My pal went for the server case because it is bad-ass. And, it has a fan each blowing over the removeable hard-drive tray and the video card. You can get it in black, which is waaaay cool. When I build my system this fall, I will stick with the cheaper beige because I plan to cover the case with bumper stickers. (Anti-theft, don’t you know. Nobody wants to steal a computer that looks like a piece of shitty furniture.)
This system will be big, fast, and LOUD. Loud like a floor fan, only with a more annoying sound. You will not want to sleep with this monster purring away in your bedroom. I estimate that it will fall just short of $2000, with shipping, but I’ll have to ask my friend about that. That may be without the monitor.
A system like this should be able to play the latest games for two full years, while the office software out there may never catch up to it. If you plan on running Windows 2000 or XP, a (hopefully still) cheap upgrade will be simply popping in a second 256 MB stick of RAM. We’re avoiding that now in the interests of overclocking.
I myself have decided to wait for one thing, and one thing alone. That is the nVidia nForce motherboards which will be coming out sometime around October. If they kick the ass that they are expected to kick, without the bugs most new hardware releases have, I’ll go with one of those. Otherwise, I’ll likely be building this same system for a few hundred bucks less than you would pay for it today. In the computer world, this system is as close to a safe bet as you can get right now, IMHO.
But don’t take my word for it. Check out the message boards over at http://www.arstechnica.com and http://www.hardocp.com for other recommendations. No doubt some uber-geek over there would trash my recommendations. He might even be right.
