Getting a new comp

[Launfal]

Well, for Xmas this year, I broke down and ordered myself a new custom build from a local computer shop. I'm tired of buying name-brand computers and crossing my fingers trying to figure out if they'll work with Linux, so this time, I skipped the middle step. I don't need high-end stuff, so I went bang-for-the-buck and ended up with a system for about $900 including a monitor. I'm ordering a Das Ultimate mechanical keyboard separately since I've always wanted one and now I can afford it. I'll be using my Core2 Duo laptop for BBQ builds. (Downloading Crackwhore now)

Parts list:

NZXT Phantom 410 Gunmetal Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU, Steel/Plastic

ANTEC TP-650C TruePower Classic 650W Power Supply, 80 PLUS® Gold, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, 4x 8/6-pin PCIe, Retail

GIGABYTE GA-H97M-D3H, LGA1150, Intel® H97, DDR3-1600 32GB /4, PCIe x16, SATA 6Gb/s RAID 5 /6, HDMI + DVI + VGA, USB 3.0 /4+2, HDA, GbLAN, mATX, Retail

INTEL Core™ i3-4360 Dual-Core 3.7GHz, HD Graphics 4600, LGA1150, 4MB L3 Cache, DDR3-1600, 22nm, 54W, EIST HT VT-x XD, Retail

CRUCIAL 16GB (2 x 8GB) PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL11 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC

COOLER MASTER Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler, Socket 1150/1155/1156/775/AM3/AM2/754/939/940, 139mm Height, Copper/Aluminum, Retail

COOLER MASTER Thermal Compound, 1.0 g

SEAGATE 1TB Barracuda®, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache

LITE-ON iHAS124-14 Black 24x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM Integrated Audio Controller (Choose upgrade)

ASUS VS228H-P Black WideScreen LCD Monitor, 21.5" TFT Full HD LED, 1920x1080, 0.248mm, 250cd/m², 5ms, VGA/DVI/HDMI, VESA

The beauty of it is that now I know exactly what's in my box, so I can do repairs/upgrades myself. Although I'm thinking I shouldn't need an upgrade for quite a while.

[GekkoP]

Cool, more powerful than any desktop/laptop I have here. :)

[stark]

Great! Just a suggestion, it would be better if you buy a hdd from hgst ( formerly hitachi ) or western digital. Seagates hdd are not so durable when compared to hgst or wd.

More info on this subject:

Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014 - Backblaze

The Most (and Least) Reliable Hard Drive Brands - Lifehacker

[Launfal]

I've had better luck with Seagates over the years than WD, so this time I'm sticking with Seagate. I've got external drives from Seagate and WD for backups, and I'm filling USB keys with all my writing, so if the drive fails, I'm still ok.

At the moment, I don't trust anybody's drives over 1TB anyway, so those backblaze results, while interesting, don't apply to me as much. If the Seagate fails, I'll replace it with a WD black and call it a day. I never buy a hard drive without buying two external drives to back it up to, because I'm paranoid like that. :)

[dkeg]

sounds like a super nice machine laundry. Enjoy it.

[stark]

That's good hear. If it works for you then why not :)

[RandomCharacter]

Yay! Sounds like a very nice system.

Tim

[Dr_Chroot]

Sounds fun B) It is as if I can already smell the grill firing up from here...

[machinebacon]

Cool, more powerful than any desktop/laptop I have here. :)

...than all my computers *together* :D

wrt to the hard drives, I lost several hundreds GB of good porn thanks to Western Digital (yeah, the West of Malaysia where they assemble it).

[ivanovnegro]

What a powerhouse compared to what I have here, too.

[wuxmedia]

You don't seem to mention what you're going to run on it daily...

*Buys custom i3 proc.
*Runs console only :p

[gutterslob]

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[franksinistra]

Cool specs Launfal!

I think a beast of 650 watts gold-certified power-supply-unit is just too much to contain those, i'd rather buy an ssd instead :D

[Launfal]

@ wux: ROFL That was *exactly* my first thought when I was setting it up. But as for what I'll run as my daily driver, I haven't decided yet, but what I eventually want to do is set up a nice desktop publishing machine, and that's going to require some major bloat. I'm running Slackware in a tty on the laptop til I get the new machine, but after that, I'll be building a software wish list. Funny thing though, I'm so ingrained in the "less is more" philosophy, I can so see me running LibreOffice/Callibre/Firefox on ratpoison/spectrwm/i3 :) But there's a lot of writing/publishing software out there to try, so I'll be spending a lot of time finding what works best for me.

I'm thinking of trying to learn Emacs/Latex in the new year, and maybe a programming language or two.

@ franksinatra: LOL I know, 650 is high, and I thought about an SSD, but for the first build, I wanted to keep things simple. I spec'd the machine so that I can upgrade it over the years without having to worry about hitting hardware ceilings for a while. The Gigabyte supports CPU upgrades all the way up the scale, I still have 2 empty memory slots, and a ton of empty drive bays. I don't plan on buying another system for quite a while. When I'm maxing out the 650W, then it'll be time to buy new again. :)

[GekkoP]

You can do it with a tiler and a bloated setup. I do it everyday. :)

[gutterslob]

LOL I know, 650 is high, and I thought about an SSD, but for the first build, I wanted to keep things simple. I spec'd the machine so that I can upgrade it over the years without having to worry about hitting hardware ceilings for a while. The Gigabyte supports CPU upgrades all the way up the scale, I still have 2 empty memory slots, and a ton of empty drive bays. I don't plan on buying another system for quite a while. When I'm maxing out the 650W, then it'll be time to buy new again. :)

I haven't been following the desktop hardware scene for a while, but am pretty certain that you won't ever need that powerful a PSU unless you plan to get some sort of powerful Nvidia/ATI(AMD) card installed. Also, you might hit those hardware ceilings faster than you think, not with respect to CPUs, but for SSD bandwidth interfaces.

[machinebacon]

I'm thinking of trying to learn Emacs/Latex in the new year, and maybe a programming language or two.

---->

*Buys custom i3 proc.
*Runs console only :p