Engineering the “Impossible” PC

jmke · 7th November 2006, 13:33

System building used to be easy. A little over a decade ago, building your own system meant buying an ASUS, Abit, or Shuttle motherboard with FSB overclocking abilities, a 3dfx Voodoo Graphics (if you cared about gaming), and a Sound Blaster AWE64 (if you cared about sound). Things have gotten way more complicated now. Nowadays, system building enthusiasts have to think about memory latency, thermal and acoustic management, power supplies, and most recently, HDCP support on the video card.

A little over a year ago, we built the "Ultimate Workstation" with a pair of AMD Opteron 252 CPUs, 4GB of RAM, and a beefy 650W power supply. In January, we did a brief refresh article focusing on a "$400/component" system, highlighting Silverstone's flagship TJ-07 and the aluminum monobody construction. We thought these articles would stick around at least until 2007. Sure faster GPUs and CPUs would come out, but the principles behind component selection surely wouldn't change…

Oh, how wrong we were. The state of PC technology has changed so much in the last six months that it's time to write a new system building guide. Forget everything you've learned about system building – it's time to start with a fresh slate, and today we're going to take a look at just how far technology has improved in the last year.

jmke · 7th November 2006, 13:37

let just say that not all choices made are the "best" or "best value for money" around...

7th November 2006, 16:58

I lol'd at the 9500.

those people shouldn't be allowed to use the word engineering

also, ceramique or MX-1 is the best choice for the noob user because it does not need reaplying like AS5 and 400 $ per memory module (puff puff, pass)

jmke · 7th November 2006, 17:47

how frequent reapplying is necessary according to your for AS5?

7th November 2006, 18:14

I heard once a year if you want 100% performance (from several users) but it's not like the temperatures would rise so much that it is dangerous.

MX-1 for example, burns into a solid substance and then it performs a few degrees better than fresh and should last 8 years.

jmke · 7th November 2006, 19:06

have AS5 and Ceramique running for more than 5 years in some PCs without any noticeable problems

7th November 2006, 13:33	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	Engineering the “Impossible” PC System building used to be easy. A little over a decade ago, building your own system meant buying an ASUS, Abit, or Shuttle motherboard with FSB overclocking abilities, a 3dfx Voodoo Graphics (if you cared about gaming), and a Sound Blaster AWE64 (if you cared about sound). Things have gotten way more complicated now. Nowadays, system building enthusiasts have to think about memory latency, thermal and acoustic management, power supplies, and most recently, HDCP support on the video card. A little over a year ago, we built the "Ultimate Workstation" with a pair of AMD Opteron 252 CPUs, 4GB of RAM, and a beefy 650W power supply. In January, we did a brief refresh article focusing on a "$400/component" system, highlighting Silverstone's flagship TJ-07 and the aluminum monobody construction. We thought these articles would stick around at least until 2007. Sure faster GPUs and CPUs would come out, but the principles behind component selection surely wouldn't change… Oh, how wrong we were. The state of PC technology has changed so much in the last six months that it's time to write a new system building guide. Forget everything you've learned about system building – it's time to start with a fresh slate, and today we're going to take a look at just how far technology has improved in the last year. __________________

7th November 2006, 13:37	#2
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	let just say that not all choices made are the "best" or "best value for money" around... __________________

7th November 2006, 17:47	#4
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	how frequent reapplying is necessary according to your for AS5? __________________

7th November 2006, 19:06	#6
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	have AS5 and Ceramique running for more than 5 years in some PCs without any noticeable problems __________________

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Engineering Windows 7: Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives	jmke	WebNews	2	8th May 2009 16:10
Engineering Windows 7 Graphics Performance	jmke	WebNews	1	2nd May 2009 11:17
ATI Radeon HD4870X2 Engineering Sample Benchmarked	jmke	WebNews	3	14th July 2008 14:10
Engineering a career at the PC's creation	Sidney	WebNews	0	5th July 2007 17:50
Why You Should AVOID Core 2 Duo Engineering Samples	jmke	WebNews	10	13th May 2007 20:53
AMD 65nm CPU Engineering Sample Hits the Web	jmke	WebNews	1	31st July 2006 11:25
The Most Stupid Engineering Mistakes	jmke	WebNews	1	2nd June 2006 09:52
Reverse engineering 'The Godfather' for gaming	jmke	WebNews	0	6th March 2006 17:13

7th November 2006, 16:58	#3
Rutar Posts: n/a	I lol'd at the 9500. those people shouldn't be allowed to use the word engineering also, ceramique or MX-1 is the best choice for the noob user because it does not need reaplying like AS5 and 400 $ per memory module (puff puff, pass)

7th November 2006, 18:14	#5
Rutar Posts: n/a	I heard once a year if you want 100% performance (from several users) but it's not like the temperatures would rise so much that it is dangerous. MX-1 for example, burns into a solid substance and then it performs a few degrees better than fresh and should last 8 years.