Building my dream machine.. BlueRIG

2007-06-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

Building a computer out of the best things available was always me dream. To do that, there requires time, money and a lot of "Googling". I was looking for a system with optimum performance for anything from Gaming to Applications. Everything should be amazing fast, no lags, no waits, nothing.. I believe, build quality comes with the brand name, so I always go for branded ones, even if its a floppy diskette. The machine I had in mind was amazing both in look and feel. It could be over-clocked in demanding situations. Now I almost completed the build. The details are mentioned below.

Processor : There was nothing to be confused at this stage. I have always been an AMD-Lover and a long time user of AMD processor. So I selected the highest available model suiting my wallet: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (Socket AM2, 3.0GHz, 2x1024KB L2). While it can be seriously over-clocked, I don't want to do that unless the situation demands it.

Motherboard : The new motherboard from Asus, certified by the "Republic of Gamers" which consists only the best of the best. They offer the best hardware engineering, the fastest performance, the most innovating ideas. Its Asus Crosshair nForce 590 SLI AM2 Motherboard. The LCD post display, audio riser card and liquid cooled chipset attracted me the most. There was utilities like Cool 'n' Quiet, AI Booster, etc, which I could use to over clock the system to another dimension. The board is based on the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset and the AMD AM2 processor platform.

Memory : "the bigger, the better " and its true.. My rig demands a 4 x 1GB Corsair 667 MHz DDR2 RAM. Corsair is indisputably the dominator in DDR2 RAM Manufacturers. Even though the motherboard supports 8GB of RAM, 4GB was more than enough for me.

Hard Disk : I am a person who got loads and loads to store. Its from pictures to DVDs, Virtual Machines to Multiple Operating Systems etc. I am a big fan of VirtualBox which allows one to run many guest operating systems under one host operating system. Each virtual machine will allocate some 5GB of hard disk files for its purposes. So I chose a Western Digital 400GB WD4000KS 7200RPM SATA II Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer. Then added a Maxtor 1TB (1000 Gigs) hard drive to it.. So total 1.4TB and I am never outta space for games or videos!

Graphic Card: I am a game freak at time, especially with every release of Need For Speed. Apart from this, I just need to get a good resolution on my monitor. This thought kept me back from taking a Geforce 8800GTX because I wont need it in the near future. So I made up me mind for an XFX GeForce 7600 GT DDR3 256MB PCI-Express Graphic card supporting SLI technology, with more than decent performance output. It supports Dual DVI Output up to 2048x1536 at 85Hz which was more than enough for me.

Display: I liked how a 25" Apple Cinema Display looks, but it will be a waste for me as I am not a designer or a animator. I was in need of a decent display with cool looks as well as High Definition support. I went for HP ww2207h 22" LCD Monitor with a resolution support of 1680x1050. I am really enjoying this monitor in my day-to-day life! Amazing picture quality, amazing resolution, viewing HD clips is a real eye-candy!

CD/DVD Drives: I love BlueRay discs, but I dont understand why they dont fit into my walet. I selected a Sony DVD-RW Dual Layer DVD writer which has got almost all features found in the DVD-RW family.

Cooling System : I understand that, AMD X2 6000+ is kinda power hungry and so it needs an excellent cooling system to stay on line. The Gigabyte - G-Power Cooler BL I chose, is one of small series of mainstream heat sinks manufactured by Gigabyte, and differs from the Gigabyte - G-Power Cooler Pro version only by its lack of a separate fan speed controller. This answers the call for the quiet cooling for my AMD X2 processor. This also has an internal liquid cooled mechanism which delivers high cooling method with amazing looks and feel. I dont know what magic its doing but, using PC Probe to check the temperatures, the processor core temperature don't even go above 41 degree Celsius during the tests running 13 Virtual Machines or while playing Need For Speed Carbon with Maximum Graphics.

Networking : Once done, it was my task to setup Wifi network for my brothers for sharing the Internet connection in their machines. I went for a Wireless-G Router (WGR614) which was easily available in my locale. It delivers a simple secure way to add wireless connection to the network at a great value. It makes sharing my cable/DSL connection with other PCs a snap. For connecting the client PC's to the WiFi Router, I went for Linksys WMP54GS WiFi Lan Card. Its pretty easy to setup and everything was working fine in minutes. There was Internet waves flowing all over my house with this setup. Security is one main this while using a Wireless Router. I have setup WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) method for connecting the client machines to the router. Its the best among Wi-Fi encryption protocols.

Sound System: As my motherboard had an excellent 8-channel Sound Card from SoundMax, I didn't bother to but another one. For the speaker setup, I always believe the best quality of music is delivered by Creative products. I had a 4.1 Creative Inspire Speaker system with my old machine, but this time, I upgraded to a 5.1 Creative Inspire 5200 Surround Speaker System which delivers powerful Dolby 5.1 performance to your desktop at an amazing value. Built with high quality components and amazing art-work, this conquered my mind when I had a first glance at it. A higher version of Boss speaker is in my mind and will upgrade to it in due time. But only time can tell more about it.

Computer Cabinet : The cabinet selecting was the hardest thing for me. The motherboard with so much to show off and the on-board LED lights which demands a look from everyone. I understood that it was a crime to hide this beauty from the world and so I was looking for a super cool looking cabinet. I found just the one I was looking for. Its I-Nix Computer cabinet with a transparent side panel on one side. I also added 3 fans to the slots in it which is lit by multi-colored LEDs. This will just boost up the beauty of the motherboard and internal arrangement making is a real eye-candy. Also, this brought down the temperatures to a neat 4-5 degrees.

Best Part of all : What's amazing about this system? Its because its powered by "Linux"!!! The one word I love to hear all my life. I use three different Linux Operating Systems in my computer. First one is my all-time favorite Ubuntu's latest release Fiesty Fawn, but a 32-bit version. The other one is Fedora Core 7 which is a super cool Linux OS, which I am exploring more and more into it. The third one is Debian Etch AMD64, which is a 64 bit feature packed Operating system. The boot up time is some 7-8 seconds away from the Grub loader. Its comes like turning on my monitor. I also run Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. Its also moves along pretty nice with the new rig. I would definitely post the benchmarks from various applications

I understand that I am no were to show off among the Quad-Core Giants, but I consider this as something like a "dream come true". This is delivering the performance I always wanted from a computer. I am sure, this will serve me for quite a long time without even thinking of an upgrade.

Benchmarks:

1) Windows Experience Index:

The Windows Experience Index is a new feature built into Windows Vista that is designed to help you better understand how well Windows Vista and other software will perform on your PC. The scale of the Windows Experience Index ranges from 1.0 to 5.9. I am truly satisfied with the experience index of my Bluerig. Here's a screenshot.

2) 3D Mark 2006 Professional Edition

The results will be published soon...

3) PC Mark 2006 Professional Edition

The results will be published soon...

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