Extra! Extra! Frankenbox Back From The Dead! Read All About It!
I had a couple computers over the years when I was growing up. I mowed lawns and did odd jobs to pay for them. They were pretty cheap, but I am not going to tell you specifically which they were as it will make me sound very old :-/ Anyhow, as an adult I purchase my first PC, a Pentium 75MHz clone. Since that time I have built every computer I have owned from parts, other than laptops. About 3 years ago my desktop died while in the care of my wife. I didn’t rebuild it because I have a laptop for work, we were in a temporary apartment while our house was being built, and I just didn’t see the need to spend the money. Recently, I decided it was time to bring it back from the dead.
When I am building a new computer I usually start with recommendations on CPUs, motherboards, memory and graphics cards from Ars Technica and AnandTech. I used to reference Tom’s Hardware as well, but I don’t care for the site that much anymore. This time around, I pretty much followed a budget box recipe, so to speak, set out by Ars Technica. Here are the specs:
- Motherboard: Asus M3A78-EM
- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750+ Retail (Socket AM2)
- GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 1GB
- RAM: 4GB G-Skill DDR2-800
- HD: WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
- Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA
- OS: Dual Boot – Windows 7 RC1, Ubuntu 9.04 (Hackintosh next? We’ll see…)
Given that I hadn’t been using any computer that was newer than 4 years old, this thing is blazing fast. Plenty, plenty fast. I haven’t had time to do any gaming yet. I must resist the urge to get back into WoW because I love my wife and don’t want a divorce. Must resist, love my wife, must resist, love my wife…
