Just finished building my third computer. Came in at a reasonable price with parts rebates and special sales. This should fend off obsolescence for quite a few years by allowing me to upgrade to higher end Intel processors, faster graphics cards and RAM as prices drop. Windows 7 should prove to be a significant step up from the aging Windows XP operating system. Here are the specs:
Case - NZXT Tempest ATX mid-tower w/ six 120mm blue LED cooling fans.
Motherboard - Biostar T-Series TH55 XE LGA socket 1156 Micro ATX.
CPU - Core i3 540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual Core.
Memory - Kingston ValueRAM 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) x 4 (Total 8 Gigabytes).
PSU - OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS 600W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready Active PFC Power Supply.
GPU - XFX GT240XZNFC GeForce GT 240 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card.
Hard Drives - Two Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive x 2 plus one 500GB 7200 RPM IDE cable drive for a total of three hard drives. Plenty of file backup storage.
Optical drive - Liteon 24X half-height internal DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD+R9/DVD-R9 /DVD-RAM/DVD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW/CD-ROM combination drive.
Monitor - ASUS VH236H Black 23" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen Full HD 1080P LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 20000 :1 (ASCR) Built-in Speakers.
GUI - Windows 7 Professional 64-bit version.
The only thing left to upgrade will be the CPU heatsink and cooling fan since the CPU is running at 52 C. while idle - way too hot but we are talking intel's stock heatsink and fan here. I'm leaning towards getting this liquid cooler instead of a conventional heatsink and fan, provided it fits in my case. Tigerdirect.com is selling it for $79.99:
Corsair CWCH50-1 Hydro H50 CPU Liquid Cooler - 120mm Fan, Copper Cold Plate, Aluminum Radiator, LGA775, LGA1366, LGA1156, AM2/AM3
All told, this system rocks! Much better than my old setup, especially when running the Adobe Web Design CS3 suite of applications. Should also dramatically improve render times in Blender 2.5 Alpha and Vue Esprit 6. Already tested Visual Pinball and Future Pinball emulators and very satisfied with the performance, especially with the new LCD 23" widescreen 1080p monitor. Can't wait to download MAME on this monster. The color and clarity of the display, along with the XFX graphics card, are light years beyond my old setup. Internet download and upload performance also received a boost. Next I will have to test Windows 7's XP mode once I download Virtual PC. All said, this project was money and time well spent, despite having to return one defective motherboard and shelling out money for a new compatible power supply. RMAs, re-stocking fees and UPS shipping charges suck, but when you're dealing with online resellers, you can only go by customer reviews, which tend to run the full spectrum of pros and cons on most products. With the exception of the optical drive, which I bought on Amazon.com, all other components were purchased from Newegg.com.
