I’ve Built a Computer! Bow Down Before Me!

I’ve kicked up the geekery a few notches this week by building a desktop computer from parts rather than by ordering from Dell or Compaq. It has gone rather smoothly considering all the articles I read on the Internet that warned of of the potential headaches that accompany such an endeavor.

As you can see from the photo, the new rig (that’s what us über nerds call our computers these days) uses a Rosewill Conquerer case with a fancy transparent side panel and moody blue interior lights. I bought the case and all the parts from Newegg.com for around $750. No sales tax and about $18 to ship it. I felt even better about the price when I was perusing the Apple Store down on Michigan avenue this afternoon and saw comparable systems going to two or three times that price (and that price doesn’t include the heart break one feels when they realize you can’t really run Team Fortress 2 very well on a Mac).

Anyhow here the complete stats in case you are interested:

• Case: ROSEWILL|RPS-01-WB500P RT
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R P45 775 R
• CPU: INTEL|C2D E8400 3G 775 45N R
• Graphics: EVGA 512-P3-N973-TR 9800GT RT
• Memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
• Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB
• DVD-Rom Burner: PIONEER|DVR-216D 20X
• Keyboard & Mouse: MicroSoft|BLK COMFORT CURVE OEM
• OS: Vista Home Premium OEM

The only thing missing is a decent audio card. The on-board sound of the motherboard can’t really handle ASIO and live music recording very well. My old Audigy 2 ZS can handle it, but the pins don’t match the connector ont case’s from audio ports.