Andrews Family

Yes, we are officially a computer system builder now. OK, so we’re not starting a new business, but I did build our family a new computer. We’ve had the previous computer for 4 years now and it only had 512 MB of RAM. It also had Rambus Ram which is really expensive. (Rambus and DDR ram were both new when we got it and DDR took off and Rambus didn’t which is why it’s so expensive.) So upgrading our old computer wasn’t really an option. We didn’t need a super-computer but since we started doing video editing we definitely needed more horsepower. We compared building our own versus buying a PC from somewhere like Dell. We found that the higher end computer you are looking for the more you can save building it yourself. So I’d say we saved about $500 from what an equivalent system would have cost retail. It’s a tough comparison though because it’s hard to build the same system at Dell. Our main motivation for building our own was to be able get all of the options and features we wanted. Our features ranged from very techinical to very practical.

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz 4MB L2 Cache
Motherboard - MSI Platinum P965
Memory - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB DDR2 800Mhz
Video card - BFG Tech GeForce 7600GT 256MB
Hard Drives - Two Seagate Barracuda 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive - Samsung Dual Layer DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology
Card Reader - Built-in card reader
OS - Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista – OEM
Case - Ultra Wizard Mid-Tower ATX Black
Power Supply - Antec Neo HE 550W
Case Fans - Antec Tri-Cool, 120 mm & 80 mm

Additional Features:
9 USB 2.0 ports (3 on front)
2 Firewire ports
Built in card reader
DVD burner with Lightscribe
Matrix RAID (50 GB RAID 0; 350 GB RAID 1)

Practical Features - One feature we wanted was a case that had a door we could close that would cover up the power buttons and DVD drive; we also wanted to be able to lock that door. I used to think that cases like that were annoying, but that was before I knew how good Livy was at pushing buttons. She will hold the power button down for the required 5 seconds and then look up at the screen and laugh and clap as it powers off. We also have some more standard features like a built in card reader, lots of USB ports including 3 on the front , and a front Firewire port.

Technical Features - I wanted a dual-core processor and the Intel E6600 is the best bang for the buck. At 2.4 GHz it’s faster than the E6300 and E6400 you’ll see in most retail computers, but it also gains a lot of performance from twice the L2 cache at 4 MB. Next, we had to decide whether to go with RAID storage which requires multiple hard drives. RAID 0 boosts performance by splitting the data and writing/reading half the data to/from each hard drive. RAID 1 provides an automatic backup and writes all the data to both drives so if one drive fails the data is still safe on the other drive. Typically you would need 2 hard drives for each type of RAID so if you wanted both your would need 4 hard drives. The motherboard I selected has the Intel ICH8R southbridge which provides Matrix RAID Technology which lets you use two hard drives to do both RAID 0 and RAID 1. So the system uses the performance RAID 0 to store the OS and program files, but RAID 1 for all of our data. We also wanted this system to have enough horse power to met our needs for several years. If we ever need more performance we could easily overclock it and get 50-80% more performance.  I upgraded and got a little better RAM just in case we decide to overclock. Some technical features we really didn’t care about, like the video card. We don’t do any gaming so any basic video card would do for us, as long as it had a DVI connector to be able to provide a digital signal for the 22" widescreen I got on the day-after-Thanksgiving sale. Finally, we went with Windows XP Media Center Edition, which came with an upgrade coupon for Vista Home Premium. Since this is our main PC, this gives us time to let issues with Vista shake out before we switch over, but we won’t have to pay for Vista when we decide to switch.

Purchases - We found that we could get the best deal on almost everything from www.Newegg.com. I’d bought things from them before and had good experiences and the same held true this time. Shipping was less then $20 for everything and one big bonus of shopping at Newegg is that you don’t have to pay tax, which would really add up. Priding myself as a bargain hunter I did get a few components from www.Frys.com, such as the the case, power supply and fans. I actually got the case for free after rebate. There were also rebates on a few of the other things as well which helped with the price. We also got an OEM version of Windows which is cheaper and sold to "System Builders." It has license restrictions like what comes preinstalled on a retail computer.

Verdict - Two thumbs up! It is screaming fast with plenty of RAM and hard drive space to last us for a long time. We’re pretty happy with it. I’ve put it through it’s paces to test it out and it really performs. Our custom PC is also exactly what we wanted. There is definitely some risk in building you own, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know what you are doing or have help from someone who does. I spent plenty of time reading up on the internet to make sure I knew what I was getting and that it would all work together. 

Oh and Livy’s favorite feature is the blue LED lights from the fan that looks cool with the lights off.