It’s a brand new day, and the sun is high
Meet Remulos.
I’m not going to tell you why I chose that name ’cause it’s super-geeky – you’ll have to google it.
Anyway, there were surprisingly few catches to the build process. It took me approximately 2 days, and that was basically because I couldn’t buy a part at 10pm (boo). BEST BUY, WHY DO YOU FAIL ME?
- The power supply did not arrive with the case as expected. NewEgg offered to compensate me if I bought another power supply through them. I told them I wanted to get one right away and politely suggested they compensate me anyway, as a courtesy … and they did!
- The power supply I DID acquire was slightly less powerful than the original, but I haven’t had any trouble yet. That said, it came with two SATA power plugs, so I had to buy a splitter – I have a DVD drive and two HDs (RAID 0 means the PC writes to both of them at once, for speed).
- Windows 7 is my OS for now. Can I tell you how much of a pain it is to get it to recognize hard drives that were RAIDed together? I thought I was prepared with drivers on a USB, but I had to pull out the Motherboard CD.
… that’s it! That’s all it took.
The installation of Windows 7 was a snap after that, the system works perfectly so far. I haven’t overclocked it yet, I figure I’ll wait on that.
I’ve installed a number of Open Source/Freeware softwares – many of them work with Linux, which gives me high hopes of installing Ubuntu Linux as well, and using the same software packages between them.
I moved Warcraft (the other heavy hitter program, behind Premiere CS4, which I still need to re-locate) onto the local drives and quickly set it up. I’m running approximately 1460 x 1000 in-game with the settings maxed, and I drop down to maybe 30fps during 25-man raids. That is pretty effin’ slick, right there.
UNRELATED TO COMPUTER TALK (for those of you who glazed over):
You should go watch President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner. That man is funny, with great delivery.
If that link doesn’t work for you, you can find it on youtube, but the videography sucks. JSYK.
(PS it’s time to change my geek icon. Athena, you were great, but your time has passed. I still love you, I promise.)
Raid 0? I see you like living dangerously. Hehehe.
Awesome computer.
me: *looks at one year old computer on my desk. ponders for a moment. nah, wait till next year*
I have an external drive for data backup.
Congratulations on the slickness, and may you be immune to the many disasters of Windows. ;)
I loved Obama’s speech too — it’s rare to see a politician with an *actual* sense of humor. “…And on the 73rd day, I will rest” was effing priceless.
I have the same case from Smilodon. What are the specs on the rest of your system?
Here are the stats on mine. They look pretty comparable. I notice that you are using Windows 7. I had never heard of it until I read your post. How is it working out for you? Think I would like it better then Xp pro 64 bit?
Reaper 1066 ddr2 8 gigs
Windows Xp Pro 64 bit edition
150GB Raptor 10k rpm dedicated to operating system
1.5 terabyte 7200 rpm for everything else
Gemin11 Cooler
AMD 9950 Phenom Quad core black edition 2.6 MhZ
2 dvd drives/ burners
Asus M3A78-T Motherboard
Asus chipset Radeon 4870 2 GB video card Crossfire
950W power source
Raidmax Smilodon case..Black with clear panels and green LEDs.
I’m pretty happy with my system, considering I built it for under $1,000.
Windows 7 is in Release Candidate status right now – if you’re thinking of trying it out while it is in late beta, you should go to the microsoft web site and apply for a registration number this month. You can use it any time between now and next year, but you have to apply before the end of June, I believe.
I’ve been quite happy with Windows 7. The visual difference between it and Vista is limited, but they changed a few critically annoying things about Vista, such as allowing you to choose your security alert rate and changing a number of graphic bottlenecks so one program doesn’t halt another while waiting anymore.
XP is a very old operating system (I use it at work of course, and on my laptop) – it also handles multi-core applications less efficiently than 7, which apparently has less overhead involved in multi-core operations.