Well I’ve made some progress in the past few days so heres what I have in mind so far. The new Intel CPU’s are reportedly due (in the US at least) on the 17th of this month meaning I could be within two weeks of buying this machine which in turn doesn’t leave ALOT of time for alot of these components to change too radically (and thus why I am looking now). Anyway heres some parts.

From that list the two items that may change is the motherboard as an X48 version is set to be released soon which I will consider if it’s at the same price point. However thats what it is for now. Secondly I was originally going to get six of those Seagate drives as they perform a bit better than the WD’s however a recent price drop of the WD’s has made them more attractive. Both of those drives are going into the server so performance isn’t key. If the Seagates do drop in price also but I will of course revert to six of them for better performance and Seagates better warranty length (5yr vs 3yr). As you can see, I did mention I was originally getting six but the total above adds to four. I think to help ease my wallet for the time being I’ll just get the two and add more as needed.

As people may or may not be aware, the motherboard chipset I have chosen is an Intel one as opposed to an NVidia one. The Intel’s (P35, X38 and X48) are not capable of SLI unlike the NVIdia chipset boards (780i). Yes, there is the Asus Striker II which feature and price wise is very close to the Intel based one and thus would open up SLI as an option to me, but NVidia boards are notorious for being less stable and worse overclockers. I probably wouldn’t cal them crap, but I’ve heard alot of others mutter the phrase. Heh. Since I am not set on SLI, an Intel chipset is thus the best way to go especially since I do plan to attempt some level of overclocking. The board is an exy one, but it’s also one that should overclock quite well and has alot more options settings wise than many of the cheaper ones thus why I picked it. Hell it even comes with a PCI-E graphics card and a copy of Stalker which will both be useless to me.

Video card is thus the big undecided factor. Since I plan to hold out for the next big card I will probably skip the 9XXX series completely. It thus is a decision between a 9800GTX ($550) or either this ($369), this ($389) or this ($399) 8800GTS 512MB card. I’m leaning towards the GTS for the $200 approximate price difference and the fact that the newer 512MB GTS revisions *apparently* perform close to a GTX up to a certain resolution (a claim I have yet to verify). Granted, 1920×1200 will exceed that resolution but it should still get me by on most games and for others (or should I say Crysis) I’ll drop the resolution if need be. I don’t want to completely butcher performance at decent Resolutions but which is why I’ll overlook the 8800GT I think.

Besides those components I’ll want one additional optical drive ($41) and the two operating systems, Vista Ultimate X64 ($250) and Windows Home Server ($225), and you have all the components I believe I’ll be getting.

Total, I believe $2439 not counting the Lian Li Case and PSU that I have previously acquired and not forgetting that I also haven’t got a price on the CPU. So in the big scheme I’ll add a modest $400 for CPU and all up I’d say this project has set me back $3800 of which one PC is built completely from scratch where pretty much all the components are top of the line besides the graphics card (which will still hold it’s own) along with arguably the most expensive side of a Windows home server (the HD’s and OS given that the CPU, Ram ect didn’t need to be stellar for that machine). Yes, it’s all been a lot of money and the server in particular added to the cost since it facilitated the need for a new case which was $500 of the price, but all up I’m quite happy with it. Looking at my bank account given that I haven’t been payed for the month thats been (including at least one week full time in that period), it could be a bit of a push and is why I have a few less HD’s ect but should be good to go I’d say with enough money left over for a rainy few days. That and hopefully Centerlink will agree to chip in as they so obviously should. Worse comes to worse, the server can go one the side for a while with a drop of Windows Home Server OS and I can use my free Vista Business for the time being to save a quick $500 – $800 temporarily in HD’s and OS’s (although I would prefer Ultimate in the long run as it fits in with my media networking plans a lot better). Certainly won’t leave alot of cash for Trent to release any new NIN items or for a PS3 but those can wait. On the plus side theres no new games comming out besides GTA4 which I payed in full about July last year.

I said this would be a price update but I think I’ve actually specced up the entire machine for the first time which actually is a bit of a relief as I have some sort of image where I’ll be price wise rather than setting vague targets.