The last time I owned a desktop computer was either April, May or June 2007. I sold it in one of those months so I could make the last payment to Team Challenge and go to Malawi for a month for a mixture of project work and trekking. It really was a great time with a great team. For the last two and a bit years then, I’ve been without a desktop machine and have just had a laptop, which until now has catered for my requirements quite well. However over the last few months my requirements have changed such that the laptop wasn’t really cutting it. I would have replaced it with a newer laptop, because they are smaller, lighter, quieter and generally unobtrusive in that way. I then realised just how significant the price difference for a given specification is between laptops and desktops and decided to instead build a desktop. So, last Monday I ordered some parts. They arrived last Tuesday and I put them together between various other things like supervisions. It would be fair to say it has a little bit of memory. I’ll have to make it last a good few years!
Pictures:
Nice build; how much did it set you back, if you don’t mind my asking? Incidentally, I built an i7 computer half a year ago which has the same case, CPU and RAM (although yours has far more of the latter).
@Neel
I’m guessing yours has 6gB of RAM? This thing gets pretty hot under full load! What cooling do you have and what sort of temperatures does it run at under full load?
@David Piggott
I went for 3GB, seeing as I’m using 32 bit Vista (also so that I could afford a mouse), but I may get some more if/when I get 7. By way of cooling I’ve got the built in fans and some pretty cheap Akasa fans in the other 3 spaces; for the CPU I’ve got an Akasa Nero. The CPU idles at about 30 and goes up into the high 50s under full load after about 10 mins., although I haven’t actually tested it extensively. How about with yours?
@Neel
I can’t remember what the idle temperatures were like with the stock cooler as you see it in the above post, but I wasn’t happy with the load temperatures. Under full load it was getting up to about 80c when the heating was on, so I decided to replace the Intel cooler with something better.
I’d been going to get an air cooler but for the price of about £50 the Corsair H50 seemed like (and is!) very good value for the money, so I’ve got one of those on it now – load temperatures at stock are now about 50c, which is a big improvement.