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Building the “perfect” PC

Thursday, August 12th, 2010 | Gadgets, Tech-savvy

I’ve been using a pre assembled Dell desktop PC for almost 6 years now. It is a Pentium 4 with 3.4 GHz. Gosh, I am starting this blog post with the same misleading behaviour I want to rant about later on – the CPU power. Please stop thinking about this as the main leading factor concerning computer systems’ speed.

I would like to sum up all the components I decided to buy. While writing this I haven’t ordered the pieces yet, so this will be in a “draft” status as long as the machine isn’t up and running. The list should help me not to forget what endless review readings revealed and maybe help you my dear reader deciding what’s best for your next computer as well. Please don’t start with “what” you want to buy though, start with the “why”. My old computer still works. I can do all my office needs. Still, I want a new one. Let’s see why I still want a new one:

First, I want a machine that is silent, as in SILENT! I don’t want to listen to my fans rattling and my hard drive scamper over my full and pretty much fragmented partitions. My OS should not give me the feeling of an unstable bloated system that doesn’t accept me as its master, rather dictates IEs or iTunes. Apart from not being noisy why squander power? It feels good to know you’re doing the right thing, maximum power with minimum effort. As if golden rims ever improved a car …

So I am dreaming about a machine that just sits there, pretty and neat, performing in a slick way as if there is no tomorrow. All together I come up with these non-functional requirements:

• fast
• silent
• efficient
• free os (as in free speech)

With these in mind I chose the following components that are up to the task (at least on paper):

CPU

Yes, yes, I’ll still start with the CPU. Even though it is not the sole component responsible for the systems’ speed still is the central proceeding unit, right? First I had to decide whether to go for AMD or Intel. Some of my decisions are not rational, this being the first one: the Core i series just felt better than the Phenom with 3 core CPU seconds that can be pimped to 4 cores just by switching a BIOS flag – dodgy somehow. AFAIK the Core i series also “wins” in terms of overall power consumption and features – talking about Clarkdale‘s build in GPUs and automatic overclocking – and its 32 nm architecture.

A Core i it should be then, but which one?? I tried hard to understand the differences between Core i3, i5 and i7 and their different series. Wikipedia helped a lot and so did Passmark’s CPU comparison table. The i7 was pretty much out of the question right away – too expensive in terms of money and power for what it delivers -or- better said, in comparison to its smaller competitors. As this is not intended to be a gamer’s machine the Clarkdale series build in GPU was something I wanted as well – 2 Cores are enough for my needs, decent 2D GPU inside, no extra power consumption / noise / heat by an external card. I wanted to go for the slowest i3 for a long time (Core i3 530) considering it up to the task. Then I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to miss out on the automatic overclocking features the Core i5 series provides for load peaks. The smallest Core i5 is the 650 (6xx being the only Clarkdale Core i5s), and costs twice as much as the smallest Core i3 – just for overclocking? No, the “smallest” i5 is a bit faster in terms of MHz, the Core i3 530 has a 2933 MHz clock compared the i5′s running at 3200 MHz (going up to 3466 MHz with automatic overclocking). But how much do you pay for automatic overclocking then? I compared the fastest i3 with 3200 MHz to the slowest i5 et voilà, about 40 bucks. Now I only had to decide whether I needed that.

CPU	cores	GPU	MHz	Turbo	TDP	Release $$	Retail €€ today
i3 530	2	x	2933	-	73 W	$113	€93
i3 550	2	x	3200	-	73 W	$133	€140
i5 650	2	x	3200	x	73 W	$176	€178
i5 750	4	-	2666	x	95 W	$196	€173

I decided I don’t.

Mainboard

I just chose a board another retailer used for his system, the GigaByte GA-H55M-UD2H – it seemed to be decent enough, the only real decisions here where eSATA support and USB 2.0 only. I don’t want USB 3.0 because I don’t want to pay the early adopter’s fee. Simply put: I don’t need it. The mainboard has been out there for a little while now and should be working fine.

The eSATA could become useful as soon as I want to use a hard drive that I only use now and then and still keep the SATA performance. I can have it switched off most of the time (power / noise again) and use it as a data grave as needed. But this is just a future consideration.

RAM

Another irrational decision. RAM = good. 2 Gb now, 4Gb better, buy 8Gb. CL 7. It just felt right

Right now I am going for GeIL DIMM 8 GB DDR3-1333 Quad-Kit because it is not *that* expensive and has a CL of 7 rather than 9 like most others. I have no idea if this is something that really makes a difference, but hey, it can’t be bad, right?

GPU

not applicable I am using a Clarkdale CPU

Hard Drive

Now we are going to talk performance. I used to think “quiet” buying my data graves in the past. It never occurred to me that my frickin’ disks could be the bottleneck of my system. Right now I am using a “green” HD with 5400 RPMs as my system’s boot device. These times are over. I will buy myself the fastest HD available for the system – data will still reside on the slow green disks, but I don’t want my OS and programs to wait for I/O any more. I’ve read reviews of fast SSDs that said: “I thought my double clicking wasn’t done yet with CS3 already up and running”. I want that. Period.

An OCZ Vertex2 E 60 GB should do the job (or a Patriot Inferno maybe?), with read AND write speed being close to 300 MB/s. Whoooosh!

Additionally I will be using a HD silencer from Silentmaxx for my old HD. Let’s hope it keeps what it promises.

Case

Most PC cases are fugly. I didn’t go for a cheap-must-do case either, I fell in love with a satin aluminium case from Silentmaxx, the ITA Pure. Build for quiet systems and lean looking it was a good choice for me. I love understatements, meaning I would never go for a bling bling Alienware PC. This is the only component (and the HD silencer) already residing on my living room’s table waiting to be stuffed with sweet components soon …

Power

Again, efficiency and silence dominated this decision. I am going for the smallest be quiet! power supply, the 300 Watts Pure Power L7, simply because it’s enough power for my system’s demands.

Fans

First I wanted to build a fanless system. Now I decided to try be quiet! Silent Wings PWM, one for the rear part of the case (front has a special Silentmaxx kit) and maybe one more for the CPU cooler. Hope they will be silent enough … I just read about the new Silent Wings “Pure” – maybe I should go for these?

CPU cooler

Anything big and silent, a Scythe Kabuto SCKBT-1000 maybe. If the fan’s too noticeable I will go for another be quiet! Silent Wing.

OS

Linux Mint. Debian based. Ready to go. Elegant. (Thanks Tobi for making me a Mint fan since Daryna)

As you can see, a lot of my decisions were concluded on a gut level – but I have the feeling that I did the right thing and I am happy with my personal “perfect” PC. Disagree? Suggestions? Praise? Pleas leave a comment! I still might change my mind …

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