Official 'This Is What I Want For My New Computer' Post

It is time for me to introduce my latest addition to my blog - the "This is What I Want for My Next Computer' series! This will be continuously updated, logged, skewed, revised, reviewed, and overall scrutinized, until I get the entire thing done! (Like my computer will ever truly be 'done). First off...

• Case, Motherboard, Power Supply

I have decided on what I want for the bones of my computer... Shuttle's SK83G. Here is the official site: CLICK ME!! and here it is on Newegg: CLICK ME TOO!!


Courtesy of Techreport

Now I know, this is not the latest and greatest thing on Earth. But one thing I do like about this case is that I will have to make desicions, weigh the trade-offs, and watch my budget that can't be too high, because we don't have a lot of money. I like this case for many reasons, and think it will do exactly what I want it to do.

First of all, its small, and small is good! I can pack it up and take where needs be. Take it to the gym. Take it to Clay and Thomas' house. Take it to the Restroom... All in the name of portability. Really I like it so small because it is portable (at least comparatively to most desktops), and it just has that certain wow factor to it... something I can look at it and be like.. 'wow, thats neat. and its mine'.



Another reason I like it is because of the socket 754 setup. I like the idea of having an AMD 64 processor in it. I'm eyeballing the AMD 64 3000+, but the lengthy description of that is for a later writing. Now, I know what your thinking (maybe), 'this platform is already being taken over by the socket 939 processors!'. Well, I know, but there is still some life in it, I want to use 1 stick of RAM and still hit its full potential, and its cheaper. So, I like it.

I also like that this case uses a proprietary cooling system for the CPU, that is supposed to keep it cool better. Its called SilentX, and its supposed to be very quiet and efficient. We'll see, but it has me sold for now ;)



I also like that the motherboard has onboard video. Now I know, onboard video sucks (I got a laptop, and it sucks, my wife's computer had onboard, and it sucked). I've read that the onboard graphics chip is pretty much like a budget GeForce4, which might sound bad, but me and my wife just stuck a GeForce4 in her 2.4ghz Celeron desktop, and its graphics were DRAMATICALLY improved, and passes off real well as a gaming machine. So I'm going to go with that, because frankly, I don't have the money for a good video card yet, and if I'm going to get a video card, I want a pretty good one. Like a Radeon 9800 Pro, that I can driver-upgrade to an XT (find that one on Google, too lengthy of an explanation for here!)

Well, the rest of it is self explanatory. PSU? Check. 6 USB? Check. 2 Firewire? Check. SATA & RAID? Check. Onboard 5.1? Check. All for around $260? Check. Check. Check. Buy a case (~$50), PSU (~$70), Mobo (~$100)... Can add up.

I'll add more posts as I have time about the other parts of the system, but for now, I'm out.

Link of the Post: Firefox <-- Use this please... if you know whats good for you.