Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

Well, I finally did it -- I decided on my new computer. I'm building one myself. I must confess the prospect jitters my nerves but I think I can do it. I'd have liked one of those refurbished HP Pavilion Elites but the Pegatron Truckee (which HP still uses) and paying $100 for a SquareTrade warranty vanquished that idea. A 15-percent Bing Cashback rebate for TigerDirect goaded me along. Even so it's not entirely pleasant to decide among parts and I was deciding up to the last second. You also learn there's not as much competition in some niches of the computer biz as you may think.

Now to bore you: For the motherboard I got the EVGA X58 SLI thanks to high NewEgg rankings and the fact the company's mobos seem reliable through the whole product line. My ideal choice would have been the ASUS (AY-suhs, Ah-SOOS) P6X58D but it was considerably more expensive and some ASUS 1366 boards don't rate that well with NewEgg customers, and the low-end P6T SE works its way into ready-builts by CyberpowerPC and IBuyPower that don't rate that well either -- and what's more, PEGATRON is ASUSTeK's (AY-suhsTeK's, Ah-SOOSTeK's) OEM division. I'm worried because the EVGA board is said to have had sporadic troubles with its USB ports -- but Tom's Hardware's pick the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R had so many DOAs and RMAs and "issues" it was unacceptable; and MSI's X58 Pro-E board had heat problems; choosing was a process of elimination. This was $199 after rebates but before shipping; and even here I had to pay $26 more for the "A1" board with its dubious lifetime warranty as Systemax conveniently ran out of the cheaper "TR" version -- only to sell a "limited quantity" in-store through Circuit City. I may e-mail.

For the graphics card: the EVGA GTX 460 768MB Superclocked. This too was a last-minute choice. I'd decided on an ASUS HD5770 card if only because it was cheap but then somehow I learned of this item that's become a favorite among the people who write up their free parts; and even there I had to squinch because this card has less memory than the other card in that nVidia line (1.024GB), which the free-part procurers made a point of pretentiously noting. Then NewEgg threw a foot-long monkey wrench in my plans with the briefest of sales on an MSI HD5830 card for $150 but I wasn't sure I wanted a GPU taking up my whole case. Really I could have gotten a $40 card but there must be more to videogames than first-person shooters. I'm getting a second card next year for SLI, practical or not. This was $178 before shipping.

For the memory: the Corsair TR3X6G1600C9. (I HATE catalog numbers!) I was all set on some A-Data memory but TigerDirect didn't discount it and after multiple rebates this was roughly $117 -- $39 a stick, which is unheard of. (But not a year ago.) I was a little flustered because this has a 9 latency and other Corsair sticks have 8, but the problem with finding computer parts is you get hopelessly mired in all the minutiae and trivia of fanboys -- and all I wanted was the cheapest top-quality parts. I'm worried here too because this isn't on the EVGA board's QVL (you learn acronyms VERY quickly in this trade) but there's nothing a BIOS tweaking can't fix -- as if I know how to do that. Well, always a first time.

For the PSU: the Corsair HX750W. This is universally praised and well-built -- it even comes with a velvet pouch! -- although I see Corsair has just introduced a superduperduper line-up of PSUs to please that social climbing streak in the geeks. I'd thought of the 850 but it had an extra set of built-in case-cluttering cords, and I'm NOT moron enough to triple-SLI or Crossfire -- nor do I have THAT much money for electricity. Both PSUs are modular, meaning not so much spaghetti wire. This was roughly $102 after multiple rebates.

For the case: the AzZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Helios 910. (These NAMES!) Again my first choice was a Cooler Master 690 series but nobody seemed to discount it when I wanted it and after a rebate and credits from the two sets of CFL bulbs I returned this was $6 from Amazon.com. NewEgg's customers seem enthusiastic toward the brand -- at least the higher end. (Who wouldn't be with a name like AzZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!?) It's a nice looking case except from the side a big fan turns it into a front-loading washing machine, and it must have blue fan LEDs. Can't the geeks grow up? One possible problem is the four built-in motherboard standoffs which several sources allege can short out a board. But it does have four BIG fans.

The other items merit little comment: a Seagate 1.5TB hard drive for $65 after a rebate (a dubious value as it's gotten lots of pans from customers at many sites, not least of them Seagate's, but at 1.5TB there wasn't much choice); a Lite-On DVD burner for $19; Windows 7 Ultimate System Builder for $161. I almost got in trouble here for lots of Mug Whitman's ardent Chinese followers sell pirated MSDN keys with credible looking "retail" boxes and discs; I nearly bought a copy thinking it was gray-market. (Although the one with the peeling label on the disc WASN'T.) eBay's motto is Caveat Emp -- ALL PEOPLE ARE GOOD.

What remains now is the chip, which most likely I'll have to trudge for at a nearby MicroCenter. I still need to know if the story of the 950 price cut is a fairy tale; meantime I've learned the outfit has a very limited quantity -- ONE -- of the 920 at $169. My deadline is two weeks as I have to cut all the bar codes off all the packages to get all the rebates. With almost $300 from these and the late lamented Bing Cashback there's no way I'd have made the plunge otherwise.

P. S. There is unsubstantiated talk that THE LORD GOD STEVE's favorite supplier FOXCONN makes EVGA boards, an annoyance; but shouldn't we assume worker abuse and computer parts just go together?

CORRECTION ON 8/10/2010 at 11:50 a. m. ASUSTeK spun off Pegatron as part of a complicated restructuring in June, but it still has a 25-percent interest, and the companies must have shared plants. (Link via Wikipedia)