Overall (thoughts)

Just thought I would update the blog with the thoughts running through. Have postponed buying to around May, due to financial conditions. My present PC MUST move over by then, as there are users (siblings) waiting for it.

Budget is fixed at around 65k - 75k. This would include the whole system + OS. I plan on fitting a good headphone within this budget too. But, let's see.

Processor - E6750. The choice has remained for a while. But, with the E8400 coming in, will have to wait and see. The thoughts linger on the Q6600, because I participate in Distributed Computing project too. Does BOINC have significant gains with 4 cores? Should find out.

Ok, some googling shows most applications we use are not optimized for 4 cores. So, dual-core it will be.

Motherboard - Asus P5K-E was a target mostly because of the fascination with the company Asustek, but this Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L seems to have a large number of fans. What are the differences between both? Should find out.

RAM - 2 x 1 GB or 2 x 2 GB. Cost-wise, former seems better. Would be experimenting with a low overclock, so it would be DDR2-800. Again, there are numerous timing related issues to be dealt with. Corsair seems to be quite costly compared to Kingston, so looking at the latter.

Video card / graphics card - For moderate gaming, 8600 GT seems fine, but upgrades are Radeon HD 3850 and the popular 8800 GT. Those cross 10k and so are out-of-reach. For a gamer who sticks with 18 Wheels of Steel, nah, not necessary.

Hard drive - Seagate or Western Digital? 320 GB or 500 GB? Is a second hard-drive necessary? No clear answers, let's see...

Sound card - (none) Onboard is becoming better, it seems.

Optical drive - Should go the SATA way and the Samsung SH-203B seems to be very popular.

Case - Another area of big confusion. Like the Cosmos 1000, but it is costly (sheepish smile). Cooler Master and Antec are the players as Thermalright's Soprano cases seem costly and rarely available. Centurion 5xx or Antec Sonata (it has a good PSU too) mostly.

Power supply - Corsair is getting popular these days with their sets from Seasonic. 450VX was the initial target, but looking at the 550 VX too. People are suggesting the 520HX with all its modularity. What is that? If am going for the Antec Sonata, it has the EarthWatts, which is also highly recommended.

Display / monitor - 22" displays all have only TN-panel, so was looking at the 20"ers. 24"ers look too costly. At the end, does the TN-icity make a big difference? Might settle with a Viewsonic 22"er.

Speakers - A premium 2.1 needed as won't be looking for 5-channel sound. Altec Lansing and Logitech have good sets at the top. Logitech is said to be too boomy, while Altec Lansing is to be cleaner. Altec Lansing MX-5021, it will be, as of now.

Keyboard and Mouse - A multimedia keyboard + optical mouse from Logitech.

Operating System - Vista Home Premium - 32-bit or 64-bit. Would make more sense if I plan to upgrade RAM to 4 GB (if it is 2 GB now). Ubuntu would be the second OS.

A rough calculation with 2 GB and 320 GB brings this to 67.7K. Should try to sneak in a Sennheiser with the remaining amount (or bring down the speakers for that :-) ).

That's about it. End of ramblings.