Building My Little Baby!

While Big Friendly Giant (BFG) and Val, with their war cries of “1 shot 1 kill”, are busy trying to break SJI Boy’s 18 days record *heh no doubt Val is beginning to realize that us Track & Field Athletes do it better then Ruggers*; I am busy fixing a new baby of my own *nope, not with my Legendary GF*!


Background
Ever since my AMD Duron 750Mhz (512Mb Ram) burnt up in a pile of soot @ 2am last year while I was drafting my lesson slides for Sec 1 NT *I kid you not, I saw an exploding spark at the PSU* I had been yarning for a dream machine but alas it was not to be…

I bought a replacement Intel Pentium-IV 3.0EGhz (1Gb Ram); but after a lovely tryst (lasting 1 month), I had to sell it to purchase a laptop as I figured I needed some mobility since Winnie the Pooh told me that we will be moving back to hall *which bloody hell did not happen*. In popped a 2nd hand laptop Compaq Armada E500 Intel Pentium-III 900Mhz (384Mb Ram); courtesy of Auntie Journal Poster. To be fair the laptop has served me well, surviving an attack of an entire glass of water *unleashed by clumsy me no doubt*. But years of enduring the laggy laptop (on which the opening of any documents or *ahem* purely educational video threatens to put the grandma-processor into cardiac arrest); coupled with my encounter with BFG’s sexy Duo Core-II, the geeky kid in me couldn’t take it anymore…


Making of the Baby
Heh this section will be rather technical as I describe how I went about gathering the various parts! Quite informative, if you are thinking of getting a new DYI computer.


Part1: Casing – Empty HP Pavilion t230d
Originator: Brother
Cost: $0
Warranty: NONE

LATEST UPDATE: The board cant fit into my bloody casing!! Angry.. haiz time to scout for a good cheap casing.. On a side note, BFG’s PowerLogic Modena 600 is a steal @ $42 *comes with a PSU, see below*! This can be bot at one of the back lane stores call RickyTan.com


Part 2: PSU – PowerLogic 450w (truepower 200w)
Originator: BFG
Cost: $14
Warranty: 1 Year

Bought this spare PSU off BFG. Yay a savings of $4 since the cheapest PSU I can find is $18.


Part 3: Motherboard – MSI P965 Neo
Originator: Honest-looking Geeky Uncle from YCK
Cost: $150
Warranty: 3 Years

This is one of the toughest choice to make. My pre-requisites (with upgradability and expandability in mind; my greatest concern is the support of Window Vista, the new OS to be released next year) are: (1) Board + CPU Bundle < $300 (2) Supports Duo Core-II (3) Supports PCI-E (4) Supports DDR II (5) Has 4 ram slots (6) Preferred Intel Chipset… and the winner is… yes you are rite, you can’t get a board for above pricing…. Subsequently, I saw an ad in Hardware zone selling this MSI board for $180 (Original price abt $202) I bargained down to $150 (on hind sight cld have asked for cheaper). The board is sold by a honest looking geeky uncle. Had a good discussion about the merits of Core-I vs Core-II. Quite a worthwhile purchase considering that the board has been used for only 1.5 months and has a 3 year warranty by agent!


Part 4: Ram – 2 Pieces Kingston DDR2-4200 533Mhz 512Mb
Originator: Dubious Sleazy-looking Chap from Aljunied
Cost: $65/pc - $130 total
Warranty: Product Lifetime

Wow this is a sleazy and more worrying purchase. Got it from an online company’s ad in Yahoo auctions. Bargained from $70 to $65 heh the guy issued me receipt some more, but I wouldn’t have gotten it if not for the “Lifetime” warranty from Kingston agent. Interestingly, I found out that the service center for Kingston ram is located @ Bugis OG.. think 11th or 12th floor.. a company called convergence.


Part 5: DVD RW – LG 16x Super Multi DVD/CD Rewriter
Originator: Fuwell
Cost: $48
Warranty: Not Sure

Ohhh this is one of the buys of the day! I was bumming around in SLS waiting for the shops to open when I noticed a loooong queue form… and loooong queues can only mean one thing: GOOD BARGAINS! Heh the inbuilt kiasu-ness in me caused me to queue up… without even knowing what was being sold. It turns out the Fuwell is having an opening sales @ its 2nd outlet. Got this DVD RW for abt $7-$10 off the market rate.


Part 6: Harddisk – Seagate 160Gb SATA II
Originator: C.A.S.H
Cost: $95
Warranty: 5 Years

Most competitive priced HD of the day. Another one of those back lane shops



Part 7: CPU – Intel Pentium D Duo Core-I 2.66Ghz (Boxed)
Originator: PC Themes
Cost: $153
Warranty: 3 Years

Hmm this is one of me favourite back lane shops. Princess’ view is that some backlane shops are cheaper because they are distributors. Well it seems to be true; when I was here, I saw a furtive shop owner coming over to buy 5 pieces of Intel 3.0 Ghz Chips. Hmm this is a tough call really… having bot a powerful board, the urge is to get an equally powerful CPU but it’s a tough call. Core-I 2.66Ghz is $153 while Core-II 6300 is $305 (almost double the price!!). Having consulted Princess, Vampire and Brother, I decided to get Core-I 2.66Ghz because the savings can be used to top up more ram or to buy a good graphic card.

Having read some online technical reviews about the requirements of Windows Vista, the general consensus is that Graphic Card (and not CPU) should be a greater concern to users. This is because a lot of processing is to be done on the graphic card itself. Also dual channeling will be utilized more. SATA II is also highly recommended.


Part 8: Graphic Card – 4Mb PCI Card
Originator: Fishbowl
Cost: $0
Warranty: NONE

Hmmm.. I thought I passed Fishbowl a AGP card? Heh never mind, since my new board do not have an AGP slot anyway


Conclusion
Yay my new baby for a grand total of $590! Well it’s over my initial budget of $400 but I guess it’s okie. Fixing it as I blog.. bloody hell I am redrafting this post as I accidentally deleted it.