The last thread of this sort I had mistakenly labeled 2007, rather than this year, which understandably resulted in numerous "OMGNOOB" flames from tech wannabies who like to think that they're the only ones who know what they're talking about.
Based on what information I could find, and stretched a bit by imagination here and there:
Chassis: ATX-based
- 4 external 5¼ slots
- 2 external 3½ slots
- 8 internal 3½ slots
- enough PCI/PCI-e expansion slots to fit my needs
- internal true sine wave UPS (har har)
Power Supply: whatever's stable and sufficient. I'm not about to guess what will come out this year
CPU: (2x if possible) AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (dual core) Socket AM2
Memory: (2x 2x1024 packages for 4GB) Corsair XMS2 8000 TWIN2X1024-8000UL Matched Pair packages
Display: 24-30" WQXGA, WQSXGA or WQUXGA wide-screen with good contrast, cd/m², low pixel-pitch and a response time ≤11ms
Graphics: [2x-4x (latter if quad-SLI survives] BFG OC'd NVIDIA GeForce G80 (we could hope they'll have dual-GPU cards); 512-1024MB GDDR4 ea/; Shader Model 4.0
Physics: PCI-e Ageia PhysX PPU (what, don't like it? Unreal 3 does)
Sound: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro (PCI-e, perhaps?)
Main Drive: (2x) in RAID0 WD 150GB Raptor 16MB 10K SATA-150
Performance Drive: (2x) affordable SATA ≥8GB RAM drive in RAID0, with an internal power solution that outperforms the direct competition (preferably 3½)
SATA Expansion: 4-port SATA-300 PCI expansion card
SATA Storage: (2x) Seagate 500GB Barracuda 16MB 7200.9RPM SATA-300
IDE Storage: (2x) Hitachi 500GB Deskstar Ultra ATA/133 (what, you want to leave empty spaces on your motherboard?!)
DVD-R Drive 1: whichever stable SATA drives happen to be on the market
DVD-R Drive 2: whichever convenient IDE drive is available
Floppy Storage 1: LS-120 3½ floppy drive (sort of an 'I have one and you don't' kinda thing)
Floppy Storage 2: 3½ floppy drive (Dual Floppy!!)
Floppy Storage 3: 5¼ floppy drive
LCD Display: regular old 5¼ that just happens to display random Hitchhiker's Guide quotes
OS's: WinVista, WinXP-P 64, WinXP-P, Gentoo Linux
Circuit Testing: USB Oscilloscope (the Parallax one looks nice)
Don't like some of the outdated parts? Tough. Nothing's as intimidating as a souped-up system with a 5.25 floppy drive. And before anybody cuts and pastes an Opteron 170 overclock out of the Anandtech forums, I would remind you that this is a cool late 2006 system...not a cool right-now system. And before anybody comments on any lagging object that is not intentionally obsolete (the 5¼ floppy, for instance), I would remind them that we're almost half-way through January, and that this list is definately subject to change. For instance, should the Western Digital get a burr up its arse to suddenly release a 15K SATA-150 (yeah right), 10K SATA-300 or 7.2K SATA-600, they'll be on this list instead of the others.
Am I going to buy all this at the end of the year? Heck no...well, maybe some of it.
Based on what information I could find, and stretched a bit by imagination here and there:
Chassis: ATX-based
- 4 external 5¼ slots
- 2 external 3½ slots
- 8 internal 3½ slots
- enough PCI/PCI-e expansion slots to fit my needs
- internal true sine wave UPS (har har)
Power Supply: whatever's stable and sufficient. I'm not about to guess what will come out this year
CPU: (2x if possible) AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (dual core) Socket AM2
Memory: (2x 2x1024 packages for 4GB) Corsair XMS2 8000 TWIN2X1024-8000UL Matched Pair packages
Display: 24-30" WQXGA, WQSXGA or WQUXGA wide-screen with good contrast, cd/m², low pixel-pitch and a response time ≤11ms
Graphics: [2x-4x (latter if quad-SLI survives] BFG OC'd NVIDIA GeForce G80 (we could hope they'll have dual-GPU cards); 512-1024MB GDDR4 ea/; Shader Model 4.0
Physics: PCI-e Ageia PhysX PPU (what, don't like it? Unreal 3 does)
Sound: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro (PCI-e, perhaps?)
Main Drive: (2x) in RAID0 WD 150GB Raptor 16MB 10K SATA-150
Performance Drive: (2x) affordable SATA ≥8GB RAM drive in RAID0, with an internal power solution that outperforms the direct competition (preferably 3½)
SATA Expansion: 4-port SATA-300 PCI expansion card
SATA Storage: (2x) Seagate 500GB Barracuda 16MB 7200.9RPM SATA-300
IDE Storage: (2x) Hitachi 500GB Deskstar Ultra ATA/133 (what, you want to leave empty spaces on your motherboard?!)
DVD-R Drive 1: whichever stable SATA drives happen to be on the market
DVD-R Drive 2: whichever convenient IDE drive is available
Floppy Storage 1: LS-120 3½ floppy drive (sort of an 'I have one and you don't' kinda thing)
Floppy Storage 2: 3½ floppy drive (Dual Floppy!!)
Floppy Storage 3: 5¼ floppy drive
LCD Display: regular old 5¼ that just happens to display random Hitchhiker's Guide quotes
OS's: WinVista, WinXP-P 64, WinXP-P, Gentoo Linux
Circuit Testing: USB Oscilloscope (the Parallax one looks nice)
Don't like some of the outdated parts? Tough. Nothing's as intimidating as a souped-up system with a 5.25 floppy drive. And before anybody cuts and pastes an Opteron 170 overclock out of the Anandtech forums, I would remind you that this is a cool late 2006 system...not a cool right-now system. And before anybody comments on any lagging object that is not intentionally obsolete (the 5¼ floppy, for instance), I would remind them that we're almost half-way through January, and that this list is definately subject to change. For instance, should the Western Digital get a burr up its arse to suddenly release a 15K SATA-150 (yeah right), 10K SATA-300 or 7.2K SATA-600, they'll be on this list instead of the others.
Am I going to buy all this at the end of the year? Heck no...well, maybe some of it.
Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-01-13 18:13:50)
