Update: I just noticed that, despite having set a title for each link, apparantly Windows Live Writer dumped those when it published this post. Sorry, folks.  

Seems as though several folks are buying or building new computers right about now. Well, me too.  Yep, time to replace my home workstation. I received a couple of boxes via UPS this week, so you know what my weekend will be like.

It’s been about thirty months (aka 2.5 years) since I updated it last.  Due to severe cost constraints last time I replaced my home workstation, I <gasp> bought </gasp> a Dell SC420 (and no, I didn’t do the PCI Express mod).  Yeah, I bought a computer instead of building one, violating my directive on building. It replaced a very aged (and failing) PIII-based machine (which I built).  The SC420 worked pretty well, but was obviously limited in the graphics department and there some other things that made it less than ideal for a workstation. One of area disappointment was in the noise department (see my recent Vista/laptop adventure).  And did I mention noise? (kind of a pet peeve of mine)  However, given that I was not home much due to my travel schedule for work, and when I was, I didn’t use it much. I was reluctantly ok with that given I had more important things to worry about during that time.

I’ve been saving up my per diem and my spare change and now have some coin to use on new hardware. Additionally (and importantly), I got a good WAF score. As Hanselman noted recently, let’s be realistic here…nearly all purchasing decisions are dependant on WAF, and if the WAF (1st definition) score is zero or near zero, it ain’t gonna happen.

I firmly believe in building my own machines, like Atwood (scroll down a bit).  I like having complete control over every component, and I can build a machine that is fast and quiet.  With few exceptions, 98% of the machines in my “NOC” (my wife calls it the “NASA control center”) are hand-built, too (I let these be a bit louder than silent since the noise would be good to chase away the dust bunnies in the basement).  I’m slowly working on a server consolidation effort there, if for no other reasons but to decrease the administrative/management effort and to reduce energy consumption.

Here’s the rundown on my new workstation:

• Antec P180 case

A well-reviewed (here and here-1,2) case that brings a number of good things to the table: composite panels, partitioned cooling zones, and two adjustable speed 120mm fans.  Couple that with quality construction, thoughtful touches, and, IMO, good looks and I’m sold. While I’m no fan of the boring beige box, I’m not going to get some neon-lighted, suspended_fish-bowl_with_a_disco_ball, blinged-out case, either (after noise, comes the visuals – I can’t stand unnecessary lights on a PC).  With the front panel closed, it’s pretty minimalist, and I like the silver/stainless look (you can get it in black, too).  Granted, I’m going to spend extra time with cable management given the layout (the power supply is on the bottom), but it will be worth it (and SATA cables are a whole lot easier to deal with that PATA ribbon cables).  Oh, and I’m not quite sure if I’m going to put on the top fan exhaust protector thingy.  That’s the one part of the P180 I’m not really crazy about.

I had also considered the CoolerMaster CM Stacker 830 and CoolerMaster Centurion 5, but felt that they didn’t meet all of my criteria (and I thought the Stacker was ugly and would exacerbate noise transmission). They, too, are well reviewed at SPCR and many other places.

• SeaSonic M12 SS-600HM power supply

While Atwood thinks that needing a 500 (or greater) watt power supply is a myth, I’m not so sure when you factor in overclocking, several hard drives, and video cards that have their own cooling fan, talent agent, entourage, and sport more memory than the main memory of most people’s PCs.  For most folks, yeah, Jeff’s right. And a for a large part of the work I do, he’s right there, too. I like some overhead though.  SPCR reviewed the 700w version, but I extrapolated down 100 watts and liked what I saw.

• Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard

Built-in gigabit Ethernet, 6 SATA connectors, 1 IDE, support for up to 8 USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, 2 PCI-Express x16 slots, 1 PCI-e x1 slot, 3 PCI slots, eSATA, and a 802.11b/g antenna jack. Yummy. Did I mention excellent OC potential?  Tom’s Hardware has a review.

• Intel Core Duo 2 E6600 CPU

2.4GHz of dual core love. Did I mention the 4MB of shared L2 cache and 64-bit support?  IMO, this is the sweet spot (price/performance) right now in Intel’s Core 2 Duo lineup. Core 2 Duo’s overclock very nicely, too.

• Scythe Ninja CPU cooler

Pretty inexpensive, and a damn good heatsink.  While it ships with a fan (which the SPCR crowd has given a thumbs-down on, so find a different one), given the placement of the rear and top (yes, top) fan of the P180, I ought to be able to run this fanless (i.e. passively), at least until I OC the CPU.  This thing is huge – twenty-three aluminum fins stacked horizontally with six copper heat pipes. One of the issues with this heatsink is size. It’s not going to fit in all cases (but will work in a P180 with a P5B mobo), so be sure to do your research.

• 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM

Atwood says don’t waste your cash on 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit OS.  Well, I’m going to be running 32-bit Vista (and I’ll be 32-bit for a while), so I won’t be able to realize all 4GB, but I’m ok with that.  And I’ll have all 4GB when I do go 64-bit.

• NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB video card

I debated this one long and hard. I, of course, looked at the 8800GTX, but couldn’t justify spending well over $500 on a video card. Perhaps if my name was “Thresh“, but it ain’t. (dated myself a bit with that one, eh?)   But. Nearly $400 (I got it for $359, after rebate) is still a chunk of change for a video card. It does have DirectX 10 support, and it will rock DirectX 9.  But I don’t do that much gaming.  What is useful is that it has has dual DVI, which is great for me as I’m currently running my LCDs in analog (eww, gross, analog).  What can I say, this was a splurge.

• Western Digital Raptor 150GB/10k

Oh. Yeah. This will be the system drive. 150GB capacity, 10,000RPM spindle speed, and SATA I (aka 150MB/s max. external transfer rate) interface. Skeptical? Use a box with a 10k RPM drive, then come talk to me.  Why only 150MB capacity? Again, it’s the system drive, it doesn’t need to be that big. I need to see the noise levels from this in the case as it will be in the bottom part of the case – the drive cage, which has rubber mounting grommets. I may need to get more extreme on it (i.e. change to a suspension mounting or put some sorbothane in place).

• Western Digital Caviar RE2 500GB/7200

This is the big drive. All my apps and VMs will live here.  500GB capacity, 7200RPM spindle speed, and SATA II (300MB/s max external transfer rate). Don’t let that SATA II transfer rate fool you.. it doesn’t really matter much.  Hopefully this drive is no louder than the Raptor. Again, we’ll see. Someone is going to ask: “Why didn’t you use a RAID 0 setup on this or the Raptor?”.   RAID 0, eh? Are you nuts? I have a drive failure and I’m screwed.  While we’re at it, what about RAID 1?  Good question. I might do that. Greatly improved read performance + redundancy in exchange for a small-ish hit on write performance. Need to save more $ (of course, if I hadn’t splurged on the video card…).

• Internal card reader

I picked up a generic one at MicroCenter when I bought my SATA cables. This will definitely beat scrounging around for a card reader when I need one.  This one does MMC/MMC2/SD/CF/CFII/SM/Microdrive/MS/MS DUO/MS Pro/MS Pro DUO.  $20. cool.

That was all the new bits, existing bits include:

• 2 – Samsung 193P 19″ LCD monitors

I bought these several years ago and am still quite happy with them. If I have one complaint, it is the resolution (1280×1024).  Here’s a 193P review at AnandTech.  I may purchase another LCD at some point (and other video card) and join the three monitor club, but that’s likely a ways off.

• Samsung SH-S183L DVD writer

This one is somewhat unique (er, rare) as it is SATA – an interface that will soon become commonplace for optical drives.  Hopefully this will work well under Vista..  Here is one of the only reviews I’ve found on it.  Yeah, it’s a tad slower on DVD writing, but it’s SATA and that’s why I bought it.

• Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

NEK4000, I love you! I longed for the days of old until I found the NEK4000. Bliss. And I shamefully must note that I only purchased it last year.  Why am I so enthralled with this keyboard? 

• Comfy naugahyde(?) palm rest
• Solid keyboard.
• The PgUp/PgDn cluster is configured correctly.
• The arrow keys are configured correctly.
• The LEDs are front-and-center. Particularly nice to see if F Lock is on or off, along with Scroll, Caps, and Num Lock.
• The multimedia buttons are useful.
• It’s black.
• Damn it, man, it just feels good to type on.
• It’s wired.

Before I get burned at the stake for having a wired keyboard in the year 2007, let me explain. I previously had the Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Pro set. The keyboard felt good, although not as good as the NEK400, and the mouse felt good. The wireless part of things was a huge annoyance.  I couldn’t have that damn transceiver thingy more than fifteen inches away. And even then things were flaky.  Additionally, the lock indicator LEDs (F, Caps, Scroll, Num) were on the transciever thingy, not on the keyboard. So, if you try to tuck it out of site, you are out of luck. Note: I do use a wireless mouse with may laptop; a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. It allows me to have three devices (mouse, laser pointer, remote Powerpoint gizmo) in one (i.e. less crap to haul around in my bag).

• Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical

Yep, still using the trusty IntelliMouse Optical. It works well and has additional buttons I can map to forward/back, which I like. It is not necessarily extremly comfortable (read:ergonomic), though. I’m still searching for desktop mouse nirvana – not sure where I’ll end up.  Suggestions? Drop me a comment. 

• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtrmeGamer

Yeah. I like it. It’s a friggin’ [nice] sound card.

• Cambridge SoundWorks speakers

Apparently, my speakers (two satellites and a sub) are _so_ old, I can’t find them online anymore.  They work for me, though.

Notes:
I reference Jeff Atwood a lot in the post. Why? Am I just some fanboy? No. He’s smart and knows what he’s talking about..and I have similar philosophies in a number of areas. Also, readers of The Tech Report may notice a resemblance between my new rig’s configuration and their “The Sweet Spot” system.  Clearly, I agreed with a number of their recommendations.

So, some of the guys are talking about their S2 Extended Benefits purchases[0].   I decided to spend my EBs on something that would:

1) make my eyes happier
2) lower the temperature in my home office
3) allow me to reclaim desk space

so.. I picked up two Samsung 193P 19” LCD monitors.[1]  These replace a seven year old ViewSonic P815 (21”) and a four year old ViewSonic PS790 (19”).  The ViewSonics were great, no doubt about it… heck, I was driving the P815 at 100Hz and 1600×1200 (w00t!).[2]   However, these lovlies consumed my desk and after a few hours of use, would spike the room temperature several degrees (net result is the room gets damn hot, I get uncomfortable and sleepy).[3]   ..And if you’re running dual monitors, don’t forget UltraMon.  I’ve been using it for some time, and I highly recommend it.

At any rate, the 193P units are gorgeous!  The display is sharp, colors are right-on, and the brightness (controllable) is good; I find these units have good black levels, too. The thin bezel is extra nice when you have mutiples side-by-side. Coding on these is a dream (I’ve been working most of the afternoon on a console app to do some batch geocoding of data for those demos I was knocking out in St. Petersburg last week) – my eyes are not getting all googly and I have more distance between them and the screen. 

….and if it hasn’t been said yet, the MapPoint products (MapPoint, MapPoint Location Server, and MapPoint Web Service) are sweet!  (and thanks to Jerene for your help!)

-Nino

[0] Before you get your socks in a bunch, EBs are taxable, so I still am on the hook for a bit of the cost.

[1] The price at J&R seems to change rather frequently.

[2] I generally keep a CRT at [at least] 85Hz, as when the refresh gets down to 70Hz,  I can start to see it… the worst is a CRT at the default 60Hz in under flourescent lighting.. instant nausea.

[3] If I had my druthers, my house would be at 67F all the time (I like it cool), but I have to compromise with my better half (and in the summer, the electric bill gets scary), so it’s somewhere north of that this time of year.  …in my book ‘damn hot’ is about 78F.

[4] and for anyone who didn’t get the reference in the subject, look here and here.  Forgot that they’ve been around since 1991..I’m started to feel …older.  Gosh it was great watching those first episodes…