I felt it was about time I put together a new computer and decided on some hardware and ordered it:
ASUS P5K P35 DDR2 GBLAN S-775 ATX
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I wanted a motherboard which had a 1333MHz FSB and supported the Intel 775 sockets. There are too many boards to choose from, so I decided on ASUS because my previous ASUS motherboard
had served me well. The P5K seemed like a decent choice without getting too expensive.
INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6850 3.0GHZ 4MB 1333MHZ S-775
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I had set my mind on an Intel Core 2 processor, but needed to decide whether to go Duo or Quad. After having read around for a while I finally decided on the Duo. The price gap between the two still felt quite big and the performance gain of the quad seemed reserved to specialized software. I got the fastest Duo.
4 x DIMM DDR2 1GB PC2-6400 800MHZ CL5, KVR
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Last time I put a PC together I made the mistake of going for the RDRAM memory architecure. I could only afford 256 MB, but was going to buy more memory when the prices dropped. Unfortunately they never did and five years later I was still stuck with my 256 MB. I decided that this time I was not going to be short on memory for a while and ordered 4 GB of 800 MHz DDR 2 memory. DDR 3 was way too expensive and the performance gain of going with the 1066MHz bus speed over the 800 MHz bus speed seemed too small considering the actual cost.
WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR SE16 320GB SATA/300 16MB
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Last time I bought a disk it was a Seagate so I thought I would evaluate a Western Digital disk to see if there is an noticeable difference. I was considering the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 for a while, but read in a review that it was not that much better than its predecessor as its specifications would suggest.
COOLTEK CT500 500W ATX12V V2.2
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The Cooltek CT500 seemed like a fairly quite and price worthy power supply unit. I also liked the idea of having removable power cables inside the case. I had no idea what power I needed, but I thought 500 W would be enough.
NZXT MIDITOWER HUSH SILENT BLACK NO POWER
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The case had a not too boring look and the double 120 mm fans seemed like a good idea.
NZXT SENTRY 1 LCD FAN CONTROLLER
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This was mostly for fun. Thought it might help getting the case a little bit more silent too, when the fans would not have to go at full speed at all times.
