Hardware Edition

Months of research are behind me. The credit card bills have all been paid off. All components have shipped and been received.

Time to build me a bomb!

The overriding goal here was to build a nuclear bomb of a desktop on a $1000 budget. Not everyone is able to afford a $4000 bleeding edge Alienware or Falcon rig, nor do I think that it’s even remotely worth it to try to do so. Admittedly, I ultimately ran over budget by a little bit in exchange for a little extra obsolescence insurance. For this I blame F.E.A.R., a game that comes out this month, which can bring the most powerful system currently available to its knees at maxed out HQ settings. We’re talking about 34 fps on a 7800GTX SLI rig…that is fucking outrageous!!! I have no regrets about the extra cost, and I intend to be fully satisfied with my new beast.

On with the show….we are here to play god. We are here to create life through normal mapping, self-shadowing, and realistic physics simulations.

Little of this, little of that…

Step 1) Throw away those pesky manuals. Gods have no need of instructions for their creative endeavors.
Step 2) More power! 115V is for mere mortals and that just won’t do. Instead I procured some energon for just such an occasion.
Step 3) Begin assembly…

Devastator is a pussy

Ok, so the whole “playing god” thing went kind of awry. After extinguishing a few fires and getting the neighbor’s cat out of the tree, I dug the manuals out of the trash and started back at square one. When I put together my girlfriend’s PC for Christmas a few years ago, I made it a point to put cable ties and anchor points to good use and I have to say that I was very proud of it. It was a windowed case and I thought that it came off with a very clean, well-lit interior. Right off the bat I knew that I wanted to apply the same mechanics here, and have even been able to exceed them in a few places. All of the wires for the front case ports have been run behind the motherboard to maintain a clean look. The power supply is modular, which means that you don’t need to have excess power connectors dangling all over the place. You use what you need and stow what you don’t. The optical drives utilize rounded cables which not only look great, but they also improve the case airflow considerably over the flat ribbon cables.

The only problem with doing it up right is that it takes up a considerable amount of time. As such, I was unable to complete the project in time for this week’s post. Stay tuned next week for the final pics, as well as the Software Edition, where I will compare screenshots from old rig to new and maybe even try to post some benchmarks. For now, I leave you with a current view of my coffee table…

Open Heart Surgery