upgrade

February 28, 2010 &bull technology

My desktop has been acting up a bit lately (i.e., hanging during POST) so I decided to get some new parts and upgrade it. It was the first computer I ever built from scratch (in 2003). We’ve been through a lot together (XP, Vista, Windows 7, CPU upgrade, RAM upgrade, video card heatpipe installation, etc.) and I’ve kind of grown attached to it. But, like all things, change is inevitable.

After some research on NewEgg it became evident that my $500 budget wasn’t going to cut it. I finally said, “screw the budget” and just bought the stuff I thought I needed to get a solid box that would last me another 6.5 years. I wasn’t going after a crazy gaming machine — just an above average box on which I could run Windows 7 x64.

Here’s what I ended up buying (I was able to re-use my Lian-Li aluminum case).

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 (LGA 1156; Intel P55)
Processor: Intel Core i5-750 2.66GHz LGA 1156 quad-core (Lynnfield)
Memory: G.Skill 4GB DDR3 1333
Hard disk: Samsung Spinpoint 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0
Video card: EVGA GeForce GT 240
Power supply: Corsair 650W

I really wanted to go with 8GB of memory, but thought I would see how things ran with 4GB. There are open DIMM slots so adding another 4GB won’t be a problem. But, for now I don’t think I need it. Windows 7 x64 is completely smoking on the new hardware. Without a doubt the fastest box I’ve ever had. Actually, let me back up a step. I’ve never, ever had such good luck building a computer from scratch as I did with this hardware. I mean, something always goes wrong during the initial configuration/power-up. But seriously, not this time. I ripped out all of the old hardware from my case, cleaned it up, put in the new components, cabled it all up, and hit the power button. Successful boot up on the first try. Unbelievable. And, so far no issues at all with the 64-bit version of Windows 7. I was expecting at least a couple app/driver issues, but so far everything is working.

Not as sexy as a Mac (maybe someday), but so far I’m completely loving the new box.

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