HH2K - Gaming PC

HH2K Gaming PC

Impressive gaming power on a student's budget

Author's Note

Creating a PC nowadays is a challenge that few people undertake simply because they have little to no technical knowledge of the subject. I strongly encourage anybody that thinks they have the budget, patience, and will power to make one. You will learn so much about technology, its rapid advance, and, maybe, learn about internet, tech, and geek cutlure along the way. Whether or not you like it, our culture is made of technology, understanding, and science. Satirical and comedic it may be, but if you look under the surface you will see that the Internet and its techies are probably some the smartest people in the world because they have realized the full potential of the Internet: the biggest Roman forum in the world.

Beginnings

My God, where the hell do I start? Ever since I installed Everquest on a crappy P3 machine with integrated graphics I had wondered what kind of computer would play everything I wanted it to play. I played around with Everquest and was greeted with what I would now describe as “slideshow” graphics where the frames displayed per second were probably lower than that of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. Everquest is something I never got very far into. Granted, I had subpar graphics processing, and I was in middle school at the time. I didn't find the idea of questing much fun.

Specifications

Component	Purchased Item	Price (US$)
CPU	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4GHz)	$279.99
Mainboard	EVGA nForce 680i SLI 755-A1	$224.99
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar SE WD800J (80GB)	$42.99
Graphics Card	EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit	$529.99
RAM	Patriot Extreme Performance PC2-6400 (2x1GB)	$96.99
Case	Cooler Master CM 690 (mid-tower)	$79.99
Power Supply	OCZ GameXStream 700W	$139.99
Total		$1334.93

Story

The irony of the present situation is as follows: the original intention of the project of actually creating the machine was actually never serious at the beginning (I fantasized about what components I would put into the machine), but now that I have built it and am actually using it for what it was meant for (gaming) I cannot remember the original cause. If I can remember anything about the humble beginnings of this computer, it is that I was bored one day on last period of classes and decided that I wanted to create a beast of a computer.

I came home and immediately started compiling a list of hardware I'd love to have in the computer. I can tell you two things that were never messed around with in the first draft and the final draft of the computer: the CPU and the GPU. I took the Intel Kentsfield Q6600 as my CPU and the nVidia 8800 GTX as my graphics card.

Now, if I gave you just a list of hardware, it'd be pretty boring in my opinion; as the old saying goes, “...like watching paint dry.” The process and story, I think, are much more interesting than how I got the computer that I got.

School ended for the summer, and I was left with two weeks in Europe to research and rest. Which I did. My schedule went as follows:

Sleep from 3am to 12pm.
Drink coffee.
Research for 30 min to 1 hr while having lunch/breakfast (not brunch).
Pedal to the town center (Zadar, Croatia. It's a beautiful place if you are a photographer or diver) to play Counter-Strike or some other random game for $1/30min.
Come home, do more research.
At about 11pm I'd start drinking, and researching and by the time Don would start I.M.ing me I'd be somewhat drunk.
Go to bed, and repeat steps 1-7 until you reach 2 weeks.

By the end of those two weeks, I had compiled a list of parts that I either knew were going to be in my computer or wanted generally that or this (like how much RAM I wanted).

Now, when I came back to the US, I did the same process. I slowly added to my technical knowledge. One day I found you need a big case, the next I found you needed a certain type of RAM, the next I figured out that a power supply would need 700+ watts of power to run the computer, and so on.

Around September, I was looking what games I could play with which specs. I like working with 3D level design, so I wanted to work with an engine that was demanding but could do a lot of stuff. I looked at Crysis and soon found Crysis-Online.com. This website had members that helped me from realizing what I didn't need to giving advice on what I should/could get for a set budget. It was much like asking Google: they knew the answers. I don't encourage you to just go there and blatantly say, “I want a computer for $2000. What's the best?” What kind of stuff would you be doing? Gaming? Casual or hardcore? Rendering? “What's the best?” is so subjective that it isn't even funny.

End

In the end, I got what I wanted. I ordered my stuff online, and got most of the parts on my birthday no less, with the case coming at the end of the weekend. I spent the entire night assembling it, and tested it out. It was another week before I installed Vista x64 (not for the faint of heart) and installed and ran a couple of games like Bioshock.

All I can say is that the nVidia slogan is the only phrase that can do this thing some kind of justice. I played all games on maxed out settings and the machine still gave me 60+ FPS (which is very good). It really did seem like I was playing these games, “The way [they were] meant to be played.”

My advice to you all:

Start with a big budget and work your way down. I found that I could cut down the price at least $1000 if not $2000.
Get advice from every techie you know.
Don't get something that is experimental. Get something that is tested; that way, you have that much more security in the stability of your machine
Don't skimp on power and cooling. If you have the money to water-cool your machine, do it! It'll prolong the life of your machine. I have a 1 kg heatsink on my CPU but it never goes above 45°C, even under peak load.
Check your components 100 or more times (I'm not kidding) to see if they are compatible.

Contributed by Mark "MetKiller Joe".