Looking Forward

I need to say something first. I haven't done a new post for awhile. This was primarily because I was waiting for some spare money. Lately I had a few other reasons. My internet connection kept dropping and would stay down, but a cable technician failed to find anything wrong. So, on Father's Day I didn't get online until later in the evening. However when I finally did get online I sent a Father's Day ecard to my father. The next morning I got a confirmation email that Dad had read my ecard. Then later that evening my brother called from the hospital and told me that Dad had had a heart attack and died. The following Saturday we had visitation. On Sunday we had the funeral and, since he had retired as a Senior Master Sargeant, he was buried with military honors. He had accomplishments, friends and children. He died with three beautiful granddaughters and five handsome grandsons after celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary. I guess that is about as much as anyone could hope for. I'll miss you, Dad.

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With the internet still flaky I had to make another call to customer service. They sent another cable technician who replaced the cable modem and now my connection is working much better. I also have some spare money but I'm still trying to figure out a new system. I guess I'm looking at something that would qualify as an AMD Dragon system:

Case: Cooler Master Storm Sniper

This case won't fit in the computer cubby under my desk. The case is too long and too wide. It will fit under the desk on the side without the cubby so I guess it will work. I probably don't need all the cooling but since you can dial the fans down it should be okay.


Power Supply: Antec Signature SG 850

I probably don't need that much power either but this seems like a good PSU.


Motherboard: Asus M4A79T Deluxe

I know this motherboard can handle 125 watts and it uses DDR3.


Harddrives: Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB

I'm thinking about five of these: one for boot and four in a RAID. But I haven't decided for certain yet if this would be the best configuration.


RAID controller: HighPoint RocketRAID 2300

I've heard that the onboard RAID controller may have issues.


Blu-Ray Drive: LG Black Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive Model GGW-H20L

There is a unit on NewEgg that appears to be a higher model but I can't find anything about it on the LG website and it doesn't say if it supports LighScribe. So, this one will do.


Video card: ASUS EAH4890/HTDI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4890

I kind of liked the double fans on this model but NewEgg seems to be out of stock on these right now. So:

ASUS EAH4890 TOP/HTDI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4890

This one is the same as the above but with slightly higher GPU and memory clocks for another $15.


This leaves processor and memory. I have been thinking about the AMD Phenom II 955 clocked at 3.2Ghz but lately there have been rumors of the 965 clocked at 3.4Ghz so we'll see. Memory is another issue because while the Asus board does support 1600Mz I wouldn't mind having 8GB's. Since two DIMMs per socket won't clock that high I'm still wondering if I should spend the money for faster memory.

The operating system is also confusing. I know I want a 64 bit version of Windows. However, there is Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. There's both OEM and retail, and then Windows 7 is due out in early November in Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. I don't want to waste money on Vista but I need an OS now. Secondly I wouldn't mind having the Windows XP ability but that is not available on Windows 7 Premium. At the moment I'm looking at: Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit for System Builders w/ Tech Guarantee - OEM.

I could end up running the RC version of Windows 7.