Those reading the forums here at the Props will have already known that for some time now I have been researching a new PC.

I wanted a box that would be good for gaming as well as software development, and would last a few years. I budgeted $2500 for just the PC - no monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc.

So on Monday I finally took the plunge and ordered. You can view my order, and the status of the individual parts, by clicking here. For those too lazy to click, here's the list:

  • Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9: nForce4-Ultra, 4xDDR400(2x), ATA/133, 4xSATA/150, 4xSATA/300, 16xPCI-E, 2xGigaLAN, 54G WLAN, Firewire800, 7.1 Sound, ATX
  • AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU + Fan - S939, ?.?GHz, ???kb, 800MHz - Venice
  • Corsair 1Gb TWINX3200XLPRO 400Mhz Xtra-Low Latency (2-2-2-5) Memory Kit (2 x 512Mb) + Activity LEDs
  • 74Gb Western Digital 10000rpm Hard Drive (Serial ATA) - 5Y
  • 250Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 7200rpm Hard Drive (Serial ATA, NCQ) - 5Y
  • Pioneer DVR-109 16/16/8/6/6 DVD-ROM/±R/±RW/±DL Internal IDE - Drive + Software - Black
  • Leadtek GeForce 6600 GT Extreme 128Mb 16xPCI-E Video Card + DVI/TV Out
  • Lian Li PC-65U Silver Aluminium Medi-tower Case (*NO PSU*, Window, USB)
  • Antec 480 Watt "TruePower 2.0" ATX 2.0 Power Supply + Blue LEDs
  • Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 OEM

My original order only included a 200GB hard drive as a data drive, but then I realised that the 250GB Seagate drives support NCQ (Native Command Queuing), which speeds them up somewhat, and are only about $50 more, so I adjusted my order. The total in the end was $2507 for what I consider to be a pretty awesome machine.

Hopefully I'll have it before the end of June. Between now and then I will be looking for a stylish (but cheap) keyboard and mouse combo, in silver and/or black, and possibly some matching speakers.

Can't wait to try her out!!! I will definitely post some pics when it's finally here and running.