Hello,
OK, I have just read the "Post your hardware" thread, all of it, now drinking even more Red Bull. I want to build a new rig and it will be awesome ( except the cables, I am always messy ), but have not done so for a while so instead of hi-jacking the other thread started this one for NEW BUILDS. I want too use this for discussing the pros' and cons and the real differences.
Points from that thread.
Intel vs. AMD, they were always around the same sort of speed and power. Each tried to get the market by "adding" something that normally either did not work or no one wanted. BUT for me there was a difference that was important, "cooking" times. AMD's pushed to hard cooked instantly where Intel took there time so you could shut down, I have always used BIOS to protect CPU's from over cooking.
On board vs Dedicated sound. I like dedicated sound cards for two reasons. 1 - they take some of the load from the CPU, however little it all helps. 2 - On board is OK if you are using standard speakers/head phones, but if like me you like 5.1 or 7.1 or some of the other benefits then you need dedicated sound.
PSU's, I noticed that most of the systems had 450-600W psu's. My last system started with 750W which cooked in 3 months so I went for 1,200W.
GPU's, I have used both nVidia and ATi and have no real preference. My choice is normally based on getting the most stable for the build.
RAM, just a nightmare.
Hard Drives, now this is where my systems tend to get over complicated. Without even touching on RAID configurations, I have 3 drives. "C" systems drives, yes systems. The machine will have to boot into a minimum of 3 separate O/S's. Linux, Windows ( latest ), Windows ( most stable ). So "C" is partitioned into 5 or 6 drives. "D" software, all software is installed to the second physical hard drive. Lastly "E" where all the media, documents and other projects goes. The reason for this is simple, well sort off. I write software and have to test it cross platform.
Now, for my new build. I am going ass about face with this build, found a new monitor that will make development easier, but it is huge. May also have a second monitor too, not sure if it will be the same or not.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RY0X69484 I know it is odd to start with a monitor, but why not.
Now for everyone to pass comment, good, bad or just ugly. I won't be building for a while, but I do need to research the hell out of it first.
Steve