October 8, 2010

• My Tax Return Purchase

  As nerdy as it may sound, I can’t wait to do my taxes next January (the first, at midnight. lol) Every year since my first job back in 2005, I’ve gotten a good chunk of money back (because I’ve always claimed Zero on my W4) and I go against every grandparent’s wishes and spend it all in one place: newegg.com. This time around will be no different, and I’m really excited to make the purchase. Let me show you what I plan on getting!

  1. Lian-Li PC-T1B – I’ve been looking around at Mini-ITX boards and cases for a while now, and nothing has really caught my eye. Most of the reviews of the cases have all said, “Really tight fit” and I’ve seen pictures and videos of people building Mini-ITX HTPC boxes and the innards are crammed in there, literally resting on top of each other. As nice as it was to have a PC running as a DVR beneath my living room TV, a Micro-ATX case setup was just too bulky to look at. Then I found this thing (pictured below). It is so awesome I spent several hours just looking at pictures of it on Newegg and Google. It’s made by Lian-Li, so I know it’s quality, and it looks like it’d be Really fun to put together. And now, without further ado, the picture:

   

  Without internals (in black):

  

  The finished product (in red)

  

  Isn’t it great? I’d love to post a whole bunch of pictures of it with all the components installed, but there are very few available on Google. Check out the case-porn pics on the Lian-Li website. They’re AWESOME! (Google Images: Lian-Li PC-T1B) If only there were some desktop wallpapers available… Moving on!

  2. Roswill Libertas Series LIB-650 – At one point during my daily EggXpert chat room time, the subject of PSU’s arose. I brought up the ABS Tangan BZ series 1600W and for a moment we all discussed it’s awesomness. It’s a modular PSU that has several coax looking plugs on the back with multicolored LED rings around the plugs. But then somebody mentioned a different power supply, I don’t even remember what it was called, but it didn’t have ANY cords coming out of the back, just plugs exactly like the ones found on the motherboard, hard drives, CPU and GPU, and it came with cables for each. I was stunned. What a brilliant idea! This way you only have the cords you need plugged in, and you don’t have to hide or bury the extras! It was only available in 1000W+ models, and it was really expensive (and only available on TigerDirect) so I wasn’t about to buy one, regardless of how badly I wanted to. Now, apparantly, there are several PSUs available with this sort of cable setup. Since the case (or should I say “Mini-ITX Test Bench”) is wide open, burying cables is not an option which is what makes this PSU the perfect option. Observe and admire:

  

  Amazing, right? I think so. But I’m nerdy like that. It’s a 650W, which I thought would be way too much available power for a Mini-ITX build, but since the board I’m getting has a PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot, maybe I’ll throw a GTX 400 series graphics card on there some day. Not now, though, cause that would increase the total price of this build by 50%. Yea, those things are expensive…

  3. GIGABYTE GA-H55N-USB3 – I am a huge fan of Gigabyte boards. They’ve been the only boards I’ve purchased since 2008 when my first ever build (which had an MSI board) finally succumbed to the life-shortening amount of over clocking it had received. The Gigabyte BIOS is idiot-proof, easy to understand, and more user-friendly than any other BIOS I’ve ever played around in (BIOS = nerds playground). I chose this board because it’s more or less a miniaturized version of the ATX board I’m running in my most recent desktop build. The only problem I have with this board is that it doesn’t have SATA 3.0, but I don’t think that’ll end up being a problem. The picture!

  

  DVI, VGA, and HDMI out. Pretty amazing for a board that’s a mere 6.7 square inches in size. It’s got an LGA 1156 socket, and supports DDR3 1666(O.C.)/1333/1066/800. Impressive!

  4. Intel Core i5-650 – I’ve gone with AMD since 2004 because their performance has been nearly equal to Intel and their prices have always been WAY lower. For example, my AMD Phenom II x6 was a mere $199 and the Intel version is (or was) over $1000. It’s a no brainer. This time around, however, I’m gonna give Intel another shot. I’m not going for the most bomb system ever here, so I can just get an up to date Intel dual-core. It may not be the biggest and best processor around, but these days settling for anything below 3.0GHz is just not something I’m willing to do, so it’ll still cost me about $200. Will Intel win me back? The full story at 10…

  

  5. Corsair XMS3 4GB – A couple years ago I bought a set of two Corasir XMS2 DDR2 800 sticks, one GB each, and I was really happy with them. The reviews of all of Corsair’s XMS series sticks speak very highly of them, and although I’ve gone with G. Skill in my last few builds, I’m going to give these sticks another shot. DDR3 1333 this time, because that’s what I’m running in my desktop and the fastest RAM the board can handle without BIOS tweaking. Don’t get me wrong, I love BIOS tweaking as much as any other nerd, but I like things to work as they’re supposed to out of the box as well. And if you have to overclock to reach 1600 anyway, I can just buy 1333 RAM and overclock it. Same amount of work, lower price.

  

  6. Lite-On Slim DVD Burner – The case I’m using doesn’t support a regular 5.25″ ODD, only a slim drive. I was thinking about using a slot loader but I’ve never used one of those before, and I’ve never used a slim drive before either, so I decided to go with a tray loader. Not a good idea to purchase something you have never used and know nothing about when buying computer parts. I’m excited to see what this thing looks like in person and how it works exactly. Apparently it requires a special power/SATA cable to operate, and you’d think if that’s the case the case would come with the required adapter, but it doesn’t. I have to buy one for $3.99. You’d think for something that cheap and that necessary, Lian Li might just throw one in, but the reviewers of the case say it doesn’t and the reviewers are complaining about it. Oh well.

  

  It doesn’t look like it has any motors in it, so I’m assuming it just pops out a bit when you press the eject button, like on a laptop. That might make things difficult, but it won’t be a huge problem.

  7. 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black - I wrestled with what hard drive to buy for a really long time. I’m not sure what I’m going to use this build for, maybe a HTPC, maybe a media center, maybe a full on gaming computer, I’m not even sure. I really wanted to get an SSD in there, but the case only takes one 3.5″ HDD, and the only SSD I could afford would be 60-80 gigs. I finally said, “Screw it.” and went with a 1TB SATA II drive. That way no matter what I use it for I’ll have enough space and enough cache (32MB) to keep the loading speeds up, and maybe load in some games, movies, music, etc.

  

  So there you have it. I’m going to order the case next week because it comes in pieces and needs to be assembled. Several reviews said the assembly instructions are vague and confusing, and it looks like it might be hard to get it together just right. I figured giving myself a four month head start on putting it together should be enough time. I’m not stupid, but neither are the people who say the instructions may as well be in Japanese. I think this is going to be a really fun project; I can’t wait to get started!

  • 9:51 am
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