It's been a long time since I've had the opportunity to build a new PC for myself. I've been a fan of Shuttle PCs for the last six years or so but I've thrown in the towel after my outgoing model threw a hissy fit on Friday when I tried to enable the on-board graphics adapter. I'd returned home with a pair of new 19" monitors to supplement my main 20.1" monitor, with the plan being to drive them via the built in ATI Xpress graphics adapter.
However, as soon as I enabled the feature in the BIOS the system wouldn't start at all. Clearing the CMOS was the only solution and no matter what hardware I pulled out I could not get it to work. I very nearly took the monitors straight back to reconsider the whole thing, but then it occurred to me that the main CPU fan header on the motherboard had already fried, and my previous Shuttle mysteriously died a death, cause unknown. After four years of faithful (ish) service I thought it would be about time to just build a new system and move away from the cramped confines of a small form factor enclosure.
The good people at Novatech in Reading leapt to the rescue as soon as I wandered into the store and together we discussed what I wanted and what would work for my budget. I knew that the new PC needed more punch for software development and video editing so with that in mind I instructed that I wanted a 4 core CPU, 4Gb of memory and the ability to drive 4 monitors. Although Intel currently have the performance crown with the i7 chip, to build a system based around it would be staggeringly expensive. The equivalent AMD system doesn't really exist, but their top offering is very competitively priced and compares favourably with the top end Core 2 Duo quad core chips.
After a bit of fiddling with the spec to get the price and performance right, I placed the order and the parts were to arrive in Reading on Saturday. Unfortunately when I got home and had a closer look at everything I realised the monkey nice chap in the store had paired my CPU with an incompatible motherboard, and consequently this meant the memory was also wrong. I quickly found suitable alternatives and changed the order, and thankfully everything arrived ok.
I have to say, I was quite excited when I got home. I haven't built a PC for so long, it was like a trip down memory lane. I was pleased to see things have moved on a bit since back in the day; instructions are clearer (yes, I do read them), materials are nicer, the quality of finish on components has improved, and everything just seems to fit together and work. It wasn't long before Windows was installing and I was preparing to shutdown the Shuttle and move my data across.
It was pretty much at this point that I discovered that running two graphics cards wasn't going to be quite as smooth as I thought. Although the drivers are fine and Windows doesn't have a problem, the ATI Catalyst Control Center (silly American spelling) gets very confused and in the end wouldn't let me adjust any settings for either the new Radeon 4850 or my old 3850. I've since found a solution in the form of a third party tool, but hopefully ATI will fix this minor problem sometime soon.
Now I'm all up and running again I have to say, the machine is very, very fast. I remember the huge jump I noticed moving from a single core to a dual core CPU; going to four cores is another level up again. I tried out GTA IV on a whim since it ran so abismally on my old PC, curious to see how it would do. I left task manager running on one of the other screens (I forget which, there are just so many now) and despite the full-on graphical and AI onslaught, the CPU sat at around 60% total usage, barely breaking a sweat.
Now that's impressive.
And then there's the multi-monitor setup. I've used dual screens at work for years now and it's a huge benefit for development, but having three to play with is even better. Far less Alt-Tab'ing and much more neck exercise.
So although I'm a bit poorer it makes a nice change to have a super fast PC that's ready for the next few years of service. Here's the final spec including some existing parts:
- AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition CPU (currently at 3.0GHz, not brave enough to overclock it just yet)
- ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe motherboard
- 8Gb GSkill DDR2
- ATI Radeon 4850 master graphics card
- ATI Radeon 3840 secondary graphics card
- ASUS Xonar D2 sound card
- Zalman 9500 flower cooler
- 2.9Tb storage over 5 drives (soon to be surpassed by an 8Tb server)
- Four monitors including 32" HDTV
- Big black 'Osiris' case
- Windows Server 2008 x64
The only thing I could do with now is a fan controller. I can't seem to get SpeedFan to work and the level of noise from the four fans is a little loud for watching films/TV (or trying to sleep). Could go for another 4Gb of ram too since it's not that expensive. Oh and a matching Radeon 4850 for CrossFire perhaps...
UPDATE: 1 week on
During the week that was, I installed a Scythe Kaze Master fan controller which has got quite a fancy Vacuum Flourescent Display (VFD) to show the RPM of the four connected fans and also four temperature readouts from the connected probes. So far it's doing just the trick, although it did leave the noisy new graphics card to deal with. The solution was to fit an Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 which is basically just an enormous heat sink, bigger than the graphics card in fact. It's done an amazing job; both idle and full load temperatures are lower than with the standard Sapphire cooler.
Now it's settled down and quieter than the old Shuttle, I'm very happy with everything. I had a worrying moment while the memory wasn't seated correctly after fitting the temperature probes but bar that, it's all going smoothly.