Geek out moment - computer build

Sat Sep 24 2011

New studio computer build is done. Thanks, slickdeals.net, newegg and microcenter! Between slickdeals and a friend/wizard at work, this beast came together relatively pain free. Warning - we hear at LD headquarters rarely speak of something as base as money but we include prices below because let’s face it the build and associated price tag is awesome and better than anything you or anyone you know has ever done. Here’s the scoop, so get your geek on:

• Processor - Intel I7 Quad core 2600k at 3.4GHZ. Smokin’ fast. And since 7 is higher than 5 or 3, clearly the I7 is better than the I5 and I3 processors. Right?? Right!! I liked the quad core because Ableton, our recording software, works with it, as I’m sure everything else does too. So looking forward to some better response times during those mad LD recording thingies. I’d never installed a CPU before, I was surprised how easy it was. Is there anything you can’t learn on youtube? 

• Motherboard - Gigabyte Z68XP UD3. Mainly for the 8 USB ports and the firewire port, which our Firepod FP10 will plug into, plus the two SATAIII ports, one of which I hooked up the SSD drive to, and a handful of SATAII ports. Has the 1155 socket, which is clearly the superior socket thingie. Thanks to some ridiculous deal at Microcenter and a mail-in rebate (yes, even at launchday headquarters we do mail in rebates) I got this board for right about … 65 bucks, which made me feel smug and happy for several minutes. Here’s a giant picture of it:

• Drive - a 60GB solid state drive I picked up through a slickdeals post for 67 bucks after a rebate. Yup, rebated up again. SATAIII connectors, nice and fast. I had been told an SSD machine would boot in about eight seconds but of course that was by a liar. I push the button and about 15 or 20 seconds later Windows 7 is up, which is just fine. I’ve been wanting to give SSD a shot but didn’t really feel like putting a couple hundred bucks into one. For 67 bucks, no problem.

• Case - Antec 300. Great. Big, quiet fans won’t bleed into the mix like my current ones do. You know why I picked this case? There’s a ton to choose from. Because it had 2,500 reviews on newegg and an average of 5/5 stars. Who am I to argue with 2500 geeks? That and some deal combos I picked it up f0r 40 smackers. Seems like the standard goto case.

Considering I’ve put the last 60 songs together on an ancient Dell with … wait for it… 800 MB of ram, Im pretty pleased and can’t wait.

I threw 8GB of dual-channel DDR3 Ram in that slickdeals tipped me off two for 40 bucks. Picked up a 500W power supply and a DVD/CD burner that does the lightscribe thing, which will make it a little easier to print demo discs labelled all nice and purty without having to mess with the stickons. Oh speaking of dvd burner, I picked one up at Best Buy first, big mistake, found the same product on newegg for exactly half. Big surprise. Took it back and ordered from newegg. If it was a mom-and-pop sure I would have let it ride, but bestbuy? Nawww, no Karma points there.

There you go, ladies and germs. The new computer. Welcome to the family. Let’s go spill some diet coke on it to test it for strength.