iamsuperbleeder

There's a lot of tech-savvy guys and girls on the forum that are just as good at the control of a computer mouse as they are at being behind the wheel of their Toyota while on the trail.

So let's see some of your custom PCs!




*Try and give a brief introduction, like if you built it yourself, had someone else build it specifically for you, or if you just bought it that way.

*Tell us what you use it for, weather it be as a basic home computer, a work computer, graphic design, video editing, or a hard-core gaming rig.

*Give as many specs are you can about the PC; what motherboard, what processor, amount of RAM, HD space, optical drives, cooling modifications, anything.

*Lastly, and MOST importantly, be sure to post some pictures!

Magnusian

So this is the Hot SOs thread for the computer geeks, eh?

I have a lot of machines, working systems include 2 laptops, 5 desktops, 1 dual PIII Xeon server (Compaq Proliant, this and the laptops are the only "non-custom" systems, though I have put better CPUs and more ram in it), and enough parts to build several PII and PIII systems, and even parts for an AMD Athlon K7-based system and an AMD K6-II-based system, but only have two of my custom PCs and netbook handy for pictures atm (apologies for the image quality, used an iPhone to take the pictures), I'll take more of my other systems at home later. I'm not always great at remembering specifics about some of the parts exact names.

System 1:


This is my workstation where I work, I built it myself from a bunch of parts I had lying around because I was sick of using my old laptop and wanted more graphics power.
Specs: ancient Mid Tower case (I put the "bubble" window which sticks out a good 6" on it 8 years ago when I was in HS, had the case for a few years before that, this baby's housed 3 generations of my PCs), Intel Celeron e1200 (dual-core) @ 1.6GHz, 4gb DDR2 1066MHz, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L motherboard (solid board, but 99% of Gigabyte mobos are garbage), 1tb seagate hdd, some crappy old LG dvd burner, floppy drive, HD radeon 4750, 500W PSU, some random Thermaltake heatsink. Windows 7 Pro. Computer's name is Piebox.

System 2:




This is the mini-itx box I mentioned I was building in the other thread, this computer will eventually find its way into my truck but for now it'll be my media PC at home. Pretty tight little package, eh? Assembling this sucker was like solving one of those crazy Japanese puzzles.

Specs: Apex MI-100 MINI-ITX Case, 250W PSU (some random brand that apex puts in their cases, I'm not gonna bother changing it out since I'll have a DC-DC PSU in this system eventually when it goes in my truck), LG 22X SATA DVD burner (22X read? What? This sounds like that 72x CD-ROM drive bullcrap from the 90s before burners got cheap), 2x Corsair 2GB DDR3-1333 CL9-9-9-24 204PIN SODIMMs for 4gb of ram total, Intel X25-V 40GB SSD, and an ASUS AT5NM10-I motherboard which comes with on-board Intel ATOM D525 dual-core @ 1.8GHz and nVidia ION2 graphics. No OS atm, will likely put Windows 7 Home on it for now but when it goes in the truck I'll probably switch to some flavour of *nix (but definitely not OSX, bleh). Computer has no name atm, but will likely be something related to pie as per my usual naming scheme.

System 3:


ASUS EEEpc 1201n. I bought this thing so I could watch movies and play games during my daily commutes to and from Toronto while riding the Greyhound. I also use it at my parents' farm, and basically take it everywhere I go.

Specs: dual-core Intel ATOM D330 @ 1.6GHz (iirc, but it might be 1.67GHz), 250gb hdd, nVidia ION graphics (oddly enough the next model up from this netbook is the 1215n which uses the same cpu and graphics as my mini-itx box). 4GB DDR2 ram (I think it's 667MHz). Runs Windows 7 Home. Computer's name is Pietin.

Will edit in pictures once they upload.

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

Dorks

What time is the Dungeons & Dragons tournament?

:wabbit2:

Elton

mine gets on the internet its pretty insane lol

Magnusian

4pm after school in the Band Room.

92 TOY

**LIKE** ^^^^^^

I have 2 computers....a laptop and a desktop. made of plastic and metal stuff with the same QWERTYUIOP kinda keyboard.

the laptop has a new screen that flashes about every 5 seconds and shakes making it really difficult to see what's going on, my desktop was worked over by LUMPY and runs just fine.

other than that, I have no clue

MaK92-4RnR

I currently have just a work computer which is an HP quad core lol I wanna build my own someday, that way i can just upgrade to new parts instead of buying a new desk top.

Magnusian

Upgrading isn't so simple MaK92, to upgrade from a Core2-based system to say an i7 requires a new motherboard, new cpu, and 90% of the time, new ram, which is essentially the entire computer. It might even require a new PSU. Same deal with going to Amd from Intel or vice versa, or from different generations of AMD chips; though they do tend to keep sockets around for longer than Intel, that does not mean the motherboards are compatible with the new chips. The only parts that you can really keep using for years and years are optical drives and case, you can also avoid buying a new hdd a lot of the time, but in the end you always need more space.

92_TOY: It's just "QWERTY" for that kind of keyboard, there's also Dvorak (it's not named after the order of the keys) which you'll likely never see though it is the other "major" English layout, AZERTY is a European version of QWERTY, as is QWERTZ.

Magnusian

Cy-Cy wants every human to know he's going to kill you:

xxxtreme22r

teaser, my current project hacking up an older comaq and emachines for a low level HTPC machine.

Gonna be using Ubuntu 10.04 and Boxee software.

My current machine is the black on standing up with the light on. (Windows 7)
The one on top of that is a Linux (CentOS 5.4) webserver.

Don't mind the old TV sitting there. GOt replaced with a 32" LCD. lol. This is why I am building an HTPC with some old parts.

iamsuperbleeder

FYI, not everyone that loves computers is a total dork

it's just a side hobby of mine. I also like death metal, shooting guns, and driving fast cars, so what say yee?



and no I have never participated in anything having to do with Dungeons and Dragons. truth be told, I couldn't even tell you what it's all about. same with that world of warcraft or whatever that game is; never played it, and don't care to

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

It's not D&D anymore, it's WoW....and over 12 million people pay $15/month to play it


No pics but my PC:
- EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherbord
- Intel Core 2 Dueo E6400
- 4 GB DDR 2 RAM
- 4x400 GB HDDs in RAID 5 for media storage
- 30" Dell LCD
- 2X GeForce GTX 460 768 MB graphics cards in SLI
- Thermaltake 1,000 W PSU
- ZALMAN ZMachine case
- Windows 7 64 bit professional

As cool as that all sounds, I'm BARELY able to play Call of Duty Black Ops at 720 resolutions, with everything turned down....it chugs!

Need. More. RAM.

Magnusian

WoW is for loser "casual gamers."

Real nerds play EvE Online, aka. Excel with Spaceships.

iamsuperbleeder

you know I actually tried out EvE about 6 months ago... with a 30 day free trial...

I was very unimpressed, and didn't even make it to the full 30 days before I uninstalled it, lol

kevtek

My new AMD:



Case: LIAN LI PC-7BYCF mid-atx 100% aluminum
PSU: 850W Coolmax CUL
CPU: AMD Phenom II, 3.2ghz x6 AM3
MB: Asus Crosshair 4 Formula
RAM: 16GB, Corsair, 240x4, DDR3, 1333mhz
GPU: MSI, ATI Radeon 6870
HDD: Western Digital 640GB sata3.0
Optical: LG Bluray Burner

It's kinda overkill for what I use it for but should last a wile...

My AMD build thread

Magnusian

Unimpressed with the most open-ended game in existence? What happened? Did you not join a non-npc corporation or something? Playing EvE alone is extremely boring, you gotta be in a corp or there is no support base to keep you coming back. Many fun things in EvE include: 600+ man fleet battles, blowing up people's expensive ships (the largest of which are worth thousands of US dollars), scamming people out of billions of in-game currency, building ships (and then getting them blown up), shooting lasers at asteroids (okay, that part -is- boring). Please tell me you didn't skip the tutorial, if you did, you missed out on learning about a lot of things that make EvE what it is.

I have four accounts, three of which are several years old, I also don't pay to play, I buy PLEX (30 day timecards that are an in-game item) with in-game currency, because there's no way I'd pay $60/m to play a video game. I'm a member of one of the largest in-game alliances, Goonswarm Federation, we've been in the news before over some of our antics in-game in the past, though things have been quiet lately.

A new expansion is actually being released right now (they do one every 6 months), which is supposed to improve PvE by having massive hostile NPC fleets roam around for people to die horribly to, amongst many other things (no more learning skills, huge boost to training times for everyone).

Since I am super spacerich in EvE if you ever think about playing again, let me know, I'll hook you up with some cool ships and give you some guidance on what to train to actually have fun.

iamsuperbleeder

yeah I joined a corp and everything. then a war got started and I got popped while mining, came back with a fighter along with 4 or 5 other members, and we got ambushed...

I pretty much lost everything, and I said screw it, lol


how does the in-game currency work to pay for the subscription? I'd consider giving it another shot if I didn't have to pay out of my pocket for it



oh BTW, I'll get some pics of my PC here in a little bit and post

Magnusian

Don't fly what you can't afford to lose! Bigger and more expensive ships are not necessarily better. The main thing though, is even a gang of day-old newbies in frigates (smallest ships) can take down a titan (largest ships), if done right. Also always update your clone too, unless you like retraining skills.

Here's how the PLEX system works:

Someone wants to make a lot of ISK super quick, and they have lots of real life money to blow, so they buy 60 day GTCs for cash (they're $35/each), and then in-game they convert the time code to 2 30-day "pilot's license extensions" or PLEX, which can be sold for ingame currency or applied to their account to add more game time. It's the only "legal" way to convert real cash into ISK (but not vice versa). Right now a PLEX is worth about 370,000,000.00 ISK, so if you can make that much in a month (which is not easy unless you do a lot of hardcore mining, or npc pirate shooting, or scamming, or something that makes loads of ISK) then you can effectively play the game for "free" minus the time-investment of making the in-game currency to do so.

Unfortunately the price of PLEX is pretty steep, so most new players can't afford to go this route right off the bad (and most publord empire folks don't know how to make enough ISK even after years of playing), unless they have a very strong support base upon which to build their budding fortunes. The quickest way to make ISK (other than selling PLEX) is to scam people for it, scamming is completely legal within the game mechanics and the only recourse people have is to set you to -10 standings (oh no, someone on the internet hates you now). It's very easy to not get scammed though, it involves not clicking buttons without reading things first, since the majority of scams are misrepresentations that take literally 2 seconds to figure out. Killing NPCs though is probably the most popular way because in nullsec space NPC pirates can have bounties on them of over a million ISK each, so, can you shoot at least 370 ships a month? (answer is yes, you can do that several times over in a day if you don't go outside and poop in a bucket). Another good way, is planetary interaction (PI), but you really have to work it to make it profitable, though you only really have to take care of your planets once a week or so, only thing is to make lots of money doing PI, you gotta have lots of money to start. I know people who make billions a month doing PI.

My four accounts do different things to make me ISK, one flies capital ships (these literally take a year or more to train into and fly decently) and assigns fighter drones to my sanctum runner, another builds capital ships and flies covert ops frigates, another I use for running "sanctums" or "anomalies" which are special npc pirate shooting things you have to scan down and find yourself, and the last of which is my freight alt, which I use for moving supplies for myself from highsec space to my home in nullsec. I have a about 8 billion ISK in assets atm, though only about 900m in liquid assets. Actually sold a carrier last night for 1.2b and then blew it all on skillbooks.

E: I still owe pictures of my machines at home...

iamsuperbleeder

I'll download it and run the free trial again and see how it works out

how do I get ahold of you in-game; it's been over a year since I've messed with it

Magnusian

Don't sign up yet! If you're gonna do the free trial, I can buddy program you and get you a 21-day trial. What's your email addy?

When you get in, click on "people & places" on the menu to the left, select "character" from the drop-down, type in "Magnusian" and add me to contacts. I won't be on until like 8pm tonight though, can't really play at work.

E: We should probably take this to PM before the thread becomes "EvE Players of YotaTech!"