$500 PC Build: Core 2 Duo E7200

First of all, my sincere apologies if you were trying to find reliable information on some of these components and the whimsy of google sent you to my blog. I am neither an expert nor a real hobbyist; however, every few years I decide to upgrade my computer and it is inevitably cheaper for me to update the build I’ve been working on for the past six years rather than buy a boxed system. Without further ado, here are the results of my triennial foray into pc building.

Obviously, the first constraints to be considered are the budget for the project, and the goals to be reached within that budget. I decided I had about $500 to spend. As for my needs, a few things make this project slightly unusual. First of all, my xbox 360 is currently serving my high-end gaming needs so for the time being I will try to make do with my GeForce 6600GT graphics card, which was only middle of the road when I bought it this time in 2006. Second, my primary interest at this point with the computer is in music production. As such I decided to focus on processor performance and memory. Finally, I have been well-served my newegg.com in the past in terms of price, speed, and customer service, so I decided I buy all my components there to make my life a little easier.

Component 1: CPU

the CPU was the only logical place to start my search, especially with a GPU out of the picture. In the past I have found $100 to be my sweet spot for processors so through a few simple google searches I found two early contenders: the Intel Core 2 Duo E2160, and the AMD X2 5000+. My past two processors have been AMD, so that’s where I gravitated first, and the 5000 seemed to be the budget sweet spot. However the more I read the more it became apparent that with a little overclocking the core 2 duos could produce much bigger bang for the buck than the AMD chips. Starting with the E2160, hailed as a “budget champion” I then realized my budget could support a stronger CPU and discovered a brand new chip with the 45nm architecture, the E7200. At $131, with strong reviews and apparently easy overclocking, I felt like I had a solid choice

Choice: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200: $131

Component 2: Mainboard

When I updated two years ago Gigabyte had emerged as a great choice for quality budget mainboards, and as far as I can tell that is still the case, although Asus had a competitive offering as well. The two newest chipsets for the Core 2 Duos are the X38 and X48, but the budget choices in those categories are lacking. As far as I could determine, the P35 chipset is the next best thing and actually offers comparable performance to the newer chipsets. It was fairly easy to narrow my choice to two boards: the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS2L and the Asus P5K SE. The gigabyte features solid-state capacitors and what appeared to be superior overclocking options, except for one glaring problem: the DSL2 for which I read reviews has been replaced by the GA-EP35-DS2L, an identical board with a power saving utility added. As far as I can tell the utility disables the option to make adjustments to the cpu voltage, which limits overclocking options. I nearly went with the P5K, but switched back after making the following considerations. First, I am fairly conservative overclocker, and from the reviews it appears the E7200 is capable of a 25% overclock to 1333 (333×4) FSB without adjusting the core voltage. Second, I might actually benefit from the power saving features, and third, that if I decided down the road I needed extra power it may still be possible to disable the power saving features and boost the voltage (at this point I couldn’t dig up a conclusive statement one way or the other).

Choice: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS2L $89.99

Component 3: Memory

My first idea here was what seemed to be a fantastic featured deal on newegg: a 2 GB G.Skill pair marked down from $99.99 to $59.99. However after a little bit of research it became apparent that the DDR2 1066 rating on this set would be superfluous. Again, I am speaking only from second-hand research, but it seems that overclocking the memory beyond synchronous speeds is superfluous. In other words, if I boost my E7200 to a 333 FSB (or 1333, because something multiplies it by 4 somewhere) then the memory only needs to operate at 667 (again, some multiplier working here) for an essentially maximal experience. With that in mind I found Corsair XMS2 2 GB pairs for $29 after mail-in rebate. I haven’t been following component prices, but this seems like an incredibly good deal. A day after I placed the order for everything, I realized it would be insanity not to get another set (now bumped up to $31 after rebate), ending up with 4 GB. If I had realized at the time I would be buying 4 GB I might have considered the 2×2 set marked down to $82, but I certainly can’t complain about what I ended up with. Word of warning: after I made the purchase I stumbled across some comments indicating that they may be using lower quality components than previously. If I had spent more I’d be worried.

Choice: 4 GB: 4×1 Corsair XMS2 1GB DDR2 800 $60

Operating System

Thanks to university licensing I was able to save on an OS purchase the last two times I built, but this time around I’m taking the plunge and buying a windows product. Not really thrilled about it. There were some serious choices to be had here. Vista vs. XP, OEM vs retail, and 32 bit vs. 64 bit. None of the three were easy. I settled on Vista mostly through consensus of scanned reviews and security info that I could find. OEM might have been the wrong choice but with retail at double the price, even if I need to buy again when I upgrade I’ll still be breaking even. Not to mention that when that time comes I may want to upgrade to 64 bit. This was the choice that gave me the most trouble. The 32 bit OS means I’m pushed right to the memory max, but on the other hand compatibility will not be an issue. Frankly I had a bad experience trying to install Windows XP 64 two years ago and it probably impacted my decision. I have no 64 bit apps on the horizon any time soon, so I settled on:

Choice: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit OEM – $99.99

Final Build:

CPU: C2D E7200 $130

MB: GA-EP35-DS2L $90

RAM: Corsair XMS2 4×1 GB $60

HD: WD Caviar 320GB $70

OS: Vista 32-bit OEM $100

PSU: Seasonic S12 II 380W $70

Total: $520

Well, I hope you enjoyed the rundown of the major choices I made for my system. The PSU may have been excessive but I went with a cheap one last time and my system had frequent problems with overheating, so I decided to make an investment on quality (and quiet!) this time around. Obviously that could be brought under $50 to bring us under budget.  As for other components, I bought an external sound interface a few months ago, I have a nice LCD monitor, I’m sticking with my 6600GT for the time being, and my case has nostalgia value. If you have feedback on any of my choices, I’d love to hear it; the parts are in the mail and there’s still time for me to switch

Metaphor

I stood at the top of the stairway, grasping for a door that wasn’t there. It was pitch black; as the last one to turn in, I had turned out all the lights before heading to bed. Bedrooms, of course, are normally upstairs, and, usually, when I visit home, I stay in one of the upstairs bedrooms. In fact, my older brother occupied this bedroom in my parents’ house the fall I went off to college, and I had not made the night-time journey down to the basement bedroom in over six years.

In the light, everything looks different than it did then, of course. The kitchen has been redone, the carpet on the stairway replaced, the bedroom repainted and rearranged. But in the darkness, I know this place; my hands know this place. Even after six years, I know exactly where to grab and where to step. I moved methodically through the kitchen; hand on the counter, then on the fridge, then on the door frame. I grab the door frame with one hand while the other reaches for the door. Once I find the door, I know from experience, I can get down the stairs easily, even in the pitch darkness. Except… where is it?

The door was taken down, of course, four years ago. When it first strikes me, the moment, I think how odd it is that the place has changed in the way it has. But if I had been here, then a new table here, a door there, would not be so much. It is me that has changed, and if I’m grasping for a door that is four years gone, then perhaps whatever else it is that I’m grasping for, coming home like this, is years gone as well.

Essential Greeting Cards

Lets just get this out there

Catching Up

If you asked me if I was no longer interested in recording the private details of my life, I would disagree. If you asked me if my life had stagnated, and I no longer had anything interesting to write about, I would disagree. The ideas, the retrospection, the Adventure; its all still there. And yet, I’ve been updating at best once a month. Part of the problem is that I want the blog to represent a complete narrative of my experience. When I think of filling it all in, it seems overwhelming, and in these circumstances I tend to inaction. Tonight I can tackle some of that space, I think.

Much of my spare thought lately has been devoted to fairly big-picture stuff. My current social situation is by far the best I’ve ever had. I have a large circle of close, well-connected friends who are smart, interesting, and most importantly genuinely good people. In the right circumstances, these people, being mostly young, motivated ivy league grads, would represent the foundation of an excellent social network upon which I could build a career. If my talents and interests were in writing, policy, campaigning, or, um, whatever it is that people do in DC, then things would all be peachy. Except, as you may have noticed, I’m no writer; in fact, I’m actually a NERD. Capitalized for emphasis. What I like to do is solve problems, ones that can be modeled and parsed and simplified and coded and optimized. I like to turn words into math, and then fuck the math. er, solve the math. And then I like to go home and play games and read fantasy novels and watch science fiction movies and etc.

In many way my current life is a denial of these basic elements of my personality. I spend my free time reading Slate instead of doing these things, or watching election returns instead of playoff basketball games, so that I can be well-conversant in the latest twists and turns of the race to the Democratic nomination. For a while I thought that these things were truly more important than my own geekish interests, but lately it has become more and more apparent that following politics in DC is essentially equivalent to following sports in Pittsburgh or the industry in LA.

So, what is the next step? There’s no mark for me to make in this world, which reduces its importance to me to just “something to do”. The girl I’m fucking right now is gung-ho about universal health care, and is doing whatever it takes to make it happen. My friends who write for Slate, well, they obviously have a somewhat greater investment in the things that they are discussing. So, at least for some of my friends, there’s an element of investment in this scene that I do not have. If I persisted in this scene I would be slowly pushed to the outside as my friends became more and more centralized. It’s frankly not an option at this point to reconfigure my career path to the degree that would be required to stay on track, so it seems the only option is to cut-and-run, relocate and develop a group of friends whose interests and talents mirror my own.

The fear associated with implementing this strategy is significant; Whatever the future may hold, thie current group of people is the best I’ve ever been associated with, and strangely I feel more accepted, less marginalized, than in years past. Ironically, after a year of Slate and HuffPo reading, I am almost certainly more conversant now in politics than in tech, and based on some fairly solid self-analysis I have serious doubts about my ability to quickly form new social circles in a new environment. In the short term, a radical social reprogramming is going to be a significant loss.
Alas, the decision has already been made. I am moving to Seattle in August to pursue a math PhD at the University. I’ll be leaving behind beloved friends and financial security and starting over in an unfamiliar place in a field that I’m only barely confident I can hack. And yet, it still feels right. Maybe next year will be rough. But I’ve been lucky with friendships in the past and I’ll trust my luck again. I’ve been lucky with my talents and success in the past and I’ll trust my luck again. I’ve been lucky in life, if not lucky in love, and besides, for true Adventure, the Young man must go west.