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New Close to pulling the trigger on a new AMD PC build for home.
We still need at least one modern PC at home for stuff that doesn't run on OS X, so yesterday I put together a price list for a new one. (The last one I built was an Opteron machine ~5-6 years ago.)

The parts below are based on the guides at TechReport and HardwareSecrets.

I've decided to go with an AMD FX-8150 (Bulldozer) system for a couple of reasons: 1) the recent price drop (occasionally $205 at Amazon); 2) to do my part to keep AMD around as competition for Intel.

I want a system that I can upgrade in a few years, if necessary, so that means a good case, a very high quality PS, and good accessories. I don't care much about the video card (I'm not a gamer). Lots of RAM to run VMs. Lots of fans, but quiet ones A decently-sized SSD for the OS(es), and lots of decent HD space.

Here's what I have so far:
- 256 GB Crucial M4 SSD with transfer kit: $239.99
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B004W2JL84

- CoolerMaster Storm Enforcer Mid Case: $88.41 (not in stock at Amazon)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B004WK3KKQ

- CoolerMaster additional large fan: $16.54 x 2
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B002LE8BJA

- Scythe 120 mm case/CPU fan: $11.72 x 5
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B000W7NGWK

- CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO HS/Fan: $34.95 (too nervous about liquid cooling leaks)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B005O65JXI (2 of the Scythe fans will go here)

- KingWin 850 W 80 Plus Platinum modular PSU: $185.99 (highest efficiency rating)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B00752QXOI

- Win7 Pro 64-bit System Builder DVD: $139.99 (Meh)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B004Q0T0LU

- Kingston HyperX Blu 2x4GB: $48.42 x 2 (16 GB. Too nervous to try 2x8GB.)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B004DDI0IE

- Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 rpm 64MB: $126.41 x 2
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B005T3GRN2

- LG BluRay 12x Rewriter: $81.99 (also writes to M-DISC platters)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B00632U162

- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti video card: $229.99
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B004KM49WO

- Asus Sabretooth 990FX motherboard: $184.99 (reviews are all over the place...)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B00539LU3E

- AMD Sempron 145 CPU: $35.70 (ANTOnline)
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B0040BPHJO (in case BIOS needs to be flashed before FX-8150 install)

- AMD FX-8180 8-core Bulldozer CPU: $204.99
http://www.amazon.co...roduct/B005UBNLFK

Total: $1866.56 + some shipping from non-Amazon stores (we've got Amazon Prime).

I'm going to hem-and-haw about it for a few more days, then likely pull the trigger when my current credit card billing cycle ends later next week.

If I were a gamer, I'd probably go with an Intel box, but this will be a hugely fast box compared to anything I use now. I know that if at least a few people don't buy AMD stuff, then Intel will get fat and complacent again. That's no good for the industry or their customers.

I've considered waiting on a MacPro update, but it seems likely that Apple is either going to do away with the MacPro, or keep it an expensive niche. (I could see a machine similar to the above going for $5k from them.) That's not worth it to me, though we will probably continue to use Mac Minis and laptops for a long time. By swapping out the motherboard, CPU (and maybe RAM), this could be turned into a Hackintosh (via TonyMac's guides and software tools).

I'll be reusing an existing mouse, IPS screen, keyboard, speakers, etc.

Comments are welcome. Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New doesnt the mb have a video built in? I wouldnt pay that much
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
New Not this one.
AMD has "Fusion" CPU chips with built-in video. The FX-8150 isn't one of them. No on-board video either. The video card could be used with a Hackintosh, if we decide to go that route later.

http://www.asus.com/...X/#specifications

Yeah, it's a lot of money, and it's hard to push the button. But it should last a long while, and, more importantly, I shouldn't need to mess with it after it's set up (e.g. I won't need to add RAM for a while, if ever, and there's an abundance of disk space (for my uses, anyway)).

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I recall when this was fun..
..Get the One-Point grounding correct when the mobo goes in, route the ribbon cables with airflow in mind, torque fasteners with intelligence ... craftsmanship! even if it's just 'assembly', eh?

Alas, my addiction to the beautiful laissez faire of the world's biggest laptop.. renders that game (por moi) no longer even attractive.
(In future I could ponder a Hackintosh route) though I remain wary of the/any peculiarities demanding excessive lore to install/maintain + the ever unpredictability of ...
Apple cracking down re. any future OS or other upgrades: recall Doze 3.11--created expressly to include 'error messages' to the untutored that,
"this software is designed for best operation with MSDOS"
--goodbye superior DRDOS (and all their lore, demonstrably superior to the Redmond kinders'.)
Mediocrity--as Murican as apple pie or rubber-cheese on that hormonal-stuffed beefburger.

OTOH, my Win98 never got pwned and the iMac did!
(And Apple handled this first widespread example with (my) expected aplomb. Loved It.)

Happy nit-picky assemblage. Feels Good! when you flip that switch and Ubuntu springs to liff!!
Oh wait.. :-0

.hr

Law above fear, justice above law, mercy above justice, love above all.
New Thank God for FreeDos...
Only means I had to flash my laptop's BIOS this morning.

I think I want to live in the 80s, when TSRs in DOS ruled. :-/

Wade.
Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
New Terminate and Stay Resident, er..
Our very own President Alzheimers sorta did this!
(Ya never know when IT savvy can help with social issues...

:-0
.hr

Law above fear, justice above law, mercy above justice, love above all.
New Ordered.
All the parts (from Amazon and 3 other external vendors) are supposed to be here by the 22nd, so I may have it together by Memorial Day.

The only change I made was to replace the Crucial M4 SSD kit with a bare M4 and a $19 Apricorn ASW-USB-25 to save around $20.

The grand total was $1877.86 The price often jumped around $10+/hour while the parts were inside or saved outside my cart. :-/

Let me know if there are any benchmarks you'd like to see run on it, and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for the comments. We'll see how it goes.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Assembled today. What's the recommended Linux these days?
It took me roughly 3 hours to put it together. I just put it all together at once - all 16 GB, the FX-8150 with the aftermarket cooler, all the drives and all the fans. I figured it was likely to work so I just crossed my fingers that there wouldn't be any issues and was rewarded. No major issues, I wasn't rushing - it just took a while. The case is pretty nice, though there would be some interference between the modular power supply and some of the cable sockets if you wanted to use all of them and use the 2.5" HD bay that is right behind it. I only needed to use 2 of the modular cable outlets.

I had to remove the push/pull fans from the CPU cooler to install the RAM, and even then there was a little interference in putting one of the sticks in its socket. But it just took a little persuasion. RAM with taller heat sinks would require modification of the fins to install with this CPU cooler.

I gave Win7Pro 200 GB on the M4 SSD, leaving the rest for a future Linux install. Nothing is on the 2x2 GB Seagate drives yet. After installing the OS, I installed the network driver, then did the latest BIOS update, then installed SBS&D and Symantec Endpoint Protection, and then did Winders Update.

Around 480 MB of Winders updates after the initial install. It's taken about 3 hours so far with the software installation, configuration, updates, etc.

The fans move a lot of air. There's some fan noise, but it's not annoying in this office. I assume it's mostly the 2 fans on the graphics card. The power supply has a default mode where the fan doesn't run until its temperature reaches 72 C. The red LEDs on the case fans and on the case aren't obtrusive. The case is nice, but deep and probably not a good choice for small spaces.

This thing is fast. Installing an addon to Firefox (e.g. Adblock Plus, Flashblock, Tab Mix Plus) is very quick, and restarting FF is instantaneous. I'm going to be spoiled going back to my non-SSD PCs. :-/

I've got Bionc running now, set up to use all 8 cores. CPUID CPU-Z says its running at 3.6 - 3.9 GHz (200MHz x 18 to 19.5). Boinc can also use the GPU, but I know this one isn't terribly fast (though it may be faster than the Bulldozer for this work), and I'm mainly interested in the CPU speed. The Asus utility says the idle CPU temperature is ~ 30 C, and it's at 44 C now crunching away on all cores flat out. I don't know whether that's real (my i5 on the laptop gets up above 85 C...), but CPUID Hardware Monitor says the same thing. Given all of the horror stories about how bad the power management is on AMD chips and how much more efficient Intel chips are, I'm very pleasantly surprised by the temperatures. Maybe it's that big honking heat sink though. ;-) I haven't tweaked the BIOS CPU power options (I think it's "balanced" or some such as default) nor done any overclocking.

So far, so good. I can't imagine "needing" anything faster than this, at least for what I do...

What's the recommended "consumer" Linux distribution these days? I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 on my T61 occasionally, and 9.11 (I think) on my old Fujitsu P7120D. I've heard bad things about Unity, but haven't tried it myself. Linux Mint was getting lots of good press a while ago, but seems to have fallen off my radar.

Other than Debian, ;-), what would you folks recommend for a new machine like this?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Linux Mint.
Good Luck.
New Thanks. Cinnamon or MATE?
SJVN likes Cinnamon - http://www.zdnet.com...nux-mint-13/11110 , but I've read about teething problems with it (heat, CPU fan running continuously, etc., etc.). http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=190

I understand that Cinnamon is based on GNOME 3.x while MATE is a fork of 2.x. It looks like all of the versions of Ubuntu I've used are based on GNOME 2.x so I'd probably go with MATE unless there is something I've missed.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Your choice.
Cinnamon I think is the better way to go in the long run... but MATE may work better.

If I ever get sick of XFCE, (which I probably won't) I'll probably try both and see what tickles me.
     Close to pulling the trigger on a new AMD PC build for home. - (Another Scott) - (10)
         doesnt the mb have a video built in? I wouldnt pay that much -NT - (boxley) - (4)
             Not this one. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                 I recall when this was fun.. - (Ashton) - (2)
                     Thank God for FreeDos... - (static) - (1)
                         Terminate and Stay Resident, er.. - (Ashton)
         Ordered. - (Another Scott) - (4)
             Assembled today. What's the recommended Linux these days? - (Another Scott) - (3)
                 Linux Mint. - (folkert) - (2)
                     Thanks. Cinnamon or MATE? - (Another Scott) - (1)
                         Your choice. - (folkert)

Linux gives us the power we need to crush those who oppose us.
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