Every year or two for the last fifteen years I have built a new computer. These were Atari back in the day, then PCs since Diablo came out in 1995. The latest machines run WoW and Firefox, and nothing else.
The budget is constant: $1500, not including peripherals. The design philosopy is to keep well behind the bleeding edge, to use racehorse components but not to stress them, to build a workhorse without paying a premium for unnecessary capacity.
Alar, the newest machine, replaces Xendivious and Medivh, two NVIDIA/SLI based computers. Twin-card and dual-GPU SLI were experiments that didn't boost framerate noticeably. Dual core CPU / 64-bit XP flattened latency to 120 ms: I never lag, except when the servers are flaky.
Framerates varied from 100+ fps out of town to 30 - 50 fps raiding, which depended more on what Blizzard was doing with its graphics code than my hardware. Framerates dropped steeply with the 3.0 patch, so, it is time to upgrade.
NVIDIA is rumored to have thermal expansion mismatch problems with some of their GPU mounts, so we went with Radeon this time. XP has been a stable platform, easy to work with, but Vista is the future, so here we go, ready or not:
Motherboard:
ASUS RAMPAGE FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131284
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115054
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145197
Video card:
ASUS EAH4870/HTDI/1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814121277
Hard drive:
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136218
OS:
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit
Misc:
Seasonic 700W PS, Zerotherm BTF90 CPU cooler, Liteon DVD, Asus Gift WoW Trial Edition!
So, how does it work? I don't know yet. The heat sink that comes with the CPU doesn't clamp to the motherboard reliably, so I ordered a Zerotherm cooler that bolts into a frame on the back side of the motherboard.
I'll post an update when I get the machine up & running, hopefully before the expansion. Meanwhile, thanks, Concillian, for a very edifying tech post.
The budget is constant: $1500, not including peripherals. The design philosopy is to keep well behind the bleeding edge, to use racehorse components but not to stress them, to build a workhorse without paying a premium for unnecessary capacity.
Alar, the newest machine, replaces Xendivious and Medivh, two NVIDIA/SLI based computers. Twin-card and dual-GPU SLI were experiments that didn't boost framerate noticeably. Dual core CPU / 64-bit XP flattened latency to 120 ms: I never lag, except when the servers are flaky.
Framerates varied from 100+ fps out of town to 30 - 50 fps raiding, which depended more on what Blizzard was doing with its graphics code than my hardware. Framerates dropped steeply with the 3.0 patch, so, it is time to upgrade.
NVIDIA is rumored to have thermal expansion mismatch problems with some of their GPU mounts, so we went with Radeon this time. XP has been a stable platform, easy to work with, but Vista is the future, so here we go, ready or not:
Motherboard:
ASUS RAMPAGE FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131284
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115054
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145197
Video card:
ASUS EAH4870/HTDI/1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814121277
Hard drive:
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136218
OS:
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit
Misc:
Seasonic 700W PS, Zerotherm BTF90 CPU cooler, Liteon DVD, Asus Gift WoW Trial Edition!
So, how does it work? I don't know yet. The heat sink that comes with the CPU doesn't clamp to the motherboard reliably, so I ordered a Zerotherm cooler that bolts into a frame on the back side of the motherboard.
I'll post an update when I get the machine up & running, hopefully before the expansion. Meanwhile, thanks, Concillian, for a very edifying tech post.