My new workspace...

As mentioned previously, my HP NC6120 laptop completely died.  It did not power up at all; and I concluded that the motherboard died.  Instead of looking for a new laptop, I decided to build a brand new tower.  I still have my old tower powered with an AMD processor (XP2300 1.7Ghz) and a 64mb AGP GeForce 4 card, a limited 80GB hard drive and 1 GB of RAM; but alas, I needed to spoil myself and build myself since I haven’t used that tower for a long time and have been using my HP laptop.

I almost made the decision to pick up an Apple Macbook Pro or an iMac but after studying the specs on it; it becamce apparent that its just too ridiculously overpriced to me for the performance I would obtain.  Instead, I figured for the same budget I would spend on either an iMac or Macbook, I can probably build one better.  Obviously based on similar specs, I decided for similar PC components.  I was considering purchasing a system from Psystar but it wasn’t like I’m not tech savvy enough to do what they do.  A friend of mine also let me know of OSX86 and Hackintosh.  After doing some Google searches and a lot of research, I decided that I was going to get myself the best of both worlds and take a risk to create my PC/Mac hybrid personal desktop.  In the end, I am quite satisfied with what I spent and of the end-product.

Thanks to Newegg, I was able to get some great deals (in most cases, free shipping and no tax).  I also picked up two 20″ monitors from Dell.  Here is a breakdown of my system specs:

• Antec ATX mid-tower (black meshed tower) with two 120mm fans – very quiet
• Antec 500W power supply – enough for what I need to run.
• Two Dell 20″ E207WFP monitors – holy sweetness, my first LCD monitors; now I get 40″ of work space.
• ASUS P5Q Pro Motherboard – had a combo deal with CPU from Newegg and it is OSX86 compatible.
• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0Ghz Wolfdale Processor – easily overclocks to 3.6Ghz; I will overclock after I get more ram.
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 8 Pro 92mm CPU fan – invested a little bit more for a real CPU fan and heatsink.  (Hey, you want to protect your investment right?)
• OCZ SLi Ready 2GB DDR2 PC26400 Ram – runs as advertised but 2GB nowadays is like having the minimum.
• BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB Video Card – did my research, I didn’t want to spend too much on the new Nnvidia cards yet felt the GeForce 9xxxx didn’t compare opposed to this card.
• Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive – major space upgrade than what I had.
• Encore Wireless-N Adapter – my old DLink DWL-G520 wasn’t compatible with this motherboard.

Without the monitors, the desktop came in at an estimated $600 which isn’t bad (after rebates ofcourse).  Add the two monitors, it was closer to $1,000 for my brand spanking new PC.  You can look up all the items on Newegg and compare shop with TigerDirect, or through Pricegrabber.  Overall, I came out alright.

I am amazed at the performance of my PC, because of the amount of workspace, the ability to actually run games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Crysis, Bioshock, etc. without any lag or problems and much more.  I am dual-booting XP and OSX Leopard.  I am just not feeling Vista; it isn’t much of an upgrade for me.  If I had to a choose a 64-bit operating system right now, I’d choose Leopard.  The only thing I need, is more RAM.  Otherwise, I can’t ask for more.  Here are some pictures of my current desk setup.  Enjoy!

Running Mac.. ;-P

Close up of Mac on my custom PC.

August 2008 – Purchased my first condo, closed escrow successfully and moved in.  Spent the rest of the month shopping, furnishing and working on small renovation projects.  This one is a worthy write up on its own.

September/October 2008 – Nothing extraordinarily exciting except just busy at work as usual.  Convention seasons are typically middle of January to beginning of June, which, people take time off for their children’s graduation and summer vacations begin.  As does the inflow of all the tourists making the hospitality atmosphere a bit different.  Convention season picks up again right after Labor Day weekend, beginning of September and goes through til the week before Thanksgiving.  Affording me now… down time (equals play time).

November 2008 – I was about to begin writing again but my laptop crapped out on me.  Yes, my favorite HP Laptop down the crapper.  I tried taking it apart but in the end, the problem was it wouldn’t power up at all, no matter what I did.  No point in replacing the motherboard, so instead, put together a new PC.  (Oh yes, and there is definitely input on our new President-elect, the Presidential campaign, and more dumb ass ideas.)

December 2008 – Presently, just wrapped up Thanksgiving holiday, finished up my PC and returned from a week at Las Vegas for week.

All caught up now, now I can clear my mind.

Thanks for reading.