Oh man, the fastest computer and unlimited storage are in the cloud today. Today's games are played networked. TV are program streamed from internet. Why do you need spend your dear money, waste your dear time, building a D.I.Y. home PC every two years? It's so 1995.
An ideal contemporary home today should be a 64"++ Plasma TV mounted on the wall (1920 x 1080 resolution, under 2500 bucks), lighting fast internet connected to home (so I voted Labor for its white elephant, money-never-return NBN project), and 13" Apple MacBook Pro on your lap (I just did it).
Originally shared by Michael PoloniA stressful afternoon ensued yesterday when I decided upon the parts for my new mythtv/web/file/email "server" PC. As usual, I've bought from CPL & PCCasegear.
Buying a DVB-T tuner card that is guaranteed to work under Linux appears to be more problematic than it was only a couple of years ago. Finding advice online that any PCI-E cards will work out-of-the-box with Ubuntu 12.04 was simply not possible. So I've taken a gamble on some positive forum comments with the Leadtek (it's a cheaper mistake than the Hauppauge).
A silent graphics card (i.e. no fan) is proving hard to find these days. I suppose if people are after quiet, they're getting a CPU with onboard graphics.
I've held back on buying more disks, in the hope that prices continue to decline. The dropping Aussie dollar might not help me in this cause for the short-term. Prices are still expensive following the floods last year.
The purchase:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-x79-UD3
CPU: Intel i7-3820
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H80
RAM: 16GB (4x4) 1600 C9 (low profile heatsinks)
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GT440 (GV-N440D3-1GI)
TV Tuner: Leadtek Winfast PxDVR3200H
PSU: Antec High Current Gamer 750W
Case: CoolerMaster CM 690 II Advanced USB3.0
Optical Drive: LiteOn IHBS312 (Blu-Ray Writer)
Storage: 2 x Seagate 3TB 7200rpm
Other Comments:
CPU Cooler: Liquid-cooling is the only way to go with my chosen configuration. And I note that the CPU does not come bundled with a heatsink/fan. Reviews on the motherboard suggest a normal heatsink/fan setup just won't fit.
PSU: This PSU is overkill for what I need, but it will allow me some expansion in the future and it comes with a 5-year warranty (unlike the lower-wattage variants with only 3). A quality PSU is not something you want to skimp on, because failure can have disastrous consequences on other components.
Optical: I've always liked Pioneer drives, however I've now experienced two failures and one was horrific - it scratched the discs. The Lite-On promotes its quietness, which would be good for watching movies.
Case: Has a handy in-built mount on the top of the case for hot-swap SATA disks. This will be useful for running ad-hoc backups.
Disks: I will add at least 2 more 3TB disks in the near future, most likely the WD 'green' models. I had contemplated an SSD for the main OS partitions, however for a "server" setup such as mine I decided the price wasn't justified - maybe this was a mistake?
So all this should be arriving shortly, and then will come the fun of putting it all together and finding out what works and what doesn't ...
Buying a DVB-T tuner card that is guaranteed to work under Linux appears to be more problematic than it was only a couple of years ago. Finding advice online that any PCI-E cards will work out-of-the-box with Ubuntu 12.04 was simply not possible. So I've taken a gamble on some positive forum comments with the Leadtek (it's a cheaper mistake than the Hauppauge).
A silent graphics card (i.e. no fan) is proving hard to find these days. I suppose if people are after quiet, they're getting a CPU with onboard graphics.
I've held back on buying more disks, in the hope that prices continue to decline. The dropping Aussie dollar might not help me in this cause for the short-term. Prices are still expensive following the floods last year.
The purchase:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-x79-UD3
CPU: Intel i7-3820
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H80
RAM: 16GB (4x4) 1600 C9 (low profile heatsinks)
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GT440 (GV-N440D3-1GI)
TV Tuner: Leadtek Winfast PxDVR3200H
PSU: Antec High Current Gamer 750W
Case: CoolerMaster CM 690 II Advanced USB3.0
Optical Drive: LiteOn IHBS312 (Blu-Ray Writer)
Storage: 2 x Seagate 3TB 7200rpm
Other Comments:
CPU Cooler: Liquid-cooling is the only way to go with my chosen configuration. And I note that the CPU does not come bundled with a heatsink/fan. Reviews on the motherboard suggest a normal heatsink/fan setup just won't fit.
PSU: This PSU is overkill for what I need, but it will allow me some expansion in the future and it comes with a 5-year warranty (unlike the lower-wattage variants with only 3). A quality PSU is not something you want to skimp on, because failure can have disastrous consequences on other components.
Optical: I've always liked Pioneer drives, however I've now experienced two failures and one was horrific - it scratched the discs. The Lite-On promotes its quietness, which would be good for watching movies.
Case: Has a handy in-built mount on the top of the case for hot-swap SATA disks. This will be useful for running ad-hoc backups.
Disks: I will add at least 2 more 3TB disks in the near future, most likely the WD 'green' models. I had contemplated an SSD for the main OS partitions, however for a "server" setup such as mine I decided the price wasn't justified - maybe this was a mistake?
So all this should be arriving shortly, and then will come the fun of putting it all together and finding out what works and what doesn't ...