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AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-27 20:31:55.000

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fMmbNG

Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($121.69 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($114.95 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($84.00 @ B&H)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($56.95 @ Amazon)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Orange) Mini ITX Tower Case ($85.00 @ B&H)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($42.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $535.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-27 23:32 EDT-0400

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-27 20:33:10.000

Ah, smam!

bbcode not working

:(

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-27 20:33:20.000

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fMmbNG
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fMmbNG/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($121.69 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($114.95 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($84.00 @ B&H)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($56.95 @ Amazon)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Orange) Mini ITX Tower Case ($85.00 @ B&H)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($42.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $535.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-27 23:33 EDT-0400

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-27 20:34:31.000

Well, Ptolemy is now approximately eight years old now and has served as AYB’s primary computer for the duration. That is simply ANCIENT in terms of the days of yore when OSY was in full bloom as the smam center of the Interwebs.

Relevant specs:
• Core 2 Duo 7400
• 4 Gig DDR 2
• Radeon HD 4830
• Various HD, none bigger than 500gig
• DVD RW
• Floppy
• Dual Gig Ethernet
• Windows Vista

Eight years before Ptolemy, it was the year 2000. In 2000, what was all the rage? The Athlon and Coppermine, apparently with Gefore2 and Radeon graphics, with maybe 128-256mb of ram...maybe moar..

AYB had a CuMine Celeron 533 OC’d to 850mhz, 256 Ram, and an All In Wonder w tuner.

Ah, those were the days! PCs were fast and rapidly improving. It seemed more of an actual frontier than it is now. If you wanted a case window to show off your shoddy cable management, dust, and kitch standing in for "industrial art", you had to take a dremel and cut one yourself. Nowdays, it’s hard to NOT find a case with a side-window. Also, black has indeed become the new beige.

Eight years before 2000? What did the technology look like? http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1992/

SSDs were only in prototype form. the JPEG was just standardized, and the Almighty Alpha was announced

in other old news, remember the Computer Shopper? Here are some age-old articles.
https://www.highbeam.com/publications/computer-shopper-p408135/march-1992


the average PC was likely somewhere in the realm of a 486sx 25mhz machine with 2MB of memory and a 129MB hard disk, with a floppy drive. AYB has an old IBM right here in his office that fits these specs, coincidentally.

Eight years before 1992? That would be 1984, the year that launched a product that turned millions into mindless loons.

Think about the capability between the mainstream PCs of the turn of the new Millennium and 1992 and the capabilities of machines built in 2008 to today. 2008 machines can today browse the web, netflix, and play World of Tanks at low res with little difficulty. In the age of Pentium 3s, a 486 was grandma’s word processing machine, and little else...

anyway, hope you like the new rig. Hope AYB likes it too!!!!

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-27 20:50:13.000

CASE:


Here was my thinking about each component - and yes, the Mighty AYB did look at options for about two months before hitting the buttons to purchase.

the case: I wanted something different. What isn’t more different that florescent orange?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images2500x2500/bitfenix_bfc_pro_300_ooxko_rp_prodigy_mini_itx_chassis_1117253.jpg

I’ve never worked with mini-ITX before and was hoping it would fit a smaller footprint. Unfortunately, it’s wider than a normal atx case and I need to do some woodwork to build it a place to sit on a shelf.

The case is really nice, though! It’s kinda.....macintosh like! I don’t think I’ve yet been happy with a case that wasn’t an Apple.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 05:21:11.000

POWER SUPPLY:

One of the toughest decisions was the power supply. After going back and forth, finally coming to the realization that a high end Seasonic or Antec would be kind of a waste, I settled on this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139049&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

the Corsair CX series is a bit "controversial". It receives a lot of flak on the forums, but jonnyguru rates it rather well. Personally, I put a lot of stock in detailed expert reviews over forum recommendation. A lot of times forum guys are just repeating some consensus they themselves don’t have any real knowledge over.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139049&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Of course, being a small case I wanted a modular unit, and this CX has only the absolutely necessary ATX -and the often necessary videocard auxillary power connectors permanently attached to the box. It has several other wires that can be plugged into a socket as necessary.

Also, it was less than $50 not including a $20 rebate. $30 for a decent PS made this what I think was a very good deal.

:)

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 06:55:43.000

PROCESSOR


I actually played with a few AMD configurations to see if anything would make sense here. What I discovered is what I have heard others saying for a couple years now: AMD makes sense for almost nothing at any price point.

The only exceptions I see to this is if you were doing heavy multiprocessing (where because AMD likes to throw cores around cheaply) or building a very low-end, cheap PC with help of some generous bundles.

I don’t fit those two profiles. I am looking for a moderate gaming machine with room to grow, if needed at some point. I considered an i5 was too much for my decidedly single-threaded needs so I came to the conclusion that the best solution for me was a new Skylake i-3 6100.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VPX2EO/?tag=pcpapi-20

because I plan no overclocking for now, I only need the OEM CPU cooler...

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 09:11:24.000

MOTHERBOARD

The only question was between the H170 and Z170 chipsets. Since I wasn't aiming for a K-series CPU and overclocking wasn't that important to me, I opted for the H170 chipset. With Ptolemy I've had no issues whatsoever with it's Gigabyte board, I went ahead and went with the GA-H170-Wifi board to fit the small space in my ITX case.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015CQ8D9Q/?tag=pcpapi-20

It actually has a lot of features:

USB 3.0
Built in Wifi and Ethernet
Sata 3
Sata Express
M.2
Raid
dual BIOS

it has only the one PCI Express x16 slot for a video card, but that's all M-ITX boards generally have. Except for a videocard and PCI ethernet, Ptolemy has nothing but empty slots, so I should be okay..

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 09:17:45.000

RAM

I went with Crucial Basilisk LT Sport in one stick of 8Gig, leaving the other slot open for a future upgrade.
https://pcpartpicker.com/part/crucial-memory-bls8g4d240fsb

This was an easy decision. I wanted to get the Mobo, CPU, and ram from the same place, and this was the cheapest credible DDR4 PC 2400 they had. It will still leave me with some headroom if I want to Overclock, and the reviews were good. Not that it matters much, there are a lot of competitive RAM manufacturers...

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 09:19:54.000

VIDEO

I am going with the built in Skylake APU with the HD 530 graphics engine, for now.

It's pretty much supposed to be a little better than the Radeon 4830 I have in Ptolemy, but I'm going to see how far this gets me and upgrade from theere

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 09:21:05.000

Operating System


Since StudlyOS is too potent to actually run software on, Im going to go with Windows 10, Professional. I have heard people having good results with Kinguin, so here goes...

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 09:22:22.000

If everything works out, this all will come to about $540. Ptolemy was about $800.

:)

Jeremy Reimer

Posts: 9348

Posted on: 2016-03-28 09:47:58.000

That case is pretty sweet!



(incidentally I have no idea why BBCODE isn't working-- I probably broke it fixing something else! I'll look into it)

That's a nice build, AYB.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2016-03-28 18:30:08.000

It is indeed.

AYB wasn't quite prepared for how exactly ORANGE this thing is.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2020-04-10 21:46:39.000

Upgraded to 16gig of ram today. The MB is only capable of 2133 mhz.

I'm currently mulling getting into DCS finally, other than that I don't don't find this system lacking in power....

....unless Chrome does what Chrome does best: hog every resource it can, never letting it go.

Jeremy Reimer

Posts: 9348

Posted on: 2020-04-13 17:35:22.000

Fun story: we were playing Dungeons and Dragons on roll20.net and someone thought to enable the built-in video chat. That was.. not a good idea.

My laptop's fans came on for the first time since I bought it three years ago. Running "top" showed that this one tab in Chrome was taking up between 82% and 106% of my CPU.

Yes, Chrome managed to use more CPU than I even had. Amazing technology.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2020-04-22 01:33:47.000

why is it that the most popular browser is the most hated browser, largely on inept technical merits. So it was with IE6, so it was with Firefox for awhile, so it is with Chrome.

In other news, no complaints about Edge........I suspect no one uses Edge.....

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2020-04-24 04:23:51.000

AYB is contemplating a used GTX1070 to replace his ATI RX 460 2gig.

Jeremy Reimer

Posts: 9348

Posted on: 2020-04-24 16:52:47.000

I am very happy with my 1070. It takes anything I throw at it, including Half-Life: Alyx, and just runs it like butter.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2022-05-05 23:46:20.000

Never got that 1070, as I was getting ready the entire videocard scene blew up in cost. Its only now starting to return to old norms...

Jeremy Reimer

Posts: 9348

Posted on: 2022-05-16 16:28:07.000

Well, we have the cryptobros to thank for blowing up the video card market. Hopefully now that the whole scene is crashing, we can go back to some semblance of normality.

I'd love to replace my 1070 with a 3070 but I don't want to donate a kidney just to get one!

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2022-07-30 11:25:46.000

Yeah, AYB tries not to be too petty, but he's hoping those cryptobros who had bots buy out entire new stocks of RTXs within a second of posting choke hard on their investment.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2022-07-30 11:28:12.000

Incidentally, Arcturus has died. Kept cycling trying to boot, never posting. Funny antifreeze smell coming from some capacitors.

It lead to the birth of a new system with some of the ashes of the old.

Also, Ptolemy has been scuttled and its parts long sold, except for its PS and Case. More on that in another post.

Jeremy Reimer

Posts: 9348

Posted on: 2022-08-17 18:58:24.000

I'm pressing "F" to pay respects to Arcturus.

For whatever reason, this thread is the most viewed thread on my entire website.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Posts: 10469

Posted on: 2022-09-02 18:00:06.000

probably because of its links to actual products.

YOU HAVE BEEN SMAMMED@@!!!!!!!!