I want a new computer. My “old” one came from Best Buy a few years ago - a Compaq 5004 US machine, 256Mb of RAM and 1.1 GHz Athlon processor. Since that time the hard-drive failed and we added a new 120 Gb Western Digital drive. Graphics are provided by a All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 card (officially listed as “discontinued” on the ATI website).
We’ve looked at Apple computers - I like the Mac Mini and the Powerbook line of laptops - but I have PC games that I still want to play at a reasonable speed. I can see owning an Apple in the near(ish) future in fact, but I still think the next computer will be a PC. The big question in my mind is whether to build my own or to buy something off the shelf.
I still feel the pain of the hard-drive failure - we lost data as our backups werent perfect - and it was a pain in the proverbial ____ to have to install and reconfigure the system because of a failed component. A new machine that supports RAID would be fantastic! We could move the existing 120 Gb Western Digital drive across and add a second (mirrored) drive to it. I dont know of any packaged desktop machines that support RAID level 1 out of the box, so I lean toward the “build it” route.
So, what do I want?
- a motherboard with RAID built in - 925X Neo Platinum-54g
- 1GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM - from Kingston
- A mirror drive - 120 Gb from Western Digital
- Up to date graphics - RADEON X800 Pro Sapphire
- And, where would the machine be without a case supporting some neon?
Thing is, that’s only my current thinking. Prices change as do the specifications. Suggestions are gratefully recieved if any of these components should be swapped out for better options!