I've been putting together a PC for some time. I started the project more then six months ago. As I can stand to spend a little money, I get a few more components. I started out with a micro atx mother board and a few hard drives. I believe I have over a terabyte of storage though I have to review the box full of parts. When I purchased the motherboard, I decided to give AMD another try since I'd discovered that my failing AMD a few years ago turned out to be a bad IDE on the motherboard, not a bad cpu. I wonder if my extreme overclocking had anything to do with that... Until the IDE controller failed, the computer was very reliable and incredibly fast. Gamers across America can't be wrong!
I researched the system carefully in the beginning. However, as the project dragged on, I started looking for a way to work within my means and get a great value. I went with an AMD Athlon 64 4000+. Apparently, this is good. I have no idea. I picked up the CPU at TigerDirect for around $80. I also got a gig of PC3200 ram for $80. My friend and business partner, Jason, let me have his old micro case. Unfortuntely, the board I have is incompatable. I was still unable to assemble my brain sucking device. Jason is also the inspiration for this entire project. His media center freakin' rocks!
The TigerDirect order arrived and I realized only two things stood between me and my media center: a case and a cpu cooler. I had taken notes long ago regarding what parts I had decided were best and searched for this document on my dying-a-slow-death Dell PC. I am so glad I took the time to review my own notes. The case you see here is quite sweet, ain't it?! In addition to being easy to use, my wife will insist that it look pretty in the living room. I think I can convince her to work with this. The CPU cooler I'd selected was not in stock so I pulled the trigger on the "Blue Orb". I'm not sure if it was the fact that it is the last required component or if I just lost my head but the blue light sold me. I really need to grow up...