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Hartofalyon's Rig.

Who is hartofalyon? Let's see. He's a 21 year old college student from New York, and has been a member of the Guru3D.com Forums since December 2003. He first registered for assistance in deciding what drivers he should use for his GeForce 4 Ti4800.

That case, there's just something about it. Maybe it's just me but I think it's gorgeous. Hartofalyon does too though, or else he wouldn't have purchased it. :-P

The system is primarily used to keep in contact with friends, do school work, surf the internet, and play CounterStrike 1.6 (he tells me that's the only game he plays, so I'm guessing he's a pro at it with all that practice!)

The cost it initially took to build the system was around $1100. Since then, hartofalyon's upgraded the video card and hard drive. When he first built the computer, he sacrificed performance for aesthetics. For example getting a $130 case that does not even include a power supply, as well as $100 for his 2.1 speakers system: JBL Creature Speakers. Also he could have opted for regular memory, but instead, opted for Mushkins high performance line.

He usually upgrades and buys a new rig when something comes out that is worth upgrading to. For example, the Athlon 64 is a good jump in performance, so he's looking into that right now. The same goes with the current generation of video cards. Another major factor would be actually having the funds to upgrade.

What components are being used right now? Here's the list...

• AMD Athlon XP 2400+
• Abit AN7 BIOS 16
• Mushkin 2x512MB High-Performance Lv.2 PC2100 Dual Channel 2-2-2-6-1T
• Built by ATI 9800Pro 128MB
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2
• Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB 7200RPM 16MB cache
• Lite-on DVD
• Lite-on CDRW
• Sony Floppy
• NEC 17" MultiSync FE770 CRT
• Microsoft Intellimouse 3.0
• BenQ x120
• JBL Creature Speakers 2.1
• Antec P160 w/ clear side window & 2x120MM fans
• Antec TruePower 430W

Hartofalyon, why did you choose the combination of AMD and ATi rather than Intel and Nvidia?

"When I initially built my computer, I had a Geforce 4 Ti4800, but since the fan on it died and my replacement Thermaltake fan crapped out in the first minute of use, instead of ordering or RMA it online, I just went out and bought a 9800 Pro retail. So there wasnt really much thought going to ATI. It was a spur of the moment thing.

I went with AMD Athlon XP simply because they were cheaper than Intel (A LOT cheaper). At the time, Athlon 64 did not come out yet, so I was choosing between Athlon XP or Pentium 4, and the P4 was very costly, even for the 2.4ghz version."

I think that's usually the case when choosing components. You need to look closely at the price to performance ratio, work out your needs and work out how much you are prepared to spend. Is it worth it to purchase a CPU costing $100 more just for perhaps a 5% speed increase? Only you can decide, but the general consensus would be no, it's not - unless you're loaded! You can use the money you saved on another area of your system.

The system works flawlessly, and he is very happy with it. It is fast enough for his needs. (Ed - I respect that ability to know when something is adequate, for I upgrade my system regardless of if I need to or not!)

The best part of the system is undoubtedly that case, as I mentioned earlier. It really is gorgeous. Hartofalyon primarily went for great aesthetics with this rig, as you can clearly see. :-)

One part that's not so great about the system, I am told, is the PC2100 RAM. He opted for that instead of purchasing PC3200. At the time he says had no clue that he could set the PC3200 ram to run at PC2100 speeds so that his 2400+ could run in sync (synchronised meaning the FSB and RAM running at the same frequency.) He originally thought that RAM had to run at what it was set for, so he didnt want to lose performance by running async. He says this was a stupid mistake, but I can sympathise with that, we've all made not-so-great purchases in the past when we didn't quite know what to look for.) 

When hartofalyon upgrades he probably should purchase new RAM to be able to run synchronised again. He could, though, overclock his PC2100 to PC3200 speeds with timings of 2-3-3-7 (he says it's capable of that, which is pretty cool) which is still fairly decent, but he says he's not a fan of overclocking.

Many thanks to hartofalyon.

Wonder whose rig is next? Hmm. ;-)