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Username?

Recrofne

Age/Occupation/Location?

I'm currently 19 years old at the time of writing this and I live in San Antonio Texas. I've been into DIY computer stuff since I was 12. I finished school shortly after turning 15 (though the internet has probably made me stupid :P) and have had ALOT of time to mess around with stuff since then. I currently build & fix computers for a living with some graphics design work on the side whenever I'm called up. I'm not really looking for bigger things at the moment since I'm happy how it is now. As you might be able to see from the pictures, I collect McFarlane figures as well as lots of other junk.

How long have you been a member of Guru3D forums?

Officially for three years, but I was lurking around as an unregistered user for while before that. I am not a member of any other computer related forums.

What did you first come here for?

I know the first time I came to Guru3D was about a videocard question I had. As to what the question was, I don't remember.

What do you mainly use the system for?

I mainly use it for work, games and my favorite, multimedia! I have it connected up to my 29" television so I can watch DVDs, or anything else on the larger screen in the comfort of my recliner (which looks very out of place in my room). When I'm not using that, I watch things on my secondary monitor, sometimes while working or surfing the web with the primary. Music also sounds lovely.

How much did you spend on the rig?

Everything added up from my purchase prices (speakers, case, CPU, mouse, etc.) comes to $1615. That's not counting the secondary monitor (which was free) or TV.

How often do you update/buy a new rig?

I don't update my hardware very often at all, I tend to wait untill it's really needing it. Then I'll usually make a big upgrade to something totally new and near top of the line, then continue updating it every so often when it starts showing it's age untill I start the process all over again.

What components are used?

MSI K7T Turbo 2 - KT133A Mainboard (v3.6 BIOS) with an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ "Thoroughbred" (DDR 266Mhz) processor. I upped my FSB by 1 (to 134Mhz) for a tiny performance boost. I know, it's not much, but it's free so it's a good deal to me. The MB has no PCI/AGP lock. I might try unlocking my CPU for some overclocking one day soon.
My processor is cooled with a Thermaltake Pipe101 heatsink that's been lapped to a perfect mirror finish and Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound. The fan used is a Thermaltake Silent Cat 90mm Fan.

I also have 1 stick of Kingston 512MB PC133 SDRAM and two sticks of Viking PC133 256MB SDRAM, this is the only type of memory my current motherboard supports.
For storage I have two Western Digital 7200RPM 8mb cache special edition hard drives. The primary drive is an 80gig and the secondary is an 160gig drive. Along with the hard drives I use a NEC ND-3520A DVD drive/burner and some generic floppy drive.
As for my sound setup, I have a Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 soundcard and Creative Inspire T5400 5.1 speakers. I also have some old $15 Sony headphones if I want to use them.
My videocard is a Prolink Pixelview GeforceFX 5900XT Golden Limited (which was reviewed by Guru 3D a while back), it's stock speed is 390 for the core and 700 for the memory, I currently have it overclocked at a very stable 450/800. I have yet to thoroughly test it at higher speeds, but plan to in the near future. I am using the 66.93 WHQL Drivers. I have lapped the heatsink and applied Arctic Silver 5 to it as well.

The whole system is inside a somewhat generic case cooled with an 90mm side intake fan, 90mm blowhole and 80mm rear exhaust. The CPU usually idles at about 34° celcius and has never gone above 41° at full load. It doesn't look pretty but my case does a good job.

Other components:
Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480w PSU with active PFC.
Memorex MX2710 Keyboard.
Logitech MX510 Blue Optical Mouse with Black Func Surface1030 mousepad.
KDS XF-9s Xtreme flat 19 monitor & an old KFC 15" as a secondary monitor.
Windows XP Home SP2 & Suse 9.1 Professional
The computer itself it sitting on an old buffet table I got for $20

Why ATI or NVIDIA, why Intel/AMD?

I used to be a 3DFX user, I still love my two Voodoo cards in other computers I have. However, when 3DFX went under and NVIDIA bought them, they seemed like the next best choice. I've been using NVIDIA based graphics cards since then, they're reliable, fast and work like a charm under Linux.
As for AMD, they were cheaper when I first started getting into building computers and their performance was pretty good too. While the prices are still pretty decent and the performance rocks, my main reason for sticking with AMD over Intel is mostly just because I've grown quite fond of their processors. It's more of a sentimental thing but I have my reasons!
For the record though, I do have another machine with an Intel/ATI combo :).

Does the system work as expected?

Yes, for an aging system, it works just as expected, I can do everything I need (and want) to do on it with no problems what so ever and it can still run a good amount of today's games with most of the bells and whistles turned on. It's no super computer but it serves me well for what I primarily use it for. Overall, it's really perfect for me, but I'll be moving on to something faster for future use one day soon. When that day comes, this one will be used as a dedicated multimedia PC & file server.

What's the best part of your rig?

I would have to say my multimedia setup, nice 5.1 sound and I can also watch things on the TV and listen to the sound using it's build in speakers (downside being two long cables going along the wall to the TV on the other side of the room). There's also the secondary monitor, as I mentioned above. I often watch movies on that, or have a folder open with my music in it, along with my music player, that way everything I need for entertainment is only a glance away without cluttering up my primary desktop.

Is there anything you wish you hadn't bought?

I'm thinking my motherboard, though it was a steal back then. I literally traded  $40 and a bag of doritos chips for it, with a friend. There were newer, better options that supported DDR memory that were just being released and I probably should have waited for one of those. Hence the ancient RAM.

Any modifications?

The only "special" things I've done with this setup are lap both the videocard heatsink & processor heatsink and apply Arctic Silver 5 on them. I started at 650 grit sandpaper and slowly worked my way all the way up to 2000 grit, which is sold for pretty cheap in the automotive department at Wal-Mart. That was a long while ago before I had my nice digital camera, so the pictures are from my camera phone. Oh, then there's tidy cables, both inside and outside the case.
Now, this isn't really part of my computer, but it does have to do with them. I did a nice tie job with my router and hid in under my desk, see the pictures. I just used some cheap rope from home depot and tied it up, not much to it.

3DMark scores?

3DMark 01 - 10381
Aquamark3 - 30,033

Future upgrades?

I'm currently checking around online and local areas for good deals on nice hardware, I'm thinking of going with a high end Athlon 64 based setup with a Geforce 6 6800 GT & nice case. I still haven't made up my mind on the rest but I might wait on the whole thing to see how dual core CPUs do. I may also mod my current case, or just buy a nice one, since beige cases make me cry.