Phenomenon
From Fusselman.org
The Plan
"Phenomenon" is the code-name (And probably machine name) for my new workstation, which will replace my aging AMD Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754, Paris core) as my primary PC and gaming station. Ironically, it will continue to occupy the same old case as was initially purchased with an ancient AMD Duron system (I have a modified, matched pair of cases for my two workstation PCs). That Sempron (known as "Prague") was ordered in June of 2005 for around $300 without video card.
On an aside, both the new Phenomenon and the reconstituted (Ie scrapped back together from its remnants and those of Tir (my current 2nd-station)) Prague will be getting drive-bay USB/card reader add-ons, now that they're kept under my desk and not at the end of a long KVM extension someplace.
The Order
"Phenomenon" has been ordered, and has components as follows. It ended up a bit more expensive than I'd have liked, but it's by far the most powerful machine for its time that I'll have owned in quite a while; There was a period during college where I started trying to maintain multiple "first line" PCs for having people over for gaming, and that's when my $99 board+chip doctrine started. As you can see, that's been abandoned here.
| GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 DDR3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard Item #: N82E16813128378 |
$99.99 |
| BFG Tech BFGE98512GTHE GeForce 9800 GT Passive Cooling 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Item #: N82E16814143169 |
$79.99 |
| Rosewill Green Series RG430-S12 430W Continuous @40°C, 80 PLUS Certified, Single 12V Rail, Active PFC Item #: N82E16817182202 |
$39.99 |
| AMD Phenom II X4 925 Deneb 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor Model HDX925WFGIBOX Item #: N82E16819103656 |
$140.99 |
| CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 Item #: N82E16820145260 |
$92.99 |
| Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader w/ USB port Item #: N82E16820223103 |
$14.99 |
| The existing 74gb Western Digital Raptor from Prague | $0.00 |
The Parts
Parts for Phenomenon arrived on Wednesday (3 days after they were ordered, props to Newegg and UPS) and I got them assembled the same night. Basically, I stripped my old "second station" out of its case, and put the new components directly into that. These cases are a matched pair of old, cheap generic ATX cases. The case majorly lacks airflow, which might be a problem for the fanless video card. I'd totally consider replacing cases, but I want to maintain a matched pair, and because of my desk arrangement tendencies, side-breathing cases just won't work (two towers side by side)...
I was a bit impressed that everything fit. I didn't know until after the fact that the only PCIE 16x slot was the one adjacent to the chipset heatsinks. I was hoping to put the video card in the middle slot, but it turns out that despite being a 16x slot, it only runs at 8x. I took a series of photos of the motherboard and bits going into the case, so here they are:
