Newegg.com is a god? (not to blaspheme)

OK, if you haven’t noticed, pretty much every one of our posts references Newegg.com. ‘Why is this so?’ you ask? Well, the answer is very simple: low prices, fast shipping, great RMA services and ‘eggselent’ customer service! I have been a devout customer for all of my years tinkering with computers, and have poured thousands of dollars straight into Newegg’s pockets throughout my computer building projects. I have never had a bad experience with the good people at Newegg, nor any product I bought from them.

A big plus in Newegg is that customers who have bought a product (let’s say… a graphics card) come back, weigh the pros and cons of the card, i.e. the core clock, memory amount and clock, etc. as well as the drivers available and the performance capabilities as compared to other cards (i.e. evga 260 vs 280, 260 vs 8800, etc…) so you know if you’re getting the best bang for your buck. Honestly, if by some chance, anyone from Newegg reads this, We here at DreamBuild HQ commend you for all of your hard work and dedication!

-Da DreamBuild Crew

HP Z800 (Another Xeon P.C.)

Inside the BMW-designed HP Z800

Remember those boss PCs with all that precious DDR3 RAM from a few posts ago?  (Too lazy to scroll down and refresh your memory? Well, we know how you feel so here’s the link) Now that you’re up to speed, let me introduce you to the HP z800, the newest Xeon processor based PC.  As a matter of fact, it has 2 quad core Xeon processors both running at a blistering 3.2Ghz!!!.  Again, not designed or intended for you or me (unless you happen to be a nuclear physicist, or a billionaire who loves computing) this baby is gonna attack your wallet, and leave it crying for mercy.  The People over at dvice.com estimate a packed one of these costing you up to $15,000.  That sounds reasonable to me, college is overrated anyways…  These start at $1999, and according to benchmarks (dvice.com)  they’re well worth it.

Cheap (relatively) storage!

Are you looking for a lot of hard drive (HDD) space, with pretty solid read/write speeds and don’t want to destroy your bank account? The new Seagate Barracuda Serial-ATA (SATA) has 1.5 terabytes of storage space (that’s 1,500 gigabytes!) with 32 megabytes for cache and 43% power savings. If you have heard of this baby, you might have also heard that there have been some issues with the drive involving firmware (kind of a mix between hardware and software). People have experienced read/write lock-ups, the drive would time-out and basically stop functioning, and broken windows (from throwing the drives out the window).

HOWEVER!! This problem has all been resolved, and Seagate is now pumping out the same reliable HDD’s that they have been doing for years. I picked myself up one of these drives from Newegg.com (where else, right?) and have been pleasantly surprised with its performance. I upgraded from two Western Digital (WD) HDD’s with 16MB cache (from my very first build), and I definitely noticed an increase in read/write speeds as well as decreased boot times. These puppies are (currently) $130 with free shipping on Newegg.com (click on the picture to check it out).

This drive gets the DreamBuild’s stamp of approval!

Intro to Air Cooling

Today, the crew would like to take a moment to contemplate the art of cooling – your computer that is. This raises a few questions: water or air cooling? Which case provides great airflow? Which water-block(s) should I get? 1 fan or 2 fan reservoir? Well, let’s back it up a little bit – I’ll take a look at air cooling for now and will tackle water cooling soon. Air cooling is satisfactory for most PC users out there, non-overclockers or extremists (in other words not us), and a great way to start optimizing your cooling system is with a decent case.  If you’re looking for an excellent chassis with superb air flow, my personal favorite (just look at it and you’ll know why) has to be the ABS Canyon 695. With three ‘temperature control zones’ the ABS Canyon 695 provides superior airflow, resulting in optimum cooling. As a ‘full tower’ case, the Canyon has plenty of room for anything and everything that you want to put in it (3X EVGA 295′s anyone?). One of these can be found on the fuel for my obsession: Newegg.com, setting you back 580 smackeroonies (totally worth it in my opinion).

-General Airflow Technique-

OK, I have seen a lot of crazy designs when it comes to airflow management (when I first started experimenting in computers, I used 12 different fans. I was young…), but my general rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Not too many fans, but enough to get some good flow (about 4 I would say), and try to get more air into your case than you push out [logic behind this: if you remove more air than you are bringing into the case, there will be less air to remove the heat produced by your precious cpu, gpu, etc. Therefore your computer will run hotter than it would (or should) otherwise]. I recommend cases with fans in the front of the case (as well as the standard back and side of the case) to cool the hard drives. Plus, it keeps things simple: air comes in one end, and out the other – a straight shot in and out, no crazy redirecting of flow needed).

ABS Canyon 695 full tower

As you can see, the ABS Canyon 695 has a simple airflow design as I described above. With 4X 14cm fans (3 intake, 1 exhaust) and  2X 8cm fans (exhaust) [notice that there is more air being pushed into the case than is flowing out? See? I'm not making stuff up.], I hope you can see why I drooled the first time I gazed upon this case.

Antec came out with a few good cases awhile ago: the Antec 300, 900, and 1200 (mini, medium, and full towers, respectively). Check out Newegg.com for great deals on Antec cases, as well as the featured ABS Canyon 695!

How much RAM do you have?

How much RAM do you have: 2GB? 4GB? 8GB? 16GB!?!?!????  How about 192GB? Impossible you say?  Not for the folks over at dell who are building a dream machine with Intel’s new Xeon 8 core Processors which can allow for insane amount of RAM.  Dell‘s Percision T7500 is gonna set you back 1800 clams – minimum.  Thats not even with the absurd amount of memory.  If 192GB isn’t enough for you, you probably need some help, but the people over at Cisco Systems got your fix.  Rumor has it that Cisco Systems is coming out with a blade server which may support up to 384GB of DDR3 RAM.  What’s that? Not a P.C. fan? That’s okay, because Apple will soon be releases a new Mac Pro based on the Xeon architecture which will support – wait for it – 32GB of RAM… Well, what did you expect?  It’s a Mac, maybe you should man up and get a PC (once Windows 7 is released – seriously – Vista sucks.)  These computers aren’t for your everyday computing, and are marketed towards proffesionals in graphic heavy computing (Video game designers, animators, etc.)  But that doesn’t mean you excluded from the party, there’s just a large cover charge to get in.

LG W2453V-PF 24″ Widescreen LCD Monitor

LG W2453V-PF

I have a new crush, and it’s on LG’s new 24″ widescreen, full 1080p, LCD screen.  This baby will set you back $349.99, but DAMN!  This model sports a 24″ widescreen monitor, 50,000:1 contrast ratio (I’m a contrast ratio junkie F.Y.I.), 2ms response time, and a native resolution of 1920×1080.  Overkill? I think not.  This monitor also includes a light sensor, which allows the monitor to automatically adjust brightness under changing conditions, as well as ‘f-Engine’ chip, which balances colors and brightness to make it display more evenly across the screen (A BIG Plus for video purists out there.)  This bad boy has 1 DVI and 1 HDMI port, along with an outdated D-Sub port for you sad sacks with integrated graphics from the days of yore.  I wish I could give you more info, but as of now, the details are sparse.  I’ve been trying to get some more official details from the LG website, but it’s down for maintenance.  More news as it arrives. Update: The LG website is back up and there is no W2453V anywhere to be found.  For a good feel on the device read the review below, and check out the reviews at the newegg product page below.

Best Deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005126

Best review: http://www.productwiki.com/lg-w2453v/

New Category: Dream Build

What would this blog be if we didn’t actually present to you, the reader, a complete dream build.  Because technology advances so quickly (see Moore’s Law), and the components in our Dream Build will constantly be changing, we will be adding a new category which will contain only what we here at DreamBuild believe belongs in your Dream Build.  And what, might you ask, is the name of this category?  Well there is really only one choice: DreamBuild.  So go hit it up if you want to see what components you should be drooling over.

-DreamBuild Crew.

Great Deal

Newegg is easily my favorite Etail store.  Today they have a XFX Geforce GTX260 and a Seagate Barracuda 640GB Hard Drive for $200 (After a $30 mail in rebate).  Newegg is even throwing in a 4GB Flash drive to sweeten the deal.  Not that any of these things really belong in a Dream Build, they do fit very comfortably in a very respectable build.  Those GTX260s are more than capable for the hardcore crowd.  Given a shout out to SlickDeals.net for the heads up!

GTX260 + 640GB HDD + 4GB Flash Drive for $200.

Firefox Add-Ons

This is way off topic, but I love Firefox! I have been using it for about 4 years now, and it never ceases to amaze me. I just rediscovered add-ons, and they are slick! I just went on a downloading spree. Got Cooliris, TwitterFox, Fission, and the Status-bar Scientific Calculator. I also got “The Nethernet” which just sounded way to bad ass to pass up. Anyone out there have any suggestions for good add-ons, tell us about them in the comments.

EVGA x58 Classified MOBO

I’ll come out and say out in this first post: we here at DreamBuild favor Intel over AMD.  I don’t feel dirty saying it because, well, Intel’s CPUs are just better than AMD’s.  But don’t worry, you AMD fans (if there are any left) we will still show you love by bringing you motherboards (MoBos) that you can dream about in your spare time.

With that out of the way, let me introduce you our first piece of hardware we just cant seem to get out of our mind.  The Limited Edition EVGA x58 Classified Motherboard. And what isn’t there to dream about with this beautiful piece of hardware?  This over sized (EATX) sports just about everything you could want in a motherboard (for this month at least).  This board sports 4 PCI Express 2.0 – supports 24GB of DDR3 1600+ RAM.  Of course, like any board worth its salt these days, it supports Core i7.  It has 8 USB 2.0 ports (Which should be outdated soon).  Has 8 channel audio support, but also a PCI slot to add in your own audio chip if you are that big of an audiophile.  I could literally fill a book with possibilities of this board, its just completely loaded.  Perfect for Gamers and Enthusiasts (Enthusiastic Gamers say YAA!)

Best Deal:http:   Newegg

Text Review: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3519

Unboxing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoZW-4NkVWQ