GENEHD's PC Profile

During a 30 year career in the US Army I learned about PCs to include Software and LAN/WAN Managent. The job carried over to home after I retired where I began building PSs on my own full time after leaving Uncle Sam. I've built 4 now from the ground up and completely rebuilt another 3. I've gained a lot of knowledge and experience in this manner of self-pursuit but would like to learn new and better tricks from this forum and the expertise that I know is out there. Currently I am running 2 full size ATX Towers; 1 Intel Flavor and the other AMD. I also have 2 laptops in the house so have a nice Home Network setup.

I've just completed building one of the full size ATX SilverStone Temjin Cases with all the bells and whistles. I used an Abit AN8SLI Motherboard with uGuru Technology and included 7.1 Sound Card with SPIDF Out. I built the PC around an AMD Athlon 64x Dual Core 4800+. I'm running 4 Gigs of Corsairs TwinX PC3500, an external galvanized blue Zalman Water Tower to cool the massive CPU, and am taking advantage of the Mobo's SATA 2 (3.0) features. The Primary Harddrive is a Western Digital 10,000 RPM Raptor at 150 Gigs (this is the revolutionary design with a see-through window into the drive). The secondary Harddrive is a Seagate SATA 3.0 300 Gig and the 3rd drive is a Western Digital 400GB SATA running at 1.5 (SATA1) Plenty of FAST storage there with immediate plans to add a 4th drive to bring my storage capability into the TERABYTE Range!! All 3 current Harddrives are running on independent SATA Channels and I have one left to fill. I'm also running a Sony Dual Layer x16 DVD +/-R/R-W and an Emprex 52x32x52 CDRW drive. I still beleive in the use of a floppy drive when needed so also have a Mitsumi 3.5 inch floppy. The uGuru panel sitting in one of the 5 inch bays allows system monitoring at all levels and will also OVERCLOCK all settings "on the fly" or in the heat of battle of a rousing pc game. Thea OS is Windows XP Pro 64x edition ties things together. The Silverstone positions the Motherboard upside down so that the CPU and RAM sit in the middle of a big wind tunnel with a 120mm fan on each end; one fan pushes while the other pulls. This system is amazingly quiet and the Zalman water cooling makes it even more so. I am also running 2 GT 7800 Nvidia Cards under an SLI Configuration so the frame rates and video capability are amazing. This system has been my crowning achievement to date but I still look forward ro bigger and better things!

My other tower is a black full size Koolance Case with the Enos trliple fan cooler radiator atop the case. Guess it's becoming apparent I'm a big fan of water cooling, huh? I'm running a Soyo Dragon Board in this tower with am Intel 3.2 Ghz/800FSB along with 2 gigs of Corsair XMS Expert and Ultra High Performance DDR 400 PC3200. It to has a full compliment of optical drives, floppy drive and a see-through main case windoww. I have it well "tricked out with add-on case lighting so seeing the light show with the "flaming" digital streaming RAM Mods makes for interesting conversation. In this tower I have a combination of SATA Drives (1.5) and regular large capacity EIDE drives. I'm seriously looking at setting up a RAID configuration with 2 of the identical 250GB WD Harddrives but more on that later.

My weakness is gaming so I'm trying to learn and get good at several of them fast. There's no question that the Silverstone Tower PC is a GAMER all the way to its roots.

Vitals

My PC's Name:	The SILVERSTONE GAMER and the SOYO SCREAMER
Date Built/Last Mod:	JUST FINISHED ATX TOWER NUMBER 2 ON 21 JULY 06.
Building PCs for:	3 to 4 years
Future Plans:	I plan to change direction soon and build one of the newer small form factor case sizes (you know, the ones about the size of a lunch box?!?) They look like a lot of fun and are definitely portable. After having all of that working room in my full ATX towers it will be a shock to try to get my big hands in these small working areas but I've deemed to give it a try! Anoither resolution is to collect up a lot of the extra pc parts, cases, cpus, RAM, Power Supplies etc and sell them at ebay or other on-line auction. My small workshop is a disaster and its a miracle I can find anything!! My wife reminds me of that fact 2-3 times per day!!
Benchmarks:	I have the software to do the testing. Will be posting some scores soon.
Purpose of My PC:	TO OWN AND OPERATE SOME OF THE FASTEST, MOST EFFICIENT PCS ON THE PLANET!!
Internet Connection:	COMCAST CABLE, BUSINESS TIER (T2 RANGE)
Furniture:	Various and WHATEVER WORKS!!
Where I Shop:	New Egg, Tiger Direct, CompUSA, Fry's, Best Buy, Ebay, Boeing Surplus and several local small outlets. pics will be added below VERY SOON...............

Specs

Motherboard	ABIT AN8SLI uGuru
RAM/Memory	4GBs CORSAIR TWIN X PC3500
Processor/CPU	AMD ATHLON 64X DUEL CORE 4800+
Video Card	2 X NVIDIA GT 7800s in SLI CONFIGURATION
Sound Card	7.1 BUNDLED SOUNDCARD WITH THE ABIT BOARD
Power Supply	650 WATT PC POWER AND COOLING
Case	SILVERSTONE TEMJIN SILVER
Hard Drive(s)	1-WD 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA WITH SEE-THRU CASE, 1-SEAGATE 300GB SATA (SATA-2 AT 3.0) AND A 400GB WD SATA (SATA 1 AT 1.50)
Optical Drive(s)	SONY DVD/RW/R+R AND EMPREX 52X32X52 CDRW
Other Drives	FLASH MEDIA DRIVE/3.5" FLOPPY DRIVE/AARAY OF THUMB DRIVES
Cooling Setup	BOTH CASES WATER COOLED BY KOOLANCE/ZALMAN
PCI Cards	TV TUNER CARD/SWANN 4 CAMERA PCI CARD AND SECURITY SYSTEM
Other Mods	TOO numerous to mention; lights, cabling, ties, hand painted emblems

Other Goodies

Display/Monitor	19" FUJIPLUS LCD
Keyboard & Mouse	LOGITECH G-7 GAMING MOUSE AND LOGITECH LX700 WIRELESS KEYBOARD
Sound System	KLIPSCH PRO MEDIA 4.1
Backup System(s)	DESCRIBED ABOVE (ATX TOWER IN KOOLANCE CASE)
External Hardware	4 DIFFERENT EXTERNAL BACKUP HARDRIVES BETWEEN THE 2 TOWERS
Operating System	1)Windows XP Pro x64 Edition 2) Windows XP Pro 3)Windows XP Media Edition 4) Windows XP Standard
Other Software Used	numerous