Gaming Gadgets (September PC build edition)

September is here and it's time for yet another gaming gadget blog. This time I am going for a different touch. I saw most of my friends including me are going to or building a PC or modding it. So this gaming gadget edition will be based on PC components. Since gaming gadgets are usually based on eye popping and weird stuff, I would put some of the things that people dream to buy (including me) which are enough to make a perfect dream machine. Yes I am going to list the components that can contribute to make a Dreammachine of 2011. I should change this feature title to DreamMachine of 2011. Oh well lets start. Oh wait before I start, important announcement. Provided my workload does not make my life hell, I will try to write everything about PC this whole September. So September is PC modding month. Another announcement. Just recently my worst enemy (my sister, username: Routisha) just passed her birthday. Ok let me start.

 

Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Edition

 

 

I was already convinced that I am going to buy this beauty until at the last minute an eye popping shell shocker sale from NewEgg changed my decision. This case is a joint effort from Thermaltake and BMW design studio. It is a full tower case equipped with quad fan power and liquid cooling ready. It is embedded with three 200mm fans plus additional 140 mm fans. Two radiator fans from water cooling can be easily attached at the top. One super feature is that the case has got 5 Easyswap HDD bays to store your HDDs or SSDs. It has also got front speed USB 3.0 and the cables are wired on the back side of the case to allow clean arrangement of wires. To make things more awesome, you can set up the built in case LEDs to red, green and blue. Price in newegg is 289 USD. Pretty expensive anyway.

 

Processor: Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.46

 

 

Well in one word, I would say this is a “Monster”. Not a single processor in the market can beat this processor (unless you put an i7-2600K submerged into liquid nitrogen or oil for extreme cooling allowing beyond extreme overclocking). This is a 32 nm 6-core processor of each core speed of 3.46 GHz. Oh wait it is also unlocked, that means you can overclock this one too. It has also boast the new Intel Smart cache capability, turbo boost technology, hyperthreading and Intel Virtualization technology. It has also got an integrated DDR3 memory controller which enables three channel of DDR3 1066 Mhz memory with 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. The price? That’s where people tend not to buy this. It is 999 USD.

 

Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Black Edition

 

 

This is the motherboard comes from Asus very own Republic of Gamers. If you don’t know what ROG is, it is a separate entity that Asus formed that focuses high end, enthusiast level, and powerful gaming components like motherboard and graphics cards. This motherboard supports the LGA 1366 socket for Intel Extreme processors. Since it is a ROG motherboard it is bundled with a Thunderbolt card which contains sound adapter from Asus Xonar and Killer BigFoot Lan card. Then there is 3 Way SLI, 4 way Crossfire video card support. To prove that this motherboard is so awesome, this motherboard broke 14 records when it comes to overclocking. And yes this is the most expensive motherboard out there in the market: 579.99 USD.

 

 RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X + Fan series (4 x 4GB) 2200 Mhz

 

 

This is the most powerful RAM combination you can find in the market. It has 16 GB with 2200 Mhz bus speed with timing 9-11-9-28. Oh yes it got fans to keep the RAMs cool when you overclock these RAMs. Oh yes the combination is also expensive: 599 USD.

 

Graphics Card: Asus MARS II/2DIS/3GD5

 

 

This is another product from Republic of Gamers and this is the single most powerful card available in the market today with engine clock of 782 Mhz and 3 GB GDDR5 memory. Based on dual Nvidia GTX580, this card is 22% faster than GTX590. It has got oversized 12cm DirectCUII dual fans to keep the card cool and quiet. It achieves 20% cooler performance than generic GTX580 cards. It has got 21 phase alloy power for enhanced heavy duty stability. It has a turbofan button which instantly switches to 100 fan speed. Also it is packed with GPU Tweak, which is professional overclocking utility. It has got all the standards that are in normal GTX580. Yes it is a Limited Edition and only 1000 of them are built. Each card is numbered in a nameplate and even in Newegg there is no way you can buy this card without having a combo deal (the whole extreme cpu build). The price is also marvelous: only 1499 USD.

 

Sound card: Auzentech Auren X-Fi Home Theatre HD

 

 

The main selection problem came when I was choosing the sound card. In my opinion I would avoid the Thunderbolt card provided by the ROG motherboard mentioned above. When it comes to sound card, most of the reviews says Asus Xonar Essence STX or ST line is the best one when it comes to superior clarity of sound. I agree on that. However Xonar cards are known as consumer audiophile cards, meaning the card has been focused more on achieving clearer sounds in music and recording. For gaming the performance is still good but not as good as expected. It is due to the lack of absence of hardware 3D surround and EAX 5.0 support in games. This is where Auzentech comes to play. This card has been released recently and I fall in love with it and even bought this for my build (even though it’s more of a Home Theatre based card, it has a perfect mixture of super sound quality and gaming sound support. Ok let me come to sound first. It has got 24 bit/192 Khz support and 116 dB SNR sound output. This is great (although Xonar ST and STX has 124 dB SNR). As for gaming it takes advantage of Creative’s very own X-Fi technology with X-Fi crystallizer and EAX 5.0 support. Not to mention it has got HDMI support for Blu Ray playback. It is also equipped with 64 MB X-RAM for sound processing. It has got headphone amplifier and changeable OP-AMPs. It can even connect to SoundBlaster front panel i/o drive. The price is same as other high end sound cards, 199 USD.

 

Liquid cooler: ZALMAN RESERATOR 1 V2 Liquid cooling system

 

 

Liquid coolers are available in complete kits nowadays so there is no fear common myths we have when it comes to liquid cooling mess. These systems are ensured that they stay for at least 5 years with no damage. The one shown is quite extreme approach for liquid cooling. The tall tower is a combined system of reservoir, pump and radiator. The tubing is transparent which makes way of having UV colored liquid coolant. The price is quite high though: 239 USD.

 

Power supply: Rosewill Lightning 1000W PSU

 

 

What makes this PSU stand out is the modular design. It keeps the cables neat. Not to mention this is enough to power the card mentioned in this article. It is certified 80 Plus Gold, meaning it would provide at least 87% efficiency when in load between 20% and 100%. It has also got 140 mm fan and some cool lightings too.

 

Optical drive: Pioneer Black SATA Blu Ray burner

 

 

Not much to talk about Blu Ray burners, however I can only say that this is the first BD-XL burner to burn upto 128 GB data on quad BD media. It has got 4 MB cache, 6X BR-R speed and 2X BD-RE speed. The cost very high: 169.99 USD

 

HDD and SSD combo

 

    

 

For a dream machine we would definitely love to have as much HDDs or even better SSDs that the motherboard can handle. So here I am just sticking to just one HDD and one SSD. I could take all SSDs but there is a reason behind why I am putting HDD and SSD in combo. I will explain in my upcoming article. For HDD I will take Hitachi Ultrastar with 3TB and 7200 RPM speed with SATA III 6.0Gb/s. As for SSD I will take the insane OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2. At first you would see it’s a PCI Express. Yes it is a PCI express card but it is also a SSD drive. For an SSD it has whopping 960 GB. The read and write speed in 1500 and 1300 respectively. Because it is an insane product it has an impossible 3199 USD price tag. As for HDD it is 349.99 USD.

 

So I guess you all can combine altogether to make the ultimate never to be touched put in the museum dream machine. I did not calculate the total price, because I am leaving this to you. In the meantime happy gaming, belated happy eid and remember the 9/11 tragedy and we unite altogether.