Silent Running

As a budding PC enthusiast/hobbyist, I've decided to assemble my own super-quiet, super-fast PC this summer, just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the IBM Personal Computer (August 11th). I haven't built my own computer since 1993 (I've been a software person, not hardware). This will be an exciting return for me!

The quietness of the computer is crucial. I've owned too many noisy PCs in the past and, frankly, I've been spoiled by my whisper-quiet Apple iMac G5.

And with the recent trend towards dual-core processors, it's time for me to bite the bullet and get a dual-core rig for myself. A dual-core processor will make for much more effective multitasking.

These are the components that I've tentatively identified as offering the most bang for the buck, as of today, February 19th...

Case
Antec P150 Quiet PC Case w/430W P.S.
Hardware-Review of P150
Silent PC review of P150
$180 at PC Village - pcvonline.com

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+
$419 at PC Village

Motherboard
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=382
$199 at PC Village

Memory
2 GB Kingston DDR400
$218 at PC Village

Hard drive
400 GB Western Digital SATA, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache
$237 at PC Metro - pcmetro.ca

Video
Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO Ultimate w/256MB
Maximum PC review
$239 at PC Village

Sound
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
$75 at PC Metro

Optical drive
Sony DWQ-30A Dual Layer DVD writer
$48 at PC Metro

Total: $1,615

Smokin'!!!