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As I’ve mentioned in a few other posts, im building my own sleek sexy super quick gaming/productivity machine. I was originally going to go with an all in one Intel CPU processor and Intel mother board configuration the Intel DX58SO LGA 1366 Motherboard with the Intel Core i7 920 chip. My thinking on this was that I wanted to make sure there wouldnt be any compatability issues. Some what similar to my choice of home enertainment systems. I went with all Sony. Sony TV, Sony entertainement system and the PS3. So ok maybe that was maybe a bit misguided and conservative, plus impractical. Yeah sure I can get 7 million gigaquads of ram (16gbs per slot) never going to need that much ram and I dont see any future need for it either. Let’s be honest that’s a shit load of ram. Yes I have a 64 bit versions of XP, not going to use Vista sorry people Vista is a piece of shit. (IMO). How ever I maybe be doing a Linux Install, and a windows 7 beta install. I’ll let you know about that later.

So what did I decide I am going to go with. Well after a few email exchanges with my cousin trevor (turns out hes a modder and over clocker, who woulda known) thanks facebook. Im going to go with the Asus Rampage II Extreme Motherboard – Intel X58, LGA 1366, ATX, Audio, PCI Express 2.0, CrossFire Ready, SLI Ready, Dual Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, Firewire, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, RAID.

Here’s his take on the selection of the two motherboards and a bit of a break down about the two boards. “Not knocking your choice of builds, your board (Intel DX58SO LGA 1366 Motherboard) has its qualities . If you compare specs you will see the simple things such as your board only has 4 ram slots capable of running ddr3 1600mhz memory, Rampage has 6 capable of 1800mhz ‘oc’ Although mine only supports 12 gig total , yours supports 16 gig. Rampage has the dual bios feature for overclocking, from what i see on your specs this option is not available. I’m not sure what your running for OS wether 32 or 64 bit, but your board will definetly perform just as well as the rampage! If you still want to see the differences then check out this links with your

specs http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Motherboards/DX58SO/DX58SO-overview.htm and compare them to the rampage extreme,http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4303010&CatId=4070,” 

For a very detailed review and insight into the Asus Rampage Extreme II the ultimate overclockers board check out this link from Techgage.com. “The other reason i went with the asus rampage extremem mobo is the on board overclocking buttons and the mobo reset buttons in case you have to clear the cmos for any reason. The back plate to the mobo also lights up , this is handy if your case is in a dark spot and you need to hook up usb cables etc, no reason for a flashlight. If your into showing off the mobo, find a case with a window side , the mobos sound fx card lights up aswell as a few other things like the northbridge chip”

Turns out its a monster sized board and is recommened to go into a full tower for maximal cooling and accesibility.

So a huge box it is then.

Just for example heres a picture,I havent decided which case config or blinged out look I want yet,or even if I want to put it in a freeking case, maybe a rack?.

This case has loads of features which makes it a very attractive option for me.

Check out the options on this Thermaltake VH9000SNS Xaser VI MX ATX Mid-Tower Case – Mesh Side (Silver)

and its only 124 bux,so its a definate option,No PSU though, which is fine bacause I’ll like be getting a monster power supply as well.

So thats for that, now what about RAM, ah yes the ram, I asked my cousin about what kind of ram is best suited for the Asus Rampage Extreme II board, and here was his explanation about the RAM.

“First off, when it comes to ram for that board, buy 2 gig sticks, ddr3 triple channel memory such as “OCZ Platinum PC12800 1600MHz Tri Channel 12GB DDR3 Memory Upgrade – 6×2048MB. But keep in mind that if you are going to run windows 32 bit operating system, it will only recognize 3.25 gig of that total amount. If you run the windows 64 bit operating system it will recognize all 12 gig of ram, and be a hundred times faster. When you buy ram you want 2 gig sticks or higher, stay away from 1 gig sticks as this will slow down the performance because it takes the system less time to read 2 gig sticks in each ram slot then having 6x 1 gig sticks installed in each slot, sounds strange but its true. And this ram is on the qualified venders list for the rampage mobo. <<< Important. This is the ram i have installed on mine. This will also allow you to OC the machine when you desire to the lowest Over clocking level using 1600 mhz ram.”

Now as for HDD options, I originally wanted an SSD but man theyre still very pricy and from the looks right now the price to GB ratio is low how ever the speed is just retarded. So My choice will be a Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB.Or two, plus some external storage as well.

My current situations is I have a few lower storage drives in my PC a Dell Hell and theyre totally maxed out. so it looks like its gonna be a swapping situation until Iget allof what I have stored and moved over onto the new drives, which I guess will mean do some massive re-intallation and partitioning and all that nasty business.

Samsung 24 inch High def screen would be a great idea in combination with the bfg video card you have choosen. When it comes to a case buy a thermal tech case, they run cooler and are lighter in weight. You want what they call a Full tower, not mid tower or atx tower. I see on your Blog that you are thinking about using the Fujitsu cpu, i have not heard of these, so i don’t know what to tell you. Word of advice though, when it comes to installing the heat sink and fan for the cpu, install this onto the mobo before installing the mobo into the case. I would sugest putting down a thick piece of card bord down on a table under the mobo, pushing the locking pins down on the heat sink can put alot of preasure on the mobo and you dont want your mobo flexing or bending, when the mobo is installed into the case first, the mobo flexs alot and you dont want to crack it by accident”