The flashy market has only gotten flashier. Recalling my memories of other custom built rigs owned by friends over the years, a Full Tower behemoth, or a mid tower, plexiglass with dazzling illumination. I started researching a worthy competitor. Only this time life has changed the stakes. Now there is this woman that patiently waits for my return from a long days work. That lady cooks my meals, but more importantly plays computer and video games with. Marriage has now binded us into a permanent co-op. For better or worse, the person I'll share the Exp. Points with. is now my wife, and team kills will ban me to the couch. It seems the server admin god of life just added a new map and item drop whoring is no longer allowed. Talk about lame.
I can no longer put only myself at the center point. After all, I realize the best games are played with someone else. Borderlands, and Diablo 3, alone justify the cause. That 3 grand rig for me however, is no longer feasible, not one, but two must be built on the same budget. The woman I previously mentioned, a mainstream casual gamer, or whatever PC game I come home with and decide to play, is not a fellow enthusiast as I. Casual gaming aside, what's a housewife really going to do with an overclocked, low latency, high performance computer anyways? Myspace, iTunes, solitaire, and chain emails with my mother-in-law? Please. There will be no shenanigans of this sort. I'll just offset the budget in my favor and build the better computer and leave the leftovers onto hers. Not fair you say? Hey pal, I'm building and financing this operation here. So you can talk to me about ethics and equality later when your paying the tab.
My monthly subscription issue of Maximum PC arrived and presented me the best solution, building two rigs, one between the $700-1000 price range for the wife, the other around $1,500 - $ 2,000 for me. To be honest I have sort of grown fond of the AMD Phenom II processors and the Dragon Platform. Originally, following the advice of Max PC. I decided the wife's computer will run an AMD Phenom X3, and I'll installed the X4 in mine. All my research was done two months early. A bit later the HD Raedeon 5870 was launched, I cheered for the Nvidia smashing graphics card and changed the parts list accordingly. The PC market does not stagnate, but continue to innovate and improve. Unfortunately, I planned two months too early. Intel has released the Core i5, Suddenly those dragon platforms I justified on the price to performance ratio, just went out the window. Now I have to suck it up, and realize that Intel took the CPU crown in another segment market again. Even if that dragon platform looked so cool and shiny. - - That night I had to do some soul searching, I went to bed and slept on it. That next morning I woke up with a solution. I put some, but not all my pride aside, and decided to install the Core i5 processor into my wife's computer and I'd settle for Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. Meaning, she would have the faster processor, even it's better and cheaper than mine. Suddenly it is hard to even justify my build, why not just install a Core i7 920 in mine? Because I want an AMD Dragon Platform Computer damn it! If I can't have my cake and eat it too, at least let me some frosting alright? Pardon, I was sidetracked for a moment. Ahem.
Quiet computing, also a new slogan by Antec. I think I like that theme, and add a bit of efficiency too. A no-nonsense computer cases without the pretty colors and unnecessary plexiglass, minus the bland and boring of a business class or office computer case. I essentially want to blend power and performance into an elegant package. To compare it to the automotive world, I'm choosing over the muscle cars and import tuners in favor of a Mercedes or BMW. A fellow colleague disagrees with this vision. He'd rather hear his computer, with 120mm or 200 mm Case fans in full spin, once only considered for server racks, spool up like turbocharger reading to dump that air into the chambers. He'd like to hear and feel the power emitting from his computer. Of course he's single, not paying the electric bill, and there is no room mate that acts like the local deputy(wife) complaining about noise ordinance either. No, it's settled, an Antec P193 Desktop Mid-Tower case.
That settles the computer case. There is just one problem. Where am I going to put them in our home? We have no desks, and I want an entertainment center too. A google search for two person computer desks brings up photos for a office style corner desks made for some cubicle, a gaming desk has great number of options and style, for one person, and what about the entertainment center? Clearly there is no pre-manufactured furniture piece that fits my need. To the drawing board! More specifically, I fired up Google Sketchup and started designing away. I finished my 3D master piece 8 hours later. Something about the model however, looks as if it was too big. A few emails home later, I discovered the table would not reasonably fit in the living room. I had to start from scratch all over again, another 26 hours of redesigning I completed a better piece. Something even quite marketable to couples living in studio apartments. Now to build it. But how? Although I have a little woodworking experience, I know enough that I need to hire outside help. A bit of consulting with other co-workers, and I learned cherry would be quite expensive. My father in-law, a master carpenter, suggested plywood. Only plywood would make the furniture look terrible and cheap. Cherry it is with a perhaps a stain of Walnut will place an estimate price tag of five large. Something to lose sleep over, but quality furniture is never cheap. But I also considered usefulness of having a piece of furniture that acts as two complete desks and and entertainment center. Three pieces of furniture rolled into one? Not bad at all.
Took at look at the concept photos.
