Built a Fun Computer!

[OtherSyde]

This isn't really about building a computer, mind you (lots of people do that), it's more about reaching the long-awaited milestone of building a completely new computer. Sort of like buying your first brand-new car (one day...)

I've known how to build computers for a long time (went to trade school for it during high school for 2 years), but I've always either had an all-in-one like an iMac back in 2001 or, more recently, a series of laptops since I've lived on a war-ship for six years now and needed the portability. I worked at a computer store for a brief while back in 2004 and sort of cobbled together a makeshift PC tower out of discarded, used components in the back warehouse, but I've always wanted to build my own flashy, stylish rig out of completely new components.

A week or two ago when my wife's laptop croaked, I seized the opportunity to go nuts on newegg.com, taking advantage of their Columbus day sale. I scored a motherboard, power supply, and 8GB of RAM for about $100. Then I bought the DVD-R drive and CPU (it's a Core i5 3570k with unlocked bus multiplier, if anyone speaks techie) a week later. It's not an incredible rig, but it's the fastest computer I've had yet by far, the only one comprised of all-new parts, and definitely the most colorful. I plan to get a GeForce 560 graphics card as well to top it off. But tonight I'm just using it to avoid doing my upper-division Sociology homework by making this post.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic, my awesome Sony camera got crushed on a carnival ride a few weeks ago

[EDIT] - The keyboard and mouse are, ironically enough, from the previously-mentioned old iMac from 2001... They're the only spares I could dig up haha... Definitely going upgrade those soon, too