Just curious to see what kind of desktop PC specs the folks around these parts have.

I haven't had a desktop since my motherboard went out, but I never had a very good one anyways since I'm always on a laptop.

I added a pic warning so you can post some pics of your rig if you wish.



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There's lots of good stuff here.

There's a whole FORUM for this: Pictures of your ThinkPad & desk setup

I should have been more clear, original post edited.

I meant specification show off, not desktop wallpaper.


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Custom-Built Video editing PC (I built this one in December 2010):
- Core i5 760 2.8Ghz Quad-Core CPU
- 8GB DDR3 RAM
- Foxconn H55M motherboard
- Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB HDD
- EVGA GeForce GTS 450 (PCIE)
- Seagate Barracuda 320GB HDD (for backups)
- NZXT Lexa S Case
- 650W PSU
- Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1

Very happy at this machine's performance. Cost about £700 to build myself.

Nice machine! I'm jealous.


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Building a PC is great fun, got a slightly cheaper £400 one lined up for a friend of mine:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 CPU
NVIDIA nForce 630 Motherboard
4GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 by Gigabyte
500GB WD hard drive
Samsung DVD-RW
Evo Labs E-3393 ATX Gaming Case
600W GamingStation PSU

Yes as you can see I am using the GTS 450 again, it's a nice and well performing cheap-ish card.

Also a nice rig. I was considering something similar but I went with a newer ThinkPad instead.


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Should've gone with the PC! I have both, and I much prefer the desktop to a laptop!

I was definitely torn. But at the moment I value being mobile more than a powerful system, so I went with a high end T400 which I am planning to max out gradually. I figure that in a year or so when I have some extra money again I might start a new project desktop, and by then there are sure to be all kinds of new goodies available.


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My Desktop PC is a Hackintosh based on an Intel D975XBX2 board running a custom BIOS that allows OS 10.6 to Just Work. I built it in the Summer of '08 so it's quite out of date now... it has a Q6700 (4 x 2.66ghz), only 4GB of 4-4-4-12 DDR2 RAM, 1x WD VelociRaptor 300GB 10KRPM boot drive, 2x WD20EARS 2TB storage drives in RAID 1 (this was originally 2xWD6400AAKS but upgraded in early 2011), a now-lame eVGA 9800GT card, some beefy "80+" 650W SeaSonic power supply, a ThermalRight Ultra Extreme heatsink, and some ridiculously quiet Nexus fans. It's built in a lowly Antec case I got for free--I can't remember what it's called... I run it into two Apple 23" Cinema Displays, and use an old IBM/Lexmark Type-M keyboard with a PS/2->USB adapter.

I was doing a lot of work for a client who had about 35 Mac Pros at the time and while I loved the look of the hardware I wasn't wowed by the high temperatures and lots of fan noise, so I set out to build something that would give me something resembling the same level of performance without the noise and heat. It was definitely a complete success.

These days, however, I live completely in Windows as I'm not working with MacOS anymore... so the T61p is my Main Machine. It gets docked to one of the 23" ACDs and the Hackintosh lives mostly as a glorified NAS...

I have updated my system since the last post, it's now::

- Core i5 760 2.8Ghz Quad-Core CPU
- 8GB DDR3 RAM
- Foxconn H55M motherboard
- Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB HDD
- EVGA GeForce GTS 450 (PCIE)
- Crucial M4 128GB SSD (boot drive)
- NZXT Lexa S Case
- 650W PSU
- Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1

Within the next few weeks or so I am looking to upgrade to an ASUS P7P55D-E LX motherboard so I can get SATA III, change my CPU cooler from the stock one to an Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2, add an ASUS Xonar DG sound card, add a Blu-Ray drive and possibly upgrade to 16GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM. I got Windows 7 Ultimate from Microsoft TechNet when I had to reinstall Windows because of getting the SSD. The 320GB drive I was using for backup purposes is now in a machine I built a few weeks back for our local air cadet squadron, it's the drive for their flight simulator PC, because with HDD prices having gone through the roof recently I thought I could use that drive rather than buy a new one.

Windows Experience Index for my machine - http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww30 ... er2011.png
CPU 7.3
RAM 7.5
Graphics Aero 7.3
Graphics Gaming 7.3
Primary Disk 7.4

Hopefully when I get the new motherboard with SATA III the SSD will be twice as fast and will hopefully score 7.9 on the WEI. Not sure what score my upgraded RAM will get on WEI though. It was previously 5.9, only held back by the hard drive.

My desktop is getting close to 2 years old now, kind of hard to believe really. Feels like I just got it.

AMD Phenom X4 9750 (2nd generation quads, the 9700 was the first gen with the BSOD issue)
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
8GB DDR2 800
Radeon HD4850
OCz 60GB SSD
320GB WD 2.5" notebook drive
ASUS 19" LCD


Soon I'll be doing some upgrades, new case and PSU. Pretty happy with this thing, runs all my games nicely and converts music great!

35w TDP i3 2100T. Love me some low power CPUs. Passively cooled by strapping a lapped Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120.

17w TDP L7500 too, love it.

My fastest desktop is an HP Compaq 8200 Elite minitower:
3.40GHz Core i7-2600 (with a PassMark score of 8900)
12.0GB PC3-10600 DDR3 RAM
5.5TB HDD total (1TB 7200rpm + 1.5TB 7200rpm + 3TB 5400rpm)
Graphics cards: AMD Radeon HD 6350 + Nvidia 7300LE + Intel HD Graphics 2000
Monitors: four Lenovo L220X's (1920x1200 PVA)

My primary desktop is slower though, an HP Compaq dc7900 minitower:
3.16GHz Core2 Duo E8500 (with a PassMark score of 2368)
6GB PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM
1TB 7200rpm HDD
Graphics cards: Nvidia GeForce 8600GT + Nvidia 8400GS
Monitors: Dell 3008WFP (2560x1600 IPS) + Dell 2408WFP (1920x1200 PVA) + two Dell 2407WFP's (1920x1200 PVA)

Despite the huge difference in PassMark scores, for everyday tasks, I notice zero difference in performance between these computers.

Updated or at least in the process of upgrading my desktop again:

New spec is going to be:

Intel Core i5 2500K
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 CPU cooler (overclocking!!)
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO GEN3
16GB G.Skill RipJawsX 1600MHz DDR3 4x4GB
Samsung Blu-Ray ROM
Crucial M4 128GB SSD running off SATA 6GB/s
WD Caviar Green 2TB HDD
OCZ ZS Series 650W PSU
NZXT Lexa S case
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1

Going to buy a Kepler NVIDIA GPU once they get released, will use integrated HD 3000 graphics until I buy a dedicated card.

In the past month or so I've been quite unlucky. Firstly my 650W "generic brand" PSU blew up in early February but luckily it took nothing else with it, good job! I then bought a new OCZ PSU to replace it. Then on the 13th February I tried to flash the BIOS on my Foxconn H55M-S board to enable AHCI but in flashing the BIOS through Windows the BIOS got corrupted then the system would not POST so I picked up a second-hand ASUS P7P55D-E board on eBay for £90 to use until I could upgrade and it's worked fine for a month. Now I can upgrade I'm pretty much starting from scratch again so my GTS 450 is now on eBay along with my i5 760, P7P55D-E and the 8GBs of RAM which I have bundled together. My bundle is currently at £125 on eBay with 1 bid and my card at £30 with no bids yet but still got 5 days to go.

So yeah, it's exciting times for me at the moment!

Right OK I built the new desktop using the 2500K and all the specs listed above a couple of weeks back.

Photos
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww30 ... CF2220.jpg
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww30 ... CF2219.jpg

Windows Experience Index
CPU 7.5 @ stock 3.3GHz (7.6 if overclocked to 4.0GHz, 7.7 if overclocked to 4.5GHz, mine as at the stock 3.3GHz because I had overclocking issues)
RAM 7.8 (if Performance Option selected in BIOS the score goes up to 7.9)
GPU Aero Graphics 6.3
GPU Gaming Graphics 6.3 (onboard Intel HD 3000 graphics, want to upgrade to a GTX 570 or GTX 660 when it arrives)
Primary HDD 7.9

Wow, I have been missing out for awhile and forgot all about this post!



@A31, Great Pics! I love the color scheme, pretty B.A. Noticed I also use all the same brand names for same components. Definitely good stuff..

Custom built:

AMD Phenom X6 1605T 3.5GHz (6-core)
G.Skill Ripjaws 8gb DDR3 1600
Asus Crosshair IV Formula mobo
Rosewill Stallion 500W PSU
ASUS GTX 550TI 1GB
Some random case I got for 30 dollars
Two 250GB seagate 7200RPM drives

I plan to get a second GTX 550TI to SLI as well as a better PSU and case

My main desktop is custom box. It's got an cheapo ECS board that started with a dual core CPU, then was bumped up to a quad core and now has a six core Phenom. I'll probably keep it at least a few more years, if not longer. While it's no longer top of the line, the only time I need some oomph is when I code HD video, but that's not too often.

AMD Phenom II x6 1055t 95w
4GB DDR2 PC6400
120GB Agility III/500GB Western Digital 7200RPM
nVidia 520GT
2xDell 2007FP LCD
Asus and Samsung BD-ROM/DVDRWs
Black Antec Case with 430w Eco PSU

Custom built.

Intel i5-2500k @ 4.2ghz(5.0 stable) w/ Corsair H60 P&P
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H
Corsair Vengance 16GB DDR3 1600mhz
OCZ Vertex 120GB, Samsung 1TB, Western Digital 2TB
nVidia GeForce GTX 660Ti AMP (OC)
OSX 10.8.2 Mountain Lion / Windows 7 Ult x64
Temporary Xigmatek Asgard case / IBM Aptiva case (currently being refurbished)
2x Benq 1080p 22" display

My current main desktop computer is HP's top-of-the-line business-class model:

HP Compaq 8300 Elite Convertible Minitower
3.40GHz Core i7-3770
12GB DDR3-12800 RAM
3x 3TB SATA III hard drives: 2x Seagate ST3000DM001 (7200rpm 64MB buffer), Western Digital WD30EZRX (5400rpm 64MB buffer)
Intel HD Graphics 4000 with DisplayPort and VGA outputs, plus Nvidia 8600GT with two DVI outpus, plus Nvidia 7300LE with DVI and VGA outputs
LCD monitors: Dell 3008WFP (30" 2560x1600) plus Dell sp2309w (23" 2048x1152) plus 4x Lenovo L220X (22" 1920x1200)

Haha, thanks. As you can tell by the late response I haven't been here in a while either!

It's changed since then though, I added a 5870 which I got second hand for about £100 in May.

Hopefully I can post pics here, I have done in the past anyway and there is a warning in the thread title.







I'm currently on a 7200 RPM Seagate HDD though as for some reason my Crucial M4 SSD just decided not to work. I've sent it back to Crucial and I should be getting a replacement after Christmas hopefully. I think the controller just died, not sure.