WARNING: This post is far nerdier and geekier than most. Note: That makes this ultra-nerdy since I began from a pretty nerdy baseline. You have been warned.
Back in 2003 or so, I received clearance from DD, our financial gatekeeper, to purchase the parts to build a new PC. This approval came after several drafts of a formal five page proposal. My primary argument for why we should buy a new PC went something like this:
- I'm a nerd and enjoy tinkering with computers
- I get smarter when I tinker with the computer
- Smarter = periodic pay raises
She bought it, granted formal approval, and I ordered the parts. I remember they arrived one hot summer day in Arizona (read, 104 degrees +) when I happened to be finishing the final exam of my business law class on the couch, resting my bare feet on the cool, stained-concrete floor. I had a hard time finishing the exam after the UPS guy rang the doorbell but I managed to muster the fortitude somehow. DD and EV were up in Utah visiting the grandparents so I had the rest of the day to tinker away.
The PC ran Linux, my tinkering operating system of choice, until about 2 years ago when DD decided to give teaching for an online college a try. We bought an iMac at that point because the PC was pretty underpowered by then (still running Windows 2000 with 512 MB of RAM) and I insisted that I could no longer find any places for additional chicken wire and bubble gum to hold her 1998 PC together. I insisted on a Mac because she suffered from misgivings about moving from our first PowerMac to Widnows PC in 1997. This speaks to her fine taste in quality operating systems and lack of patience for the silly antics users must endure to operate a Windows PC.
Alas, the college later decided that they wouldn't support faculty members with non-PCs so we had to move her back over to the 2003 PC. In a fortunate turn of events which DD can relate to you herself, she has happily moved on from teaching at the online school, eliminating any need for her to remain on the PC.
And finally, a few weeks ago, the PC from 2003 died. I made no emergency-room style attempts to save it's life. Fortunately we had all our data backed up.
We worked our way through the proposal routine again, though this time my argument consisted of a single page making the case for the ability to backup files to redundant disk (I had a RAID 1 array in that whimpy old PC) and to continue my education so that I can remain competitive in the technology job market. Secondary arguments, though they tend to hold less weight because DD rightly contended that we could simply share the iMac, included things like the ability to edit photos with a reasonably capable machine, part-time consulting work, etc.
So the last several weeks, I spent pricing out the various options. Deep down I wanted a 24" iMac. No, deep down I wanted a MacPro with a 72" cinema display but I'm not even sure they make those and I'm pretty sure that would be a pretty foolish way to spend $10,000. To be fair, I had to price out all the build-your-own PC options too. From a strictly financial point of view, the PC was the winner.
But I wasn't willing to give up so quickly. To my surprise, I learned that some guys with a whole lot more time on their hands than I have figured out how to make Mac OS X work on regular PC hardware. I'm not sure how legal it is to run this on PC hardware though I have to imagine that Stevey J and Billy G would get a good chuckle out of it over fish and chips out on the wharf.
So, we settled on a do-it-yourself PC. But I changed the requirements a bit. Most do-it-yourself, high performance PCs sound pretty much like an F/A-18 Hornet. That's not a pleasant sound to have in one's home. So I set rule number one: The computer needs to run quietly. I found this incredible site called Silent PC Review that provides all sorts of great information regarding PC parts that run quietly and perform well. I was very excited to find a PC case that didn't look as dorky as most and that was specifically made to run quietly by using large, low RPM fans and separating the hard drives and power supply into a separate chamber from the mainboard and CPU.
I also hate buying mid to low-end hardware that is outdated the day it arrives. So I waited until my favorite PC-parts online retailer got the new Intel processors--a Core 2 Quad running at 2.5 GHz. Yes, that's 4 glorious processor cores to keep all that audio processing, email, iTunes, Lightroom, virtualized operating systems, etc. running smoothly and playing well together. Thus, rule number 2: It needs to be fast. The video card sports 512 MB of dedicated RAM and cools itself with a massive passive (fanless) cooler. The RAM is the new DDR3 that runs at 1333 MHz. And the motherboard has a feature that allows you to boot up in 5 seconds into a pseudo operating system that allows you to surf the web, make a Skype call, listen to music, or watch a movie without booting Windows.
Ok, that's enough nerdiness for now. I'll be back with you again next week with a pictorial account of it all coming together!
PS--Is one really a nerd if they fully realize that they're a nerd? Just a hypothetical question.
