The ultimate computer is the system that I would build without thinking of the cost. While I always think of the cost, sometimes it is fun to think beyond the monetary restraints. So if I had a million dollars here is the ultimate computer system I would build.
Antec has a nice, new, stylish case out. It is designed for good air flow which will keep the system's temperature at a minimum. Even the HDD cages act as air ducts to help maximize air flow. The case has two front fans to blow air over the hard drive cages. I/O ports at the top of the case make for easy access. The power supply (not included) mounts at the bottom of the case. There is lots of room for drives. The case comes standard with USB, Firewire, and audio in/out connections.
The power supply I have choosen to match with the Antec case above is the Antec TruePower Trio 650. Some of its features include a universal input which automatically adjusts for 100V to 240V power grids, low noise cooling fan, and heavy duty circuitry protection. The circuitry protection will protect against short circuits, power overloads, voltage overloads, and voltage underloads.
Asus makes some great mainboards. The one I have choosen is the P5N32-E SLI. It is Intel® Quad-core, Intel® Core™2 Extreme/Core™2 Duo ready. It also has all the features you can think of that a mainboard should come with these days.
I am an AMD person myself. However I thought I should build a system around an Intel processor for once. So I picked the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800.
Cooling your processor is very important these days. Although systems are being designed with cooling in mind it is good to maximize how efficiently the heat in a system can be removed. Air flow is very important as well as getting heat away from the cpu and exhausted out of the system. To help get the heat away from the cpu as efficiently as possible I have choosen the zalman CNPS9700.
Since we are not thinking of cost I picked out 4GB of the best DDR2-800 memory I could find.
Since I am using an Asus mainboard I figured why not use Asus video cards. Of course I will want to get two so I can use SLI.
The seagate 750GB serial ata drive with perpendicular recording technology seemed like the right choice. I decided to get one drive. If you want to do raid you will probably want to get a serial ata raid card that can handle drives with a 750GB capacity. I did not want to have to deal with raid and choosing a raid card so I am going with one drive for now.
Blu-ray is the hot thing these days so I went with the new blu-ray drive from Sony. In addition to blu-ray it also burns dvds and cds.
For a monitor I went with Viewsonic. They make great monitors from my experience in the past. This monitor is a 23″ wide screen model.
Logitech is my choice for keyboard and mouse products. I went with the cordless desktop mx 5000. It consists of a wireless keyboard and mouse that use bluetooth for wireless communications. The mouse is a laser mouse so it is very acurate. It also has a rechargable battery so you do not have to keep changing batteries every time they die.
Debian is my operating system of choice. It is well designed, powerful, stable, and very robust.
So there you have it. The system I would build if money was not a concern. If my math is any good the final price is $6,603.87. That's too rich for my blood. Maybe if I ever have a ton of money I will go for it. It was fun though.
