Just over two years ago, I embarked on what I called Project Gorthaur, the quest to build a computer that wouldn't merely run my games and applications. As I wrote then, I wanted "...a system that would be downright mean to software, a system that would shuttle unworthy bits through its pristine logic with clearly discernable contempt. I wanted the kind of system that would arrogantly force its own themes into the music of the Ainur, and thus my concept for Gorthaur the Cruel, destroyer of software, was born."
But times change, and these days hardware changes too bloody fast to build such a system. Don't get me wrong: I loved building Gorthaur, and he has been the most trouble free and best gaming rig I have previously owned. But when I built Gorthaur I spent over $3,000 with tax and shipping, all in the hope that the money would buy me a few years of great gaming. Because of the advances in video technology alone, Gorthaur was starting to feel creaky at only eighteen months old. To build a comparably over-the-top level of performance these days would cost me the same or even more. A pair of NVIDIA's top end graphics cards alone would cost me roughly $1,400.
In light of that, I've chosen a different approach. I'm planning to update my gaming system more frequently, and that plan is reflected in the hardware and in my approach to configuring the operating system(s) the system will run. Gorthaur's successor will be less cutting edge and more mainstream and, as such, would be smaller, faster, and a lot cheaper. Continuing the Lord of the Rings flavor, I've named the new system Narsil after the sword of Elendil, the blade which cut the ring from the hand of Gorthaur (the Elven name for Sauron). I'm surprised to say it all went incredibly well.
I have been shopping for components since somewhere around the August/September time frame. Holding me back were three issues: (1) dual core vs. quad core, (2) NVIDIA's next product cycle, and (3) Intel's next generation of CPUs. I've been running Vista long enough, and I do enough video encoding these days, that I really wanted a quad-core machine. But everything I've read tells me that quad-core just isn't the right choice for gaming, and that's the main focus for Narsil. Further complicating matters was NVIDIA's silence on its next generation of graphics cards, which I expected to be announced all throughout the fall. And finally, when I built Gorthaur I chose a CPU one generation old, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do so this time around; I wanted to wait for Intel's new line before making decisions.
As the months dragged on, I agonized over those three issues while I set more and more games aside. I couldn't really play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I couldn't really play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I could play Rainbow 6: Vegas and Team Fortress 2, but the former pushed Gorthaur to the brink of overheating and the latter would eventually send my dual, NVIDIA 7800 GTX cards into thermal throttling. The Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 demos kicked Gorthaur right in the goodie bag as the Christmas season was beginning, and I had some vacation time coming from work. So late in the evening on December 13 I suddenly realized that my window of opportunity was almost closed.
I sat down at the computer that night and filled up my Newegg.com shopping cart. I've never done so much research and thinking before to sit down and make my choices so quickly. I decided that dual-core was the only thing that made sense for gaming today, that NVIDIA's next product cycle will simply have to wait (at this time the GeForce 9 series is anticipated in February), and Intel's last generation of CPUs will simply have to do. In light of those decisions, I picked out the following set of components.
| Component | Vendor Link | Price | |
|
Newegg.com | $79.99 | |
|
Newegg.com | $168.99 | |
| Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 LGA 775 ATX motherboard | Newegg.com | $179.99 | |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0 GHz. LGA 775 CPU | Newegg.com | $274.99 | |
| Corsair 4 GB 240-pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM | Newegg.com | $134.00 | |
| EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512 MB video card | Newegg.com | $289.99 | |
| Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Series card | Newegg.com | $135.99 | |
| Western Digital Caviar RE2 750 GB SATA 2 hard drive | Newegg.com | $199.99 | |
| ASUS 20x DVD-RW SATA drive | Newegg.com | $39.99 |
The grand total, for those hostile to math, comes to $1503.92 at current prices (I paid a bit more when I ordered). The case carries a $45 rebate and the memory a $40 rebate, so the total cost for the system, with tax and shipping, will be roughly $1,600 once all is squared away. I figure that kind of pricing means that I can rebuild the system a couple of times over the next couple of years and still spend less than I spent on Gorthaur. I bought in a hurry, but I would like to think I bought reasonably well.
A few days after I ordered I took an inventory of what had arrived and sat down to get started on the build. The first thing that surprised me was how great the case was to work with. I was originally skeptical because it didn't have a motherboard tray, but there was plenty of room for me to screw in all the motherboard spacers and connect up the cables. I had to take a bit longer than usual with the CPU, largely because I've never worked with the LGA775 form factor before (the whole pins coming up to meet the gold nodes on the bottom of the CPU threw me for a loop), but after an hour or two I had it ready for the smoke test with the power supply, motherboard, CPU, memory, and video card in place.
After confirming that the system would POST and that everything looked good, I installed the rest of the stuff. Again I found the case to be a big help: the internal hard drive mounting system is a snap. Literally, one pulls out a drive tray, rotates the side rails out, sets the drive in, and snaps the rails back into place. The rails have pins that snap into the screw holes of the drive and hold it almost as well as any set of screws I have seen. Everything went together quickly and easily and the system powered up and worked the very first time I tried it. I was shocked to say the least.
In short, Narsil proved to be the easiest build I've ever had. the case was a joy to work with in every respect, and I have had nothing but success with it. The fans are incredibly quiet, and the airflow seems more than adequate. My only real complaint is that the power supply is at the bottom of the case. I wonder what that does to the thermodynamics of the system. I guess I'll find out over time.
But of course the build is only the first step in the process, as any user of Windows knows. Because the build went so well, I decided to try something on a lark; i.e., I decided to try the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. The install went just as quickly as I remembered with my other Windows Vista installation. Inside of fifteen minutes I had Windows Vista 64 running on Narsil. And just as before everything was working. The screen resolution was set to the native resolution of my monitor, the network was up and running, and Windows Update notified me that it could go download drivers for my Creative Labs audio card.
I expected nothing but trouble. I expected driver problems. I expected all kinds of application compatibility issues. I expected half or more of my games not to run at all or, at the very least, to crash back to the desktop if not blue-screening the system entirely. What I found were drivers available for every piece of hardware in the system. I installed several games and tested them, and I was shocked to find they worked. The complete list of games I have installed and tried to date includes:
Of all of those games I had problems with only one, Hellgate: London (H:L), which wouldn't connect reliably to a multi-player server. I took a quick look at the H:L forums and found that a beta driver from NVIDIA was available to fix the issue. Sure enough, after installing the ForceWare v169.25 drivers, H:L ran just fine. Color me far beyond shocked that I've been able to run all but one of those games under Vista 64 without a hitch. It's almost like Microsoft did something right, but that can't be the answer, can it?
Part of the reason I wanted to build Narsil when I did was that I would have some time off work, time to use to reorganize my office. I started a new job back in October of 2006, and I've been working from home at least four days a week since then, so my office has turned into a real pit. I figured it was long overdue for some organization, and I wanted to do that at the same time I built the new system.
Unfortunately, I found that I couldn't place all the computers where I wanted, so it wasn't going to be possible for me to work the four computers I have in the office from a single mouse/keyboard and two monitors. I had to buy another mouse/keyboard combination, and I decided it was time to do something I have wanted to do for a while: join the wonderful world of widescreen gaming. I bought myself a BenQ FP241W 24" LCD panel and hooked it up two days after Christmas.
I was originally going to go with the non-trivially cheaper Samsung 245BW LCD panel instead, but it's comparatively poor viewing angle and lack of HDMI/HDCP support drove me to the more expensive option. I didn't really want to spend $600+ on a monitor, but if I was going to do the widescreen thing at all I wanted something big and beautiful. The BenQ is both of those in spades. So bear in mind, in the discussion that follows, that I'm gaming on Narsil at 1920 x 1200.
On a more subjective level, Vista runs on Narsil reasonably well, but there's still no doubt that Vista is a performance pig compared to Windows XP, and in every respect. But of course raw speed doesn't really matter, or at least it's not the only metric that counts. What really matters is how it feels. Vista on the new box feels just a tad less snappy than Windows XP on Gorthaur. So on the whole I'm happy with the performance of the new system, and even though Vista and DirectX 10 incur a serious performance hit, my 8800GT video card is fast enough that it doesn't really matter.
I intended to do a bunch of benchmarks, but the simple truth is that time escapes me. I don't have the free time to do it, so the best I can say right now is that Narsil is a big step forward for gaming. My intent was to build cheaper and rebuild more frequently, but this is a system that clearly has some headroom. I figure I'll pop a new video card in the box in a year or so to give it a new lease on life, but that's in the future; right now it's time to get on to some gaming.
12/20/2007