Once I decided that a new build was in order, I had to decide what I was going to build. The Prime Directive for this project was simple: the new computer should have the best chance to last at least as long as Epsilon3. Three quarters of a decade is a long time in the world of computers, so I had my work cut out for me.
Intel Core i7-950 CPU with stock heatsink
Back when I built Epsilon3, AMD was the company to beat with its Athlon series of CPUs. Based on recommendations and reviews, Intel’s Core series of quad core CPUs seemed to be the way to go this time around. After looking at the performance of the different chips versus the cost of both the CPUs and the motherboards that the new CPUs would need, I decided on Intel’s Core i7-950 CPU. With four cores and a clock speed of 3.06 GHz, the price point of this first generation core i7 chip hit the sweet spot for me. I would have liked to have gone for one of the second generation i7-2600 CPUs, but the budget wouldn’t allow it.
ASUS Sabertooth X58 motherboard
For the motherboard, several builders I trust went with an ASUS Sabertooth X58. Epsilon3′s mainboard was an ASUS, so I had no problem going with another one of their boards. Coming from a system that still had a floppy drive in it, this board was quite an upgrade. Six SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports and two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports meant never having to worry about gray ribbon cables ever again. And with room for up to 24GBs of RAM, I should never have a problem with running out of memory. All the rest of the features combined convinced me that this board should last for a long time.
Kingston DDR3-1600 RAM
Of the Big Three (motherboard, CPU and memory), choosing what RAM to buy was probably the easiest decision to make. I pulled up the DRAM Qualified Vendor List for the Sabertooth motherboard, chose a brand I was comfortable with and bought as much RAM as I could afford. I wound up with 12GBs of Kingston DDR3-1600 RAM. I imagine that if you took all the RAM for all the computers I’ve ever owned you still wouldn’t hit 12GB, so I’m hopeful that this will hold me for a while. And because I bought a kit of three 4GB sticks, I still have room to max out the memory if I ever need to.
CPU and RAM installed on motherboard
