My previous posts covered which (sub)notebook and which hardware for my new PC I want to buy, but there’s more on my wish list. I’m a perfectionist who spends a lot of time thinking about exactly what I should buy, if it has the right price/quality ratio a.k.a. bang for the buck and what priority I should give that purchase. In my case, I don’t deliberate so carefully on my wish list because I don’t want to spend too much money, the point is I want to be satisfied with what I buy, I don’t want to be disappointed. In this post I’ll write what other hardware is on my wish list and what I want to purchase within a few months, descending from high to low priority and including an approximate price.

DSLR camera – Olympus E-410 – € 350

Currently I use a point-and-shoot camera, a Canon PowerShot A510. It’s a nice camera for it’s class, but I want better image quality. Not only the quality of the camera itself influences image quality, but the file format in which the camera saves photographs does as well. One of my gripes with the A510 is that it saves photographs in the JPEG format which uses lossy compression, and therefore decreases image quality. I think a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera can meet my demands for better image quality. SLR’s also have the option to save photographs as raw image files, which avoids the JPEG format’s compression artifacts. DSLR camera’s are sold without a lens or with a kit lens. I don’t think I need a separate lens, which is also more expensive, so I’ll buy an DSLR with a kit lens. My budget for an DSLR camera is €500 maximum, which restricts the choice considerably, but still a lot of SLR’s can be found in this price range. I think the Olympus E-410 would be my best choice, it received a favorable review, it’s compact and one of the cheapest DSLR’s at € 350. I think that’s quite cheap for an DSLR, I’ve also seen the Olympus E-400 at € 300, but according to the review of the E-410 it’s successor has a better image processor and other advantages. I know the Olympus E-420 and Canon EOS 450D are coming, but those will probably be considerably more expensive at their introduction.

Wireless residential gateway – Linksys WRT45GL – € 55

When my parents signed up for an ADSL Internet connection years ago, the Internet service provider included a residential gateway from the SpeedTouch brand. Some time ago that residential gateway was replaced with a SpeedTouch 546 v6 because the old one died. The SpeedTouch 546 doesn’t provide much features in it’s web interface, one thing which I miss in particular is the ability to use quality of service (QoS). I need this feature because three other PC’s are hooked up to the residential gateway, sharing the Internet connection. My brother uses his Internet connection intensively just like me, and if I’m downloading something my PC will consume the entire bandwidth of the connection, which gives him tons of lag if he’s be gaming online. With QoS certain traffic can be prioritised so the bandwidth will be shared equally. I want the Linksys WRT45GL because the WRT45G-series was the first residential gateway device that had it’s firmware source code released under the GNU GPL. That opened the possibility to create alternative firmware for the device. These alternative firmware projects provide the features I want. I highly appreciate the fact that it’s open source, which gives me more choice and features. It’s also nicely priced at € 55 and it supports Wi-Fi as well, which would be very useful if it works. In the past I tried getting a wireless SpeedTouch residential gateway to work, but somehow the reception of the Wi-Fi signal was very bad in my house, barely a few meters. The house I live can’t be the cause, it’s just a renovated farm without stuff which could influence Wi-Fi reception. That SpeedTouch was probably a bad apple, I assume the WRT45GL will work. Even if it doesn’t, it would still be a very worthwhile purchase because of it’s features.

Video game console – Playstation 3 – € 389

On PC monitors we have already been able to use high resolutions for a long time in PC games, the low resolutions used by console games turned me off. Now that this generation of consoles can finally display games in a high 1080p resolution (except for the Nintendo Wii) and have fine-tuned Internet multiplay options, I’m getting interested in buying a video game console. The Wii isn’t interesting for me because it can’t display in 1080p, lacks in graphical quality of it’s games and aims at a different public than the more serious gamers with it’s different control scheme. The Xbox 360 is produced by Microsoft, which means it’s not an option for me because I boycott Microsoft for it’s unethical business practices. The Playstation 3 remains as my only option. Currently there aren’t much interesting games available for it yet, so that’s a reason to wait for games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Final Fantasy XIII, Killzone 2 and Soulcalibur IV. Another reason to wait is that we will most likely see hardware revisions of the PS3 which will be cheaper, consume less energy, are smaller and possibly offer more features. Just like the original PS2 which also had many hardware revisions.

Monitor – Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP – € 636,89

I’m using the Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP now, which is a 20 inch monitor with an S-IPS panel. In the future I might want to use a 24 inch monitor for the PS3, because almost all 24 inch monitors use a WUXGA resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels. This resolution is enough to display the PS3’s 1080p resolution without scaling it down. The 2408WFP features DisplayPort and HDMI connections besides the usual DVI-D connection. So a PS3 can be connected directly with a HDMI cable, a DVI converter isn’t even necessary. Besides the advantages of the larger resolution for the PS3, a larger resolution is nice to have as well when you’re using it with a PC. Unfortunately the 2408WFP also has it’s downsides, as reported in this and this review, the input lag worries me because I often play first-person shooters. Default color accuracy isn’t very good, so I’ll need to borrow or buy a colorimeter to calibrate the monitor. Even so, if I’d buy a 24 inch monitor now, I’d buy the 2408WFP. But because I can still use my 2007WFP, I think I’ll wait a bit, and see if interesting new 24 inch monitors will become available. The LED backlight is an interesting development, Acer has recently released larger monitors with LED backlights. Further in the future we might see OLED monitors.

Mobile phone/smartphone – Neo FreeRunner – $ 399

The mobile phone I’m using now is a Motorola RAZR V3i. I only use for it phone calls, sometimes SMS. Checking the time and setting alarms is very useful functionality for me, since I’ve been using this phone I’ve abandoned my wrist watch and alarm clock. It has a camera, but like all other mobile phones the quality of the camera sucks compared to stand-alone camera’s, I’ve never found a use for the camera. It’s a nice phone, but it’s got some disadvantages. The V3i is not a smartphone, and the fact that it is a clamshell design bothers me a bit, a candybar design is more practical. It’s getting dated because it doesn’t support HSDPA, which is getting cheaper these days. The smartphone which I intend to buy as a replacement for the V3i is the Neo FreeRunner, which primarily attracts me because this smartphone runs on Linux and allows the user to customize the software. However, it doesn’t include 3G among it’s impressive featureset, and the phone doesn’t look good in my eyes. That’s why I’ll probably wait for it’s successor. The Nokia N810 also runs Linux and is allows users to modify it’s software, but unfortunately it’s not an alternative because it’s an Internet tablet which can’t connect to cellular networks. In the meantime I could buy a phone to bridge the gap until there’s a successor for the Neo FreeRunner, the Samsung SGH-U100 is appealing because of it’s small size. Even though it’s the slimmest phone in the world, I doubt if I should just buy a phone because of it’s size, is it that important for me? The U100 can be found for approximately € 200. If features are important, the Nokia 6120 Classic would be a good choice. If a low energy consumption with a long stand-by time is important, I could go for the Nokia 3110 Evolve, which features 370 hours of stand-by time versus 200 hours for the V3i. If the price is more important than features, size or energy consumption I think I should go with a budget phone. What I also value But I shouldn’t be too eager to spend money on a new phone, because my V3i still works.

I always buy the separate pieces of hardware required for a PC myself, and then assemble it, or pay the hardware store to assemble it. I never buy factory built PC’s from large producers like Dell, HP or Acer, building your own PC allows you to completely customize it so that it meets your demands better. I like to play computer games a lot and I don’t want to spend more than € 800. Dell and friends either don’t offer PC’s with a graphics card that is powerful enough for my needs, or their comparable configurations are a bit more expensive than the collection of separate pieces of hardware that I selected. This time building a silent PC is also a priority, most factory built PC’s aren’t quiet enough.

The PC I currently use allows me to play most of the latest games I like, but it’s two and a half years old now, which is old for a high performance PC. It has an AMD Athlon 3500+ CPU, 2 GB RAM and a GeForce 7800 GT graphics card. Most of the time I play Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Counter-Strike: Source. My PC can handle CS:S fine, but ET:QW often displays a temporary decrease in the frame rate if a lot of activity is going on. Those frame rate drops can be quite disruptive and often result in my untimely death. So I need a newer graphics card, and a newer CPU would be required as well because the Athlon 3500+ is still a single core CPU, while quad core CPU’s are already available for some time. A new CPU also means a new motherboard, and it would be wise to get faster new RAM and a new hard drive as well. So in fact I’m going to replace all the contents of my enclosure, including the enclosure itself. I could keep my currently enclosure, but I want to get a better one.

I intend to buy most of the hardware I want at Azerty, a Dutch Internet store with a very large assortment of hardware. I’ll only need to buy the graphics card at a second Internet store. All these part, including delivery costs, cost approximately € 770. I expect to sell my old PC for approximately € 200, so the real cost for me will be € 570. I think that’s rather cheap. hardware has gotten cheaper in general, two and half years ago I paid more than € 350 for a GeForce 7800 GT graphics card, now it’s less than € 150 for a GeForce 8800 GT.

Enclosure – Antec Solo – € 75,23

Compared to my old enclosure, an Antec SLK3700BQE, the Antec Solo is a serious improvement. The SLK3700BQE has an annoying door which constantly needs to opened to push the power button or to access the DVD drive, the Solo doesn’t have a door. The Solo possesses some features the SLK3700BQE doesn’t have, like dampening sheets at the side panels inside the enclosure for noise isolation and elastic suspension for the hard drives to prevent hard drive vibration and noise. The Solo is one of the enclosures which is recommended by Silent PC Review, a popular website covering PC silencing. Arguably the Solo still looks a bit cheap with it’s black finish and silver grey front, but that color would actually fit in very nicely with Dell 2007WFP monitor, Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakerset and Logitech UltraX keyboard, which also are black with silver grey. The Solo is a bit more expensive than other enclosures because it doesn’t come with a power supply. For example, the Antec NSK4480 is € 10 cheaper at the same internet store and comes with a 380W power supply. That is all right for me because I want to buy a separate power supply anyway, which is more quiet and efficient. The higher price of the Solo is worth it for the extra features. I have also considered the Antec P182, which offers some interesting advantages like a separate chamber for the power supply and a nicer design. It’s an interesting choice but unfortunately the P182 is € 40 more expensive, so I stick with the Solo.

Power supply – Enermax PRO 82+, 425 Watt – € 64,32

The new Enermax PRO and MODU series are currently the highest ranking recommended power supplies at Silent PC Review. This power supply is very efficient and quiet, which is exactly what I want. 425 Watt is enough for me, and I’ll settle with the PRO version which doesn’t have modular cabling like the MODU version. The 425 Watt MODU is € 10 more expensive, which isn’t much, so I might want to buy that one anyway even if the advantage of modular cabling isn’t that important. With modular cabling you can get rid of unnecessary cabling in the enclosure easier, which might be better for airflow and look more tidy. The next best thing before the PRO and MODU series is the Corsair VX450W, which is just a little more than € 2 cheaper. In case the PRO series wasn’t available at my internet store yet I’d choose that power supply.

Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 – € 86,97

For the Intel Core 2 Duo processor I want to use I need a motherboard which supports this processor. I’m not going to use overclocking or RAID, which means that cheaper motherboards will be adequate for me. I’ve settled on the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 for the simple reasons that this motherboard uses Intel’s current mainstream chipset, the P35, and because it’s one of the cheaper solutions. The cheaper P35 motherboards can be found for € 20 less, but what sets the P35-Ds3 apart from others is that it uses a RealTek ALC 889A codec for it’s onboard audio, which is a better than the onboard audio solutions provided by other motherboards. This is important to me because I don’t want to buy a separate sound card. An alternative is the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, which posesses DTS Connect among it’s extra features over the DS3. DTS Connect can convert analog 5.1 sound sent by games to a DTS, so that the analog 5.1 sound can be sent to the speakerset over a digital connection. This could have a positive influence on the sound quality, because apparantly the 889A codec is still inferior to the more expensive separate sound cards when an analog connection is used, according to this review. But I still don’t understand the advantages and disadvantages of DTS Connect and a digital connection completely, so I’m not really sure. Besides a choice between an analog connection or a digital connection with DTS Connect, there also is a choice between waiting for motherboards with the P45 chipset or buying a motherboard with the current P35 chipset. Because it’s better to wait with buying a graphics card at this moment, it’s probably a good idea to wait for the P45 as well because the new graphics cards and the P45 will be introduced around the same time.

Processor – Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 – € 146,62

Reviews here and here conclude that buying  an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with the latest Wolfdale or Yorkfield core is the best choice now. AMD’s processors might be a bit cheaper, but they are outperformed by the Core 2 Duo’s and they consume more power and run more hot. I could buy a E8200 or E8400 dual core processor, or I could buy a Q9300 quad core processor. A quad core processor only makes sense if you use multithreaded software which can take advantage of quad core processors, which is made clear in those two reviews. I might spent some time in the future doing 3D rendering with Blender, but probably not enoughto warrant paying the extra price for a quad core processor. However, the E8200 can currently be found for under € 140 while the slightly older Q6600 quad core can be found for just over € 170. The price difference isn’t much, so why not. But first I’m going to wait a bit before the prices of the new Wolfdale and Yorkfield cores settle down in comparison with the Conroe and Kentsfield cores which preceded them. The E6750 and E8200 are currently equally priced, but some Internet stores are probably overcharging on the E8200 because demand is higher than supply. This is especially evident with the Q9300 which is € 220 at minimum while the Q6600 can be found for € 170.

Thermal interface material – Arctic Silver 5 – € 4,14

This review shows that Arctic Silver 5 isn’t the best, but it still reduces temperatures with nearly 10 °C compared to the thermal grease that is pre-applied to the Intel heatsink (which is shipped with their processors). With the exception of Intel’s thermal grease, the differences are small. Arctic Silver 5 is the best which is available at my Internet store and it’s not very expensive.

Thermal interface material remover – Arctic Silver ArctiClean – € 5,00

If the need arises to remove thermal interface material, Arctic Silver ArctiClean might come in handy.

Heatsink – Thermalright HR-01 Plus – € 36,37

Silent PC Review recommends a lot of heatsinks. Initially I wanted to buy the Scythe Ninja, but after reading complaints about it’s push-pin mounting system I decided to go with the Thermalright HR-01 Plus which uses a better mounting system. The HR-01 Plus is an improved version of the HR-01 which is recommended by Silent PC Review, and does support socket 775 unlike it’s predecessor. The Thermalright Ultra 120-eXtreme is at the top of the list of recommended heatsinks, but it’s € 45,26 at my Internet store. That’s not a huge price difference, but I think it’s overkill to pay so much money for ‘just’ a heatsink. Besides, according to it’s review at Silent PC Review it doesn’t give an advantage compared to the Ninja or HR-01 Plus in situations with low airflow like I intend to create. What’s important to me as well is that I’m able to mount a 120 mm fan on this heatsink. If I wanted to cut costs I’d probably buy an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro for € 16,18.

120 mm fan – Scythe Slip Stream SY1225SL12L – € 7,00 x 2

I will buy two of these, I will place one on the HR-01 Plus, and I will use the other to replace the stock exhaust fan of the Antec Solo, which isn’t as silent as the SY1225SL12L. The SY1225SL12L runs at a fixed low 800 rpm, so I won’t need to use tricks to undervolt it to get it to run slower. According to these test results it’s very quiet and performs good.

Graphics card – Sparkle SF-PX88GT512D3-HP Cool-pipe 3 – € 174,95

The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB performs better than the ATi Radeon HD 3780 with 512 MB according to this review. The difference isn’t large. There are reasons to buy an ATi graphics card, ATi actively supports the development of an open source driver for Linux, unlike NVIDIA. I use Ubuntu Linux when I’m not using Windows XP for gaming, so that is very important to me. A lower idle power consumption than the 8800 GT is also important. However, performance is more important to me at this moment. There isn’t a large price difference between the 8800 GT and the 3780 HD. As I said silence is important for this new PC, so want to buy a graphics card that is passively cooled. The Sparkle SF-PX88GT512D3-HP Cool-pipe 3 is a passively cooled 8800 GT, according to this review it’s a nice product. Unfortunately this graphics card is the single product which is not available at Azerty, where I buy all my other parts. I need to buy it at another Internet store, which means added delivery costs and less convenience than buying everything at one store. Azerty does sell a passively cooled Radeon HD 3780, the Sapphire Ultimate Radeon HD 3870, for € 158,46. Another alternative is to buy the cheapest versions of the 8800 GT or Radeon HD 3780 which are available at Azerty – the XpertVision GeForce 8800 GT or the PEAK Radeon HD 3870 which sell for respectively € 130,90 and € 129,06 – and mount the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 passive graphics card cooler on them. The second revision of the Accelero S1 costs € 15,68 at Azerty. I’m not sure if I’d rather go the ‘safe’ way and buy a graphics card which is cooled passively out of the box but a bit more expensive, or if I’d buy the cheapest actively cooled graphics card and mount an Accelero S1 on it. However, at this moment waiting would probably be the wisest choice, because the future products of NVIDIA and ATi/AMD, respectively the GT200 and the RV770, could possibly be released in the beginning of June. Those could offer a serious improvement over the current generation of graphics cards.

Random Access Memory – Kingston KVR667D2N5K2/2G (2 modules of 1024 MB, PC-5300) – € 30,18

RAM is really cheap these days, it’s tempting to buy 4 GB of memory but that probably won’t be necessary. I chose RAM with a PC5300 specification, which means that it has a clock frequency of 333 Mhz. This means the memory has a speed synchronous to the speed of the Front Side Bus of the E8200, which is 1333 Mhz. Because a quad data rate is used, this translates to 333 Mhz as well. This means that memory with a lower specification than PC5300 would slow the E8200 down. Memory with a faster specification won’t give better performance unless overclocking is used, which I don’t intend to do.

Hard disk drive – Samsung SpinPoint F1 320 GB – € 51,82

The SpinPoint F1 series has been around for some time already, but only more expensive models with more storage space were available until now. Because 320 GB is enough for me, I don’t want to pay more for more storage space. The 320 GB model also features just one platter, which means that it consumes less power and performs better because of it’s high data density. According to this (German) review, it’s a very good hard drive. Western Digital also released a 320 GB hard disk drive with a single platter, but according to this review it’s performance is limited by it’s high random access time. Performance, silence and price are all three important factors for me when it comes to choosing a hard disk drive. This hard disk drive excels in none of those aspects, but it is the best compromise.

DVD burner – Lite-On LH-20A1S – € 21,27

I almost never burn CD’s or DVD’s, so all I need is cheap DVD burner which is just good enough. It should have a SATA connection because I don’t like those wide PATA cables obstructing the airflow in my enclosure. Almost all hard disk drives already use SATA, but CD/DVD drives/burners seem to a bit slower in switching to SATA. It should also have a black bezel, because my enclosure is black as well. The Lite-On LH-20A1S meets those requirements and performs well according to this review.

Antistatic wrist strap – € 7,87

An antistatic wrist strap prevents static electricity from possibly damaging the hardware. I’ve never used them before and I’ve never damaged hardware with electrostatic discharge, but apparantly it’s better to be safe than damage that expensive hardware.