Rate my PC

[thelastpriest]

Last November I decided I wanted to build a good PC for use on my living room TV, hadn't messed with any technology in years (Last personal computer I had was in my teen years in the mid 90's) due to the ever present nature of drugs and alcohol in my system at the time so not only was I rusty I had all but burned away any knowledge I had before that. Once I got back on my feet my love for technology rekindled. I read Building a PC for dummies and studied like a madman for months finally assembling it in its first form in March with some additional upgrades recently.

Now that it is done and in the shape I wanted it in I figured I would see what everyone thought, I dont have any computer savvy friends (or any at all lol!) so cant really get any input from anyone except my wife and she is less then helpful with at most a "Thats nice honey" so you guys are my source of comments, compliments and criticism.

Feel free to be honest, its the only way I will learn where to improve. Oh and I know my cable management sucks, the cables are all a little too short to run any which direction but straight, I have however made sure that any excess cable is tucked along side the hard drive cages do it doesnt obstruct airflow (as illustrated by the picture taken through the top fan cage) it just looks ugly.

The planned upgrades on the table at this point in order of importance are 1) 5870 Toxic (hopefully will be released by Tax time) 2) blue ray drive 3) 700w-800w PSU 4) Antec 900

Stats are as follows
CPU: Phenom II 940 @ 3.5ghz
CPU cooler: Rosewill RCX-Z940-SL
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3
GPU: Sapphire Radeon 4870 Toxic 1gb @805mhz/1005mhz
RAM: Kingston Hyper X 8gb @1066
HD: 320gb WD Caviar blue
HD:500gb WD RE3
HD: 250gb WD RE
PSU: 500w Antec Smartpower
Case: Antec 300 w/1x140mm top (exhaust), 1x120mm rear (exhaust), 2x120mm front (intake)
Optical Drive: ASUS CD/DVD burner with lightscribe
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
Display: 32in Vizio 1080p LCD TV
Audio: Samsung 5.1 Surround sound system
KB/Mouse: Logitec EX100 Wireless keyboard and mouse
Peripheral: Saitek x52 HOTAS

all controlled from the comfort of my recliner (best part in my opinion)

3dMark Vantage score 10,229 (I expected more but don't really care either, it plays games well for the most part, and I can finally see what all the fuss is about with Crysis, too bad the game really isnt fun enough to stick around and enjoy the scenery)

Depending on abient temp which can vary greatly here in California CPU temps fluctuate between between 28°c & 40°c from idle to load with the GPU fluctuating between 35°c & 48°c

View from my recliner

Distance view of main internals

Distance view of hard drive cages and cables shoved into side compartment

View through hard drive cages from intake fan cage showing lack of obstructions

Close view of GPU, CPU cooler and Ram

Close view of hard drive cages and "Cable Management"

I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to look this over and give me some feedback, thank you ahead of time.

 

[thelastpriest]

Please use this thread for all feedback and voting, thank you

 

[szymek]

I don't know when did you buy this rig, but please, ask before you order It ain't bad, I mean, you could have done better but you're/will be ok with it.

 

[marsay001]

What res are you runnign your monitor at?, it looks quite low in the pic, otherwise nice build.

When did you build this rig? If it was in the past couple of weeks then my only critisism is...

If you bought vista 64 bit, then you should of waited untill 7 comes out in a couple of weeks/got hold of a cheaper/old os like untill 7 came out. otherwise if you had vista already then, great work

What do you use this pc for mainly

 

[thelastpriest]

Monitor is running at 1920x1080 just didnt show up so well because I was in a dark room when I took the picture so with it being the only light source and the fact that it was on a white screen it produced too much glare.

I built it in near totality in March, with the Phenom II 940 replacing a Athlon x2 7750 and the 4870 replacing a 4830 recently.

Vista 64 was a gift from a friend who is an IT supervisor for his company, with his bosses permission he let me use Vista disk his company uses to setup peoples home computers and the corporate unlimited use the serial code. So it was free, and something I was quite pleased with.

The build had an original budget of $550 which I met at the time

*Edit* I cant really say there is a main thing I use it for, we use it to watch movies and shows off the net, I play games (lately it has been some Crysis, and a lot of Hawx and Fallout), use it for work, I can sign in remotely and get some work done much faster then on my work computer, photo editing, DVD encoding.

Thanks for the input guys!