The "Why wait for Dual Core" rig: Part II

TODAY WE'LL HAVE a decko at another special BIY (build it yourself) rig from America. Shipping, Insurance, Packaging and Operating system, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, optical drives, floppy disk drive are not included. From past experience, I know that mentioning the name of some resellers might offend some people but you are encourage to look for alternative sources as well.

Dual Cores brings forward, in the limelight, the concept of multiprocessing, where 1+1 ~2. Without having to fork out too much, here is how you can build a cheap yet performing dual processor rig. Yesterday, the Intel Xeon was covered. Today, it's AMD's turn.

Microstar K8T MASTER2-FAR MS-9130 motherboard @ $209, K8T800 chipset, supports 800MHz FSB, four PC2700 ECC DDR slots, SATA Controller, six USB2.0 ports, four PCI and one AGP pro slot. GBLan port. Haven't seen any reviews of it yet.

Two AMD Opteron 242 @ $290 for both, 800Mhz FSB, 1.6GHz clock speed, 128Kb L1 and 1MB L2 cache. OSA242CEP5AL. Don't know if they overclock nicely or not.

ePower Topower 450W Dual Xeon Power supply for $65. "Topower Computer proudly present the new sliding socket power supply. This new sliding sockets is a unique 20 pin + 4 pin ATX connector along with a pair of 4 pin + 4 pin ATX12V power connector. The new sliding socket series power supply can accommodate with many motherboards. The benefits of sliding socket power supply list are High +12V support, no conversion cable, no voltage drop, peak load of 550V"

The Chenbro server case CK800B for $65. A Huge casing with top fan, lockable door, nine drive bays and four plastic stands. ON top of that you get Firewire ports and it is black in colour.

Two Dynatron AMD K8 blower @ $48 for both. Overall Dimension: 100 x 74 x 27 mm, Weight: 515 g, Heat Sink Material: Copper, Heat Sink Dimension: 100 x 74 x 27 mm, Blower Fan Dimension: 60x60x15mm, Rated Voltage: 12V DC, Speed: 7000 RPM. Air Flow: 8.1 CFM. Noise Level: 51.1 dBA, Bearing system: Double Ball Bearing

Patriot PC2700 Reg ECC DDR memory from Monarch computers for $144. "Patriot Signature solutions are engineered and validated to meet or exceed industry specifications from JEDEC, chip-set, and motherboard manufacturers. All Signature solutions receive 100% testing. Our internal compatibility lab and external validations at the largest chip-set and motherboard manufacturers ensure reliability. Signature supports most, if not all, formats and applications. In addition on-staff engineers and lifetime warranties are behind every Signature solution."

Two RAID-0 MDT SATA 80GB 7200RPM hard disks at $94 for both or $47 each. "MDT reassembles hard drives using components outsourced from major brand hard drive manufactures ie. WD, Maxtor and Seagate. By stamping on the OEM brand MDT they are able to pass on a substantial savings of 35-40% to equivalent brand name manufacturers. We are committed to the excellent quality of MDT's hard drives and offer a 1 year limited replacement warranty. This 80GB HDD has 8MB cache and SATA150 interface."

Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600. On sale at Newegg for $78. OEM version, Radeon 9600 GPU, DVI and Svideo, 256MB 128-bit DDR memory. 325MHz/400MHz Core/Memory.

Grand total for a RAID-0 Dual Opteron 242, 1GB memory, ATI Radeon 9600 RIG $993. Can you best it? Drop me a line. µ