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People ask me all the time about what hardware I use, or what I think is good. In this post I’m going to tell you what I use personally and why I use it. My choices aren’t always performance based, as sometimes practical, stable or trusted is preferable to retina-detaching, bleeding-edge hardware.

CPU
I’ve got no particular preference for either Intel or AMD, but my personal choice of mainstream CPU these days would be the Athlon X2 from AMD. They are not are faster than Intel’s quads, but I prefer AMD CPUs over Intel ones because they are easier to work with. The mainboards tend to be better laid out (I honestly don’t know why) and the heatsink retention mechanisms are easier to wrangle. The boards and the chips also tend to be cheaper. Personally, I use an AMD CPU in both my main computers: a Athlon XP 2400+ in my home one and a dual core X2 3800+ in my work box. Yeah, you read that right. I run a six year old computer at home.

RAM
After a decade of working with all kinds of stuff there is only one brand of RAM I trust: Kingston. Over the years I’ve tried various other brands, OEM stuff, brandless stuff and all the rest, but Kingston’s Value RAM line has never let me down. Of the thousands of modules I’ve had to install I don’t recall ever having a DOA Kingston one. In fact, I’ve only ever seen a couple burned out after use (which is almost always not the fault of the RAM).

Graphics
My card maker of choice is MSI (although eVGA has impressed me as of late too). They are fast to market, quality is consistent, performance is good and they are willing to experiment with stuff like passive cooling (which I like). I have no particular preference for ATI or nVidia GPUs, though I currently use nVidia GPUs in both my boxes: an FX5200 at home and a 6600LE at work. Both are passively cooled.

If I was building a system for myself today, I’d probably go with a Radeon, as ATI is appears to be making good on its promise to release open source drivers which will be a great help to Linux guys like me. The MSI RX2600XT-T2D512EZ/D3 would probably be my pick. It’s Radeon based, good performance and also passively cooled.

If you don’t care about open source and just want an awesome gaming card get an nVidia 8800GTS based card such as MSI’s NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD. Even though it is not the newest or the fastest in nVidia’s range, this card is 85 percent the performance of the largest cards out there for half the money.

Hard Drive
I’ve sold every brand of hard drive out there, but I just keep coming back to Western Digital. Performance is good, price is good, reliability is good, and if there is a problem they don’t jerk you around on RMAs. I even have a favourite WD drive: the Raptor WD740GD, which while an old design, is probably the fastest desktop drive I’ve ever used. The 740GD isn’t fancy or even particularly high tech — no big cache, no NCQ, not even SATA-300 support and yet it can still beat the pants of pretty well everything else. With a platter speed of 10,000rpm the Raptor is all about the brute force. If I was going to build a new system for myself today I would track down one of these or maybe the larger 1500AD to serve as a boot drive.

Interestingly, I didn’t wind up using WD in either of my boxes. My home box has a Maxtor and my work box has a Seagate.

Mainboard
Asus. Over the years a lot of other mainboard makers have let me down but Asus has not. They always seem to have right board for the job, and they are fairly easy to get. I suppose an honourable mention should also go to MSI, who have been supplying FCP with reliable, inexpensive boards for years. Both my boxes use Asus boards (an A7V8X-X and an A8N-E).

Case
Antec. In fact, one Antec case in particular: the Sonata III. It’s shiny like a grand piano, but that’s not the reason to like it. Like it because it is one of the quietest mainstream cases you can get, but also simple in construction and and a joy to work in. Laterally mounted hard drive bays are the way every case should be and every case should have a big 12 cm fan in the back. It cables up well, and its simple lines and uncluttered design make it a dignified and professional looking clone case. A close second might In-Win’s affordable S-series OEM cases. They are also nice to work in and inexpensive. Both my computers use older S-series In-Win cases.

Optical
It hard to get excited by optical drives but my choice since around 2002 has been LG. It’s not that they are so amazing, but they are cheap, work reliably enough and you can get them anywhere.

Mouse
Logitech. Nothing is more frustrating than using a cheapo mouse that doesn’t track right. I use the J58 optical wheel mouse on all the mainstream systems I build. At home and work I use a MX300. If I had to upgrade today, I’d go for the revamped G5 laser, not so much because it can sample at 2000dpi, but because it’s a nice, comfy mouse.

Keyboard
Keytronic, because they still produce simple 104 key keyboards. No funny hot keys, no volume wheel, just keys for typing. The way it should be. They can also take a fair bit of abuse. Of all the systems we’ve sold maybe five Keytronics have actually worn out before the end of five years. I personally use one at work. My home keyboard is 14 year old Honeywell-SUH 101 key keyboard. It just won’t die.

Speakers
I used to be a big fan of Altec Lansing, but since I could never seem to get the models I wanted, I gave up and switched to Logitech. No complaints. Serious users owe it to themselves to hook up proper home audio kit up to their computers — you’ll notice a difference. Still, computer speakers are small and practical and easy to take to LAN parties. I use a set of Altec Lansing AL2121 at home and a beefy ACS-48 rig in the shop.

Display
We sell Viewsonic LCDs, in part because the quality is generally consistent, but also because they have a three year warranty (in Canada, anyway). If I had to get an LCD for myself I would probably be the VX2025wm, which is one of the best looking LCDs I’ve seen in a long time, both in terms of appearance and picture quality. I also have a special place in my heart for KDS. Their product sucks hard these days, but back around 2000 they produced the best discount monitor in the business, even better than Acer. I use a 19 inch VS9p CRT on my desk at home and the picture is as clear today as when I bought it in 2002.

OS
If you know me, you know my OS of choice is Fedora Core Linux. I’ve been using it for over a year now and I’m still happy with it. It’s quiet, simple and powerful. There is no trendy stuff, no marketing stuff and best of all, no Apple or Microsoft stuff. An operating system that does what it is supposed to do without fuss, commerical tie-ins or bullshit copy protection. Best of all, it doesn’t constantly whitter on about what’s happening it to it.

As for a Microsoft OS, I’d have to say Windows XP. Given what I’ve seen from Vista so far, I would say that XP represents the pinnacle of what Microsoft can do.

If I Was Going To Build A Budget Gaming System

• CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+
• Mainboard: Asus M2N32-SLI-Deluxe
• RAM: 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 Kingston ValueRAM (2 x KVR800D2N5/1G)
• Graphics: nVidia 8600GT 256MB MSI NX8600GT-T2D256EZ
• Hard Drive: 320GB Western Digital WD3200AAKS
• Case: Antec Sonata III, 500Watt Antec SmartPower PSU.
• Optical: LG Super Multi 18x DVDRW drive (GSA-H55L or some such)
• Mouse: Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse
• Keyboard: Keytronic 104 key KT800
• Speakers: Logitech R-20 2.1 speakers
• LCD: Viewsonic VA1903wb 19 inch LCD wide screen panel
• OS: Windows XP Home

The idea of such a system is to get gaming now, for a minimum of scratch. The system would probably weigh in at CAD$1400 or so. The M2N32-SLI-Deluxe was once a very expensive board but these days it is cheap and has all the speed and features you could want from a board. The fact that it can do SLI is not what we are after (as SLI is a waste of money) but that the nVidia 590 chipset on it is fast and stable, stable, stable. The fact that it can’t take a Phenom isn’t important either, as Phenom is quickly shaping up to be a waste of time and money.

A 8600GT is a middle of the road graphics card, but it does well enough at current titles, keeps the price down, can be passively cooled and can be easily replaced down the road with something bigger.

If I Wanted More Power

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
• Mainboard: Asus P5K-Deluxe
• RAM: 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 Kingston ValueRAM (4 x KVR800D2N5/1G)
• Graphics: nVidia 8800GTS 320MB MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD
• Hard Drive: 150GB Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD
• Hard Drive: 500GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS
• Case: Antec Sonata III, refit with an Antec NeoPower 650 Watt PSU
• Optical: LG Super Multi 18x DVDRW drive (GSA-H55L or some such)
• Mouse: Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
• Keyboard: Keytronic 104 key Space Saver
• Speakers: Logitech G51 5.1 surround sound speakers
• LCD: Viewsonic VX2255wmb 22 inch LCD wide screen
• OS: Windows XP Pro

The intent of such a system is to produce a serious gaming box without spending a retarded amount of money. This system would come in around CAD$2500. The Q6600 gets you right into the happy quad-core world of Kentsfield and the P5K mobo keeps it stable (and has lots of features). And since you have four processor cores, why not go for 4 gigabytes of RAM too? Even though no game that I know of actually fills even 2GB, it’s nice to know that you are prepared for the games of the future. 4GB is also the maximum amount of RAM XP Pro (32-bit) can use.

As I said before, the 320MB 8800GTS is a great value. Yes, the GTX and the Ultra are faster, but only by maybe 15 percent… at double the money. A smart gamer is using the money he saves here to buy more games. I suppose you could also invest some of that money into a sexy Logitech G15 keyboard (it has backlit keys!) but I don’t think it would improve your game.

For the more technically minded gamer, an alternative to the 500GB storage drive is to take your old computer and turn it into a NAS device with RAIDed drives for fault tolerance. That may sound daunting to some, but keep in mind I set up that kind of thing for a living, and I’m not that expensive. ;)