A Cold Day Up North

[Archimonday]

Winter is swiftly approaching here in Alaska, leaving me with one burning question: what will i do locked in the billets all winter?

That answer is simple, but, similarly difficult.  Three thousand miles of territory separates me from my rig, the same machine i spent so much time and money constructing. The Goliath aluminum beast is hardly worth the effort of shipping half way across the world, if for no other reason than its lack of portability. This realization leaves me with two options: build or buy a new computer, or risk having my old one shipped to the last frontier. More than a good part of me wants to supply another pc for my time here in Alaska. Theres a debate here as well.

I could in theory spend thousands on a lower end gaming laptop that would come with the slim physique and convenient weight of a portable system, but, feel i could get much more bang for my buck by building a small mid-atx machine with just the right parts to stomach me through 2015, and a couple of 19 inch monitors. My budget is just around 1600 USD, and my time limit is October 1st.

Thoughts?

[RAnDOOm]

Mid-atx machine for sure.   

[Archimonday]

I love building small machines like this. They serve a more specialized purpose than just displaying the goliaths that PC'S can easily become. Often times only a foot and a half tall they offer up the confined spaces that can cause headaches just as easily as they resolve portability and weight issues. Some are even so different as to lay flat instead of upright. When it comes to MicroATX though, how much does someone have tp spend?

Surpisingly enough, for a tower that will serve all my needs, no more than 30 to 40 USD needs to be spent. Similar prices can even be found on the midget size mobos that grudgingly slide their way into these small cases. How perfect for such a last minute, and budget conscious project.

[Archimonday]

Well assuming all goes as planned, by September 6th I should have the following system all gathered, and ready for assembly:

MicroATX Tower, w/Dual Fans, 1 80mm Exhaust (34 CFM), 1 120mm Intake (90 CFM)
PCI Wi-Fi Adapter 300 Mb/s 3 removable Antennas
Nvidia GTX 550 TI - A low range card with decent benchmarks
Intel I5-Core 2500K 3.3 GHz, 6 MB Cache
4x4GB Dual Channel Kingston RAM, 1600 MHZ DDR3 @ 12800
650W Coolmax Modular PSU w/ 140mm Fan
500 GB, 7200 RPM, 32 MB Cache, Internal HDD
Gigabyte LGA 1155 Intel B75 Chipset
Some wonderful Artic Silver Thermal Paste
Cheap Optical Drive for reading CD's

$800 USD

All thats left is for my monitor to get shipped to me from home, and to buy a mouse and keyboard!

[Dukat]

I think there is no difference in the price. You should buy an ATX Case a 600W power supply, a fast i5 Intel core, a suiting Micro ATX mainbord socket 1155, 2x 4 GB Ram DDR3, a SSD card and maybe 1 or 2 conventional SATA hard drives.
When it comes to the videocard, it gets tricky. The video cards needs to be small in size, while it needs to conduct the hot air directly out of the case. I'd go for a very expensive, branded Radeon HD7950 (if it fits into the case). One of those quality premium models with fancy full body coolers that has been tested on tech magazines and which are then wanted like no other.

You should also put effort on a CPU cooler, as it needs to be small in size but should highly comply with the heat management of your ATX case.

Edit:// Oh, you were faster there.

Edit:/// I also like your weather there. Here it is damned hot right now.

[Archimonday]

Cooling may be my only issue, but ill deal with it as it arises. A good water cooler solution might be in order in the future, but we'll consider that if the case fans fail me on airflow. Neat design with the cables should prevent excess heating issues, and modular cables on the psu will allow me to rid the ones i dont need. Worse comes to worse i buy another loud razor exhaust fan that pumps 90 Cfm and invest on a good headset

[THeTA0123]

cooling issues?
Its alaska man! 

Why are you moving to alaska?

[Natty]

what would the shipping cost for the monitor be? I dont know about the prizes of monitors in the U.S. but here in Sweden they're ridiculously cheap. A 26" goes for about 250-290 $.
Check here; divide prizes by 7 to get US $
http://www.prisjakt.nu/kategori.php?l=s91929067&o=produkt_pris_inkmoms&cols=#prodlista

If you're shipping your monitor, you might not need to pay so much extra to get some PC parts as well (low weight), maybe the only thing you need to buy is Chassi, Keyboard and something more. (not worth freighting such items)

that is, if you have someone who can unplug those components and ship them.

[Archimonday]

Moving to Alaska?! Never. I will love New England till I die, even with everywhere ive been. Im in the army, and got stationed up here.

Haha, yea, i would get my components from home, but the hands there are not nearly capable enough lol.

[Butcher]

Alaska? Protecting oil pipelines from a russian Invasion? Aren´t we all over this? I would be seriously pissed to be stationed there.

[Archimonday]

We are here to keep watch of mischievous natives as far as i can see. Lol. This base is boring.

[Archimonday]

Shes all up and running! Havn't had a chance to do a real stress test yet, and keep an eye on the temperatures, but as far as performance, she runs great! Good FPS on the games I've played, we'll see how Battlefield 3 holds out tomorrow.

[sheikyerbouti]

We are here to keep watch of mischievous natives as far as i can see. Lol. This base is boring.

 Come down to Canada and visit Vancouver.

I have an awesome couch and you wouldn't be the first NCO/NCm to crash on it.


 Have fun, the northern reaches are incomparable to the rest of the world and Alaskan's party like no other.