Intel at the Core

Intel at the Core

I've always trusted the Intel Core line of processors as the go to CPU for gaming.  As a long time fan of AMD processors, dating far back as the Athlon Slot A cartridges, I was intrigued by the new AMD Ryzen series but decided to keep it Intel for my next PC build.  Granted the news about these new Thread-rippers has been astounding and the reviews conducted on them had nothing but good things to say about the new AMD CPU.  If anything it really pushed Intel to make a change to their Intel Core line of processors before the competition takes over their share in the gaming PC market.

Intel Core 8th Generation Goodness

Intel responded back to the AMD Ryzen series by producing some amazing Hexa-Core CPU's that rivaled previous generation top of the line Intel Core i7 processors. The Intel 8400 8th generation i5 processor comes with some serious improvements including 2 additional cores, Turbo Boost technology instead of Hyper Threading, and 9 MB of L3 cache just like the 8600K processor does. And let's not forget the best part, it's relatively inexpensive and a great option for a budget PC build like mine.  This CPU can hold it's own among top of the line Game PC's on the market but without having to break the bank to get it. Take a look at Tom's Hardware review on the Intel 8400 which demonstrates how this little CPU is the best bang for your buck for gamers on a budget.

Built on ASUS: Knight of the old Republic

Fight for the Republic

I have always been a fan of ASUS and have trusted their motherboards on almost every custom PC build I did.  My favorite ASUS board was the ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard that boasted the new SLI technology to support dual video cards to really push the limits of gaming screen resolutions, frame rate, and overall performance.

ASUS P5N-E SLI

ASUS "PLUTO" Concept Board

It was in that time frame when ASUS really started to understand the gaming community and assembled a team of engineers to work on a new motherboard design called "Project G".  They built a concept board code named "Pluto" and it was from this that the Republic of Gamers (ROG) was born.  Read up when you get a chance on the article they published at their 10 year anniversary of ROG.

The Brief History of ROG

Knight of the Old Republic

Fast forward to today and the ASUS ROG division has developed some impressive hardware including laptops, video cards, gaming gear (mouse/keyboard/headset), wireless routers, and they even managed to develop their own Android Smart Phone.  The gamer community has flourished with other companies managing to launch their own line of gamer motherboards and gear.

During my research I wanted to make sure the motherboard would fit the Corsair Micro ATX case I selected for my build.  Unfortunately it was slim pickings when it came to ROG smaller boards since the typical gamer always went for the standard ATX boards that fit in their full ATX cases. It was actually in this article published last October that I found a board that would make a perfect fit for my build and it wouldn't break the bank either.  All the same features that gamers have come to love from the ROG series but in a smaller, less expensive package.

I know I wanted a board that supported the latest generation of Intel i7 or i5 cpu's which this board did.  Their was also the support for DDR4 RAM that was important and the other features like performance LAN, High End Audio Codec, and onboard M.2 slots was like a cherry on top.  The ROG bios always came with the features that would make any gamer smile including overclocking the CPU, RAM, and fine tuning voltages across the entire board.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

The ASUS STRIX B360-G gaming motherboard was ordered and has become the highlight of this PC build.  With plenty of 6 Gbps SATA ports, support for 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and an on-board header for an All-In-One Water Cooler Pump this motherboard is a prime choice.

Back In The Saddle Again: My Next PC Build

Project Fortis

Often times we get so wrapped up in learning new things, adapting and changing to the needs of the moment with never really having a chance to practice the skills we already have.  For me that's repairing, troubleshooting, and building PC's.  With the popularity and movement towards mobile computing everyone switched to using tablets, iPads, smart phones, and laptops.  I know in our household we all switched to Chromebooks and never really had to worry about another virus or computer issue again.  

But I figured with me training on information security and dealing with computer networks it might be a good time for me to catch up on the latest PC building trends and find out if this old dog can learn new tricks. In this next series of blogs I will take you with me on my journey to build a PC that will prove to be a "Strong" competitor among other Mid Level Gaming PC's on the market.

Previous PC Builds

My last two official builds were more than 7 years ago and it's safe to say they were nowhere near an official PC build, more of a hodgepodge Frankenstein looking PC using spare parts I had lying around at the time and only purchasing a graphics card that was decent to say the least. Both built on ASUS motherboards, my motherboard of choice, and running dual core Intel Pentium CPU's. One being my HTPC custom build and the other a daily general use desktop PC hidden inside an old Antec nine hundred series gaming case.  I don't really count the Dell Inspiron laptop or the Amahi server as official builds even though the Dell laptop was upgraded with more RAM, and an SSD hard drive.  The Amahi server was just the same gear with an upgraded motherboard and CPU (AMD Athlon 5150).

When researching for my next build I started with a question on what I consider is the foundation of any PC build, what kind of case do I want?  I really didn't want a tall or large case. Before the Home Server was setup I needed a case to fit multiple hard drives and at least two CD/DVD drives for DVD burning. No longer the case today (pun intended).  And with the idea of switching from an air cooled CPU to a water cooled CPU the need for a large case to fit a dozen fans is a thing of the past. I landed on choosing a Micro ATX case for my build and skipped having to worry about going any smaller (Mini ITX).

Raspberry Pi NES

SUPERCHARGED SUPER MARIO

YOU WOULDN'T LIKE IT WHEN I'M ANGRY

The maker movement has really inspired me to think about purchasing one of the programmable boards with the popular ARM chip set. I picked up the Ardruino flagship board, the uno, and had some fun writing code to control LEDs and even play the old Super Mario music from the NES game.  Speaking of NES I always had an itch to build an awesome Mame machine and never really sat down to draft up the plans to build one. I also wanted to continue to dabble in the maker space and go beyond the simple breadboard applications using the adruino. That's where the Raspberry Pi comes in. I waited patiently for the new model b to come out before going to my local electronics maker shop to purchase one. I even received a sweet 3D printed case that fits perfectly for all the new ports available on the new version Pi.

Call it fate but I was lucky to find an old NES at an electronics resale store and got it for free since it was pretty much dead. Right now I disassembled the case and removed the unusable guts of the game system. I held onto the power and reset switches as well as the controller ports to use on the rebuild. Now I'm ready to place a fresh coat of primer before moving on to the final color which I'm still debating on going with either all white or chrome. Here are some before and after pics from the disassemble and primer coat.

GOOGLROLA!

First off sorry for the extremely long periods of time between post (almost a year) but I have found a new gagdet that has helped "inspire" me to post again. My HTC Inspire 4G! Its been rooted and switched to Cyanogenmod gingerbread rom of course. Its very speedy and responsive great Android phone to own. I haven't found an app or game yet that could slow it down.

So with the purchase of Motorola mobility by Google it seems fit to bring up the question about the Android OS future. The wifey owns the Nexus S which I heard is getting the next Android OS ice cream sandwich and it only makes sense to have all Motorola phones switch to ICS as well. I'm very interested in the 4home division of Motorola in relation to Google's entry into home automation and security with Android @home. And with the recent announcement of Verizon offering the 4home services included in their customers packages it is very interesting times to see what Google could bring to the table with the Android platform (Google TV anybody).