My CPU chip, hard drives and power supply got delivered today.
The Chip
My CPU is an AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition 2.6Ghz Quad-Core Processor.
The chip was just released on July 1, 2008 so I have the newest AMD chip out there.
The specs
Operating Frequency: 2.6GHz
Hyper Transports: 4000MHz
L1 Cache: 4 x 128KB
L2 Cache: 4 x 512KB
L3 Cache: 2MB
This is going to be a fast chip.
The Power Supply
The power supply was released in October 2007. I needed a powerful and stable power supply and Antec power supplies have a great reputation.
The specs
The Antec TPQ-850
Maximum Power: 850W
(When I did the power calculations I figured out that I needed at least 650 Watts. So with 850W I have room to expand.)
Fans: 80mm low noise cooling fan
Main Connector 20+4Pin
(This is what connects the power supply to the motherboard.)
+12V Rails: 4
PCI-E Connectors: 2 x 6Pin, 2 x 8Pin
(This connects to your Video Card)
Modular Cabling Support: Yes
Efficiency: Up to 85% efficient
(This is actually quite good. There are power supplies that are only 80% efficient. No power supply is 100% efficient. Some power is waited by turning into heat.)
Energy-Efficient: 80 PLUS Bronze Certified
(80 PLUS is an initiative to promote more electrical energy efficient computer power supply units. It certifies products that have more than 80% energy efficiency at 20%, 50% and 100% of rated load. That is, PSUs that waste 20% or less electric energy as heat at the specified load levels, thus reducing electricity use and bills compared to less efficient PSUs.)
Over Voltage Protection: Yes
Overload Protection: Yes
MTBF >100,000 Hours
(It is how many hours it is expected to last before it dies. 100,000 hours is 11.4 years.)
The Hard Drive
The Hard Drive came OEM. OEM hardware is hardware packaged for computer administrator and builder use. These products are normally plain boxed and often don't come with any instructions or references provided in retail packages. Which is fine since for now I am a builder.
This hard drive was released in March 2008.
Western Digital is known for their stable and reliable hard drives. Now you are probably asking why 640 GB. Why not 500 GB or a terabyte. The lowest 500 GB is about $70. The lowest terabyte is about $170. I got my 650 GB for only $95. That is cheap. So I got 2.
The specs
Brand: Western Digital
Series: Caviar SE16
Performance
Interface: SATA 3.0Gb/s
(This is how fast information travels from the hard drive to the rest of the computer. 3 gigabits per second.)
Capacity: 640GB
RPM: 7200 RPM
Cache: 16MB
Now waiting for the rest of my stuff.
Posted by Eric at July 16, 2008 10:06 PM