How to build a 4-core Computer for your blogging wife

My wife blogs, shares at Facebook and Twitter, watch TV shows and movies, and play games. With all those activities, it is clear that she needs a dedicated computer and I want to give her that as a gift from a loving husband. She is just using the laptop and I guess it is the right time for year to enjoy a powerful computer just like me.

Based on the motherboard that I already have, the computer will be a 4-core Intel Core 2 Quad system. I have the ASUS P5G41-T M LX3 board and because of that, these are the parts of the build:

Processor

Since the board has up to 1333MHz FSB, I choose the Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9550 because it has 12M L2 Cache and runs at 2.83 GHz. Instead of buying a faster model, I will just overclock this CPU up to 3.1 or 3.2 GHz. The four cores of this CPU will easily handle my wife's gaming as well.

Motherboard

The ASUS P5G41-T M LX3 is an entry-level DDR3 board, which makes it a great budget board for a DDR3 and USB 3.0 build. Though it only supports SATA 2, it is still a powerful board to handle my wife’s activities. Anyway, I will only use a SATA 2 SSD for this build. She does not save many files for a longer time.

Memory

This is the most interesting part for the build because I could use DDR 3 cards with up to 1333 MHz of speed. The Kingston KVR 1333 MHz model is the best choice. I will use 2 pieces of 4 GB cards in this build. The board only supports up to 8 GB of RAM. 8 GB will be enough to take care of my wife’s demands.

Storage

Because my wife does not save files for a longer time and this board only supports SATA 2, the best choice for storage is an SSD. This will at least compensate to the SATA 2 limitation and speed up the boot time of this build. My choice is the OCZ Vertex Plus R2 SSD 60GB. I may add a mechanical hard disk later if my wife demands for more storage. This is also a cheaper SSD for this budget build.

Graphics

At this point, I just go wild and forget about budget. My wife deserves a computer that is as powerful as the latest computers today, so I powerful video card will be the best for her in this build. This is also the trickiest part of the build because a powerful choice will surely make this build as powerful as a mid-range gaming computer. I choose the PowerColor HD6870 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory running at 256-BIT speed. My wife will surely love this build because it has a card that could render high-definition display even with the board’s or CPU’s limitations.

CPU Cooler

Because I want to overclock the CPU for extra free power, I used the Deep Cool Iceberg Pro CPU Cooler that support 2-fan setting. I followed this guide on how to overclock the CPU (http://www.scan.co.uk/images/shops/intel/Intel_Q9550_Core_2_Quad_basic_overclocking_guide.pdf) but I only aimed a mild overclock up to just 3.2 GHz. I do not like to stress my system much and pay big electric bills.

Casing

While Black is always the best color, my wife loves white so I searched for a white casing. I choose the Antec MINI P180 mini-tower casing in white, of course. What I like with this casing is the big 200mm x 25mm TriCool fan as an exhaust on top of the casing. It has also a removable hard drive bay in case the graphics card is long enough in the normal setting. Overall, this casing will make the build sexy and cool.

Power Supply

I am planning to upgrade my 6-core system and planned to use the Cougar CMX 700 watts PSU to this build. It is an 80+ Gold modular unit and it has plenty of power to make this build fly at high colors, at lower power consumption.

I will be posting the benchmarks of this build later together with the actual video of the build. Hope you learn something from this build and if you are planning to have the same build, you can always put a comment below if you need some advice.