This weekend, I finally did it, I recreated my home-media-server machine into a Roaring Gaming Monster (Well little one anyway).
Over the past 2-3 Months I had slowly added more and more to this machine.. so much so that it now has more than 1500 GB of Storage capacity, Granted almost 1 TB is taken up by media and assorted data.
This Server is connected to all the 5 Computers in the house is constantly on, and serves my media collection to my tv as well.
Sexy setup; but the problem was, my laptops, even though they are ludicrously overpowered when compared to my first pc (1990) or my second pc (2000); I wanted a larger screen to play Jade Empire, and Gears of War (havent got to Crysis yet)
Also my brother has a thing for Flight Simulator
So Upgrade time… First things required a monitor for this headless server – A 19″ Viewsonic VA1912W was just right, with a dvi input, it was perfect for even watching HD movies when connected to my MacBook or My HP TX2009.
Second Upgrade – Graphics Card, Now I wanted something that could play my games – Most demanding one being GOW… But at the same time I didnt want to spend too much… After a bit of research and a boo boo.. I settled on the Nvidia 8600GT
Before I could get my card though… I made a mistake, a mistake which cost me a whole day of gaming.. I misread a port on my MB and picked up a sick (as in ill) AGP Card… Oh well lost out the 15th of August (everything was closed in Delhi)… Oh well, I just Installed all the games I wanted on the Friday.. (BTW Vista Ultimate – Damn good for games, didnt find out until ¬†after though, on my Onboard graphics it was a little sucky (like the lemon)
Anyway.. 16th meant a trip to Nehru place and a quick Swap… Very understanding Shop Owner – I recommend SMC International in Nehru Place btw to anyone, Competitive pricing, and almost every old and latest tech you could want, damn good for component shopping – and I was on my way home with a MSI NX8600GT 512MB based card… and a bigger power supply (Cooler Master – Very quiet) for good measure.
This card is silent, does not have a fan, and works by distributing its heat across heat pipes, it is fast and can drive all my games at the monitors highest resolution 1440x (I cannot remember how big but it is huge)
Saturday evening and Sunday were spent in playing games and having fun like I havent had in a while…
The only problem that is there now, is that there is going to be a fight as to where this machine is going to be kept, once just about everyone want to play their favourite game.
For those who are interested here is the current Setup (Vista Rating of 5)
- Asus P5MX (Well it was just supposed to be a file server when I started)
- Intel P4 3 GHZ with Multithreading
- 2 GB DDR2
- MSI NX8600GT
- Microsoft Sidewinder Mouse
- Logitech Internet Keyboard
- 1 Seagate 750 GB SATA Primary (2 Partitions)
- 1 Seagate 250 GB SATA Secondary
- 1 Seagate 80 GB IDE
- 1 LG DVDRW IDE
- 1 USB 250 GB Seagate MyDisk
- 1 USB 160 GB Seagate MyDisk
- 1 USB 100 GB Lacie Harddisk
- Viewsonic 19″ VA1912W