Cooling, cooling, cooling. I have become obsessed with airflow, fans, quietness and CPU temperatures. A cooler CPU and memory, and the faster you can make your PC.
The first major investment: Zallman CPU Fan replacement. The operation to install this into the CPU case took about an hour. Result: 5-7degC temperature drop in the CPU. The 8″ fan sucks are from the rear, and through copper fins to the front. The air cooling lowers CPU temperature, and therefore raises performance.
At the same time, I invested in 8Gb of Geil RAM. Nothing like having as much RAM as affordable in your new desktop machine. Along with the NVidia 8800GT, it’s a screaming machine. A grunkenstation.
The new desk arrived last weekend, and General Melchett fits neatly into the PC cupboard: hidden in the below picture.
The two 22″ Dell LCD monitors fit 10mm underneath the shelf.
Now I am ready to spend the summer basketweaving, testing Windows Vista x64 and other bits that are lying around at Microsoft. And blog about it, too.