Project: speeder

Project: speeder

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Primary design parameters: money is not the object, smallest size possible, absolute or near silence, less bling - more speed, expandable. The offerings from Shuttle were considered and ruled out. Multiple Micro ATX cases were also considered, but ruled out for lack of room, bad internal design, poor looks, etc.

Hardware:

Case	SilverStone SG01B-Evolution Micro ATX Case	$145
Motherboard	Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS GeForce 6150 Socket 939 Micro ATX	$80
CPU	AMD Athlon 64 FX60 Toledo Dual Core 2.6GHz	$1045
Cooler	Zalman CNPS7000B-CU 92mm Fan/Heatsink	$44
Memory	Corsair XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR400 (PC3200) TWINX2048-3200C2PRO	$241
Video	XFX GeForce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E 16X PVT70FUND7 490MHz/1300MHz	$499
Cooler	Arctic Cooling AVC-NV5R3 NV Silencer 5 (Rev. 3)	$30
PSU	Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT	$175
Hard Drive (system)	Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA150	$281
Hard Drives (data/raid1)	2 * Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM SATAII	$770
DVD-writer	Plextor DVD Burner PX-740A Dual Layer	$80
Floppy/Card Reader	Koutech Floppy and Multi-card reader	$26
VFD	Matrix Orbital 20x2 VFD VK202-24-USB	$100
approximate total with tax and shipping		$4000

Initially, I was using Asus A8N-VM motherboard, Plextor SATA PX-716SA DVD writer, and Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card. However, the motherboard turned out to be unstable, its BIOS sucked, and there was a weird buzzing noise as soon as I opened a connection to the Matrix Orbital VFD. The SATA DVD writer and X-Fi sound card turned out to be both incompatible (!!!) with the nForce4 chipset... So, I ended up selling them all... You will see these items in some of the pictures.

The build took about a year of planning, and about a month of building. The case is left pretty much stock, besides some mods done to the internals to fit the VFD, as well as 3rd hard drive. This is not to say that I will leave it that way, but for now, that's how it is. Future plans may or may not include a sheet of lighted acrylic under the case, windows, lights, and whatever else. Everything will be done in such a way as to make the case appear stock when not lit.

P.S. Sorry for the over-exposed photos.