August 2004
Beginner
352 pages
13h 42m
English
Content preview from Building the Perfect PCBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Building the System
Figure 5-1 shows the major components of the Kick-Ass LAN Party PC. The Intel D875PBZ motherboard is in front of the Antec Super LANBOY case. Top row, left to right, are the Logitech Rumblepad game controller, the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card, and the Antec TrueControl 550 power supply, with the Logitech Cordless MX Duo and the Plextor PX-708A DVD burner immediately beneath them. Center are the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 hard drive and the ATi RADEON 9800 XT video adapter, with various LED fans and cables in front. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor and the Crucial PC3200 memory modules are not shown.
Note
We planned to build this system two ways, using a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS in one version and a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz in the other. That would have allowed us to compare the two side by side for features, audio quality, and compatibility. But when we started to build the system, we couldn’t find the Audigy 2 card. Robert says the card was misplaced (note the passive voice). Barbara says Robert lost it (note the very active voice). To promote domestic tranquility, Robert went for Plan B, blaming our younger border collie, Malcolm, who has been spotted in the past carrying around optical drives and other PC components in his mouth. We haven’t found his cache yet.
We weren’t about to buy another Audigy 2 ZS, so we built only the version with the Turtle Beach sound card. The Santa Cruz is an oldie but a goodie. The sound quality is superb, better than ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.