It has been more than 2 years since I last put together my own PC build. WIth the amount of gaming that I’m doing on the PC I thought I should upgrade to enjoy the games even more.

I initially wanted to upgrade my existing PC but the CPU upgrade path was out of the question. So I had to buy a new motherboard to accommodate the new processor. I should tryout an SSD as my boot/OS disk for better performance. And of course a new graphic card. I also wanted a new case with USB 3.0 support and more room inside and better cooling solutions. Wanted also to replace my Razer Mamba mouse, its a great mouse but after playing for a few hours non-stop and the battery runs out, you get screwed. So I decided to get the Cyborg R.A.T. 9 wireless mouse that come  with 2 batteries. After looking at all of that I was only short of RAM and a power supply and I would have a fully functioning PC. I got 16GB of RAM bundle for almost $100. but decided to stay with my power supply and get a new less powerful one for my old build.

Part List:

• Intel CPU core i7 2700K 3.5Ghz (Link)
• Asus Republic of Gamers Maximus IV Extreme-Z motherboard (Link)
• EVGA GTX 570 superclocked GPU (Link)
• 4x4GB (16GB) GSkill 1600 RAM (Link)
• Samsung 830 series SSD 128GB (Link)
• Cyborg R.A.T 9 wireless mouse (Link)
• Thermaltake Chasar MK-I case (bought from Kuwait for KD85) (Link)

Now I just have to have time to put it all together.

Our good friend at Negative Effect has got his photo blog up and running now. You will probably remember him from the Gulf Run videos/photo’s as well as other photo’s from different events. You can check out the website for more of his amazing work. He uses many different camera but predominantly a Canon for his photos. Enjoy NegativEffect.

Another blog out of Kuwait to be proud of. Keep up the great work.

Project Pink is Microsoft’s secret new phone, their first major phone play since the iPhone. Here are the first pictures of Pink phones, Turtle and Pure.

These phones will be made by Sharp and it will include Zune services and its own app store. No more specifications are mentioned yet but it looks promising.

Hardware design has a definite younger look; Turtle is more Pre-like while Pure seems like a standard slider. Both seems made of plastic and very rounded thanks to lots of soft angles and circular keys.

It seems that Microsoft are still very sloppy when it come to keeping important files :).

[via Gizmodo]

More pics and specs after the break

The Motherboard:

EVGA X58 3 Way SLI was my choice for the reviews it got the its overclocking capability, which was a breeze.

AMAZON Link

CPU:

The Intel i7 920 was really my only choice, I didn’t want to spend $1000 on the extreme edition and the 2.4mghz was a bit under powered. This had the best bang for the buck and very good overclocking potential.

AMAZON Link

RAM:

I was looking to use the whole potential of the motherboard here, all of the 6 slots and the 1600Mhz. I bought a total 12GB for my build.

AMAZON Link

Note: 32 bit operating systems (xp,vista and windows 7) won’t recognize more than 2.5GB. You need a 64 bit operating system to utilize the ram, in my case I’m using Win 7 64 bit.

GPU:

I didn’t want to spend $500+ on a graphic card, so my choice was the Nvidia 285 cards, choose the overclocked one just because it costs $30 extra. And because my motherboard is triple SLI ready, there is always room for an upgrade in the future.

AMAZON Link

Power Supply:

Because of the overclocking and the use of the SLI capability, I needed a lot of wattage, I was always looking for a 1000 watt power supply. I choose the CORSAIR model which was more than enough for my build.

AMAZON Link

Cooling:

Due to the overclocking, I needed to cool the CPU, I choose the Cooler Master V8 (left – compared to the stock fan on the right), and just for kicks I bought the CORSAIR RAM cooling kit.

AMAZON Link (V8)

AMAZON Link (Ram Airflow Kit)

Case:

I knew I wanted a Thermaltake case even before I started to think of building a new PC, an ARMOR+ to be exact. But then I saw the ELEMENT and I thought why not go for something new (the armor was almost 2 years old).

AMAZON Link

DVD Drive:

This I bought from Kuwait, I took the Samsung DVD/RW drive for 7 KD.

Hard Disk Drives:

Because I have a Windows Home Server, I didn’t want too much storage in the PC. I got 2x 1TB HDDs and a Raid0 setup for performance. And I always can add more.

AMAZON Link

The Completed Project:

Total Cost: almost $1900 approximately KD550