Alistair Roe - ASUS Master Challenge Winner

Alistair Roe is the winner of the inaugural ASUS Master Challenge.  He wins a xxxx board. APC and ASUS were impressed by the PC he defined around two ASUS components,  a Maximus III Gene motherboard, and an ASUS EAH5870 graphics card.

NOMINAGED ASUS MOTHERBOARD: Maximums III Gene

NOMINATED ASUS GRAPHICS CARD: ASUS EAH5870

 


CPU: Intel Core i7 860
I chose this CPU as it is a highly clocked Core i7 LGA1156 powerhouse of a chip, but I chose it over the more expensive 870 as the 870 is double the price of the 860 for merely a 133Mhz clock speed increase, which will not make a huge difference at stock and will not yield a much higher overclock.  The 860 has serious value-for-money.
    
CPU COOLER: Thermalright TRUE-120
This CPU cooler provides reasonable value-for-money air-cooling, with the top performance of any CPU cooler tested. A mounting kit for the LGA1156 socket is necessary, however.

MEMORY: G.Skill Ripjaws 2000Mhz, 2x2GB
This memory recieves many good review on PC reviewing sites, mainly due to its fast clock speed of 2000Mhz and ease of overclocking. Although at stock it runs at reasonably loose timings, these can be decreased and at $170 the kit is a bargain for fast DDR3 dual channel RAM.
 
HARD DRIVE 1: Intel 80GB SSD, Gen 2
Intel was the first SSD manufacturer to produce a drive that performed to the expectations of the tech crowd, as it didn't suffer from the latency issues of drives with early JMicron controllers. The chosen drive is the second generation, which uses a smaller fabrication process to reduce size and power consumption, while increasing performance and keeping the price lowish. Used as a boot drive and for certain programs, this will remove any storage bottlenecks

HARD DRIVE 2: Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPM, 32Mb cache
Why you have chosen this second hard drive     A second hard disk drive is necessary for data storage, and this HDD from a reliable manufacturer is at the sweet spot for price/capacity, and runs at 7200RPM to deliver almost the fastest sequential writes and reads seen from a mechanical drive.

OPTICAL DRIVE: Pioneer BDR-205BK
This can read/write Blu-ray disks, for reading and burning full high definition movies, and also for back-up purposes.

PSU: Corsair TX950W
Although from a relatively new manufacturer in the PSU sector, this unit delivers a high price/performance ratio, while passing [H]ardOCP's burn-in test and earning a gold award from them, which isnt often awarded. This unit's high efficiency is also a positive feature.

CASE: Antec P193
A premium case from a reputable manufacturer, this case has understated elegance in a mid tower form, while retaining a large interior and 4 fans as standard to cool all the components inside.

MONITOR: Dell U2410
While this monitor may be more expensive than all other 24" models, the successor to the 2408WFP uses In-Plane-Switching (IPS) panel technology, which means more accurate colour reproduction and all round better image quality. Widely regarded as the best 24" monitor money can buy, this component forms an integral part of the system.

KEYBOARD: Logitech MX-5500 Combo
Using Bluetooth technology for longer range, this keyboard has a palm rest and a flat profile for comfortable typing, and the laser mouse features extremely fast and accurate scrolling and rechargability. The keyboard also includes programmable shortcut buttons and a LCD screen for basic computer funtionality.
 
OPERATING SYSTEM:Windows 7 Professional x64
This OS is the evolution of Vista, and is an extremely stable and fast operating system for productivity and gaming. The 64-bit version ensures that all 4GB of the RAM is addressed correctly, considering the amount of RAM contained on the video card. The Professional version of the OS contains all the content of the Home-Premium version, while adding advanced back-up support and BitLocker encryption, along with XP mode for compatibility.