Windows Vista

I had a PC made from spares, a Northwood 3,0Ghz, Albatron 865Pro M/B, 1GB of cheap RAM, an nVidia FX5600XT 256MB, my Nexus modded Fortron PSU, a used P180, WD250 HDD. I decided to install Vista in it. I downloaded RC1, installed it, and it was the fastest and easiest installation ever. All the drivers were there, Aero is working perfectly. AVG needs permission every time I boot, but it's not digitally signed yet. I'm currently using it as my main browsing machine, and it's fast and perfectly stable. Eye candy is high, and I'm VERY impressed by the network speed. In XP, opening Network Places takes a lot of time, finding new machines takes forever and (possibly) a restart. In Vista it's FAST and reliable.

Core2Duo in Antec P180

I just finished my first Core2Duo build for a friend. Everything was straightforward, after upgrading to the newest Asus BIOS of course. I have some slight hangs when inserting anything in the DVD drive, but that could be due to the strange brand. The machine feels snappy, but not much better than even my old Northwoods. With multitasking of course, it's waaaay faster than my machines. But I have four... ;)













I was impressed with the stock Intel HSF's fan quality. It only became audible after 20 minutes of TAT, a neat program I found in SPCR. Intel, at last, are using just three small strips of TIM, instead of the tons used in older HSFs. I used a Zalman ZM460B-APS PSU, which was very nice, though not as quiet as my Antec NeoHE. Overall the PC turned out very quiet out of the box, using the stock case fans. I think it's the quietest one I've built, prior to tinkering. I also used one of Western Digital's new silver top WD320KS drives, and I couldn't hear any seeks from a meter away! A fanless 7300GT graphics card completed the build. I put the top fan in the middle, as shown, to cool the GPU and the hot Southbridge.

Specs:
Case: Antec P180
CPU: Intel C2D E6400
M/B: Asus P5B
RAM: 1GB
GPU: nVidia 7300GT
HDD: WD320KS
DVD-R: ?
PSU: Zalman ZM460B-APS