We’ve consistently recommended Gigabyte motherboards for our quarterly workhorse PC specs, and we’d bought this board from its main rival largely to see how it compared. Asus has a formidable reputation, and we know that most users are entirely satisfied with their products, but we encountered a series of problems, some of which, in fairness, almost certainly weren’t related to the board.
First the sound system played up, then it developed a sulky attitude to both our Hewlett Packard laser printers, forcing us to stop and re-start the print spooler to process documents. Eventually it refused even to acknowledge the existence of both printers. Then the Asus SATA DVD drive developed a form of blindness that ignored the existence of files on any optical disc, and eventually it refused to open its little mouth at all.
We reached the point where we were forced to reboot Big Jim several times a week, and our productivity and peace of mind plummeted.
We suspect some of the issues might have been resolved by updating drivers and BIOS through the Asus support website but we didn’t have the time or the patience to engage in a process that can, if you’re not particularly careful, leave you with a brain-dead PC.
We decided to assemble a new PC, using components that were a little better than the workhorse PC specs that we produce every quarter. And we’d use it as a test bed for a final attempt at Windows Vista.
We’d start with an Intel E8500 Core2Duo CPU ($220) and the Gigabyte EP45-DS4P motherboard ($189) that has sufficient advanced features to delight the enthusiast. We liked its two Gigabit Ethernet connectors, support for hard drive RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks that employs multiple disks for greater storage or data reliability) — we were going to mirror two Western Digital Green 750GB drives with RAID 1 — and we particularly liked the miniature internal Christmas tree of diagnostic LED and ACPI LEDS to display system and power status.
We weren’t going to use any old case for this PC. If we had an unlimited budget, we might have gone for a Lian Li, which is still the Rolls Royce of cases.
One of our friends had just bought a Cooler Master Cosmos case, and he was delighted with it. At about $250, we thought we could justify it on the basis that we were saving the $75 assembly fee that we include in our quarterly specs.
We found it difficult to choose between the more recent and slightly more expensive Cosmos S RC-1100 and the Cosmos 1000, so we decided to consult an expert, Rex Hall at Chadstone-based PC Maniacs, which assembles systems for high-end gamers and other ... well ... PC maniacs.
His verdict was that the Cosmos 1000 had better sound-deadening qualities than its sleeker, slightly more sculpted sibling. That, and the fact that we were saving about $40 convinced us.
We were delighted by our choice. The Cosmos 1000 is a massive, steel-chassis tower, with two hand rails that are more than decoration. You need it to manhandle the 18.9 kg weight. The minute you slip off the sides by flicking the simple latches at the rear, and discover the dozen easy-fit drive bays, range of intake and exhaust fans and a complimentary tool box with two quite useful sets of screwdrivers, you realise why choosing a higher-end box is a good idea if you’re going to put together your own system.
The other thing we liked was the array of LED lights and ports on the top of the case. When we got everything hooked up, Windows Vista would have a highly desirable address.