Components

Motherboard - ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe

At this point I had to look for a mini ITX motherboard because you cannot put anything else on the spiders head. I went for an ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe which I found somewhere in a shelf. This board offers two USB 3.0 ports via the backpanel as well as wireless LAN, just to mention two of its features. Unfortunately with the H67 chipset I can't overclock my CPU via the multiplyer which is quite a pity but at least it's really not necessary to have a heavily overclocked desktop PC. Hmm, but never the less, it would have been fun. Also because it's "only" a desktop PC I chose to use the integrated graphics of the CPU, which is really enough as long as I don't play games. Furthermore using the integrated graphics is very energy efficient. What's also quite nice is that there are three display connectors (HDMI, DVI and VGA) out of which I use the DVI and VGA to power a dual screen setup at two times 1920 x 1200.

Processor - Intel Core i7-2600K

For an office PC that is used for "heavily multi tabbed" browsing, picture and video editing there aren't a lot of CPUs which are better than a Core i7-2600K. Ok, yes, true! I admit, it's useless to put a 2600K in an H67 board where you can't adjust the multiplyer. In fact it was the only Socket LGA1155 CPU I had lying around for this setup. If it was my own money I spend, I would go and buy a non "K" version of the same CPU.

RAM - Corsair DDR3-1066 CL7 2 x 4 Gigabyte

Concerning the memory there aren't many options. The reason that the P8H67-I Deluxe needs SO-DIMMs narrows the market down by quite a margin. So there will be no fancy heatspreader and overclocking action at this point either. I went for some more or less boring standard modules, which do their job nicely.

SSD - Intel 520 Series 180 Gigabyte

This is a big one! I mean there is one component in recent computers that can really conjure a smile on your face when you start all your applications and that's a quick SSD. In this case I went for an Intel 520 Series drive with 180 Gigabyte of NAND flash. But there is also another reason why I chose this drive. In a lot of forum thread you can read these days, that SandFroce SSDs tend to cause blue screens. I even had to experience this quite a few times myself, which is why I was really surprised that Intel chose to make SandForce based SSDs. Therefore I'm curious if I'll see bluescreens in a long term test using this drive.

Cooling - Intel (Asetek) Wasserkühler

The cooler might be another strange choice. I mean the backplate didn't even fit to the motherboard. I had to cut off a bit of it that it didn't interfere with an IC which is stupidly close to socket holes. But a least demolishing the backplate is the better idea then unsoldering the IC. But yes, why did I choose this cooler? I'm mean it mostly because of the looks. It's just cooler to have a watercooler than a standard boxed cooler. And furthermore it was utter luck that I could tightend the radiator to the case using screws. It really seems like Lian Li has thought about me installing this cooler.

Power Supply - ADATA 850 Watt

The choice of the power supply is another turn of my chair and a short look at the shelf. And there it was: the 850 Watt, needlessly over proportioned ADATA power supply. I mean from an efficiency point of view it's nonsense but unfortunately I didn't have anything more suitable. But sure, one day I'll go get a decent gold or platinum certified unit which is a bit more tree hugging. But hey, the ADATA comes with a green LED, so my spider has a green bottom, and that's really cool.

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