Mid-Range Work Station
Yay! Thank you Wirelessgeek for being my first member/person who commented. I really appreciate it 
I’m excited! Glad I can help ya out. If you wanna subscribe, go straight ahead. Either way, I’m very thankful
Anyways, Wirelessgeek, thanks for the wireless card thought. I personally am going wireless myself, as I don’t have a Gigabit port in my room(unfortunately…). What kind of wireless card(a/b/g/n) you need depends on two key factors: the current Internet you have(like cable, etc.) and your router. If you have, say, cable(like me!), you should go w/ any of the a/b/g/n EXCEPT FOR n. N will make no large difference unless you have the Internet connection type to work w/(let’s just say… T1 Xp). So, if you have cable and down, even if you did have a faster connection, is the g. I use it in mine, runs smoothly from Internet site to site, runs my online games smoothly, and best of all, it is relatively cheap(my card was 29.99 dollars). The card I would suggest, is definitely the one I use, the AirLink 802.11g. I have one in the machine I’m using right now, and the one I don’t use anymore. In both machines, it works like a charm; easy setup, and installing drivers is very simple. So, the point: w/ any connection up to cable, go w/ an a/b/g Wireless card. If you have anything faster(which is expensive… but fast :D), go w/ the n.
Now, to the mid-range build. When I say mid-range, I mean like the vicinity of 1000~1400 dollars. In a work-station computer, you don’t have many components that is expensive. What you should mainly look for is rock-solid stability, and some speed. So, here is the build:
CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6750. Absolutely awesome CPU, very fast right out of the box. If you ever want to Overclock(which I will explain later), this is your CPU. ~$185
Motherboard: Gigabyte X38 DDR2 Motherboard. EXCELLENT motherboard, rock-solid, plenty of SATA ports for all of your hard drive needs, extra PCIe slot if you ever need it(if you do some hardcore graphics/game designing, this may come in handy), and also overclockable. Basically, one of the best X38 motherboards I’ve ever put my hands on ~$215
RAM: Crucial Ballistix 2×1GB DDR2 800, Patriot Extreme 2×1GB DDR2800, or Corsair Dominator 2×1GB DDR2 800. In this one, I put in three options, because we now have more room in our budget. The last option, the Dominator, is excellent RAM. They will all work very well if you plan to just stick the RAM in the motherboard and leave them be, but if you want to overclock, I HIGHLY suggest the Corsair Dominator. Crucial: ~$67 Patriot: ~$65 Dominator: ~$95
PSU: PC Power and Cooling 610W PSU. This PSU is great; 610W, which is more than enough, stable, solid, all you ever want from a PSU. This monster will pretty much power anything you throw at it, and w/ the extra watts remaining in your work station, you can pop in another hard drive, CPU, or any other component w/ no problems whatsoever. ~$130
GPU: HIS Radeon HD 3870. Ok, in this mid-range, I’m going to make a small assumption: you might need multiple monitors to do multiple functions at the same time. Have 2 monitors is a big advantage if you need to do many things at the same time, basically multi-tasking. 2 monitors will allow you to open more windows at the same time, so you can work more efficiently. The 3870 will give excellent performance here, and it will take anything you throw at it… occaisional minigames when you want to take a break 
~$200
Case: Antec 900 Mid-Tower Case. Now, this case is thought by many to be a purely-gaming case. However, I see potential in using this case as a work-station case. When I went to Fry’s to check out this case, the fan settings was on low-mid, and I didn’t think it was loud at all. And I don’t think there’s much need to put the fan settings up any higher. This case comes w/ 2 120mm fans in the front, 1 120mm fan in the back, and a HUGE 200mm fan up top. Now, that’s what I call some awesome air-cooling right there. There are also 2 additional places you can put 120mm fans(1 on the side-panel, and one on one of the hard-drive cages), so if you need more air-cooling power, this is your case. ~$125
Hard Drive: Same as the post before. Since you have a slightly-larger budget, you can get a bigger hard drive, like a 500GB, 750GB, or even a 1TB drive if you need it. Personally, if you were to pick out 1 of the three, I’d pick the 750GB because in benchmarks, the 750GB drive seems to perform slightly better than the other 2. Again, I’d suggest Seagate Barracuda because of their warranty.
Optical drive: Samsung 20x CD/DVD burner SATA. Same one as the low-budget, since there aren’t that many differences between more faster drives to justify the cost difference. This’ll serve you very well. ~$32
Optional: Wireless Card: AirlLink 802.11g. Great card, works right out of the box, and it’s fairly cheap(props to WirelessGeek for this idea). ~$32
Now, that’s about a total of ~$985. Now, this’ll give you enough room to get a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and other peripherals, if needed. Eventually, if you need it, you can go w/ a second monitor.
Well that’s it for now. Next time: Such thing as a “High-End Work-Station”? And more to come on this site: Links to the cheapest, yet reputable retailers for products in the Low- and Mid-range Work-Station to help you save money! See you all later!
~| Icarus
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