At the recent XChange Tech Innovators Conference, three teams of system builders competed in the "Silicon Chef: Recipes for Success Build-Off" contest. Each team had an hour in which to build a complete system from a table-full of components. The system they had to build was a micro ATX form-factor Windows XP 32 platform with an LCD flat-panel display.

At the end of the hour, the three teams were judged according to their speed, completeness of the system, neatness of their work, accuracy and operation of the system, and their creativity and identity. The winning team was made up of six students from Scottsdale Community College, led by faculty member Ron Monroig.

To be eligible to win, the completed system needed to successfully play a DVD of the movie The Matrix. In fact, the unit's components were chosen to simulate a home system that might include DVD/PVR (personal video recorder) features.

The individual components, chosen for their availability, were:

• Shuttle XPC SN45G small form factor system with case, motherboard, power supply, and heatsink.

  • Windows XP 32 OS pre-formatted on the drive
  • Built-in sound system
  • Built-in network interface
  • Built-in 1394 Firewire ports

• DVD/CD-ROM
• AMD AthlonXP 3000 processor
• Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 250Gbyte, 7200 RPM Ultra ATA/133 Drive
• Gyration Keyboard/mouse combo
• ViewSonic VX900 19-inch Digital Multimedia LCD Display
• Telex EV SonicXS 4.1 speaker system
• Kingston 2, 256Mbyte, 400MHz Value RAM memory modules
• eVGA/nVidia Personal Cinema FX 5200

The winning team received a $1,000 donation to the charitable organization of their choice.

The XChange Tech Innovators Conference was designed to educate attendees on the latest, greatest opportunities in the solution provider community. New directions for the channel in 2003 will be presented through education and research provided by the editors and analysts of CRN, VARBusiness, and the Technology Solutions Group Research Team.