New system ...

[ysengrin]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and have the various pieces of a new system on the way. Smaller parts will be added as cash allows (bling-bling lights and such); I was very carefully being a cheap bastard very frugal with this one, and so didn't go for an Athelon 64 based system.

• Motherboard - DFI LanParty UT NF3 250GB (GB Lan, sound on-board)


• CPU - AMD Sempron 3300+


• Memory - 1 GB Corsair DDR(400) 3200


• Video - MSI NX6600GT-VTD128 (3D goodness with video in/out)


• Hard drive - 120GB Western Digital 7200 RPM (I'll drop additional SATA drives in later)


• Case - XION II, black/silver, 450W power supply


• OS - XP Pro (yeah, I know)

A little careful shopping and it all came in well under a grand (and $50 back in rebates in addition to that). I'm re-using a CD drive I already have for now, though I'm looking at a DVD burner and a massive aftermarket CPU cooler once everything gets here. It's not going to be as upgradable as the socket 939 system I was considering, but it was also $180 cheaper with pretty much the same performance. Except for future (2-3 years away) bleeding-edge games, it'll be fine.

Most expensive single part was the video card (natch).

It should be up and running Monday or Tuesday of next week when everything gets here and I get it assembled.

And, yes, while I'll be playing Guild Wars on the old system for now, it'll be one of the first things moved over to the new system. EDIT: The 'old' system is based around an AMD900 - and yes, it really *is* that old.

Now back to the workshop ...

Comments

[tygercowboy.livejournal.com]

;) new toys!!! :)

I hope to get a package off to y'all next week. Send to the P.O. Box?

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's better 99% of the time :)

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

One doesn't need a bleeding edge machine to have really good performance. My Ath3000 with 512M of DualChannel DDR ram screams, for example. What you have there will last you 2+ years at the very least, and probably a couple years longer.

64 bit will probably take off seriously once Longhorn is released. Right now, I know of no windows program that takes advantage of it (and I don't have the time to tinker with Unix flavors - I'll leave that for the younger set.)

[wyoon.livejournal.com]

HEy.. Coolness. I just set up the bling bling system too. If ya want.. I'll tell ya what I did. :) Maybe even catch ya in IRC if I'm lucky. :)

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

I was looking at acrylic cases so I could light it up like a pinball machine - but couldn't justify the additional cost.

[wyoon.livejournal.com]

I saw them too. I just got a modest case but went overboard on everything else. I mean, I don't upgrade but once every 4 years. A8n-SLi Deluxe, Pci express asus Ati AX850pro 256meg Video card, 2 gig dual channel pc3200 ram, AMD FX55 processor... That's just a couple of the heavy hitters in the system.

Hey, btw... Did you ever make smaller casts of the beast paws yet?

Oh, and that color problem with those things I was talking with you earlier about... Remind me to tell you about them later.

[hyaenidae.livejournal.com]

Woo! Sounds good! I am running on a Geforce2 most of the time and the last beta I used my Raideon 9600 all-in-wonder. The all-in-wonder box I was using tho had HD failure so I'm back to the worse of the two till I can get another HD.
I got the call today that my Guild Wars pre-order is in.. I won't be able to pick it up till after the 1st tho. I hope to see ya around on GW when I get on there!

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

Since you were in the beta you can still play today and tomorrow :)

Your characters still look like the beta when you log in, when you play one it's stripped back to a freshly-minted character in Old Ascalon ... and they'll still be there when you get a retail key ...

[hyaenidae.livejournal.com]

Cool! Nice of them :)
I'm playing doggy nurse so I don't have any long blocks of time to join in, perhaps tonight or tomorrow once I get the schedule worked out. *crosses his fingers*
Also good to know I won't have to re-make my character entirely.

[hyaenidae.livejournal.com]

So the good news is I got my GW today. The art book is the size of the box, not the CD case luckly. The art book however does not have good pics of the Charr, they are basically an afterhtought it seems. The good news is it is packed with tasty background art. The headset is the same kind I use except with thicker (better?) wires. Nice to not rely on another's teamspeak server too as I was using a friend's server. Apart from that I've yet to see what the soundtrack is like. Also..map? Hey. No cloth map. they do provide a handy keyboard layout thing which I find useful since I'm horribly forgetful. All in all, I'm happy with it but I would expect to get something like this for the $50 you usually pay for a game these days... but in the current market I guess it's a decent deal :)
Bottom line, I don't feel ripped off but I wouldn't buy it if I saw the options beforehand.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after hearing what the extras were and seeing the in-game "divine aura" I decided to just get the standard package.

Sorry there's not more Charr in the art book - I know there was quite a bit of it done ...

[bear-paws.livejournal.com]

Heh, shoulda paged me more on FM, I'm going to advertise my XP (Home) P4 3GHz 512mb ram 111gb (formatted) HD, Radeon 9800 Pro (AGP 8x 256mb) for $550, including the OS, standard version of Office XP, training stuff for office, media pack for office, DVD+-RW drive, Easy CD Creator 6 Platinum, other little toy bits and pieces (mobo is an Intel with Desktop Control Center that actually lets you tweak BIOS settings while in Windows)...

Hoping I land $550 for the beastie. I really need the money since we're really starving at the end of the month here more often than not. I might get to spend $150 of that on a DVD-RW internal drive for the Mini.