Buy Computer
So I made most of my purchases for my new computer rig. It was hard work doing the research on what’s new these days, and then debating over which ones to get. I was stuck on mostly the processor, graphics card, and case. It was either get a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice chip and try my luck at overclocking it, or spend way too much on the X2 3800+ dual core processor. After much deliberation, I decided I don’t really need dual cores and I could save 200 bucks. But I can still dream what it would be like multitasking on that bad boy. Next was the graphics card. It all came down to price. Was I willing to pay more than 300? Simply, no. So I passed on getting the newest generation of cards from nVidia: the 7800 GT and GTX. I opted for the 6800 Gt. I purchased the Evga brand as they have a “step-up” program that lets you trade the value of your purchase towards an upgraded card. I don’t know if I would use it or not, as it has a 90 day limit from date of purchase, but it’s nice to know that I can.
The case was probably the hardest decision. I got it down to the Thermaltake Tsunami and Thermalrock Eclipse. I chose the Eclipse based on this review round up. I think the Tsunami looks better, but I hear it is very noisy, and the Eclipse has a lot of easy to use features. I just hope I don’t regret it when I see it in person.
Here is everything I got:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ “Venice” processor
MSI K8N Neo4 SLi Platinum motherboard
1 GB OCZ EL Platinum rev. 2 memory
320 GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive
Thermalrock Eclipse case
OCZ Modstream 520w power supply
Zalman 7000 AlCu heatsink/fan
eVga nVidia Geforce 6800 GT 256 MB
NEC 3540a DVD burner
Purchases were made through 4 different online stores to maximize savings. Total came to about 1200, yikes. That’s excluding rebates, which I think amounts to about 40 dollars.
