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Archive for January, 2010

Ok searching for computer components is fun, up to a point. Comparing the specs on each motherboard and case configuration is getting a little weary. Plus, I have to keep jumping around different sites to see if I’m getting the best price and if I can save some cash on shipping. I’ve got it nailed down to Buy.com and ZipZoomFly.com for the parts. Between the two of them they have a huge array of parts and lots of it has free shipping.

Of course the project has hit the skids a bit since there is a run on memory. I looked the other day and it all seemed fine. But now, I guess the scare of prices going up has people hording it and now all my choices are out of stock. And the stuff that is left is insanely expensive.

I guess that Maximum PC article on building your own $647 budget rig got everybody out there buying parts.

A crazy thought has occurred to me; what if I build my own machine? The i7 is just too damn expensive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t build the "hair on fire" edition of my computer if I make it myself. For the first time in many years not only am I contemplating not getting a machine from Dell, but not getting an Intel chipset either.

I have turned my gaze to the AMD camp and am looking at the Phenom X4 965 Black Edition. It looks to be a very affordable while still extremely fast processor. Plus it looks like I can get some seriously cool motherboards to go with it that give me plenty of room to grow. It’s been a long time since I’ve built a machine so I’m not thrilled with the idea, but considering there is about a $500 price difference between building it myself versus someone building it for me I’m willing to give it a go.

Since it’s a new year it’s time to get a new machine. While my current machine has been a trooper low these last five years, it’s been five years. Remember the Pentium class machines? Yeah, that’s where I’m at. I think I’ve upgraded this machine about as much as I can. I’ve jammed dual video cards in there and filled all the drive bays with terabyte drives (it wasn’t hard there’s only two slots). But it’s not like you can actually upgrade the motherboard in a Dell box.

I’m not sure what I’ll be getting. Since it’s been so long since I last bought a computer I have to research and find out what’s cool again – and then buy the generation behind that. I had the bold idea of getting into the Intel i7 world, but egad who has that kind of money just lying around? Better sober up and think this through.