I want a new computer. Oh, not an entire computer; no, just a new motherboard, CPU, and graphics card. And new memory for the new motherboard. Everything else is fine.
See, that’s the way that I’ve upgraded my computer over the past few years. The last "everything in the box" system that I bought was an HP Celeron 466MHz, and that was a few years ago, back when a Celeron 466 was a respectable machine. (I didn’t buy a monitor with that system; the last system that I bought with a monitor was back in 1991 when I went to college, and replaced my old AT clone with a massively powerful 486 50MHz, with a whopping 130MB drive. For a few months, it was the fastest machine in the residence hall. Oh, that was a sweet upgrade experience.)
I’m still using the case and 3.5" floppy drive from the HP machine, but that’s all that remains of the original parts. The motherboard and CPU have been upgraded twice, the memory was donated to a friend, and the original 4GB drive is sitting in my garage, somewhere near the original power supply, an old sound card, and at least two video cards.
Usually, upgrading the system isn’t a Herculean effort. Only once was it too difficult a task, but I blame that on Fry’s and their crappy components. I bought two motherboards from Fry’s, and in both cases tech support came to the conclusion that they were faulty. That’s when I lugged everything back to the store and just bought the HP.
Now, a few upgrades later, my machine has fallen behind the curve. It’s still a decent machine; sure, it can run recent games, but not at maximum resolution and with all of the nifty features turned on. Now it looks like the new Unreal Tournament game is going to strain my poor machine to its limits.
Of course, I still need to obtain the UT2003 demo to see for myself. So would everybody please stop downloading it for a day or two and let me have a shot? Thank you.
So, yes, my machine is fine, for now. But I know its days are numbered. Sun Ra is obtaining a new machine, so it’s somewhat a matter of keeping up with the Johnsons. After all, if he has a nice, new, fast machine, he might dominate in our online matches. I’m certainly not a l33t g4m3r by any means, but I do have my pride, and a certain amount of Non-Suckitude to uphold.
The other indicator that it’s time to upgrade is that I’m starting to seriously read hardware reviews. Just this morning, I read a review of various video cards, and I was considering purchasing one of them. Not so seriously that I couldn’t talk myself out of it within a few minutes, but the compulsion was there. Worse still, the site that sells the video card also sells systems, and, oh, temptation of temptations, do-it-yourself pre-overclocked motherboards and CPUs. They overclock the hardware, test it, then ship it to your greedy little hands. Oh, for a mere $500-600, I could have a nice little system. Once again, all I’d be upgrading is the motherboard, CPU, and video card, but my benchmark scores would be back up to respectable levels.
Sure, it involves putting the system together, but I can handle that. I’m reasonably mechanically inclined, thanks to the sacrifices of many childhood toys. Which also means that if my daughter ever does get hold of a screwdriver, I’ll stand a good chance of being able to reverse the damage.
Fortunately, the siren call of a new computer is still faint. I tell myself that my current games run at perfectly acceptable framerates. And, of course, hardware prices will go down, especially if ATI and nVidia get desperate to increase their sales numbers (please, oh please). I’m not willing to shell out the cash to live on the bleeding edge of technology; maybe in a few months, I’ll be able to afford a nice, overclocked Ti4600. Anyway, Lictor and Jasona haven’t upgraded in a while. I can wait for my next fix.
The site, by the way, is www.ocsystem.com. The video card details can be found here, and info about the the nifty little DIY system can be found here. Add another 256MB RAM, and it’ll be perfect.