Decisions and Revisions

Okay, so things didn’t go quite according to plan. However, that doesn’t mean that things didn’t work out well. I’m as happy as a lamb right now. Check this out, here’s the scoop.

I receieved my windfall tax return today as expected. Actually I received my state return yesterday which is when I placed my newegg order. After much plotting and planning and hours of being racked with guilt I decided to scale back my upgrades yet again. This time in an effort to save $250 to put toward our kitchen makeover instead. I had changed the original plan to go from an AMD Phenom to an AMD Kuma (still a dual core). On top of that I had planned to pick up a 22″ widescreen monitor. I’ve been eyeballing those for acouple years now and I had even found one with great specs and esthetic appeal for only $150.

So in an effort to appease my wife and to ensure that our kitchen gets pulled into modern times from the 1950’s, I decided to remove those last two things from my order. Instead I just went with the Saphire Toxic X4870 1GB and Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. I have to say I have not yet been disappointed in the slightest. I haven’t really had time to do a lot with my new video card but I can  already say this about it. It’s a freaking monster. Physically and by specs. I can’t wait to load up some games and start putting it to good use.

So I’ve spent the last several hours doing what I hate most with my computer. Wiping it out, installing, and starting over from scratch. Though I have to say, this time it’s been kind of fun. I was really nervous making the jump into Vista based on my previous experience with a pirated copy. Knock on wood, I have not had a single solitary issue. The experience I’ve had tonight has been phenominal. I am falling hard for this new (to me) OS. Especially now that I’ve been to a seminar and have been shown some of it’s wonderful features, I am already at home with it for the most part. And you have to admit, if you’ve ever seen it, the Aero program browser is just cool as all hell.

I’m still fine tuning my installation. There is not a whole lot left for me to tweak but as usual I am finding things as I explore deeper into it’s functionality and features. Perhaps if I have time between all the home improvement shopping and actual doing of, I’ll write up a review of sorts. So far if I had to rate it based on my current experience I’d give it 5 stars. I don’t know if my past experience was based on a poor quality hacked copy, lack of decent hardware to run it on, or a pre service pack 1 install, but at this point it’s been nothing but smooth sailing and an easy transition.

As for my processor and monitor upgrades, those will have to wait. I may have some more money coming availible to me later on and hopefully by then the deals will get sweeter and sweeter. For my total cost of these upgrades I spent $462 shipped. To be fair, I paid $30 for overnight shipping. The final cost of my video card was a mere $250 marked down from $270. Windows OS’s almost never come down in price so I was stuck paying $180 for that. Not an ounce of regret for any of it.

Revisions to the Plan… I’m going badass style!

I’ve made a few changes to my plan. As previously posted I was looking at the AMD Phenom 9950 @ 2.6GHz, 4GB of additional ram, and an Sapphire X4870 1GB. I’m not deviating too far from the plan, but now I am picking up the following for only a few dollars more.

Sapphire’s TOXIC ATI Radeon X4870 1GB.

This card is about $30 more than the stock X4870 but from what I read it completely out performs it. It comes factory overclocked with upgraded cooling. Not only does it out perform the stock card, but it also runs quieter and cooler. It’s too hard for me to resist the temptation of going badass on my video card for only such a small price increase.

 

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition @ 3.0GHz.

Again, going for the badass approach for not adding a whole lot of money to the equation, I have selected the Phenom II 940 over the Phenom 9950. The price was significantly more but it’s hard to shake off the speed gain from my stock 2.6 GHz of my X2 and the added bonus of the 6MB of L3 cache. I really want my system to fly so why not get the best processor AMD offers to accomplish that.

So to keep things in line costwise, I have decided to hold off on my ram expansion. 4GB is plenty to run Vista on and there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of benefit to jumping up to 8GB. I’d rather get the best of the best then settle on less especially for the sake of superficially upgrading my ram. The only thing that hasn’t changed in my purchasing decisions is that I still intend to pick up Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit Edition.

PS… I’m F@cking Matt Damon!

Just wanted to throw that one out there. I love that video and Jimmy Kimmel’s response. I know that’s old news but I just saw Disaster Movie last night and it brought it out for me.

Upgrades Ahoy!

So here’s the deal. This year I am expecting somewhat of a windfall tax return. Obviously you can never count on these things until they happen but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan them out right? So with a small (or large depending on your perspective such as my wife’s) chunk of that money I am planning on finally finishing my so called masterpiece build. Sure my rig is always a work in progress but with these upgrades I will finally reach the culmination of years of planning and preparatory upgrades.

So as you may or may not have read prior, last summer I started off with some budget upgrades. One of those budget upgrades was a socket AM2+ motherboard. I’ve had my sights set on a quad core AMD Phenom processor since they debuted. I am glad I didn’t get one then as they have improved remarkably since. However, with that being the endgame I made sure that my budget motherboard would be capable. That is why I selected a motherboard with the AMD 780G chip set. To my delight I just learned today that this board will also support the brand new Phenom 2 processors running on the 45nm architecture. However due to even future budgetary constraints I had to shy away from such.

Without further ado, on with the geek porn…

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103273

 

This is the processor I have selected. I would much rather have the Phenom II 920 or 940 but for the price break and the fact that this runs at the same physical speeds I have settled for this beast. Also this is a coveted Black Edition making for some serious overclocking potential. If I can get it up to 2.9GHz as I have my X2 5000+ at (stock is 2.6GHz) I will be incredibly pleased. If not, oh well, I’m still gaining two additional cores out of the deal.

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801

 

This is the video card I have selected. Sorry for the crappy picture quality. I am swiping my pictures from http://www.newegg.comand I am forced to deal with the image sizes they provide. This is Sapphire’s ATI Radeon X4870 1GB. I have selected this card because bar only the X2 model of this card, this is ATI’s pinnacle achievement. Granted there are some better cards by NVIDIA out there, not for this price. I was debating between this and the 512MB model but I figured video is where I need the most so that’s why I chose to skimp on my processor and save $75 there instead of shaving $40 off my video card selection. I’m saving more money this way and putting the power where I really need it.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184

This is a Corsair XMS DDR2 PC6400 (DDR2 800MHz) Dual Channel Kit. I am currently running one of these. The addition of this kit will bring me to a whopping 8GB of Ram. I know that seems a little extreme but that’s the point really. It goes hand in hand with the next item I am adding to this list. You can never have too much ram right? Well, at-least not if you’re running a true 64bit OS. Which I am currently and will be in the future when I add this as well.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116493

 

No, I am not shy about my love for Microsoft operating systems or their productivity software. I think there is a good reason that Microsoft is such an industry giant. They make good shit. With a Quad Core Processor, 8GB of Ram, and an ATI X4870, I think it will be high time that I be able to take advantage of all that with Direct X 10 which you can only get by having Windows Vista. With the 64bit edition I will have no trouble with my 8GB of ram. Also I expect to find a 10% performance increase in my games by switching to DX10 alone, aside from the vast improvements in my hardware.

As I said, I’ve been preparing to make this jump for a long time. This summer I got my Socket AM2+ Main-board and my first 4GB of DDR2 ram. On black Friday I picked up a sweet deal on a Rosewill 600watt power supply for a mere $30. All of this in preparation of the events that are supposed to transpire next month to net me the cash to build on. No this will not be my final upgrade ever, however it will mark a victory milestone for me in my beloved hobby of computer building. It will also mark the beginning for a new era for me in PC Gaming performance. Here’s to hoping everything comes through for me.