Used to work at McD making minimum wage and splurged on many PC parts and dug myself a hole. Built and upgraded a lot, followed the trend and went as far as dual Xeon rig with Seagate SCSI X15-36LPs. The whole works. Then got tired of it all and sold everything. Now I'm into laptops. Nothing to upgrade. Works out to me and my pocketbook's advantage 
Computers just don't interest me the way they used to. Meh.
Computers just don't interest me the way they used to. Meh.
Word. Go for a 6-way PPro rig if you can. I was about 15 minutes away from having one of the 6-way boards once.
BurnItDwn
Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 26,086
- 1,569
- 126
I used to spend a sizeable portion of my income on hardware back when I was in High School. (1996 I turned 16, and started at 4.50 per hour, I averaged about 30 hours per week During March, April, and May. Then June (first couple of weeks in June I was still in class in HS, it sucked, but I liked my paydays. July, and much of August I was working full time
I hated that job for a number of reasons
1. because it was fast food
2. I was the only english speaking person there most of the time
3. The manager was a jackass
4. They always wanted me to stay late and close (until 2AM when I had to be up by 5:30AM for swimming practice before school ... etc).
5. Even though we would be crowded busy, they would have me work both the front register as well as the drive through register at the same time frequently (whenever people didn't show up, or after they fired someone for stealing.) It was not possible to keep up.
6. The pay sucked
$135 per week ~ $584 per month when working part time.... ~ $500 or so after Uncle sam got his cut
$180 per week ~ $780 per month when working full time .... ~ $650 or so after Uncle sam got his cut
to get to that job, I walked from school to work (about 0.75 miles)
Then, at the end of my shift, I usually walked home (about 1.25 miles)
During that time frame I pretty much saved 80% of my money, and spent 20% ...
That August, I moved out of my fathers house, and into my moms house (long long long long story)
In August, I got a new job with a much much much much much better company as a pharmacy technician.
They started me off at $6.25 per hour.
When I had moved from my fathers house to my mothers house, I was not able to walk everywhere I needed to go (I went to the Same HS even though it was a 10 mile drive. Work was 3 miles from my moms house.) So I had to purchase my own car pretty much right away. In august a friend of my mom sold me a POS ford asscrack for $1500. I still had a bit of the money I had saved, however, things like Gas, insurance, and going out were eating a lot of my income.
At that job, for the first few months, I was only getting about 20 hours per week (which was nice as I still had a bit of surplus money, and free time)
I really missed having a decent PC (since I was big into games at the time.) My dad had a Pentium 133, while we had an old 486 that we had gotten for free at my moms house. It was playable on Duke Nukem 3d, however, Quake was a no go.
In October, I purchased parts from Ebay (my Aunt used her checking account, and I paid her cash for the parts) as well as a local computer show.
I built a "sub $1000" computer, everything was great at the time, except the CPU was a MISTAKE. It had 32MB of SDRam (when 8mb or 16mb were commonplace.) I bought a 4.3GB Quantum Bigfoot Hard Drive (most new PC's were shipping with 1.3GB drives.) I had a 4MB Video card (top of the line!) I also went all out and purchased a 33.6 modem and 16 bit ISA sound card. The disappointing part, was the Cheapo motherboard and Cyrix CPU. It was a "Cyrix P200+." As I did not have regular internet access, I wasn't able to get up to date reviews for gaming performance on the chip beforehand, only the typical advertisement mumbo jumbo, as well as one or two buisness benchmarks that didn't even touch the FPU from a PC magazine. My friend had a P133 that he had overclocked to 150, and it was MUCH faster then my "p200+". Another friend had a 75mhz Compaq with 24MB of ram, his Computer was about on par with mine. It was somewhat sad, however, the Cyrix crap CPU combined with all the other modern parts, was still MUCH MUCH faster then the 33 mhz CPU that I had in the old 486.
By spring of 1997, I was back to 30+ hour work weeks, but I really got along with my boss, as well as everyone else at work, so I was still pretty happy with it. I worked 20 hours at my regular store location (more when people called in sick), and 10 hours every Sunday at another store location that was really hurting for help.
My Motherboard ran into some trouble (bios died, board only had a 6 month limmited warranty, etc) and basicly, I would have to pay to get it fixed. That was just a short while after AMD released the K6 line of CPUs. I purchased a new motherboard and AMD K6 CPU for about $200 total, I used the rest of the parts from my older box, except I added a 64MB SDRAM stick to it. It was now Screaming fast (or so I had thought). The FPU was still much weaker clock per clock then the Intel CPUs, however, my k6 233 successfully allowed me to play Quake and Quake 2 when it came out with semi decent framerates. I purchased a Canopus Pure3D a month or two after they came out, and added a 10GB Hard drive as well.
Basicly, during my High School years, I worked a lot more hours then I "had too" in order to have money to support my PC Hardware habit.
In College, I did the same thing, though it was to support my Drinking habit as well. (Living expenses were about $200 rent, and $100 per month other bills, and $100 auto insurance. Tuition was about $7500 per year. ) I only stayed in school for Two years, and then moved back home.
At that time I was making $10 an hour, working 40 to 50 hours per week during non-peak times (when all the HS help was available). During the "school year" I usually got a good 10 hours of overtime in per week, sometimes closer to 20. (There were a couple of weeks where I did over 80 hours.) I *could* have afforded $700 to $800 a month for my own sh!thole apartment, however, I stayed at home, paid my mom half of her rent, and spent a lot more then I should on PC Hardware. I continued that trend until Last year, Last year I got a nice promotion that got me from the mid 30s, to just under 40K. I paid off the loan on my car (I had a balance of 8000 prior to my move, and I wasn't about to deal with a morgage and a car payment at the same time.) Initially after the move, Money was tight, as Going from $350 a month and some bills to $950 per month and a lot of bills left me with little cash to spare. (I was used to spending > $1000 per month on CDs, DVDs, Hardware, Electronics, etc.) Since then I've gotten another raise and a small promotion. I still can't spend quite like I used to, however, I still purchase lots of DVDs, and PC hardware when I think I "need" it.
Sorry I typed so much. I could go on and on for many pages. I will stop now and present super compressed minimalist cliffs...
Cliffs
> I used to live at home and spend $1000 per month on stuff I didn't need when I could have afforded to move out if I didn't spend as much on PC hardware.
> Now I have a morgage and lots of bills to pay, I live in a small townhouse an hour commute from work, but it's MY own place. I had to make lots of PC hardware purchasing sacrifices.
I hated that job for a number of reasons
1. because it was fast food
2. I was the only english speaking person there most of the time
3. The manager was a jackass
4. They always wanted me to stay late and close (until 2AM when I had to be up by 5:30AM for swimming practice before school ... etc).
5. Even though we would be crowded busy, they would have me work both the front register as well as the drive through register at the same time frequently (whenever people didn't show up, or after they fired someone for stealing.) It was not possible to keep up.
6. The pay sucked
$135 per week ~ $584 per month when working part time.... ~ $500 or so after Uncle sam got his cut
$180 per week ~ $780 per month when working full time .... ~ $650 or so after Uncle sam got his cut
to get to that job, I walked from school to work (about 0.75 miles)
Then, at the end of my shift, I usually walked home (about 1.25 miles)
During that time frame I pretty much saved 80% of my money, and spent 20% ...
That August, I moved out of my fathers house, and into my moms house (long long long long story)
In August, I got a new job with a much much much much much better company as a pharmacy technician.
They started me off at $6.25 per hour.
When I had moved from my fathers house to my mothers house, I was not able to walk everywhere I needed to go (I went to the Same HS even though it was a 10 mile drive. Work was 3 miles from my moms house.) So I had to purchase my own car pretty much right away. In august a friend of my mom sold me a POS ford asscrack for $1500. I still had a bit of the money I had saved, however, things like Gas, insurance, and going out were eating a lot of my income.
At that job, for the first few months, I was only getting about 20 hours per week (which was nice as I still had a bit of surplus money, and free time)
I really missed having a decent PC (since I was big into games at the time.) My dad had a Pentium 133, while we had an old 486 that we had gotten for free at my moms house. It was playable on Duke Nukem 3d, however, Quake was a no go.
In October, I purchased parts from Ebay (my Aunt used her checking account, and I paid her cash for the parts) as well as a local computer show.
I built a "sub $1000" computer, everything was great at the time, except the CPU was a MISTAKE. It had 32MB of SDRam (when 8mb or 16mb were commonplace.) I bought a 4.3GB Quantum Bigfoot Hard Drive (most new PC's were shipping with 1.3GB drives.) I had a 4MB Video card (top of the line!) I also went all out and purchased a 33.6 modem and 16 bit ISA sound card. The disappointing part, was the Cheapo motherboard and Cyrix CPU. It was a "Cyrix P200+." As I did not have regular internet access, I wasn't able to get up to date reviews for gaming performance on the chip beforehand, only the typical advertisement mumbo jumbo, as well as one or two buisness benchmarks that didn't even touch the FPU from a PC magazine. My friend had a P133 that he had overclocked to 150, and it was MUCH faster then my "p200+". Another friend had a 75mhz Compaq with 24MB of ram, his Computer was about on par with mine. It was somewhat sad, however, the Cyrix crap CPU combined with all the other modern parts, was still MUCH MUCH faster then the 33 mhz CPU that I had in the old 486.
By spring of 1997, I was back to 30+ hour work weeks, but I really got along with my boss, as well as everyone else at work, so I was still pretty happy with it. I worked 20 hours at my regular store location (more when people called in sick), and 10 hours every Sunday at another store location that was really hurting for help.
My Motherboard ran into some trouble (bios died, board only had a 6 month limmited warranty, etc) and basicly, I would have to pay to get it fixed. That was just a short while after AMD released the K6 line of CPUs. I purchased a new motherboard and AMD K6 CPU for about $200 total, I used the rest of the parts from my older box, except I added a 64MB SDRAM stick to it. It was now Screaming fast (or so I had thought). The FPU was still much weaker clock per clock then the Intel CPUs, however, my k6 233 successfully allowed me to play Quake and Quake 2 when it came out with semi decent framerates. I purchased a Canopus Pure3D a month or two after they came out, and added a 10GB Hard drive as well.
Basicly, during my High School years, I worked a lot more hours then I "had too" in order to have money to support my PC Hardware habit.
In College, I did the same thing, though it was to support my Drinking habit as well. (Living expenses were about $200 rent, and $100 per month other bills, and $100 auto insurance. Tuition was about $7500 per year. ) I only stayed in school for Two years, and then moved back home.
At that time I was making $10 an hour, working 40 to 50 hours per week during non-peak times (when all the HS help was available). During the "school year" I usually got a good 10 hours of overtime in per week, sometimes closer to 20. (There were a couple of weeks where I did over 80 hours.) I *could* have afforded $700 to $800 a month for my own sh!thole apartment, however, I stayed at home, paid my mom half of her rent, and spent a lot more then I should on PC Hardware. I continued that trend until Last year, Last year I got a nice promotion that got me from the mid 30s, to just under 40K. I paid off the loan on my car (I had a balance of 8000 prior to my move, and I wasn't about to deal with a morgage and a car payment at the same time.) Initially after the move, Money was tight, as Going from $350 a month and some bills to $950 per month and a lot of bills left me with little cash to spare. (I was used to spending > $1000 per month on CDs, DVDs, Hardware, Electronics, etc.) Since then I've gotten another raise and a small promotion. I still can't spend quite like I used to, however, I still purchase lots of DVDs, and PC hardware when I think I "need" it.
Sorry I typed so much. I could go on and on for many pages. I will stop now and present super compressed minimalist cliffs...
Cliffs
> I used to live at home and spend $1000 per month on stuff I didn't need when I could have afforded to move out if I didn't spend as much on PC hardware.
> Now I have a morgage and lots of bills to pay, I live in a small townhouse an hour commute from work, but it's MY own place. I had to make lots of PC hardware purchasing sacrifices.
HardcoreRobot
Lifer
- Nov 7, 2000
- 16,404
- 3
- 81
Red Dawn
Elite Member
- Jun 4, 2001
- 57,530
- 3
- 0
Originally posted by: Fritzo
That is probably the most wasteful lifestyle next to being a crackhead that I could think of
LOL, when these kind of fanbois start babbling about their "Rigs" my eyes just glaze over and my mind automatically tunes them out.
My job is relatively high paying (i.e. >75K) but I am content to own an vintage-esque PC. Trying to stay ahead of the curve in the high-end PC arena is a recipe for financial truama. Sure you can list your specs and get oh's and ah's from the crowd but there's just no lasting satisfaction when the next quarter brings the latest-and-greatest that make your components look a bit less exciting. And if you are putting it all on credit you are screwing yourself and your future.
Consider: my motherboard is at least 7 years old (Abit BM6, 440BX). I have PC100 memory (remember that?). But I do have a Powerleap 1.4GHz Tualatin chip, 400GB of 7200rpm storage and a 21" CRT that I bought when prices got cheap. As long as I don't play recent games I don't find myself limited to what I can do on my PC. My computing "wish list" does not include the traditional suspects like a faster CPU or video card but a quieter case and a faster broadband connection (even 4Mbps can seem slow).
Consider: my motherboard is at least 7 years old (Abit BM6, 440BX). I have PC100 memory (remember that?). But I do have a Powerleap 1.4GHz Tualatin chip, 400GB of 7200rpm storage and a 21" CRT that I bought when prices got cheap. As long as I don't play recent games I don't find myself limited to what I can do on my PC. My computing "wish list" does not include the traditional suspects like a faster CPU or video card but a quieter case and a faster broadband connection (even 4Mbps can seem slow).
I've haven't given up on computers entirely - just computer gaming. I'll break out the classics now and again, but I'm finding myself less and less entertained by the new fare.
- M4H
i'm in the same boat as everyone else...i loved computers, games, all that stupid stuff until college...then i just completely lost interest.
i try to force myself to fix a computer or play a videogame or something, but i just can't get into it...
i try to force myself to fix a computer or play a videogame or something, but i just can't get into it...
Im kind of in the bracket, i spend quite a bit keeping up, but stay away from the rediculous bleeding edge stuff. My comp is the only thing that maintains my sanity.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 11K
-
Discussion Speculation: Zen 4 (EPYC 4 "Genoa", Ryzen 7000, etc.)- Started by Vattila
- Replies: 13K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 8K
-
Facebook
Twitter