That tears it. No new comp for me.

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Moral: buy a new system when you need it, buy the CPU and memory that will last you a couple of years, and don't pay extra for "future proofing" that probably won't make sense when the time comes...

That's a hard lesson to learn but thanks for reminding us Dave !

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Moral: buy a new system when you need it, buy the CPU and memory that will last you a couple of years, and don't pay extra for "future proofing" that probably won't make sense when the time comes..

BTW, it took me 10 years and almost $17,000 to learn this lesson - and no, I am NOT rich !!! :disgust:

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Excelsior
Uh..I'll still be using the system I am on now in 2 years probably..and it is just a socket A system. What do you mean "so 939 has 1 year or so to live"?

I'm only at the beginning of this thread so this has probably already been answered but I think he's referring to the point he makes in his post about AMD planning on moving over to socket M2/DDR2 in about a year !?!?!?!?

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Gurck
You have a point to some degree; now probably isn't the best time to build/buy, but advancement in technology is unavoidable, and a good thing overall...

Isn't his main point that there IS no good time to build/buy ???

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: daniel49
Text

Your link takes me to a HONDA Snowblower page, WTF ???

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Aftermath
I'm with you, for the most part.

My solution: don't buy the latest and greatest.

I got hosed upgrading from a Athlon 2500+/9800np 128MB to an Athlon 3200+/GeForce 6800GT 256MB. ..

...I have always had a much more enjoyable experience just upgrading from upper mid range systems to upper mid range systems once every other year or so. At least for me, it's a far more fun and sensible route to take for computers.

Another sensible approach to this dilemma ! :thumbsup:

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: ariafrost
Yes, don't buy the latest and greatest. But if you are going to complain about hardware prices... I remember paying $100 for some USED 4MB sticks of EDO RAM! The prices of some things ARE pretty ridiculous though.

I remember the time (July 1995) when I paid $305 for 8 MB (4 X2) of EDO SIMM RAM to upgrade my Gateway2000 P75 from 8MB RAM to 16 MB !!!

$305 was the going rate then ! Can u believe it - for a lousy 8 MB of super slow (by today's standards) RAM ???

When I purchased the system in May I had paid $70 additonal to go from 730MB hard drive to the new 1 GB hard drives (retail $450 then), $100 to upgrade to a 2MB VRAM ATI videocard, $50 to upgrade to a Sanyo 4X 3 CD changer CD-ROM, $75 to upgrade to an Altec Lansing 3 piece speaker system, $275 to upgrade to a Sony-made 17" monitor (still in use today) and paid $500 for the (original) Epson Stylus Color Printer.

And we complain about prices today ????

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Away
...Try building a new system every two years or so. Computer technology advances very quickly so there is very little point in trying to "future proof" your system.

You said a mouthful Away !!!

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

...The only future-proofing there is, is your mind. You tell yourself: Don't buy yet. It's our mind's desire to buy new things. We, like girls, want to shop too. We want to buy our CPUs. We want new memory. We want to bust out $259 for OCZ VX when we can settle for $80 ram. We want SLI when we can buy something cheap and get something 2 years down the road...

So just ask yourself the next time you want to get something new... Is it worth it?

...upgrading my CPU every year and a half? Upgrading my video card every 2 years? Bleh.

GREAT point !!!

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
...Get a nice semi high end board like the Ultra-D and your set. And you wont even have a parallel port or a serial port.

Some of us still need a parallel port !!!

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Fisher999

Originally posted by: sourceninja
...Get a nice semi high end board like the Ultra-D and your set. And you wont even have a parallel port or a serial port.

Some of us still need a parallel port !!!

And most of us aren't still living in 1997.

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Chosonman
...I could buy a top of the line home entertainment system for the price of a high end graphics card...

You don't know what top of the line home entertainment systems are if you think you could buy one for the price of a high end graphics card !!!

Give me a break !!!

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Hey Fisher999, just so you know, you can EDIT your posts and add to them... that way you don't have to make a dozen in a row in the same thread.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: volrath
Your computer does not get slower. Everything else gets faster. Moore's law, deal with it.

Moores law came crashing down last year

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: volrath
Your computer does not get slower. Everything else gets faster. Moore's law, deal with it.

Moores law came crashing down two or three years ago

Fixed

I've only recently really started to feel that my Athlon XP at 2400MHz is a little slow...Built the system in August 2003...

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: dullard
Two courses to follow.

(1) $700 computer now. Gets 60 FPS* in a popular game benchmark. Wait a year or so. Buy another $700 computer and get 100 FPS in that game benchmark.

(2) $1500 computer now. Gets 80 FPS in that benchmark. Wait a year or so. Spend $400 on upgrades to get 100 FPS in that benchmark.

Both are perfectly playable now. Both have same performance in the future. Option (1) costs a total of $1400. Option (2) costs a total of $1900.

I choose option (1). No worries about "futureproofing". No worries about upgradability. Option (1) actually gives you two computers instead of one. Option (1) is cheaper. Etc.

* All benchmark numbers are just made up for a typical example that represents reality.

Interesting strategy !

 

[Tiamat]

Overclocking is your friend.

Ive been running my 1800+ at 2 ghz no problem for over a year and a half. Performance gain over 1.53 was very noticeable.

This was a 55$ upgrade from a palomino
70$ upgrade to ABIT NF7-S ver2 (on sale)

For 130$ i say my money was very worth the performance boost.

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: Chosonman
Nice rig WdnUlik2no looks like the one I have and the one I'm building for my mom. The absolute best bang for the buck IMO.

Remember your OWN quote:

You "...don't have to be RIGHT to have an opinion" !!!

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Overclocking is your friend.

Ive been running my 1800+ at 2 ghz no problem for over a year and a half. Performance gain over 1.53 was very noticeable.

This was a 55$ upgrade from a palomino
70$ upgrade to ABIT NF7-S ver2 (on sale)

For 130$ i say my money was very worth the performance boost.

Some of those Athlon XP's were among the best overclockers of all time. I have a NF7-S 2.0 myself and a 1700+ overclocked to 2.4GHz, and have been running them like that since August 2003. Best $160 I ever spent.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
Hindsight is 20-20. I probably should have moved to 939 much earlier, as it has held great performance and value. Is 939 3 years old now? With another 2 years to go, thats a very successful platform.

Eh? What? Socket 939 wasn't really worth the move until Nforce4 came out, and even then, most of the good NF4 boards have benefitted greatly from new BIOS releases. Also, I don't think 939 is 3 years old. The first two sockets for Athlon64/Opteron were Socket 754 and Socket 940. 939 didn't show up 'til later.

Just get a 939 board + chip now and sit on the rig as long as you can. OC it to get more life out of it. Socket M2? Who cares? Screw it. Upgradability is for the birds. And if you don't like SLI, don't buy it. Real simple. All you need is one PCIe slot to keep up with the latest, greatest cards anyway. You'll merely be stuck running one of them, rather than two.

I'm sitting on my current rig for as long as I can. Shootin for 4 years, though if I can make it just 2 years, I'll be happy. The way chips are slowing down, I might make it . . .

 

[WdnUlik2no]

Originally posted by: Chosonman
Nice rig WdnUlik2no looks like the one I have and the one I'm building for my mom. The absolute best bang for the buck IMO.

Thanks chosonman!

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
There are still plenty of old printers that use parallel ports out there still running strong. .

That's the very reason I still need a mobo with a parallel port. My 1999'ish Epson Photo 700 may be slow by today's standards but if works just fine for my need and requires a parallel port connection. :roll:

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
...PS: I'm typing this on a Mac, and this mac is perfectly new and did NOT cost 3x the price of an equivalent PC.

That's odd; for YEARS MACs HAVE cost nearly double for not-even-equal peformance to a high-end PC !!!

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: X
How do you update the bios on your motherboard without a floppy?

Burn a bootable CD that includes the necessary BIOS update file and a BIOS flash utility ; make sure your bios is set to FIRST boot from the CD-ROM drive or CD-RW or DVD-ROM drive, etc...

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: KruptosAngelos
...I may get a single upgrade, and that's just to get a PPU when they hit the market...

What is a PPU ???