The story of how you all ended up on ATOT

[lxskllr]

I'm kinda scared to see the dumb things I'm sure I said right out of highschool. But search doesn't even go back further than 500 posts, so...?

Enter your name, and in the chronological options sort ascending.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I don't remember my very first post, but my first argument with maybe 10 posts at the time was with Mercenary4Hire who couldn't believe that milk was more expensive in Canada than the America the Free.

EDIT: The first, apparently...

My 1.4Ghz Thunderbird is clocked at 1402Mhz.

 

[Crono]

Here's my first post:

POWERCOLOR ATI Radeon 9550 is going for $70.00, shipping is only $5.75. here. Not sure if it's "hot" or even warm, but I'm building a budget system and will probably get this.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=1574476

I ended up getting a Radeon 9700 (non-pro) off ebay for cheap.
It was a pretty good budget build, cost me about $300 at the time for everything. CPU was a Sempron 2600+ (Socket A/462) which I overclocked a bit. It was already a little old at the time, but not bad for my first build. It would still make a decent enough computer for browsing and light productivity today if I still had the parts/system.

 

[Paratus]

Well here's mine. Kinda long:

Been looking at computer parts and sites for the last couple of weeks and thought I join Anand as it looks like an excellent site

I've been getting away from big corp built computers for awhile now, started with a Dell 486 and P90 in college and went to a little shop built PIII 500 100FSB with 384MB ram, 32MB ATI Rage Fury, 10G WD HD, and both a DVD Rom, and CD-RW drives back in Jan 2000 which is still my current desktop. Needless to say its time to upgrade and I think I can do a better job putting together a computer than Dell or others. (ex my PIII blew a capacitor out of the PS)

I need a new machine for web surfing, e-mail, office stuff,image editing, the occasional game (when I'm not busy with my honey do list), and I liked to get into some video and multimedia stuff. I'm aiming for around $1000.00 of hardware.

So without further ado here's what I found at newegg and searching places like Anand, THG(don't shoot please ), Hexus, Sharkey, and others:

Chip: Intel 2.8C HT 800 FSB
MoBo: ASUS P4P800 E Deluxe - finally found a review of this new board here
Case: CoolerMaster Praetorian Black PAC-T01-EK
Video: ASUS ATI Radeon 9600XT TVD (comes with VIVO)
PS: Coolmax 400W Black CX-400B Taurus Silent Power Supply
HD: WD 120GB SATA 7200RPM, 8mb Cache
Cooling: Stock Intel HSF / Arctic Silver 5 / Vantec Nexus NXP-201 Fan Controller
OS: WinXP Pro
Memory: 512mb (256mb x 2)Geil Golden Dragon PC3500/DDR433
OP Drive: Lite On Black 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive
Thats about $1000 on newegg minus the OS

I'm looking for some recomendations on the whole thing and also specifically the ram and optical drives.

I'd like 1GB or at least 512mb of decent high speed ram with good (not necessarily great timings) so I can do some small overclocks . If for budget reasons I only get 512 now, (256 x 2) can I get another 2 sticks for 1 GB latter and still do at least %10 overclock?

With the Optical drives I'd really like a cheap DVD ROM and decent 8x DVD burner with dual layer support but its probably not in the budget right now. I'll most likely get the combo drive and get the DVD burner later.



Your thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks,
Paratus

 

[Ruptga]

Enter your name, and in the chronological options sort ascending.

Oooh, now I remember. I actually first posted in OT, despite being attracted to the place because of tech news. It was a thread for moaning about dinosaur PCs, I stopped by to complain about ancient Pentium IIs and a Cyrix 6x86. I got yelled at by a mod in my first post, they thought I was advocating pirated software because I mentioned the shithole I was staying in had almost 0 legitimate licenses.

 

[sixone]

Kim Komando recommended the site for tech questions. She must not have participated in OT.

 

[Kyle]

I think I stumbled here from AGN3D back around 1997-ish. Geez, I've been here for a long damn time.

Same- I was more active on AGN but lurked here for a while and posted more once AGN went down.

 

[IronWing]

I was shopping for a used M3 and found this site.

 

[RossMAN]

Hot Deals then one day I ventured into OT, then oldsmoboat lured me into his basement ...

This was my first FuseTalk forum, so I lurked about 3-4 months before registering.

 

[Iron Woode]

I was checking motherboard reviews and other PC info and stumbled onto AT. Joined a year later in 1998.

 

[bbhaag]

I was looking for a very particular type of camera. Right around 20 pages back in a Google search I found a member selling one on the FS/FT forums. That's when I got my first taste.

 

[natto fire]

Does Fusetalk even exist anymore? I know AT forums were supposed to be a test bed, but it failed on so many counts, I cant imagine anyone paying money for it.

It looks like it does still exist for the sucker that has a somewhat large business. Heaven forbid they get big.

So I joined up here upon a time when I was dialing up. It has thoroughly gone downhill since then, and I feel another break upon me, but gotta admit there have been some good times.

 

[RossMAN]

Does Fusetalk even exist anymore? I know AT forums were supposed to be a test bed, but it failed on so many counts, I cant imagine anyone paying money for it.

It looks like it does still exist for the sucker that has a somewhat large business. Heaven forbid they get big.

Maybe I used the wrong search criteria but I couldn't find any large and active forums running FT.

LOL @ http://forums.fusetalk.com/index.cfm?nocookies=yes

Even FW dropped FT http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/off-topic/1249790/

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=516208

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=1043036

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2071242

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=57554

 

[Soundmanred]

300a -> 450

 

[spacejamz]

Started in Hot Deals as well....

First Post...LOL

Picked up one of these from the new Irving store yesterday to replace a PNY 64 meg GeForce3 fX440 card...3DMark 2001 score went up 4000 points at stock settings!!!

 

[Mixolydian]

None of us love you either :awe:

Yes you do. All of you love me.

 

[Kadarin]

I was "Astaroth33" back then, and my first post was asking about some water cooled case. I didn't post in OT until almost a month later.

 

[AreaCode707]

Whoa, did not know any of this. I didn't think anyone met their spouse over here.
Pretty cool story.

RedDawn and baffled2/GeekBabe met here as well and later married.

 

[Fritzo]

1999/2000---somewhere around there---the Hot Deals forum posted a coupon for Staples: $50 off a $50 purchase. I printed it off and used it to buy a Microsoft cordless phone (it was awesome!):

And...well...here I am. I was also a victim of the "Great Account Wipe" of 2001, so my join date is a bit older than what's shown.

 

[Kadarin]

RedDawn and baffled2/GeekBabe met here as well and later married.

I haven't seen either of them post anything lately... hope they're ok

 

[Red Storm]

Was looking for the right Pentium CPU to buy, AT taught me about AMD being the better option at the time.

 

[KeithTalent]

I was investigating video cards for a potential first build and somehow ended up at AT. Six months later I made my first post/thread in Video and spent most of my time there and in GH.

Eventually I think I ended up in OT just so I could whine about my divorce and the rest is history. D:

KT

 

[AreaCode707]

I haven't seen either of them post anything lately... hope they're ok

Dunno about GeekBabe but Red Dawn was banned.

 

[rudeguy]

Well I came in this morning and saw my desk was a complete mess. I decided to nef all day instead of working.

Or did you not mean today?

I originally came for the hot deals. Found the hardware stuff. Then graduated to neffing.

GB just posted the other day.

 

[lxskllr]

GB just posted the other day.

You're confused. That was Obama that posted. Easy mistake to make, especially on radio where you can't see skin color.