Computer upgrades
I’ve had my current desktop system for a while now. That is, in its current state. Since I don’t generally buy whole computers, other than things like my Sun Ultra 5. I’ve upgraded my video card to a Radeon 9600XT recently, and will be getting 768MB of DDR RAM when I get paid, but it’s still just a Duron 1.2 GHz CPU.
I’ve put a lot of thought into my next major upgrade, and I think I’m going to go with a small setup. As in, Micro ATX (mATX). I thought about mini-ITX and random SFF systems like the ShuttleX or Qbic, but they are ultimately limited.
My current general plans are to get: * mATX desktop case * Asus P4P800-VM motherboard * Intel Pentium 4 C 3.0 GHz CPU (or 3.2 GHz, or whatever I consider to be reasonably priced at the time) * Western Digital Raptor 36GB SATA 10K RPM hard drive
Since everything else on the list is fairly fast, I might as well get a really fast drive as well. Which is another reason for going with mATX over the smaller alternatives - having SATA. Nothing is set in stone here, obviously, and subject to change. But this is pretty much what I’d like to have by the end of the year (I end up getting paid three times in December, so that’s “extra” money). Next year sometime I can get a LCD flat panel, maybe a 17″ if they are priced nicely. Probably with my tax refund.