Upgrade plans

August 11, 2008 on 4:04 pm | In Computing |
Tags: ,

Considering that my current machine is OVER 9000 over 1.5 years old already, it’s obvious that it’s in dire need of upgrading. That GeForce 8800 GTX just won’t do!

So I’ve been scheming about my upgrade plans for some time now, and today I decided to take a preliminary look at what it might cost to put my plans into fruition. I’m not entirely sure if I am going to go ahead with these upgrades; I have to take a look if there is no next generation hardware around the corner; If there is, I might actually show a bit of common sense and wait!

Current upgrade plans
Item Price
Sub total € 697.35
Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 Speakerset € 234.95
Asus 9800GX2 (2x DVI, 1GB, HDMI) EN9800GX2/G/2/DI/1G/A € 423.40
GeiL 2 GB DDR2-800 Kit (Retail, GX22GB6400UDC) € 39.00

A few notes:

  • The extra RAM would bring the total RAM to 4GB. Considering how cheap DDR2 RAM is these days, I might also get rid of my current RAM and buy 4GB of speedier memory; This mostly depends on what my motherboard will eat.
  • My motherboard has surround sound audio support on board, but I’m considering the option of getting a sexy sound card. I’ve not really looked at what I’d want to buy, though.
  • My XBOX 360 is broken, although I should be able to fix it. However, I always had the plan of buying a second XBOX 360, mostly because my original XBOX 360 is running hacked firmware, and I’m not going to risk going online with that one. Furthermore, my parents bought a 46″ Sony Bravia, which is Full HD, so it would be rather nice to have an XBOX with HDMI output so I can attach it to the TV.

With these notes in mind, there are some other items to shove onto the previous list.

Possible extras
Item Price Alternative
Grand total € 1,189.50 € 1,345.20
Previous sub total € 697.35 -
Some sexy Creative sound card € 122.20 € 277.90
XBOX 360 Elite € 369.95 -

Since the 122.20 Euro Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer Fatality Professional is obviously far too cheap to be something I’d buy, I’m also listing a nice little Creative SB X-FI Elite Pro to consider as an alternative.

All in all, this is slightly more than I had originally anticipated, but it’s still well within the amount of money I expect to have earned/earn from my work placement. It’s also slightly ironic to realize that the dual core Geforce 9800 GTX actually costs a good 130 euros less than what I originally paid for my Geforce 8800 GTX! Surely that can’t be right?

Update just now found some information about the new ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 which is supposedly the fastest card available at this time.
I’m assuming nVidia will have something interesting around the corner, so at any rate I’m going to wait with the upgrade until I’ve looked into that matter with greater detail.

6 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. So, are you going to donate your 8800 GTX to me, then? :P

    Comment by Owen Rudge — August 12, 2008 #

  2. Also, why only 5.1 sound? 7.1 is, like, two extra speakers! And most games, etc, can use it these days.

    Comment by Owen Rudge — August 12, 2008 #

  3. Hmm, yes, I did forget to mention that I’m also looking at the possibility of 7.1.
    But I’m not as much up to speed on the quality of 7.1 sets/cards as I am of 5.1 combinations.
    Although my knowledge of audio equipment is actually rather limited at any rate.

    As for the 8800GTX, I’m not yet sure what to do with it. It’s a bit heavy to leave in my current system in order to connect up a third display, I suppose :P

    Comment by GoneWacko — August 12, 2008 #

  4. Stijn, you old madman. How the hell can you afford all these things while I am struggling to get my daily portion of noodles with tomatoe sauce? This is so not fair. I should sneak medicine out of the hospital and sell it to drug addicts on the black market. Then I could probably get me a few new 500″” displays to hook up to my four GTXX 5000 2x^3 Dual Quadcore which I am currently running on my two motherboards…

    Comment by Medic — August 13, 2008 #

  5. Well, living off your parents does help.
    I do figure it’d be the last upgrade in a while because I’m sure it won’t be too long before I move out :-P

    Comment by GoneWacko — August 13, 2008 #

  6. Interesting. Veeery interesting.

    I also pondered getting a new computer for my birthday this year, on 15th of August past (my current computer turns 2 on the 23rd), but right now things seem to be “in a state of flux”, as one might say, and I’ve decided to hold off until Christmas… I kind of want the next computer I own to be able to at least run Crysis at maximum settings, which hopefully means it will last me into late 2011, at least. My current box is already struggling to run Episode 2 at maximum settings (or even medium with the flashlight + dynamic shadows), which is a bit alarming since Source games tend to be very easy on the hardware.

    I hope we get really nice new stuff or really nice price drops before Christmas…

    I also wanted to get dual monitors… I saw a really nice Samsung one at a store, and then some random people online said it wasn’t that great for reasons I have yet to fully comprehend, so I didn’t pick it up before my birthday. Damn you, internet! (I do have five or six games I want to legitimately buy before Christmas, though, which means the birthday money saved didn’t go entirely to waste!)

    Comment by cctoide — August 22, 2008 #

Leave a comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^