It’s been over 20 years since I first started using computers and I want a new one! I found myself with a little bit of time to play games the other day and my Dual Celeron 500 (and that’s overclocked!) wasn’t up to it. My GeForce2 MX card died a few months ago and I had to replace it with the original TNT2 M64. Now video cards have gone beyond what my motherboard can reliably be expected to handle.
It’s not just games, there’s video and DVD’s. My Creative MPEG2 card also went funny a while ago and the current system just ins’t fast enough to play DVD’s smoothly without help. Likewise rendering video through the TV/video capture card.
I like eye-candy, but I can’t advantage of all the nice effects on KDE and display the best screen savers.
I still like the current machine. Dual CPU’s are great when you multitask as much as I do. I can still develop and view web pages okay, although Mozilla’s running a bit slower these days with all the beautifully anti-aliased text.
It seems like the (rarely used) Windows partitions are both getting a little flaky, with Win98 rebooting and Win2K of not booting at all. I really can’t be bothered to reinstall them, especially as I only use them for games, video and the odd bit of peripheral support and the machines a bit too slow for that anyway. I would rather just format them for Linux and use this machine as a Linux box.
I bought the motherboard and 466MHz Celerons about 3.5 years ago, when they were already pretty obsolete. I’m always doing that, buying the lowest spec’ed computers, usually because I can’t afford anything else. Yet, I spend so much of my life on them!
Just for once I would like to buy a more powerful machine. Okay, it’s doesn’t have to be top of the line with the fastest CPU and video card, but something in the middle would do fine. Again however, I find myself pondering how I can get away with purchasing anything as cheaply as possible.
Okay, I did buy one computer already this year, my little Zaurus C700. It’s great for viewing web pages in bed, logging into work Unix boxes to check mail or for web development on the train. It was already second hand in Japan when I bought it, and it doesn’t do the things I want a new machine for.
I see adverts for $1500 machines that would be okay. However, my other halves (brain and wife) suggest I really should be thinking about trying to complete furnishing the house/saving for a European holiday/service the car/pay the bills… Really, the house needs curtains… Arrghh! My wife sets such a good example of saving money that I feel guilty now.
But I so want that new computer! 🙂