Brettia

I think that I must have been drinking a lot of caffeine before posting my last entry. I just re-read it, and I’m going, like, a mile per minute, jumping from topic to topic and back again. And there are a few typos, like “peer-to-pear” which for some reason is quite funny in context.

Er, anyway, since I’m only drinking water from now on (I’ve had about six 16-oz bottles today), I’ll hopefully be less off-the-wall. I have made my final decision on my computer. It took a long time, lots of research and debate with myself (don’t take that the wrong way, Tyler), and a small amount of time spent convincing my parents that I really do know what I want. Now, I’m not even going to think about it because I know that if I do, I’ll find something I want to change or some reason not to get the computer I’m buying.

However, I never really said why I need a new computer so badly, only that I needed one. The main reason: speed. My current computer is four years, six months old. The processor is old and slow, the motherboard bus and chipset are old and slow, the CD burner is the slowest ever made (it takes 25 minutes to burn a full CD, compared with 2 minutes on newer burners). It’s not all bad, however: I upgraded the memory about two years ago, and we got a better video card about one year ago, though the difference in gaming performance was limited by the slow processor. The hard drive has 20 GB of space, which isn’t much (even laptops have twice that), but it’s enough to store Windows (1GB), iTunes music (1GB), all my documents and invoices and emails (300 MB), everything in my htdocs folder on my dev server (500MB), and two games, along with Fedora Core 2 (Linux) using up another 6GB on another partition. Sure, I clean things out regularly, something many people don’t do, but only out of necessity.

The bottom line is, my computer isn’t as bad as it sounds. I’m a beta tester for Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is considerably faster on my PC than Service Pack 1, which most people have. The service pack will be free and is likely to be released within the next two weeks to a month. I recommend getting it not only for a small performance increase (probably not noticable on faster systems) but because of all the security updates it provides. Anyway, having SP2 (and WinXP in general), helps. This computer came with Windows 98, and I’m lucky it runs XP without problems.

So why then, do I need a new PC? Because, even though my current one is great for typing reports, coding, listening to music, browsing the Internet, or doing all at the same time, it is horrible when it comes to anything more demanding than that. This might include downloading large files, which causes my music to skip, or applying a Photoshop effect/filter, which can take a long time with a large image, or, most importantly, playing games. I’m not much of a gamer, mainly because I’ve never had a computer capable of playing much, but I’d like to at least be able to play old games borrowed from friends. And not only that, but my slow computer means that I can’t play games over the Internet because it takes so long for it to load the game. For example, Medieval Total War, a turn-based strategy game, has an online component that lets you fight a battle against a friend over the Internet. This is really fun and full of tactics and surprises. But it quickly becomes “not fun” when you have to wait five to ten minutes for the game to load the battle. And when the battle finally is loaded, the screen lags so badly that the opponent can use it to his advantage, making quick adjustments to his forces while I’m blundering around just trying to figure out what’s going on. And that sucks.

Other reasons include, but are not limited to, the fact that, because of my current computer, I cannot use some software and have not even bought it because I know that it won’t run well. This software might be Photoshop, Macromedia Studio MX, and various others. Also, I think that the time saved because of the extra speed will be considerable. Say I sit down at the computer, turn on iTunes, fire up Firefox and Thunderbird (email), and start my text editor for some coding. This takes about two minutes, including the time needed for the computer to boot and log me in. I open all my daily pages at once in Firefox, which takes another two minutes, plus page load time. At the same time, my emails are downloading in Thunderbird. My text editor loads the ten files I had open last time I used it. And iTunes is finding my favorite online Internet radio station and playing the stream.

All is good, right? Except that it takes four minutes for all of this to happen, when it could take thirty seconds, or less. Then, while I’m coding, I need to do a quick graphic in Photoshop. I run a filter on the graphic. Photoshop locks up/crashes, I have to start over again. I get the graphic done, save it as PSD, export it as JPG or PNG. Exports and saves take about 15 seconds, when they could take five. I close Photoshop, another minute passes as it does so. I switch back to my editor. Music is playing in the background. I code a bit, check back to an email. Switching to Thunderbird takes 20 seconds. Switching back to the editor takes another 15. I go to the browser. It’s sluggish because I have so many pages open at the same time. I read a few, close them. Performance improves slightly. I switch back to the editor, keep coding. Save all files, another 45 seconds gone. Close the editor, 15 seconds, close my other programs, including iTunes, another 30. All of this should happen either within five to ten seconds, or in no time at all. My computer should be an extension of me, like another organ that I can think into and it will do what I want. I’m a good typist, so that’s pretty much what happens. But brains don’t crash (unless you’re on drugs), and fingers don’t hang or lag. Everything is near-instantaneous, the only delay being the amount of time it takes me to decide what I want to do. That is why I need a new computer, because I am the most powerful of power users, and my will must be done, or else.

Technical Specifications

Before you are the final tech specs for my computer, which I should get sometime next week, or perhaps the Monday after, at the latest.

Case / Power Supply

Aspire X-Dreamer II / 350-watt power supply

Processor

AMD Athlon 64 3200+

Motherboard / Chipset

Asus K8V Deluxe / K8T800 chipset

Memory

512 MB Corsair XMS DDR SDRAM PC-3200

Graphics Card

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP

Hard Drive

Seagate Barracuda SATA-150 8MB Cache 80GB

Optical Drive

Plextor PX-712A 12×4x16x DVD/CD Writer

Floppy Drive

Sony Generic Floppy Drive

Sound Card

Onboard 6.1 Channel Dolby-Digital Audio

Network Card

Marvell Gigabit Onboard Ethernet Controller

Speakers

None (I have some already)

Keyboard/Mouse

Microsoft Wireless USB Multimedia Keyboard/Mouse

Monitor

None (I have one already)

Software

Microsoft Works 7.0, IntelliMover, FarCry (video game)

Freebies

Binder with full version CDs of all included software, t-shirt, mousepad

Service/Warranty

1 Year Limited Warranty w/ 24/7 2Net support, LIFETIME ABS technical support afterward

Price

$1343

Yeah, it’s a lot of money to spend on a computer. Why can’t I just be happy with a Dell system for only $700? First of all, Dell frickin’ sucks! Their support is one of the worst in the industry, they bundle their systems with crappy monitors, printers, and trial-version software, and they use uncouth tactics to woo customers. I was almost wooed. Then I stepped back and saw the light. The glowing blue light, that is. (See above picture).

As far as comments on specific components go, I won’t say much, other than that I’ve been gearing up for this for over a year, so I know exactly what I want, as well as what is the best. The Athlon 64 processor is the fastest single processor out there, except perhaps the Apple G5. Yes, 512 MB of memory isn’t as good as a full gigabyte, but memory is easy to upgrade later. The hard drive isn’t the biggest out there (I’ve seen them as large as 500 GB for a single drive), but I don’t need much. All in all, there are certain things about it that might make some people wonder why I would choose this system, but all I can say to them is that I got the best system and the best support and the best company for the best price.

Update

I’ve finally ordered it. I’m on step 3 of 8 in the ordering/shipping process. The parts are being “prepared for assembly”.