Christmas Goodies and New Years Goals

[CygnusX]

Anyone get anything good for Christmas?

I got a new PC w/ a Radeon 5770 graphics card.  Its nearly the size of my head.  And I upgraded to windows 7.

For New Years, I hope to have a full beta of LoM working by September.  And I'd like to see a contest for 2011 announced.

[JGadrow]

I snagged some pretty groovy stuff. I'd say the best this year was probably Rockband 3 with the Keyboard controller.

And now that Christmas is over (and I don't have a fear that someone will get me a giftcard to the local computer parts store) I'm going to be getting some upgrades to my PC:

Motherboard
Processor
Memory

I can't wait.

*Edit - Changed RAM selection. I decided I'd rather step it up to 2 4GB modules instead of going with the 2GB modules. That way I won't need to replace them later on when I max the RAM out. Just add to it.

[Nox]

Hehe, nice

I got an external drive to protect myself from another HDD R.I.P. and yea, started working on BBGs again and hope I'll finally finish something next year...as usuall

[CygnusX]

Sweet Build.  I went slightly more economic on my approach...

Graphics Card
Mother Board
Processor
Memory

I built it over the weekend w/ Windows 7.  Works beautifully. 

[JGadrow]

Groovy. And, yeah, I didn't want to downgrade my available RAM (My current mb is maxed out at 8GB DDR2) and when looking at motherboards, I wanted something that I could transfer my other hardware to that would put my existing stuff as "low-grade" for that base. My choice was between LGA 1366 and LGA 1156. I went with 1366 since the price difference was minimal and it'd enable me to use beefier processors later on than the 1156 would.

I try to plan my upgrades so that I have flexibility in my component lifetimes. My current system has had the same base for about 4 or 5 years now and was in need of an upgrade since I'm running maxed out.

[CygnusX]

Excellent strategy.

My previous PC was a big mistake.  I was freshly out of college and had little money.  The PC I had used in college had several component failures (such as the hard-drive, power supply and graphics card), and I thought I could get away with recycling those parts out of it.  After all, they were fairly new.  And at the time, multi-ghz processors were out, and I figured it would be 10 years before another upgrade would be called for.

The end result was tragic.  The motherboard I chose supported the old tech I was recycling.  And at first, everything was great.  But when my PC started struggling to run the newer games, I thought I'd simply get a new graphics card.  But when I tried to find one, I quickly realized how limited my options were.  Everything was now using PCI or PCI 2.0, not VGA.  Over the summer, I realized what I really needed was a new board, which would require a new processor, fan, memory, graphics card, power supply.... ie, a new PC.  I was unable to upgrade because the backbone of the system was now frail and useless.  And I picked that board because it supported older technologies that I had easy financial access to.  Very bad mistake.

My lesson learned from all of this was:  its ok to not get ultra-high-end parts.  But makes sure to always always always get the latest socket type for all components (processor, graphics card, etc).  Thats is why my board, though probably not the greatest, supports AM3, DDR3 and PCI 2.0

[Nox]

I mostly do bulk upgrades after longer time so I don't have to care much about these things

Hmm... it seems to me at least game-wise the requirements kinda stagnate - though I haven't played much now, the newest demanding one was BF:BC2;
so I rather focus on peripherals now (bought 2.1 (inspire t3100) and keyboard (logit. ultrax premium - wonderful to type on)) in case of pc
(thinking about razer destructor and deathadder left hnd. ... but the ones I have are usable and the price...so it'll probably remain a wish)

Too bad the JG's motherboard doesn't have SATA3.0(6Gbs), since it's the highest socket I'd expect it to have it

[JGadrow]

lol Yup! I had a similar fiasco when I was younger.

I've also learned my lesson about buying brand-name vs. knock-off. The brand name stuff just seems to last longer from my experience. And, yeah, never buy the newest, shiniest toys on the market. It's stupid to pay $1,000 for a motherboard today when the cost will only be $250 in a few months.

Generally, if you get 2-3 rungs from the top-tier, you can snag a really great product at a reasonable price. Well, I consider my price reasonable since I earn a living with my computer and it absolutely must work. Not too shabby considering if you compare it with vehicle maintenance costs.

@Nox: The deluxe version has it... But I don't have any SATA 3 devices and probably won't for quite a while so I deemed it not necessary for the price increase.