Revised Title: My addiction to upgrading...

[joeMan]

You see - I'm building my daughters (both 8th graders) a PC for xmas, so I'm snatching upgrades for my machine and cycling out the stuff for their rig.

So far they will have an A8V, FX-53, 2x512 TWINX1024-3200XL 2-2-2-5 T1, a Plextor PX-708A and a Sony something or other cd/dvd rom drive.

I'm letting them pick out their own case (they want one for a PC that looks like that radical Apple/Mac case with the white grill like metalic sides - all the tiny holes, you know?) - and then might mod it for them all girly like.

WIll get 'em an Audigy2 ZS, and haven't decided on monitor yet - (I mightswitch back to CRT and give them my VP201s...haven't decided yet). I am in search of the LARGEST possible viewable screen size that runs 1600x1200 native LCD (VP230mb?), orthe biggest viewable screen size CRT I can find. Need to grab a couple HD's and some speakers too - a nice thumpin' powered 2.1 set for their hip/hop and rap ya know.

Finally, no more them fighting with me and my wife for the computer after that - they can do all their school work on their own (plus play SIMS2, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, and websurf, .mp3 library build, burn, etc.).

My wife's a middle school teacher (w/MBA education & child developement) she teaches 8th grade History/Language Arts, and I am in school full-time so it'll be nice to get our PC back to ourselves.

Plus - BUILDING THEM A MACHINE GIVES ME THE PERFECT EXCUSE TO UPGRADE :thumbs: :rock: !!! Come on, face it - that's all I'm in it for and we all know it... "Hi, my name is Joe, and I'm an UPGRADE-a-holic..." - "HI JOE!" the crowd answers back :lol:

[Hawk]

Nice Joeman, I am jealous. . . . . :cry:

[Snafu]

Cool :cool:

You will be kicking butt and maybe take names later.

Now you'll have to build one for your other half so you can have the FX55 to yourself and throw in SLI :mischief: .

Good to hear and jealous too.

[SIK_L_CELL]

Good choice. :deviltail

[joeMan]

Thanks guys, searched around for cheapest online deal - then pulled the handle. Got the OEM (I always buy OEM's - I know I know...warranty risk... :yikes: ) It's just the way of the joeMan...

[SIK_L_CELL]

Thanks guys, searched around for cheapest online deal - then pulled the handle. Got the OEM (I always buy OEM's - I know I know...warranty risk... :yikes: ) It's just the way of the joeMan...

The first retail cpu I ever bought was my FX-53 that would barely do 2.6. When it died AMD sent me this FX-55. I will never buy OEM again. Not that there is anything wrong with that. :deviltail

[joeMan]

Wow, a 55 for a dead 53...very RIGHTEOUS, man :cool: :thumb:

I hardly OC - only when I get the urge to tweak out hardcore every once in awhile. I feel it an honor to serve as the only guy (seems like ) on BE who doesn't OC, I'll walk the line for you guys and you all keep on tweakin' hardcore.

I do feel like I'm walking the tightrope with this substantial of a purchase being non-retail. It's just that after I've made several phone calls and grinded around the net, finally finding what I feel is my best price, right when I'm about to part with the $$, my obsession for the lowest price possible gets in the way of me making sound decisions. Like here for instance, I only saved like $35 pre-tax or so by not going retail (what a tightwad :lol: huh...you know it, it's okay). A $35 insurance policy on a FX-55 is a no brainer :rolleyes: :bonk: . Well, fingers crossed - let's hope my "always AMD & always OEM" tradition doesn't burn me here, it never has yet.

Honestly, after this, (when dual cores hit) - I will not purchase OEM any more either, only retail :yup: .

It's nice to be able to lay it down for real in a forum like the BE - you know and not get a bunch of sh*! for being honest

[joeMan]

Hey Snafu, you can see into my future I see?...good idea...

"...hmmmm, need another reason to upgrade...hmmmm...hey!the wife needs her own machine - ya, that's it..." good one, Snaferistic even. (Snafu+terrific+fantastic=Snaferistic).

yes, when my daughters inheret my A8V Deluxe v1.02, daddy's lookin at SLI PCI-E goodness...but I will then need to buy DDR2, correct? Hmmmm, maybe this 2Gigs TWINX2048 set should go back to Fry's and I'll wait it out.

I'll be droppin the 55 in there fer sure though, and then hangin tight for dual cores before another move up in CPU.

Dang it, where's that money tree...? sheeesh!

[Snafu]

Hey joe - don't worry about DDR2 with the FX55. I'm not the AMD pro but I hear it doesn't work - something to do with teh on chip memory controller not "designed" for DDR2.

BB_One is following this very closely for his next system build and may give you some ideas.

Good for you on the FX55 :bow:

Now time to set-up the wife's machine :mischeif:

[SIK_L_CELL]

You wont need DDR2 for that rig. like he said it wont work. And the retail box is like having a 3 year trade in program. :look: Good luck and have fun. :deviltail

[JavaJiver]

I had a 16mhz computer and a 50mhz computer in the 8th grade...
LOL
"The times they are a changin'"

Seriously though...
Let me know how that chip works out I'm looking to get one of the upper amds.

[WickedCommotion]

Wow and fx-53 for 8th graders?... Will all the trimmings... again wow. Now i got to build my nephew a 3.4ee 775 for my 5th grade cousin to make sure it can handle teaching him how to do math. Will a P4EE be fast enuff for a 5th grader any comments apprecitated... Also was thinking a 60in plasma from Runco for the monitor?... It might be just enuff...lol

Well anyway.. I'm sure they'll get the most out of that chip and it sure sounds like an awesome setup. Nice Job Joe.... Wish I was your kid.. Geez. Have a good one..

[joeMan]

Plus - BUILDING THEM A MACHINE GIVES ME THE PERFECT EXCUSE TO UPGRADE :thumbs: :rock: !!! Come on, face it - that's all I'm in it for and we all know it... "Hi, my name is Joe, and I'm an UPGRADE-a-holic..." - "HI JOE!" the crowd answers back :lol:

This, sadly, is more true than not...it's really a sickness for me :rolleyes: :beat: .

Ever since I started tweaking 2 1/2 yrs. ago - I have always been on this front wave of things with always getting the latest thing. I mean, sh#% man, I've spent way more on my PC addiction in the last 2 1/2 years than I did in 7 years of being a pot head (and I only smoked the good stuff :yup: ), but those days are over - thankfully. I finally put down the huka about 4 years ago -and then a year and a half went by where I had no vices. Well, once the PC bug bit me it's been relentless! My New Years resolution is to quit being this way...I mean imagine what the PC $$ I spend would add up to in a 5 year college fund for my girls. Priorities, you know? I am 36 years old and still trying to grow up.

On the flip side, I have been a arcade & video game freak junky since the days of "Duck Hunt" back in the 70's (like when I was around 7 yrs. old, I think I started playing that one). You know, the one that you used to see back in the day in pizza parlours or the likes - it was a big box mounted high up on the wall across the room and you'd pay a quarter or two to get the little remote box from the cashier. Then you'd go over to a table across the room from the "Duck Hunt" screen and you could cycle through three different duck hunters with shotguns on the bottom of the screen - and youd push another button to fire their shotguns. You'd try to hit these ducks that would fly overhead at different speeds. That was my first gaming addiction.

At that time, pinball machines were still out in mass force, but they had already passed their heyday. They were fun, but they didn't bite me like what was about to come. The mid-70's, as many of you well know, brought the joys of better more sophisticated gaming, beginning with simple pong machines you could hook to your home TV through a UHF converter. It just reacted from there - like critical mass being achieved - next came the ATARI breakout consoles, the Fairchild - one of, if not the first cartridge based home game console, ATARI 2600 (this was the one that sunk it's teeth into the joeMan), Intellivision, and so on.

I'll never forget the summer of 1977. I discovered Cheap Trick and KISS, my friend Barney Brown showed me the Playboy under his mom's bed (his mom's bed - she was a professional dog trainer - awesome!), and Star Wars hit like a god damn 100 mega-ton bomb, :bow: that was also the year of the ATARI 2600 release. Man, I was a nerd rolling around in sci-fi, rock n' roll, porn, and video games like a pig in mud, just soakin' it up. I nagged my parents to the ends of the earth before they finally let me get a 2600. I worked all summer to earn 1/2 the money, then my dad matched it. The day finally came (I didn't sleep the night before), Mervyn's was my Star Wars headquarters, but Best was my game stop. We went to Best (it was just Best - no Best Buy back then) and there was my beautiful baby, sitting up in the locked cabinet behind the counter in the Electronis section. I got it and a Missile Command cartridge.

Well, those were the days, and it was just the beginning, for the 80's were just around the corner. Never was there a greater time in world history for video game junkies. Malls, video arcades, and Chuck E. Cheese. Stand-up and table top versions of all the classics were coming out, a new one every week it seemed. I swear to god if I had all those quarters back, I'd be hosting "The Apprentice". Space Invaders, Asteroids, Gorf, Tron, Joust, the whole Pac-Man series (with Pac-Man being the best by far), Pole Position, Defender, and who could forget the vector graphics classics like Tempest, and Battle Zone, and hundreds more...

More powerful systems like the ATARI 5200, and Coleco Vision (this was my 2nd console) hit. Second only to Pac-Man, Donkey Kong ruled my life. It all just keeps mushrooming out fom here. My parents should have seen it coming (little Joe's gonna be a junkie). With my addicitve personality, they're lucky I didn't end up shooting black death into my veins. Thank God for video games, or I might have!

So, here I am, 36 years old and still a kid. These days, great video gaming lives on home computers, so I am addicted to that. It's like the perfect time for video games to have the rennaissance that they have been because all those 1970's through 1980's kids who were on the jones for it back then are adults now who can spend their hard earned $$'s on tweaking their home arcades (PC's) - like me. I'm the poster child for this.

I guess that's why my kids have a kick ass machine.

[Prodigy]

ehhh... so are they currently working on DDR2 for AMD?? I Plan on building a alright gaming system. WIll Most Likely consist of AMD 3500+ (939), probably the Radeon 200 XPress series chipset (I've got till end of May to wait), ATI X800 XT PE, and 1GB of OCZ DDR2 Ram. But now since you all said that DDR2 doesn't work on AMD I don't know what I will do. And do they currently have a PCI-e Motherboard for AMD?

[Paragon]

I hardly OC - only when I get the urge to tweak out hardcore every once in awhile. I feel it an honor to serve as the only guy (seems like ) on BE who doesn't OC, I'll walk the line for you guys and you all keep on tweakin' hardcore.

Na there's at least three of us joeMan, you, me, and sodface :hide: I got your back bro :wave: and I have the tweaking sickness as well :beer:

[joeMan]

:beer:

I'm starting a new thread, Tweakaholics Anonymous. Come check in when you get a chance.

[Snafu]

Hi my name is Snafu, and it's been 3 days since I last tweaked something :hide:

[Paragon]

OMG it's been that long...:yikes:

[joeMan]

Hang on guys - the official thread will launch momentarily...please come over and join for the grand opening gala. Watch "New Posts" for the announcement.

And thank you for your support.