OK, Brace Yourself, I've Bought Something!
All right, I'm the first to admit that this has been quite the saga of how best to get my desktop working again. From buying a new hard drive, to diagnosing that it wasn't my hard drive, and then going through multiple iterations of plans of various components, let's just say I've been all over the 'net, and realized that it is time to purchase something.
The straw that broke the camel's back so to speak was on my last trip to Microcenter, they didn't have any of the two parts I was looking for: a Pentium D 915 and a corresponding Gigabyte motherboard. Clearly, I needed a new plan, and it needed to be online shopping. While I could get a Pentium D 830, and a corresponding motherboard from NewEgg for around $120 + shipping, I didn't jump at it. That wasn't the chip I really wanted, and I knew I'd be looking to upgrade in the coming months no matter how affordable it was now. Why let a few sticks of RAM hold back a more modern processor I reasoned!
I thought about what I really wanted and needed, and looked again at the benchmarks. Also, I ditched the plan to wait for the next round of Intel price cuts. My 'puter is broken now, why wait till May to get it up and running (this is a great argument for keeping a backup around, BTW...). I also really wanted a new Core 2 Duo, like everyone else that knows anything about computers.
I was seriously a big fan of my Shuttle before it started dysfunctioning, and I looked towards a replacement. It turns out that that not only was the AMD version of the Shuttle G2 series a more stable product, but it was also over $100 cheaper. With the most recent round of AMD price cuts, they are more competitive, and Athlon X2 here I come. Yes, an overclocked Core 2 Duo can run circles around just about everything, but I don't overclock, and with the computer issues I keep enduring, I'm not interested in starting now. I'm going with an Athlon X2 5200+ which on many benchmarks is somewhere around the performance of an E6400, and not quite an E6600. A gig of RAM will complete the purchase for now. I'm planning on a graphics card, but I'll get that in a few months as there are some budget DX10 models coming, and I want to visualize how much (or really little) space will be left in the Shuttle's diminutive case.
I think it's kind of funny that even when I wanted to go with an Intel chip, I ended up voting with my dollars for the underdog. After owning a K6-200, a K6-2 475, an Athlon XP-M 2200+, an Athlon XP 2800+, and an Athlon 64 3800+, I suppose that the X2 5200+ is simply my destiny. Once a fanboy, always a fanboy... or something like that?
The parts were all ordered this AM from NewEgg, and they're supposed to arrive tomorrow according to the tracking numbers. Stay tuned to see how this all turns out. After writing all about dual core chips for the last year, I'm excited to (finally) join the club!
--Jonas
The straw that broke the camel's back so to speak was on my last trip to Microcenter, they didn't have any of the two parts I was looking for: a Pentium D 915 and a corresponding Gigabyte motherboard. Clearly, I needed a new plan, and it needed to be online shopping. While I could get a Pentium D 830, and a corresponding motherboard from NewEgg for around $120 + shipping, I didn't jump at it. That wasn't the chip I really wanted, and I knew I'd be looking to upgrade in the coming months no matter how affordable it was now. Why let a few sticks of RAM hold back a more modern processor I reasoned!
I thought about what I really wanted and needed, and looked again at the benchmarks. Also, I ditched the plan to wait for the next round of Intel price cuts. My 'puter is broken now, why wait till May to get it up and running (this is a great argument for keeping a backup around, BTW...). I also really wanted a new Core 2 Duo, like everyone else that knows anything about computers.
I was seriously a big fan of my Shuttle before it started dysfunctioning, and I looked towards a replacement. It turns out that that not only was the AMD version of the Shuttle G2 series a more stable product, but it was also over $100 cheaper. With the most recent round of AMD price cuts, they are more competitive, and Athlon X2 here I come. Yes, an overclocked Core 2 Duo can run circles around just about everything, but I don't overclock, and with the computer issues I keep enduring, I'm not interested in starting now. I'm going with an Athlon X2 5200+ which on many benchmarks is somewhere around the performance of an E6400, and not quite an E6600. A gig of RAM will complete the purchase for now. I'm planning on a graphics card, but I'll get that in a few months as there are some budget DX10 models coming, and I want to visualize how much (or really little) space will be left in the Shuttle's diminutive case.
I think it's kind of funny that even when I wanted to go with an Intel chip, I ended up voting with my dollars for the underdog. After owning a K6-200, a K6-2 475, an Athlon XP-M 2200+, an Athlon XP 2800+, and an Athlon 64 3800+, I suppose that the X2 5200+ is simply my destiny. Once a fanboy, always a fanboy... or something like that?
The parts were all ordered this AM from NewEgg, and they're supposed to arrive tomorrow according to the tracking numbers. Stay tuned to see how this all turns out. After writing all about dual core chips for the last year, I'm excited to (finally) join the club!
--Jonas
Labels: Athlon X2 5200+, NewEgg, Shuttle build
posted by digitaldoc at 10:35 PM
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