PC "Rigs" That I've Built
The first one I'm going to showcase is the computer I built for my parents.
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When my parents had asked me to buy them a computer for Christmas, I decided to go with one that I could build. There are various reasons for this. The most important being is that I could design a PC that was not only "geezer friendly" for things like arthritis and eyes, but also something that I could repair if anything happened to it.
This particular setup set me back $1126.92. Now, I realize I could have went with Dell, or Gateway, and bought some shit computer for them at half the price. Honestly, those PC's are only good for about two months. Two solid months before you realize how outdated they are. You can't multi-task worth a damn on them without them going lag crazy. I know. I was once one of those people. I could spend a little more than half of what I spent and end up with something that is 10 times worse. To me, that is not cost effective. I used their PC building function and to build anything remotely close would have cost me about $100 less, To build something on par, that would set me back another $400. For a current day computer, this isn't too bad. It can do gaming, and do it well. Five years from now? Probably not. But who cares? This computer was built to last a good ten years for just general use.
This next computer is my "DDR Pimp Rig", or so it's been dubbed.
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My goal behind this one? Build an inexpensive computer to play Stepmania. With using left over parts that I had from other computers, this was easy to accomplish. The reason I went for inexpensive PC is for two reasons. The first and perhaps the biggest is that I planned on shelling out some serious dough for a TV and the two pads. I already had the processor, the video card, the CD-ROM, and the HDD. I even managed to fix my old mouse for this. My goal was to not spend more than $500 buying the rest of the parts (not including shipping). My final total, before shipping, was $417.37.
If you want to include the price of the other parts that I originally had, the total comes out to be $883.36
Spending $480 on the pads, and another $800 on the TV (plus the three year warranty), the grand total becomes $2163.36
That seems like a very large investment, and it is. Consider this. If you get roughly an hour of play in an arcade, at $0.75, that comes out to be $4.50 (assuming you've spent ten minutes per three song sets). Factor in the drinks you're going to buy from thirst, that's another $5. Do that three times a week, it'll cost you $28.50. Now if you have to drive a good distance like I did to reach the nearest DDR/ITG machine, that'll run you about $40 a week in gas. So per week, you're spending $68.50. Do that for a year and you'll spend $3562. This setup is saving me $1398.64 a year. Even if my pads break down after a year of use, the money I've saved will afford me to buy new. If nothing breaks down, I'll just keep saving and saving.
The last PC setup that I want to showcase is my very own.
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I had originally built this right around the time when socket AM2 came out. It went through some hardware changes over time. Grand total, $1480.90 which is considering the costs of what is currently in this. This is going to be my DX9 machine. While I'm not using THE top end graphics card, it's just two steps below that. The tricky part was getting the 4GB of RAM to work properly. With 2 gigs, optimal timings were 2-3-2-6, 1T, 2.65V. With 4GB, I can safely run this at 2-3-3-6, 2T, 2.65V. Notice, this is not a significant loss in optimal timings. The 4GB of RAM allows for greater multi-tasking - something that I do a lot of. The nice thing about this build is that it will last for years to come. I don't actually have to upgrade much of anything in this anymore. The only thing that I "settled" for was the PCI fan. There was a PCI fan that took up two spots, and was about 4 times the price that I wanted, but they were sold out. All in all, I'm very pleased with this build. In another two or three years, I'll build a completely new computer. New socket technology will be out, DDR3 RAM will be common place for desktop memory, GDDR4 RAM will be in video cards, and I'll know everything I need to know about Vista by then, lastly and hopefully there will be new monitor technology that is not only cheaper or just as cheap as CRT, but also come in some type of LCD package.