Hello all. Here are some of my personal opinions on buying hardware...
Go ahead a splurge on the items you will keep for a while. Spend a little
extra on the mouse and keyboard - you'll keep them for a while and
appreciate the quality on a daily basis. Same thing with Cases - buy one
with expandability in mind, and it should last a long time. Speakers might
fall in this catagory as well, depending on how serious you take your
music/sounds.
On items like hard drives and monitors, look for your best value. For
example, the best place I've found for buying hard drives is www.tjt.com.
Right now, a 6.4 gig drive runs $99, while 5400rpm 16.8gig IBM drive and
their their 7200rpm 14.4gig IBM drive are both $149. That size/performance
is kind of the "sweet spot" right now. The price/mb goes up on their newer,
larger drives of course. Monitors are a little different. You will
probably keep it for a long time, but the really large ones are not worth it
right now unless you need it. The large 21s are still pretty high, but the
19s are getting really resonable, and the 17s are about standard now - I
wouldn't go any smaller, and you won't save much money on a 15.
Processors are really in a strange category. For personal use, you should
always stay one generation behind. You can pick up a Celeron 433 right now
for less than $85 that will run anything out there. Next year, you can pick
up the current $85 dollar processor (at no telling what mhz) and keep up to
speed, and still spend a lot less than the $200+ you just spent on a PIII
450! And from all the press AMD is getting, they might have something that
really smokes it out by then - or perhaps Intel comes back and blows the AMD
away... Who knows? Point is, you probably don't want to buy the
latest-greatest processor until it's replacement comes along :)
Video and sound cards are a personal choice. I spent way to much on my
Soundblaster Live - the MX300 came out afterwards and the prices cut in half
really fast. Now days, a SBLive (or MX300)at $50 is a pretty good deal if
you want a good sound card. A $15 SB16 would serve most people, and I don't
know if I can tell the difference (except for 4-channel stuff). On video,
the TNT2 is a great card, but for less than 1/2 the price you can get a TNT
card which will run everything out there (and well, I might add). In a few
months, something else will come out and the TNT2 will be down at that
price, which is when I will probably get one - unless Quake 3 releases with
some special stuff the TNT2 will only do, then I'm there! :) For now, my
TNT is doing everything fine. I bought it before the TNT2 came out, but I
waited until it had dropped to under the $100 mark - that's when it became
worth it for me.
My advice - watch the newsgroup and hardware web pages, hang out in the irc
channel #celeron on efnet (only good hardware channel I've found, if you
know of another let me know!), and watch www.pricewatch.com.
Jeff
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Gonzo
> Sent: Friday, August 13, 1999 2:18 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Dream Machine Just Perfect !
>
-clip-
> My own *personal* opinion is to buy what will be adequate for
> the next year
> or two and stay well behind the technology curve and upgrade
> more often. You
> will save money in the end. One of the best examples of this lies in
> processor prices. One popular site lists P!!! 600's for $750,
> 500's for $450
> and 400's for $200. (don't post telling me you can get them
> cheaper someone
> else, I don't care, it's still going to be the same type of
> price curve I'm
> trying to illustrate) If a P400 will suit your needs for as
> little as one
> year, buy it now and buy a 600 next year. Till then, the 600
> will be the
> same price as the 400 now. You end up saving a great deal of money.
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