Technological change makes buyer's remorse unavoidable these days if you let it bother you. Look at all the unhappy people who recently paid high prices for the Nivea Ti 500 when they heard about the new card.
Today I almost got buyer's remorse even though I'm delighted with my new desktop. First, I read on Tom's Hardware about the new AMD CPUs that will soon appear. Then I read Nivea's next-generation circuit board that will be out any day. Then I'm surprised to read about power source requirements on Nivea's new card. If you have to upgrade that along with a pricey video card, I'd think twice.
My new AMD l700+ from Falcon NW which I really like for the sub-$1,000 I allocated has a 250 watt-power source, 512 memory a 40 MB hard drive and the current Nivea board which features a 64 MB GF 2 and Dolby digital sound capable of handling 6 speakers onboard. Am I upset? No. It convinces me that my original approach was a good one when teamed with the unusual upgrading strategy I'm contemplating.
I noticed that very little of the difference in price between this machine ($975) and a $2,700+ baby consisted on things that directly affected performance. Both had 512 K memory. The performance advantage in the expensive machine, which even had the same circuit board, came mainly from a GF 3 Ti card which most games don't need yet and from a AMD 2000+ CPU, whose marginal advantage over my own will look razor thin two years from now. The rest of that l,700 extra dollars went into CDRW, 5.0 speakers (I have Klipsch 2.1s which I love, a big monitor and a bigger hard drive). Both come with XP. I think I'd feel far more remorseful if I spent the big bucks.
My buying strategy was to buy as much performance as I could get for $1,000, sacrificing other peripherals and going with a somewhat older video card temporarily but one which would do fine for some time. Common wisdom says you must spend a lot to avoid getting outdated but I wonder. Coming from my old machine (a PII 250 with 64 MB RAM and an 8 MB Matrox G-200 card) this baby screams. And for all the talk about "framerates" and the GF 2 being outdated, I'll tell you it ran Serious Sam 2 without a hiccup. I gather it's used to test newer cards. I suspect my machine would handle Medal of Honor too. It's one of the few shooters I look forward to, since I prefer strategy, wargames and RPGs more often. Like most gamers, I've got a backlog of unplayed stuff and don't need a card that can handle software that utilizes new 8.0 or 9.0 stuff the instant it appears.
Sounds to me like the GF4 4200 will suffice for that assuming power requirements are ok. It'll be cheaper too by the time it's needed. I get the impression power requirements are going to go up in the future--something to keep in mind when you are buying a new machine.
Given the expense of external peripherals, the 2nd part of my strategy may seem nuts because that's how I thinking of going for storage or CDRW when I need them. Since they can be used with more than one machine I think it can make them cheaper in the long run. My laptop would benefit for now.
Down the road, instead of having to buy a power-supply and a video card to keep up while everything else is dated, I hope to repeat my "concentrate on performance for a grand or so" strategy. When you can get that much that cheap it seems silly to put a ton of money into the latest video card plus power supply to match, when you can easily get an up-to-date circuit board, CPU to match, and latest version of windows for not much more than double what you'd be spending anyway. In fact, that Falcon pedigree with a GF4 200 card would probably close the money gap substantially--or I can keep it and link two pretty decent machines. Meanwhile those external peripherals pass right along and continue to be usable with the laptop. They'd have considerable marketablity as well if desired.
I've do have a few questions:
1. In the long run, should it be USB 2.0 or firewire for peripherals? (My new machine has firewire but but I can easily add USB2 capability to it and the laptop when it's needed).
2. External disk drive or external zip drive? Which do you recommend?
3. Is it a good idea to copy your operating system to such external storage?
4. If I did that using Windows XP from my new desktop and used it as the starting drive with my laptop (Windows 98), would I have a problem?
5. Do you think this is a good approach for driving and upgrading? (Bear in mind that I'd have no idea how to build my own machine and I'm a bit tech wary).
Today I almost got buyer's remorse even though I'm delighted with my new desktop. First, I read on Tom's Hardware about the new AMD CPUs that will soon appear. Then I read Nivea's next-generation circuit board that will be out any day. Then I'm surprised to read about power source requirements on Nivea's new card. If you have to upgrade that along with a pricey video card, I'd think twice.
My new AMD l700+ from Falcon NW which I really like for the sub-$1,000 I allocated has a 250 watt-power source, 512 memory a 40 MB hard drive and the current Nivea board which features a 64 MB GF 2 and Dolby digital sound capable of handling 6 speakers onboard. Am I upset? No. It convinces me that my original approach was a good one when teamed with the unusual upgrading strategy I'm contemplating.
I noticed that very little of the difference in price between this machine ($975) and a $2,700+ baby consisted on things that directly affected performance. Both had 512 K memory. The performance advantage in the expensive machine, which even had the same circuit board, came mainly from a GF 3 Ti card which most games don't need yet and from a AMD 2000+ CPU, whose marginal advantage over my own will look razor thin two years from now. The rest of that l,700 extra dollars went into CDRW, 5.0 speakers (I have Klipsch 2.1s which I love, a big monitor and a bigger hard drive). Both come with XP. I think I'd feel far more remorseful if I spent the big bucks.
My buying strategy was to buy as much performance as I could get for $1,000, sacrificing other peripherals and going with a somewhat older video card temporarily but one which would do fine for some time. Common wisdom says you must spend a lot to avoid getting outdated but I wonder. Coming from my old machine (a PII 250 with 64 MB RAM and an 8 MB Matrox G-200 card) this baby screams. And for all the talk about "framerates" and the GF 2 being outdated, I'll tell you it ran Serious Sam 2 without a hiccup. I gather it's used to test newer cards. I suspect my machine would handle Medal of Honor too. It's one of the few shooters I look forward to, since I prefer strategy, wargames and RPGs more often. Like most gamers, I've got a backlog of unplayed stuff and don't need a card that can handle software that utilizes new 8.0 or 9.0 stuff the instant it appears.
Sounds to me like the GF4 4200 will suffice for that assuming power requirements are ok. It'll be cheaper too by the time it's needed. I get the impression power requirements are going to go up in the future--something to keep in mind when you are buying a new machine.
Given the expense of external peripherals, the 2nd part of my strategy may seem nuts because that's how I thinking of going for storage or CDRW when I need them. Since they can be used with more than one machine I think it can make them cheaper in the long run. My laptop would benefit for now.
Down the road, instead of having to buy a power-supply and a video card to keep up while everything else is dated, I hope to repeat my "concentrate on performance for a grand or so" strategy. When you can get that much that cheap it seems silly to put a ton of money into the latest video card plus power supply to match, when you can easily get an up-to-date circuit board, CPU to match, and latest version of windows for not much more than double what you'd be spending anyway. In fact, that Falcon pedigree with a GF4 200 card would probably close the money gap substantially--or I can keep it and link two pretty decent machines. Meanwhile those external peripherals pass right along and continue to be usable with the laptop. They'd have considerable marketablity as well if desired.
I've do have a few questions:
1. In the long run, should it be USB 2.0 or firewire for peripherals? (My new machine has firewire but but I can easily add USB2 capability to it and the laptop when it's needed).
2. External disk drive or external zip drive? Which do you recommend?
3. Is it a good idea to copy your operating system to such external storage?
4. If I did that using Windows XP from my new desktop and used it as the starting drive with my laptop (Windows 98), would I have a problem?
5. Do you think this is a good approach for driving and upgrading? (Bear in mind that I'd have no idea how to build my own machine and I'm a bit tech wary).
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