Old and New

I was randomly thinking the other day about my computer build and what I wanted to do with it, when I realized that the oldest component in my computer is my case. I bought this case 9 years ago, and I've had more than a dozen different computer builds in it. I have case badges dated back to the original AMD Athlon! If I remember, the oldest build I had in this computer was a Celeron 300a with 256mb RAM.

I'm the kind of guy to stay a few steps behind the elite computer, on purpose. I like get the most for my money, and there are certain dollar limits that I will spend on each component.

I've had the current config since August 2008, built around the original quad-core Q6600. The new processors (I7 and I5) while impressive, were either too far outside my price range (i7 920 a great cpu for the price, but other components required are expensive) or didn't offer enough performance boost (i5 750 doesn't have HyperThreading) over my current cpu.

Then I came across a surprising discovery. The new Lynnfield Xeon processors, which have Hyperthreading, were only $40 more than the i5 750, and with cheap(er) Socket 1156 components turned out to be a great build! So I just picked up a Xeon 3440, new Gigabyte P55 motherboard, and 8gb of DDR3 ram, for just under $600. Awesome.

For a while I had a little desire to upgrade my case, but then I figured that I actually liked that "history", and being able to look back on my life and see where I was. The case certainly brings back memories, good and bad times in Atlanta, it survived a fire and survived in my car when it was totalled by a runaway DOT semi.

So, I think I'll keep the old look, after all it's the inside that counts :)