Best and Worst buys of 2002.... (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

Just wondering what your favorite computer buys of the year are, for tech heads like myself. 6 years ago, who would have ever thought I'd own a DVD recorder now?
But this year was a strange one for my computer. Around April, my Motherboard suddenly died. Causing it to be upgraded from P2 400 to P3 1GHZ.
Next, I d ecided to save up and upgrade the rest. 5 yer old ATI card got replaced the day Episode 2 came out, to an 64MB DDR 7500 AIW. Just barley got it installed before we had to leave and wait in line .
A few months later, my CD Burner died around August, and I was able to use my newly saved $300's to order a DVD Burner. +R and +RW of course . At the rate I'm going, I'll be able to completly phase out the VCR in my room by mid 2003.
And that is thanks in part to this new Hard Drive. From a 11GB 256KB Cache Maxtor, to an 8MB Cache, 100GB Western Digital...
And all this wouldn't have happened if my motherboard didn't conk out on me, heh. Luckiest year in my computer history to be sure...Expensive, but lucky ..
Anyone else have a year like this?

 

[Scott L]

Yea sorta, it's funny to compare prices now & then. The retail PIII 800eb cpu I'm replacing was $305 at the cheapest place Pricewatch reported. The 800 was not the fastest chip out as the the 1Ghz cpus were getting all the press. I just bought a retail P4 2.4b and it was on pricewatch for $190.

The motherboard cost a little more with the digital audio out/lan/firewire options I chose with it, but the ram was definitely much less. $150 for Crucial 512mb pc2700 DDR compared to 256mb pc133 SDRAM that was probably about the same price 2 years ago.

The graphics card is a different story. I had an Elsa Gladiac GF2 GTS and was always happy with it. I was getting poor framerates in MOH so I got a bba Radeon 7500 but barely noticed a performance increase (but loved the TV-out quality). I picked up a GF4 4200 on newegg for $114 but it wasn't until I upgraded my proc that I saw any real difference.

Now just in time my 20gig IBM (close to $100 shipped) seems to be dying and it will be replaced with a 40gig WD I'm getting from the Anandtech classifieds for $55 shipped.

I'll be doing this in another 2 yrs and I hope the price trend goes the same way; getting close to the latest and greatest and paying less than I did 2yrs back.

 

[Daniel Alan]

Well, I built a new system:

P4 2.26 at 2.9ghz
Asus P4B533 mobo
512megs of Samsung PC2700DRR
GeForce 4 4400ti @ 305/650
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
17" Samsung 170s LCD
Logitech wireless keyboard and optical mouse
80gb Western Digital HDD
a cd burner, DVD drive and a super cool floppy!

for about $1500

 

[Robert_Gaither]

I just bought a P-3 900 and MB ($128 for both in FEB) earlier this year to replace my old P2 266. I also bought a 512 ram for the same price that about 2 years ago I bought a 128 for the previous setup. I'm still on my 6.4 gig HD and having been looking around and haven't decided yet on a replacement. Currently thinking about also going to the newer AMDs as a change of pace from Intel.

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

I just finished putting this together yesterday:

I couldn't be happier with the performance. Radeon 9700 Pro, 768mb of DDR memory, gigabit ethernet, Dell 2000fp 20.1" UXGA LCD, etc.
This is replacing my old 2.4Ghz Xeon with 1.5GB of RDRAM.

 

[Robert_Gaither]

This is replacing my old 2.4Ghz Xeon with 1.5GB of RDRAM

Wow, you consider this old? And quad processors? Either you're running a business and like using your server to also act like a workstation or are using this for your entire family and everyone's a remote station? (BTW, looks to be a very kick ass setup).

 

[Josh Lowe]

I've had very bad luck with PC hardware this year. -Very- bad. Bad enough to where I've been seriously considering switching to a G4 tower for home.

I did a motherboard/CPU/RAM upgrade that has been a complete disaster. The CPU will now run no faster than 1.8ghz (it's a P4 Northwood 2.4ghz) without crashing. The system locks up at random times, in fact it locked up this morning. When I rebooted it, the main hard drive would not spin up or be recognized by the IDE/RAID controller. I ended up opening up the case, checking all the cable connections and then pulling the CMOS reset jumper. After I did that everything came back up. It might be that the CPU and hard drive are fine and it's the motherboard that's screwed. Or it might be all three.

The fact is that while I -do- have the knowledge and the skill to fix it, I don't have the time or the inclination anymore. I've never owned any PC other than ones I've built myself, but it's rapidly starting to lose its luster.

I might give things one last shot.. a whole new PC from the ground up.. But like I said after spending a weekend using a friend's G4 Ti Powerbook, I am pretty much sold on Jaguar and a dual G4 tower.. I'm going to wait and see if there are any price drops announced at Macworld and then make my decision.

 

[DaveGTP]

Sounds like a faulty motherboard to me....what brand was it?

 

[Josh Lowe]

Abit IT7-MAX2

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

Wow, you consider this old? And quad processors? Either you're running a business and like using your server to also act like a workstation or are using this for your entire family and everyone's a remote station? (BTW, looks to be a very kick ass setup).

It's actually a dual processor unit with hyperthreaded processors. It's just my personal workstation. It's a lot of fun though.

 

[Ted Lee]

this was a good year for me. i put together a brand new rig. typical stuff:

asus 533e board
p4 / 2.53g
512 memory
80g (8mb buffer) wd hd
soundblaster live

i just got a new microsoft wireless keyboard/mouse combo for x-mas and my tax return next year will cover a 19" LCD and some 5.1 speaker system!

woo-hoo!

 

[David Hill]

Great year!

One conflict too many and one "TWAIN Driver already in use" message caused me to ditch the PC and buy an iMac.

Flat screen, with DVD burner.

I have never been so happy with a home computer. Hasn't crashed once since April and only switched it off a dozen or so times.

I've scanned, connected and disconnetced my DV camcorder, and digicam, printed loads of photoquality pictures and gues what? It has NEVER crashed!!!!

Finally I have a home computer that when I go to it will do what I want, when I want, without any damn stupid crashes or conflicts.

Home computing heaven.....

David

 

[Todd Hochard]

Josh,

I've had similar (nearly identical symptoms, actually) problems with two different motherboards- one Tyan, and one Asus (both Award BIOS). In both cases, it turned out to be the battery on the motherboard. $3 and 5 minutes later, problem solved.

Todd

 

[Charles J P]

I went the true budget route. I upgraded from a 400MHz to "just" a 1.6GHz, but I have 1GB of RAM. My next coolest upgrade was when I just recently replaced my 4Xwrite 2XRW 24XRead cd burner with a 52Xwrite 24XRW 52Xread CD burner. I love it and it was only $40 after a rebate (its a cheap brand, but will probably outlast the rest of my computer)

 

[Lee L]

2.0 gig P4
30 MB hard drive
48x CD burner
128 MB DDR RAM
built in ethernet and AC 97 sound
mid level video card
15" LCD monitor
speakers
Windows XP

$605 delivered from Dell

Add in 35 bucks for 256 MB of additional ram and a pretty solid machine for under $650

 

[Gerald LaFrance]

This is replacing my old 2.4Ghz Xeon with 1.5GB of RDRAM

So what are you gonna do with the old one??
I also upgraded this year specs:
P4 2.4 ghz northwood 533 mhz bus 512 kb l2 ATC
256 PC 2700 DDR ram, more on the way
ATX All Aluminum case 300w
G4 MX Xtasy vid card waiting on Nvidia for the NV30s??
52x cd rom
4x dvd combo
Via P4 PB mainboard with built in sound 5.1 need to get speakers!! :frowning:
and still deciding if I should get Win XP Pro???

 

[Duane R]

My upgrading goes in cycles--sometimes quick in sucession (like once every 6-9 months) and other times 2+ years. I just finished my latest rig about a month ago and I couldn't be happier (except for the spending part anyway ) What I wound up with is:
Antec SX835 tower w/ 350W PS
Asus P4PE (the loaded version)
P4 2.66 @ 2.9
2x 512MB Corsair PC3500 DDR
WD 80GB 8MB cache HD
Liteon 16x DVD/48X CD
TDK 48X16X48 CD-RW
SB Audigy (recycled from previous system)
PNY Geforce 4 4400 128MB video
Windows XP Pro -- MS finally got it right!
I think this should hold me over nicely for about a year or so until I can step up to the Prescott 800 mhz FSB Intel chips for semi-reasonable money.

 

[Scott L]

Lee- kickass price, especially with that LCD thrown in!

 

[Julian Reville]

Just last week I went from a HP PII 300MHz to a:
P4 2.4GHz
Intel 845 something or other MB
512Mb Crucial 2700 memory
recycled my OS, HD & Plextor CD-RW
The old HP got cleaned up and taken to work where it is now functioning happily as a workstation. The neat part is the HP has a DVD drive so I can now watch movies at work.
How does one overclock a P4? Are there jumpers on the MB to select speed like in the old days?

 

[Scott L]

It's all in the bios. Changing the bus speed along with the voltage has given many great results with Northwoods.