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I have quite a few computers around the house.. 8 off the top of my head.. Two of them are my main machines.. I have two monitors in front of me with the left one being my primary browser/IM/Email rig and my right one being my game machine.

The left machine is a little crappy 600mhz machine that I have had for ever.. It’s awesome in that it JUST WONT DIE!

Thankfully.. heh.. This machine weathers high temperatures and thunderstorms like a monster.. it’s just happy to keep on trudging along..

My main game machine however, has died.. yet again.  This time it took the big bite.. Motherboard/CPU has finally given up.  All the peripherals seem fine but still.. It’s now useless.. and that sucks!   It’s simply not that old.. It really seems like hardware any more is made to die.  It seems like a given chipset is designed from the outset to die after x amount of hours — that annoys me..

Considering how long the left machine has been running, constantly.. I know its possible to make long running machines.. These highly overclocked speeddeamons that you get now adays seem to have an extremely short life..

I decided this time to buy a new machine from a company that has a good warranty so that if anything goes wrong, they fix it.  I went with Digital Storm Online.  They seem like a fair pack of folks and they have pretty good reviews on resellerratings.com plus the better business bureau has had them listed since 2001 so we know they aren’t some fly by night shindig that is here today and gone tomorrow..

I decided that since I have to upgrade anyway, I might as well get a good high end machine.. The machine I’m getting has the following:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 2.6GHz Quad Core w/eVGA Core 2 Quad (nForce 680i) SLI motherboard
• nVidia GeForce 8800GTX 756MB (only one, I’ll get the second one later)
• 2GB DDR2 Corsair 800mhz (no not the 1066mhz.. it was extra)
• 250 gb Western Digital HD (16mb cache – 7200rpm) (no not the 10k.. too pricey)
• 750w Powersupply.. etc.. other nice odds and ends..

I’m paying right at three grand.  I priced all the parts for the computer I’m getting and came up with a price around 2 and a half through pricewatch.. But that doesn’t come with the level of support that DS has, nor the 2 year warranty they supply.

In the end I’m happy with the purchase.  No buyers remorse.. and I’m sure once it actually gets here I’ll be even happier.  I just wasn’t ready for it to happen yet.  I feel like I was forced into the decision instead of making it myself..

I also went with a company instead of just making it myself because I’m tired of dealing with the pain of building a computer from scratch.  I have build ALL of my past computers and at this point in my life.. I’m done with it.  I’m ready for someone else to deal with it and just giving me a final working product..

The guys I spoke to were very knowledgeable and I didn’t feel like they were trying to ring more money out of me.. in fact they actually suggested stuff that lowered the price.. (the motherboard I had originally suggested they said wasn’t very good.. and since I have no knowledge either way I went with their choice.. )

Here is hoping I get a smoking hot gaming rig that will score more than 3K on 3DMark06. heh.   My last computer scored a 2223 – and I was fine with that, it played all my games fantastically..  Mel’s computer scored alittle higher, and my friend Calvin scored mid 3K..
I have a feeling I’m about to take a staggering leap forward in performance..