After repeatedly glazing my eyeballs at Newegg.ca...
...I've managed to /just about/ settle on this setup here. I'm not even going to bother cringing at the price - this is a five year investment to last me through school, and unlike a car that I don't currently have any crippling need for, doesn't require regular expensive maintainance, gasoline, insurance risk, and etc.
Anyway! Since last time, I've changed the case over to something bigger, with more room for larger, quieter fans, and from the reviews, a superior cable management system, and room for a ton of fans. Basically, cooler, quieter, and with more room for exansion.
That said, the case is where I'm least settled, and most worried - I've managed to research the hell out of most of the rest of those components, comparing and contrasting reviews, and I think I've managed to balance erring on the side of what reviews better, while steering clear of the overclocking crowd and staying away from obviously overpriced parts.
I am spending quite a bit on the graphics card, but again, the intent is to try to get this to four or five years, and with this setup, I can string together an eventual total of three of them if I need to, and by that time, should I even need the extra performance, the price of those cards will have come down substantially. I'm willing to take a hit in the wallet there for the potential of relatively inexpensive massive performance improvements should I need them.
Added an optical disk drive, that Sony CD/DVD thing, after I realized that, while I'd rarely use it, it's the sort of thing I'd kick myself for forgetting about.
I actually play around with moving away from NVIDIA for the graphics card for awhile, and went through a couple different motherboard - I just realized, without intending to, I've resettled on the exact same motherboard as I'd had before, and a better (more cooling, less noise).
So yeah, this is kind of exciting - first time in my computing life I won't feel two or three generations behind! Which of course I will be again in a few years with this, but again, hopefully I've got things set up so that I'll still be comfortable in a few years, using a computer that's a few years old. Hell, I've been doing that forever anyway.
Alright, ending this too long thing already - anything look wrong our out of place at all? Not getting anything before September, so I've got time to mess around, I'm not wedded to a single component here at all, and again, it's the case where I'm the most wary right now.
Anyway! Since last time, I've changed the case over to something bigger, with more room for larger, quieter fans, and from the reviews, a superior cable management system, and room for a ton of fans. Basically, cooler, quieter, and with more room for exansion.
That said, the case is where I'm least settled, and most worried - I've managed to research the hell out of most of the rest of those components, comparing and contrasting reviews, and I think I've managed to balance erring on the side of what reviews better, while steering clear of the overclocking crowd and staying away from obviously overpriced parts.
I am spending quite a bit on the graphics card, but again, the intent is to try to get this to four or five years, and with this setup, I can string together an eventual total of three of them if I need to, and by that time, should I even need the extra performance, the price of those cards will have come down substantially. I'm willing to take a hit in the wallet there for the potential of relatively inexpensive massive performance improvements should I need them.
Added an optical disk drive, that Sony CD/DVD thing, after I realized that, while I'd rarely use it, it's the sort of thing I'd kick myself for forgetting about.
I actually play around with moving away from NVIDIA for the graphics card for awhile, and went through a couple different motherboard - I just realized, without intending to, I've resettled on the exact same motherboard as I'd had before, and a better (more cooling, less noise).
So yeah, this is kind of exciting - first time in my computing life I won't feel two or three generations behind! Which of course I will be again in a few years with this, but again, hopefully I've got things set up so that I'll still be comfortable in a few years, using a computer that's a few years old. Hell, I've been doing that forever anyway.
Alright, ending this too long thing already - anything look wrong our out of place at all? Not getting anything before September, so I've got time to mess around, I'm not wedded to a single component here at all, and again, it's the case where I'm the most wary right now.