posted 2007/07/28 at 23:37
Earlier this week, after no small amount of pushing on my part, I was finally able to get paid for all of the stuff that I lost in the house fire over six years ago. Why it took so long to get a cheque cut for the stuff I don't know, but this did put a good chunk of change into my bank account. Most of the money came from the comics I lost in the fire, and unfortunately the ones I want to replace (the Popples series Marvel put out during the initial craze) are all but impossible to replace, and the ones that would be easy to replace (old X-Men from the late 80s) just don't hold that much interest for me anymore. Thus, the cash is pretty much mine to do with as I please.
I'm about 90 percent sure at this point that I want to use this money to build a new computer. Whether I build the computer for myself or for my father is still very much in the air, and unfortunately this is kind of an important distinction because whereas I prefer Intel-based systems since the one AMD system I've ever owned crapped out on me in a hurry, my father prefers AMD systems because they're better for the 3-D stuff he does. Unfortunately, it's been four years now since I built Yggdrasil Mark I, and only now am I learning about stuff like PCI Express. I'm kind of ashamed at just how out-of-the-loop I've gotten when it comes to computers, and if I'm going to build something here soon, I'll need to catch up in a hurry. (Or, of course, I could always just go the notebook route, but the only notebooks I could afford right now would be even less powerful than Yggdrasil Mark I.)
I'm going to put out a general call for advice here, although my suspicion here is that Don B. will be the only one to answer. I don't need the latest and greatest in terms of processors and mobos, but I don't want to buy crap either. An Asus motherboard is pretty much a given with me, and I prefer to shop at NewEgg and Tiger Direct for big-ticket items. (Stuff like cases, mice, and keyboards I'll buy locally since those will be cheaper to buy that way and I'm not so worried about name brands.) I want something that will at least run current-generation stuff (though I will most certainly buy XP Pro and not Vista), but I don't need quad-core or a $600 graphics card or anything like that. Any suggestions on Intel and AMD processor/mobo combinations -- particularly from NewEgg and/or Tiger Direct -- would be appreciated.
I may actually be the wrong person to ask. I haven't built a PC in almost 5 years - my last two computers have been notebooks (a Dell Inspiron that I gave to the Mrs. when I bought my MacBook Pro last year). But I can always ask my co-worker who just built his own gaming rig what he recommends.
If you want to go bleeding edge, Intel has taken the performance crown back from AMD last I heard.
Get a MacBook or iMac, Sean. You're an artist, and Apple stuff is designed with creative people in mind. Doesn't matter if it's music, film, art or text -- the Apple interface is so much more suited to it than anything Microsoft has ever done.
I guarantee you that once you use one for a few days, you won't ever want to go back.
I second Jeremy's recommendation. I'm not an artist, but my iMac has brought out what little latent artistic ability that I have. I can only imagine what someone with actual artistic talent could do.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon