Maybe I'll get a new computer instead

Hmm, it's been a pretty geeky day. Other than Angela and Heather coming over for a while this evening to ask Dan and I to attend their "How to Host a Murder" party on Friday, everything I did revolved around computers. First off, in between product design meetings at work, I debated long and hard about the Xbox thing. Ammon was modding Mardell's today, so we got to see just what a modded Xbox can do. This prompted Gary to go buy one for $130 from a store just down the street, and we started modding this as well. Kyle and I both debated long and hard about joining the crowd, but in the long run I decided the interface wasn't as slick as I would like it, and the Mario Kart 64 game didn't run as smoothly as I needed it to run. Plus, it didn't have optical out and only had S-Video out, so I'd have to watch it on my projector all the time, or get a new TV. Basically, I decided it'd be fun, but that the $200 would be better spent going towards a new and quiet, mini HTPC. So I did a lot of research on that this evening. I've decided upon a Shuttle ST61G4, with a P4 processor (I feel like I've just sold out or something for not getting an Athlon). It was rated at 47dB, which was quieter than all but the Shuttle Zen. But the Shuttle Zen didn't have an AGP slot, and I was a little concerned that the onboard graphics wouldn't be good enough. Meanwhile, I'm going to hold off on memory. I'll see if my single 512MB DDR333 DIMM is good enough for now, and if not, I guess I'll spend another $200 on matching DDR400 512MB DIMMs. But if I can save $200, and then upgrade later, I think that's what I'd rather do. The barebone system plus processor will run me about $450, and then I think I'll add a 40GB hard drive so I can put together an 80GB Raid0+1 array on my current system, and use that as a server / backup storage machine. And I think I'll do it now, because I know myself and I'll keep looking at it and eventually give in anyways, so why waste the time. Besides, if I don't do it now, there's no way I'll have the money to do it in law school :). Now, I'm just wondering how much I can sell my current projector for, and if it's enough to justify getting a very silent and much brighter Dell projector. It'd be really nice to have a DLP projector to handle darker movies better.

Posted May 24, 2004 (11:42 PM) | Comments (1)