Thanks to everyone on this and the Build A Computer PT II thread I now have this:

Gigabyte GA-7N400-L.. wish I knew about the Abit A7N-S, which has SATA, Firewire and more for like $3 more.. though it is a nForce2 chipset board which has been very nice to me.

AMD Athlon XP 2600+..

PQI PowerMemory PC2700 DDR 512MB.. can't overclock very much cause I bought DDR333 and not DDR400 memory.. also I was stupid and bought one stick instead of 2, when of course my MB supports dual channel..

I am in the process of aqcuiring a ATI Radeom 9800 SE which, with proper drivers, can be opened from 4 pipelines to 8. I'm an nVidia guy vbut this comes used at $100 and is only being sold because the kid bought an X800.. lucky bastard.

I'm also investing in this power supply:

wait, now i'm confused

do I get this one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-159-023&DEPA=1

or this one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-153-006&DEPA=1

I was set on the thermaltake one but now the coolmax one has piqued my interest.. its super quiet from the reviews which is more than they can say about the thermaltake, which as two fans.. if anyone else has any suggestions on a GOOD >400W PSU, i'm all ears.. it doesn't have to be NASA worthy, just AMD approved and have good output levels..

^^^^ I'll agree with Jackstraw here.. I bought from them when they used to be googlegear.. they are pretty reliable and the parts I got were good..

check the reviews on resellerratings.com, thats what I usually feel out a vendor on.. pricewatch.com has a new ratings thing but I don't know how much I trust it since BZBoys has an 81% positive rating there and and an awful (less than 2 out of 10) rating at resllerratings. I've used bzboyz before and can tell you they suck so I'm not sure how good those pricewatch ratings are..

Used to be googlegear, good shit.

Speaking of building computers, I have to build a computing cluster (8 computers) at work. Has anybody ever bought stuff from zipzoomfly.com? I priced everything out over at newegg, but they have these retarded limits on processors and memory that I can't get around. Even though these are going to be dual-processor machines, they still want me to buy 16 monitors, cases, etc. as well before they'll let me buy 16 processors. Douchebags.

MWave seems to have the same policies, but zipzoomfly doesn't. They're also highly rated by Bizrate and a couple others, so they seem okay.

Everything's here and, as soon as I find my screwdriver and my screwdriver we're gonna [i]rock this bitch[/i].

[quote="Jack Straw"]neither me or Marcie has a Paypal account. (or a credit card)[/quote]
You should check out WiredPlastic.com. It's a pre-paid card (mastercard or visa, your choice) that can be had for $50 and you receive it in 2 days. You load money on it and it's available immediately and no credit checks or bank accounts needed. I've got the shittiest credit ever and needed something to hold hotel rooms and sign up for shit.

What?

As opposed to a problem with paying for shit to put in your nose?

[quote="Reality Check"][quote="Reality Check"]unless everyone feels that Bill Gates *needs* your money.[/quote]
The second part of the statement was far less obvious due to the fact that people on this board seem to have a thing about paying for software. Some users excluded of course.[/quote]
Well, maybe we have a problem with paying through the nose.

Well, some people pay for software but not operating systems.

Hey, RObB. I want to support, but neither me or Marcie has a Paypal account. (or a credit card) Could I just send you the $$ directly or something?

[quote="Reality Check"]unless everyone feels that Bill Gates *needs* your money.[/quote]
The second part of the statement was far less obvious due to the fact that people on this board seem to have a thing about paying for software. Some users excluded of course.

[quote="Reality Check"]I'm sure somebody here can send you an XP pro disk[/quote]

You think? Maybe that was why I announced my need here. Maybe. Possibly.

I'm sure somebody here can send you an XP pro disk unless everyone feels that Bill Gates *needs* your money.

Oops, haha, I just realized I've got an old windows 95 CD and a package software disk from my current computer that I'm pretty sure is designed not to work on a different computer. I'm going to need an operating system.

The memory should be here today or tomorrow, but I'm not sure. According to the UPS website tracking, the rest of the stuff should arrive tomorrow.

Did Newegg give you a date on when your gear will show up?

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]I'm not going to say that their comic sucks, but their volleys of strained sighing when it comes to those days that they simply [i]have[/i] to speak regarding some pedestrian... uhn... [i]computer game[/i] are tired and predictable and pretty stupid, considering it comes down to what fucking medium you're shooting people (or, I guess, catchin' 'em all!!) in.[/quote]

They liked Master of Orion III!!! HEHEHAHahohehaheourgh.

[quote="Worm"]Yeah Doom 3 is very fun. Now as Gabe of penny arcade pointed out the monster designs do not look like Satan himself spawned them, fair enough. [/quote]

They've invalidated their opinions when it comes to American computer games years ago. I can't think of anyone offhand who I'd rather listen less to when it comes to something that isn't Kupo moogle shit.

I'm not going to say that their comic sucks, but their volleys of strained sighing when it comes to those days that they simply [i]have[/i] to speak regarding some pedestrian... uhn... [i]computer game[/i] are tired and predictable and pretty stupid, considering it comes down to what fucking medium you're shooting people (or, I guess, catchin' 'em all!!) in.

My brother has a 9800 in his system, stuff looks great, Doom 3 looks great. So unless Nvidia lets me hop inside the monitor like Jobe & shit it can't be that much better. Unless JQW is again hanging his hat on some fag mote point like the pixel dithering on an Imp's toes, or how well it can run at 1600x800.

Yeah Doom 3 is very fun. Now as Gabe of penny arcade pointed out the monster designs do not look like Satan himself spawned them, fair enough. And yeah, the little cut scenes do break the flow of shit, well showing how visually stunning the game is. But, people who don't understand why Daggerfall was a pretty amazing game, aren't going to get Doom 3. It's like what System Shock should have been. I'd also be just as happy to run around without zombies and shit just because the the little areas are so nicely fleshed out.

[quote="Jethro Q. Walrustitty"]See, that just makes no sense. Jerry was (and presumably is) a totally stand-up guy who would surely do whatever he could to make it right. [/quote]

Yeah. Actually, I ordered lots of things from him later on, especially when I got the corporate card at NatSemi.

But my point is this: I was leaving for Colorado so I couldn't babysit my brother's computer and get it working correctly. I have even less opportunity to do so with Debaser. Gotta go with what works.


[quote]Point is, I specifically remember you refusing to touch the original Athlons (and possibly Via chipset mbs, too) because of the K6.[/quote]

What did it cost me? You make it sound like I really missed the boat on something. It wasn't like I went and bought a Mac in the meantime. Intel was making perfectly good chips. Abit was making perfectly good motherboards during that time.

If you bought a crappy Nissan during that time you wouldn't keep going back to them for the hell of it, would you?


[quote]Faster, easier from a user prospective (one driver), some features unavailable elsewhere.[/quote]

I'm going to have to see some significant differences when it comes to speed, especially when you're telling me that the highend XP and 3000 Athlon 64 run "the same" when in fact the Athlon 64 runs faster in everything in all the graphs I've seen. It better be pretty severe if I were to go break my vow against nForce.

[quote]Wait, I offered up a 64, XP and Intel system at various price points and then he picked one. I didn't tell him what to get, he decided for himself.[/quote]
I'll have to assume that happened off the board - on here, except for early musings about 64 vs XP and someone else's Intel quote, it was all 64.


[quote]Fact is, there was basically no fun (in Doom 3).[/quote]

Well, I repaired XP and installed a replacement motherboard (I'd say "new" motherboard, but I shocked the crap out of my previous one so it's really a replacement; i.e., I didn't upgrade for Doom I just had to repair) last night, which of course takes for fucking ever once you get all the patches and updates and shit. Doom's ready to go, so I'll see how much fun I'm not having. Everyone else who's opinion I value disagrees with you on this.