Coyote_Seven

Now, before you all beat me up, I have to admit that I'm still swayed a bit by appearances. That is, the actual look of the object means something to me. I also tend to have a bit of brand loyalty, and likewise there are certain other brands that I tend to avoid.

With that in mind, this is a bit of a quick and dirty comparison:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P LGA 1155 Intel Z68 $179.99
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (Quad Core) $314.99
RAM:Corsair Dominator 16 GB DDR3 1333 $159.99
---
Total: $654.97

---vs.---

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX $149.99
CPU: AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz (8 Core) $279.99
RAM:Corsair Dominator 16 GB DDR3 1333 $159.99
---
Total: $589.97

Obviously, I'm kind of in love with Gigabyte and Corsair, lol.

That's a difference of $65 up there. You can imagine that everything else about the system might be virtually the same. Considering that my target budget for this project looks to be wanting to go to $2,500 if I want to get everything, that difference might be nothing at all. I suppose the big question is whether (or how much) four Intel cores will outshine eight AMD cores.

Are those Intellivision game boxes right above the CoH comics?

20 years ago, I would use my Amiga for a lot of animating, ray tracing and music composition. (Needless to say, ray tracing always took a long time, haha).

I was kinda hoping to do that kinda stuff again, with a modern system. Strictly for myself, like before. But I might share what I make.

So yeah, it might be worth it to me.

Thanks again to everyone who has replied to me so far!

I've already started some preliminary comparisons based on your advice here and the advice of some people I know elsewhere. You're all saying that AMD isn't so hot now, so I figure maybe I should heed that warning.

As far as a processor goes, right now I'm looking at the Intel Core i7-2600K.

Now, I've heard reports of the Z68 not playing nice with the InfiniTV 4, but I haven't tried to dig any deeper into that yet.

That's about as far as I've gotten.

I remember this!

The original Monkey Fight Club.

Flower Knight should be the trainer, blue side.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that I've had an affinity for AMD processors and nVidia GPUs for like, almost ten years now! (Which became amusing once AMD gobbled up ATI.)

It might be a bit of a blind obsession.

Before that, I was loyal to 3DFX...

Before that, I was an Amiga user.

You see where this is going...

I think I've kind of had it with my computer woes of late, dealing with flaky hardware, and the frustration of aborted attempts at building an awesome system.

So I'm taking some advice I got both from here and some of my friends. Starting with my next paycheck, I'll be moving extra money into my savings account for the express purpose of building a new machine. I'll combine that money with whatever tax returns I get next year. As the title suggests, my target budget for this project is $2,000.

I'll be using my aborted plans from this year as a starting point. I still intend to build a machine that's decent for playing games and also good for watching movies and video. Parts from my old plan that I still wish to include are a Ceton InfiniTV 4 and a HAF-X case to put it in. I'd still like an Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD sound card, if those are even still being made, for the express purpose of never having to deal with DRM while playing Blu-Ray movies ever again! I'll still want an SSD for the boot drive, and I'm still keen on using Windows 7 Ultimate for the OS.

A Killer Xeno Pro might also be fun to have, if I can squeeze it in, LOL.

At the moment, I'm looking at the AMD 990FX chipset, a single (and powerful) video card, and an 8-core processor. In my original plans, I was going to go for a GTX 470 (specifically the EVGA model, which is likely no longer being made), and I was planning on having the CPU and GPU both be watercooled. I'd still like for that to be so; I don't mind fan noise really, but I've heard just how loud the fans on modern high end GPUs can get, and even I have my limits! A HAF-X case ought to have plenty of room for... let's say, two radiators (one large and one small) in a single loop.

This is the machine on which I wish to play CoH with all of its settings turned to 11, watch the Star Wars trilogy on Blu-Ray, watch every episode of Star Trek DS9 through Netflix, and watch reruns of Bewitched on TVLand via FiOS. All in 7.1 surround with minimum DRM hassle (OK, yes I know... Bewitched in 7.1 surround? LOL!). I'd love to hear any and all suggestions from each and every one of you about this!

I'm setting the target for March or April of 2012. Instead of buying everything a piece at a time, I will take all of my ~$2,000 saved up and buy everything at once (well, probably over the course of that entire month, as I likely will be buying from different places!).

LOL if you say so.

If it'll make you feel any better, I'll let you have the last word even!

A winner is you!

As well, just so we're clear on this:

I entirely understand the reason for your dislike of this idea. You had to play the ITF to get the Roman costume bits and you feel it's unfair for someone else to later be able to get it by points purchased on the market. You feel it cheapens the reward for you and you feel that is unfair.

My gut reaction to such an opinion is "get over it". This is entirely your problem, all built up in your head. That you've been trying turn it around as the rest of us (those who agree with my opinion) being the unfair ones is just so much justification for your little problem.

I mean, I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough throughout this entire ordeal; I've been totally laughing at you and your silly little tirade this entire time. I don't take it at all seriously, but you've continued to push your idea forward, and that's rather humorous. That's the reason my responses might have been a bit a rhubarb.

You know, maybe it would be a good idea if the difficulty slider could allow us to set whether or not we want ambushes in instanced missions at all, and also how many ambushes we want per instance.

And that knob should go all the way up to 11, so that the moment you enter a mission door, you're assaulted by wave after wave of enemies that don't stop charging at you for... what, a good five minutes? Yeah.

Play that at +4/x8! Glorious.

Putting your fingers in your ears and screaming real loud, eh?