It's alive ... IT'S ALIVE!!!

It is that time of the year again. Well ... half decade, you could say. Roughly every 3 to 3.5 years I have been upgrading my home PC system. Mainly to play games, but also mainly to have a machine that isn't a sloth at certain tasks (e.g. video editing). The last time I did this it was in preparation for games like Crysis and UT3 which the system handled amiably at the time. However, while the system is still competent in many regards, it is starting to show its wrinkles here and there, as well as lacking many of the current gen shinies (e.g. DX11).

This time I decided to take a chance and buy components that I thought to be even more cost efficient and powerful than before. This required me to buy components from approximately five stores from around the country to get the stuff I wanted. Three were from Brisbane, one from Sydney and the other was from eBay, shipped from Melbourne. It sounds ridiculous but there is simply no one store in Australia that stocks only the best of the best.

The list of components were as follows:

- ASRock FATAL1TY P67 PROFESSIONAL
- G.SKILL Ripjaws-X 8GB (4GB x 2) PC3 17000 (DDR3-2133)
- Antec ATX TruePower 750W
- Intel Core i7 2600
- Gigabyte ATI 6970
- Kingston 128G SSD V-Series SATA2 G3
- Random assortment of other minor parts


I also bought an additional case for the retiring computer with the intention for it to be used as a media/guest/LAN computer should the situation arise.


So what did I learn from this experience? Simply put: never do it again. Ordering parts from around the country is fine, especially if you do your research and figure out the credibility of the sources. The problem is Brisbane's courier service. Would you believe that one package that I ordered from Brisbane (online store only) took 6 days longer to deliver than the package I ordered from Melbourne? I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for that level of service. It's just bad, and my faith in Brisbane's courier ability has dropped considerably.

Anyways, this computer (which will incidentally be 'Predator Mk V') should get me through Shogun 2, Crysis 2, FEAR 3 and Rage without so much as a hiccup and probably last me another 3.5 years at least. Lets hope the games during this time will actually have be worth upgrading for :)