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Old 2013.06.15, 07:43 PM   #508
TurtleFu
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Honolulu
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Oh absolutely. I know, in terms of getting the most performance for my dollar, building my own desktop is the way to go. The only question is: do I really want to spend $800 on something just to play more video games? After all, my laptop is capable of all the regular stuff I use it for (research, productivity, light video/photo editing)

I rarely take my laptop out of my house, simply due to its weight (it's almost 7 pounds). But I think having a laptop is still good, so when this one dies I would want another one. A desktop would literally be a luxury, not something I really need. (Of course, I could always just get a solid low-cost laptop to replace my current one and do most of my computing on a desktop, but I'm trying to reduce redundancy.)

I'm a bit weird in that I've gone back and forth from "Oh yeah, I'll build an AWESOME PC" to "OH shit, I can't spend $800 on a PC!" several times already. The draw of gaming power is tempting, but the sense that there are so many other things I should be spending my money on (or even saving my money for post-grad) is always there.

EDIT: At first I thought "Oh, I can take advantage of sales and probably build a dirt-cheap desktop with an overclocked AMD A10-6800K (Richland) but then I realized that with an extra $100 I could double my performance. The value sweet spot is clearly in the $800 range.

EDIT EDIT: And at the same time, I'm thinking now is the perfect time to do it. I'm young, I have enough free time to build a computer and play games. Once I start post-grad I won't have time to be a "hardcore" gamer and if I built a pc then I would have more money (probably) but less time to play.

Last edited by TurtleFu : 2013.06.15 at 07:52 PM.
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