Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins
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I believe in getting yesterday's killer components at a sizable discount rather that paying three times more to be an unpaid beta tester for the trendiest products. I picked all the components for Linux compatibility and it looks great.
Wish me luck. Surprises lurk when you build new stuff...... Not all the surprises are necessarily good.
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Even though I looked at the new stuff, I'm waiting on it to get passed the "testing" phase...
I usually buy things that are 2nd on the list, i.e. a HD2600XT instead of a HD2900XT. or a HD4850, instead of a HD4870...
Most recently I went with a R7 370X instead of a R9, but this was primarily due to budget. Later I upgraded to a R9 380 (R9 285, Tonga) as the cards had been out for a few years at that point. And it allowed me to use the "old" driver until the "new" drivers were functional.
The fastest cards at the time were $400-600, I usually ended up spending about $150-200 for the cards (although, I go the 2600 on sale for $50...
).
Processors I usually bought the same way... I got a 5600x2 when I was planning on a 6000x2 (budget concerns, 2.8ghz and 3.0ghz respectively), the fastest at the time was 3.2ghz, I think...
Other than that I go "bottom of the barrel". Such as a Sound Blaster 16, been around forever, and reliable too. Everything worked on it... So it was worth the, usually, $20.
(I had other Sound Blaster cards, never a 16, but based on the SB16... the 16 was the best example I could think of at the moment.)
Although this is getting more difficult recently...
Motherboards are now either:
"Base" models with nothing really good for a game machine.
'Mid-range' variations with none of the frills, but none of the really good parts either.
Or they are the "high-end" boards with the "good stuff", but also all of the junk that I don't need or -more importantly- don't want, such as WIFI.
So you end up with 4 (or more) versions of the same board, one each from Gigabyte, ASUS, Asrock, MSI, etc.
Threadrippers were available before the "initial" batch (based on info I've read various places) of Ryzen 7 were gone. So I'm considering a Ryzen 7 now, but I'm also watching the Threadripper closely as well... a price drop usually (but not always) signifies a new run of cards/boards/chips.
So I'm watching, and waiting.
Good to know that you found what you were looking for RR.
Barracuda