Upgrades In Progress

It’s been a slow month around these parts. Mainly do the madness that is the MMVAs. I’ve had a hard time keeping motivated as it seemed like the day job was sucking every last drop of life out of me. But that’s over and done with for another year, so it’s time to get back on track!

Over the past month, I’ve been trying to sway myself away from PC gaming. I’ve gone over the pros and cons of both PC gaming and console gaming and on many levels, console gaming is the better way to go. Then a game like Battlefield 2 comes a long and suddenly, none of that matters. The game is so good on so many levels and has such massive replay value that I simply can’t pass it up! It came out on Tuesday of last week – by Friday I had sold all of my Xbox games, had my Xbox on eBay, purchased Battlefield 2 DVD edition and picked up radass new video card! I went with the Overclocked BFG NVIDIA 6600 GT 128MB (the model I have has a nicer fan casing). Pretty sweet card for sure. But I need to do a few more upgrades before I get the full potential out of it. I’ve been reading up on setting up your system for gaming and a couple sources have pointed out the importance of a good PSU. Like most people, I have overlooked this, but totally see how it could contribute to lower performance if it’s not up to par with the rest of your hardware. My current PSU came with my case and is 380W. NVIDIA recommends a 480W PSU for optimal performance on all 6 series cards. So until I pick one up, I’m gonna have to try and take it easy on my new card.

It’s been a while since I’ve shopped around for PC upgrades and it’s nice to see that things have come down in price – in some cases, pretty drastically. For instance – a stick of 1024MB/400MHZ ram for under $150. That’s pretty incredible! After I get the PSU sorted out, memory is next on the list, then processor.

My Xbox sold today for $150 on eBay. I was stoked when I got the email confirming that my reserve was met, but at the same time a little sad. It’s a great console and there’s a ton of awesome games out for it. I just can’t be dropping a ton of money on my PC when I’m buying Xbox games as well. The Xbox 360 comes out in a few months anyway, and we have full intentions of picking one up. So until then, my console gaming days are over… with the exception of a little GameCube action here and there!

A couple weeks ago we made the jump from a 5mbps to 8mbps internet connect. Noticable difference – especially when downloading a torrent or streaming a high quality video. For those on Rogers Hi-Speed – you can get hooked up with ‘Extreme’ High Speed for only $5 more per month. Or, if you purchase the modem (for $99 +tax), it’s only an additional $2 per month. Pretty sweet deal and well worth it if you download a lot or play online games.