With the new year coming I have decided to work on a new gaming rig. I am currently in the planning stage of fitting it into my budget to where I can hopefully save up a hefty sum of cash to purchase what will be for at least a week "a top of the line gaming rig". But many lingering questions come up:

Which is better Intel or AMD? NVIDIA or ATI?

I already know I am going with the great quality product (horrible quality tech support) of ASUS for my motherboard and graphic card needs, a good ol Audigy 2 ZS, and onboard just about everything (which is incredibly stupid except for NICs and USB).

The deal with the Intel or AMD is coming down to raw processor speed, FSB, and cache. Intel has the better processor speeds and they advertise a 800mHz FSB. But after further investigation, it appears the FSB on the P4s are just 4 piped 200mHz FSB to total just one. The AMD FSB is only 533mHz but its a true 533mHz. The AMDs also run a lot slower in the processor speed than the P4s. The P4s also have twice the cache size as the AMDs. The AMDs also allow 64 bit architecture. Also AMDs are cheaper to their comparative Intels.

The view on the video cards is also a tough decision. A) I like to run Linux, B) I also like to run games in Windows. ATI to me has the better video cards but they are lacking (but improving!) in the Linux driver support category. I really think their improvements make the choice for an ATI x800 XT a no brainer. I just hope they will be in stock in about 3 months or so...

Just finished my last exam here at Dell and am now under the status of Senior Support Technician! This title means absolutely nothing other than if I get an angry customer and they want to speak to someone in charge I can explain that I am in fact a "Senior" Support Technician.

Idiocy in computer users is bliss.

After noticing I like to bring media (funny movies, songs, and images) around places and having to burn those items to a CD, I finally caved in and bought a USB JumpDrive. I bought the SanDisk Micro Cruzer 128 MB and I absolutely love it. I have used the fandangled contraption more than I originally thought would be possible.

I am now eager to deck it out to join the in-crowd. To my suprise I didn't have to ty very hard. The device has a neon blue LED when connected to a PC. I think all I need now is some smiley face and scratch and sniff rainbow stickers.

I do feel sad however since these devices are going to be the death of the floppy drive. I salute you, LS-120 super floppy drive that cost me 70 bucks back in the year 2000, for all your hard work. Too bad I never once found super floppy media.