Diablo 2 Server Update #2

[Hardy]

Hopefully update #3 will have beter news...

Well, I am now living in Clifton, but my dad is taking his nice laptop on the truck with him. What does he leave me with? A laptop: pentium ONE (not sure speed, probably in the 100's), which I am currently on. It also has a 1.96GB hard drive, sucky. There is also a desktop computer with a pentium 2 (again, not sure speed), which I will hopefully be able to work on the database. It has a disk capacity of 3 GB. I am going to upgrade that computer (already have a 64mb vid card to stick in), hopefully will be upgraded fairly well by the end of the summer (if someone will hire me for work!). Going to find better ram and a bigger hard drive, they are first on the list. Anyone know a very good/cheap place to buy upgrades for this slow ass computer? That is all for updates, moving is sucky, expecially when you can't take your parent's computer :P

Oh yea, anyone know how to find the processor speed on these computers? Both running '98. Thanks.

[Trumpcard]

www.pricewatch.com

but i'd recommend waiting for a good DELL deal to come along. A friend of mine got a P4 2.53 mhz, 60 gig HD, 512 meg ram for 400$ the other day with mail in rebates/instant rebates.

Occasionly they have deals no one can beat...

[Slayer02]

Pricewatch is TERRIBLE. No warrantys and the service... uhh... www.newegg.com try there, sometimes the prices are a bit higher but the service is better.

[Hardy]

I hate Dell, they use intergrated vid cards, sound cards, etc... Not to good to upgrade. Just going to upgrade this to a AMD 2600+, 128mb vid card (geforce), 40gig hard drive, 5 piece speaker system and a few others for about $400 or so, haven't added the prices, to lazy to go look. My dad tells me to just buy a whole new computer, that would be dumb, way cheaper just to buy the parts, he don't understand :P

Sure can't wait to get back to working on the D2 database so we can get it on the server listing! This computer needs a little more updating before I can work on that, 3gig hard drive and 64mb ram sucks ass. Also using dial up connection :cry:

[Trumpcard]

Im not sure you know what pricewatch is. Its not a single company, its just a site that posts advertised prices of other companies, so I dont know how you can say pricewatchs 'support is awlful and no warranties'

Pricewatch is fine...

The warranty you get depends solely on the company you end up buying from, and I've never had any problems RMA'ing any of the parts I've picked up from companies off there.

And BTW, NEWEGG posts their prices on pricewatch, just like 1000 other companies do..

I agree though, newegg is a pretty good company... I've been pretty happy with them in the past, though their website leaves alot to be desired.

Actually, it's not cheaper to just buy the parts anymore.. Yes, dell have some integrated parts, but they disable as soon as you put a new componet in. I have a DELL PowerEdge server, 1st 'prebuilt'
computer system i've bought in 8 years, all my other machines have been hand built, and I couldnt touch the price on this full machine if I parted it together. Just the processor and motherboard alone would have cost more than the entire machine.
As soon as I popped in a new video card, the onboard integrated vid disabled.

You have to weight the pros and cons of each decision.

Prebuilt
PROS) 1 person to deal with for support.
Thanks to rebates/etc, price will be much cheaper

CONS) May be harder to upgrade.

Parted together

PROS) You can pick exactly which componets you want

CONS) Typically more expensive. You will pay shipping/tax/etc on each and every part
Support can be a nightmare as you have to keep track of each and every vendor you bought any parts from, and hope each has a decent return policy.

Upgradability these days is an illusion. Most of the time, the bus architecture changes so quickly, when you look to upgrade anything more than a video card/memory you are looking at a completely new motherboard/processor anyways, possibly memory. The new AMD chips (3000+) are already requiring a new motherboard architecture, so dont count on a machine being cheaper/easier to upgrade just because it's hand built.


Just some things to keep in mind, the decision is up to you..

As far as the price goes, you are better off buying from a large company that can afford to sell cheap. I had my own computer company for 3 years, the prices of DELLs, GATEWAYs, and eMachines came down so much that we could barely competitively build machines against them.

You have to decide which you want more, price or top performance, because you get one or the other these days.

[Mauritius]

you can check your cpu's clock speed with this little tool:
http://share.esignal.com/download.jsp?groupid=28&folder=&file=MyCPU.exe

[Mauritius]

I am currently on a P4

myCPU.exe recognizes a DX4 with 1702mhz

LOL

[Hardy]

thanks for the link, this computer is a 266mhz, LOL. I was thinking it was atleast 333mhz, but I was wrong.

I might look into the Dell, I didn't know the integrated could be disabled, thanks! I will check out there website right now :D