All bets are off. Or more precisely, my 6-8 month plan I wrote a couple of posts ago is out the window. Why? Well I've had a very lucky week.
- It started with acquiring a GTX 280. For free. Thanks to the nVidia CUDA initiative, my facebook status, a friend with a supervisor at Ox Uni with CUDA funding and a few emails, I've been given one to learn CUDA for my own research. It's a beast in size, and I'll be BOINCing on it in the downtime as I learn. I'll post pictures of the installation and size soon.
- Twice this week already I've wandered up to cross at traffic lights, that usually take ages to let me cross, they've just turned as I walk up.
- I remembered I had ~£100 in my Paypal account from selling some Xbox360 stuff a couple of months back. Also my finances for the quarter are looking exceptional.
- Overclockers are having a sale.
- Some other good things I'm not going to go into here ;)
A culmination of this led me to rethink my PC strategy. For one, I don't necessarily need my brothers computer, JC, running with a 4850 in it. Thus I can return it to an original state without a PSU and use the PSU in it for a new crunching machine.
As for the Overclockers sale, my crunching motherboard I want has dropped £5 in price. Some half-decent 4GB DDR2-1066Mhz RAM is £12 reduced. They're doing a half decent case for £30 (the Antec 300 planned is £50). A Zalman cooler is £17.50. That and the processor I want to use (the X2-5050e) is at eBuyer, which accepts PayPal.
So today I ordered from Overclockers:
And from eBuyer:
| AMD Athlon X2 5050e Socket AM2 45W Energy Efficient | 149212 | |
| Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Silver Thermal Compound | 126410 |
I needed some more AS5/cleaner. My old stuff from my last build is a few years old now, so has probably separated. Better safe than sorry.
This also allows me to turn HarukaKanata into its purpose - as network storage, albeit not in the intended case.
The new machine will be thus:
CPU: AMD X2-5050e (2.6Ghz), rated at 45W
GFX: 2x HD 4850
Mobo: Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 (AM2)
PSU: The 700W one I currently have in HK
RAM: 2GB DDR2-800Mhz
Case: Coolermaster Elite 335
HDD: I have some spare 80GB around
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS7000C-ALCU
(The RAM is the stuff I have in HALBERD - HAL will get the 4GB from this order.)
This PC will be called 'Dutchie'. The reasoning behind this name is that the processor is a 5050e, which in this modern dating age, 'Going Dutch' means splitting your bill with your date 50/50. (I always pay the bill, because I'm like that)
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