Dr. Neil Hair

I recently upgraded an Athlon 1ghz machine to new specs following literally years of frustration. I'm pleased that I did. It's a four year ritual which (for me at least) starts in year 3 with a review of specs and then a period of mourning waiting for prices to come down. Last week my dream machine hit the right price point. I am now sporting a gorgeous Lian-Li server case with 2gb of Patriot ram, a screaming Intel e6600 duo cpu, a state of the art 8800 graphics card (easily the most expensive part inside of the new rig) and a 1000w power supply (she's hungry).

Putting machines together is my least favourite hobby. You loose about 2lbs in sweat when youre playing with such expensive kit. The wife looks on nervously as you attach your grounding arm band and you place the cats in a 2 mile exclusion zone. Shes even more nervous when it comes to powering up and playing with the bios. Thankfully, I am still here and very pleased with the result (despite it directly contributing to expensive dental work which I am convinced was brought on by the stress of the affair). In fact I wish I'd done this a year ago. The processing power for video is amazing. A one hour DVD used to take about 4 hours to process completely. Now it takes a little under 20 minutes. The new lightscribe DVD recorder is also effective. Clients will love the understated results. Whats most impressive though is the 8800 graphics card (512mb ram, over clocked of course – I know you love it when I talk technical). One of my biggest weaknesses is for first person shoot em up games like Battlefield2, F.E.A.R and the Call of Duty franchise. These games now take on a very disconcerting reality which for about a second leaves you wanting to negotiate peace rather than blast MEC forces into oblivion. Then the second passes and you sit there mouth open, cats back on lap, showing off expensive dental work.

There is nothing in the world so painful as a slow machine. If you find yourself looking around the room whilst waiting for tasks to complete or begin – then it is time to stump up the cash for a change and an upgrade. My old machine is much loved, and will with a partial rebuild form the basis of a new media centre in the lounge (which the wife just loves the idea of – not).