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I decided to go to Fry’s today and pick up parts for a new computer, mainly because of the RAM upgrade problems I’ve been having with the old one (I couldn’t put more than 512MB in it, any more would crash the system for some unknown reason).

I went all out, but didn’t break the bank too badly. Here are the specs:

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2.6 GHz) Dual-Core processor
• Gigabyte M55 NForce4 Socket AM2 motherboard
• 2 GB OCZ 800MHz DDR2 RAM
• Nvidia GeForce 7300GS 256MB Video card (so I’m not a hardcore gamer…)
• Thermaltake Matrix case, Thermaltake 400W Power supply
• And to top it off, a new wireless mouse, because it was on sale.
• (Plus existing hardware: Ethernet card, SB Live sound card (for MIDI keyboard support), 250GB/40GB hard drives, DVD±RW/DVD drives, etc.)

Basically the only reason this is a “new computer” and not a “CPU upgrade” is because I got a new case, in hopes that it would be quieter than the old vacuum cleaner. It is, so I’m happy. That and the RAM and CPU upgrade make it a workstation worth developing on, and the upgrade process (moving the drives) was fairly painless, with ye olde “move hard drive during XP upgrade install” method.

I have to say, the speed improvement going from the old system to this is very noticeable. It’s probably the RAM mostly, followed by the extra multitasking ability afforded by the dual-core processor. That boggles my mind, to have an actual dual-core in my own computer… my dream systems always had dual processors, and now here it is, nicely consolidated. Blows me away.

Okay, now to clean up all the packaging that’s strewn across my room… Whew!