I'm in the middle of my upgrade spree right now.
I've also been saving and waiting for quite a while...let me put it this way...when I first considered upgrading, Serial ATA was "coming soon."
Yes, I know that "emerging tech" (BTX form factor, PCI-Express, etc.) are all coming out during the 2nd half of this year, but then, by the time those technologies MATURE enough so I won't feel like a beta tester for them, it'll be another year, so I'm not concerned.
Already purchased:
* Logitech MX700 cordless mouse
* MS black multimedia keyboard (OEM)
* Dell 2001FP 20" flat panel monitor
* Radeon 9800 non-pro w/ VGA silencer. (Though I'm expecting to replacing this card toward the end of the year)
* Samsung 16X DVD drive
* Lite-On 811s DVD+-RW drive (8X DVD+R write.)
* HP 4760 vertical scanner
* Creative Labs 3500 itrique 2.1 speakers.
* Seasonic Super Silencer 460W power supply
* Zalman 7000 AlCu CPU cooler
Will be purchasing over the next month or two:
* CPU: P4 3.0 or 3.2 Ghz. Maybe Prescott variety. Waiting for the Prescott release and some reviews.
* Motherboard: My requirements are i865PE chipset, Prescott Support, NO northbridge fan. I haven't been looking too hard yet, because I figure we'll see more prescott ready motherboards appear and reviewed once prescott is actually released...
* Memory, 1 GB, dual channel, low latency RAM, probably PC 3500 spec.
* Hard drives: likely dual 160 gig Samsung Spinpoints (SATA). Possibility of the new 74 gig Raptor in place of one of the spinpoints, but I'm leaning against it for cost and noise reasons.
* Case....
The case....
It's driving me nuts. I thought I had found the perfect case for my needs:
Yeong Yang 5602: black with silver trim, dual 120mm fans, and I/O ports in the TOP FRONT of the case for easy access. The 3 1/2" bay is even on top, which is perfect placement for a memory card reader that I'll need. Alas, the damn thing was never sold in the U.S. (in black, I can get it in beige though
) and has already been discontinued!
Yeong Yang has two other cases with the same chassis, just different front panel...
the 5601..blech...
and the soon to be released 5603. Not as bad as the 5601, but I don't think I like it either. Just not clean enough.
My leading candidate for a case is currently the
Fong Kai FK330. It's a tad bit expensive though, doesn't have a 120 mm fan intake....