Kunaak
10-13-2004, 03:36 AM
It's dividend time here in alaska.
if you don't know what the dividend is, it's basically free money, every alaskan gets for living in alaska.
every october you get somewhere between $1000-2000 dollars.
everyone get it, only thing you have to do to qualify, is live here for 2 years or more, then every year after your gonna get one.
so if you moved here tommorow, you'd be able to get one in october 2006, and every year after.
it comes from the oil that alaska makes.
if you have 2 kids and a wife, that means you get 4 dividends.
unfortunatly thats abit of a contraversy here in alaska, cause most parents just throw thier kids dividends away on junk, and the kids never see it.
but thats another topic for a different day...
I personally am not getting a dividend this year, cause I wasn't here to apply.
but next year I will.
this years dividend is $920, and it comes out tommorow.
most people will get it in the mail.
some choose direct depositing.
my sister is one of those people.
my sister also has 5 kids.
so 5x920= alot of money.
well, shes smart.
she pays her house payment a year in advance, pays her car payment as much as she can. gets christmas presents and such, all before thinking of what she wants with what little is left.
well, she wants a computer.
the main thing is, it's gotta be fast.
the second thing is, it's gotta play games.
she has 2 boys, 11 (my little brother) and her oldest sun is 9.
then 3 little girls, all under 6.
the boys already play her computer-a 450mhz K6-2 with 128 megs of ram.
she has a cable internet connection, but since her computers so slow, she rarely wants to go on the net.
so the requirments-
fast, and plays atleast some games.
I have a budget of $450 max, maybe a tad more, but honestly, 450 is pushing it. I don't know the exact amount, until tommorow, when she transfers the money to my account. she doesn't either.
she's just gonna send as much as possible after paying as many bills as possible and christmas presents and things of that sort.
whatever is left, is what she is sending.
she estimated, 400-500 max.
soo....
thats my job.
do what I can for 450 or less.
it's gotta be a entire tower.
everything, from scratch.
if it wasn't intended to also play games, this would be a really easy task.
see... I know I can go low, and get a Ti4200 and it will still play a decent amount of games today.
but this PC's gonna have a life of atleast 3 years I'd guess.
games are quickly passing what older videocards can do.
so I need to think about the future as well.
thats really tough.
after a hour on newegg, configuring, then downgrading, and switching parts around over and over, I finally made a decent PC that fits a decent budget.
but it's far from ideal, cause I had to scale back nearly every single part.
originally, I had the idea of a ...
AMD64 2800.
Asus K8V.
9600XT.
80 gig drive.
512 ram
what I ended up with was....
sempron 3100.
ECS 754 board (cheapest)
40 gig maxtor.
ti 4800SE.
heatsink.
512 V-data cas 2.5.
CDRW drive.
Cheap black case with PSU.
floppy drive.
for a grand total of $399 and some change.
after shipping to alaska, it comes to $440.
the shipping is what killed the videocard and motherboard choices.
the sempron is only $100 OEM, while athe 2800 is $140.
it's a hard buy for $40 extra, when on such a extreme budget and looking for max performance, and no overclocking....
I'd perfer to go for a P4 machine for my sister, being that she's mostly into multitasking, and opening window after window.
but to be honest, when on a budget of $450 or so, the P4 and gaming, just doesn't come close to what I would hope to make for her, and the kids.
hyper threading would be great, but with the cheapest P4 at $150, it pretty much means I'd have to scrap the videocard almost completly down to a MX440 to afford it.
which by then, it's not really a game machine that will hold up over the years.
the sempron and a 4800SE is a better option then.
if I can scrape together another $10 I will switch the ECS for the Asus K8V which is only $10 more then the ECS, but honestly, in a PC with no overclocking, I am not concerned about the motherboard in the slightest.
the part thats killin me, is the soundcard.
I really want to get atleast a Soundblaster live in there so they can atleast get EAX in games, plus take the extra work off the CPU for every bit going to the game itself.
but theres just nothing left for a soundcard :(
I can't downgrade anything else...
Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas on how I can make a full complete tower for my sister, for somewhere around $450 and keep it good for games and such?
remember, shipping to alaska, will be about $40...
I have a few days before I will order the parts from newegg.
I am gonna get any available cheap part from the refurbs, but other then that, I will be ordering OEM, or retail as a last resort.
if you don't know what the dividend is, it's basically free money, every alaskan gets for living in alaska.
every october you get somewhere between $1000-2000 dollars.
everyone get it, only thing you have to do to qualify, is live here for 2 years or more, then every year after your gonna get one.
so if you moved here tommorow, you'd be able to get one in october 2006, and every year after.
it comes from the oil that alaska makes.
if you have 2 kids and a wife, that means you get 4 dividends.
unfortunatly thats abit of a contraversy here in alaska, cause most parents just throw thier kids dividends away on junk, and the kids never see it.
but thats another topic for a different day...
I personally am not getting a dividend this year, cause I wasn't here to apply.
but next year I will.
this years dividend is $920, and it comes out tommorow.
most people will get it in the mail.
some choose direct depositing.
my sister is one of those people.
my sister also has 5 kids.
so 5x920= alot of money.
well, shes smart.
she pays her house payment a year in advance, pays her car payment as much as she can. gets christmas presents and such, all before thinking of what she wants with what little is left.
well, she wants a computer.
the main thing is, it's gotta be fast.
the second thing is, it's gotta play games.
she has 2 boys, 11 (my little brother) and her oldest sun is 9.
then 3 little girls, all under 6.
the boys already play her computer-a 450mhz K6-2 with 128 megs of ram.
she has a cable internet connection, but since her computers so slow, she rarely wants to go on the net.
so the requirments-
fast, and plays atleast some games.
I have a budget of $450 max, maybe a tad more, but honestly, 450 is pushing it. I don't know the exact amount, until tommorow, when she transfers the money to my account. she doesn't either.
she's just gonna send as much as possible after paying as many bills as possible and christmas presents and things of that sort.
whatever is left, is what she is sending.
she estimated, 400-500 max.
soo....
thats my job.
do what I can for 450 or less.
it's gotta be a entire tower.
everything, from scratch.
if it wasn't intended to also play games, this would be a really easy task.
see... I know I can go low, and get a Ti4200 and it will still play a decent amount of games today.
but this PC's gonna have a life of atleast 3 years I'd guess.
games are quickly passing what older videocards can do.
so I need to think about the future as well.
thats really tough.
after a hour on newegg, configuring, then downgrading, and switching parts around over and over, I finally made a decent PC that fits a decent budget.
but it's far from ideal, cause I had to scale back nearly every single part.
originally, I had the idea of a ...
AMD64 2800.
Asus K8V.
9600XT.
80 gig drive.
512 ram
what I ended up with was....
sempron 3100.
ECS 754 board (cheapest)
40 gig maxtor.
ti 4800SE.
heatsink.
512 V-data cas 2.5.
CDRW drive.
Cheap black case with PSU.
floppy drive.
for a grand total of $399 and some change.
after shipping to alaska, it comes to $440.
the shipping is what killed the videocard and motherboard choices.
the sempron is only $100 OEM, while athe 2800 is $140.
it's a hard buy for $40 extra, when on such a extreme budget and looking for max performance, and no overclocking....
I'd perfer to go for a P4 machine for my sister, being that she's mostly into multitasking, and opening window after window.
but to be honest, when on a budget of $450 or so, the P4 and gaming, just doesn't come close to what I would hope to make for her, and the kids.
hyper threading would be great, but with the cheapest P4 at $150, it pretty much means I'd have to scrap the videocard almost completly down to a MX440 to afford it.
which by then, it's not really a game machine that will hold up over the years.
the sempron and a 4800SE is a better option then.
if I can scrape together another $10 I will switch the ECS for the Asus K8V which is only $10 more then the ECS, but honestly, in a PC with no overclocking, I am not concerned about the motherboard in the slightest.
the part thats killin me, is the soundcard.
I really want to get atleast a Soundblaster live in there so they can atleast get EAX in games, plus take the extra work off the CPU for every bit going to the game itself.
but theres just nothing left for a soundcard :(
I can't downgrade anything else...
Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas on how I can make a full complete tower for my sister, for somewhere around $450 and keep it good for games and such?
remember, shipping to alaska, will be about $40...
I have a few days before I will order the parts from newegg.
I am gonna get any available cheap part from the refurbs, but other then that, I will be ordering OEM, or retail as a last resort.