[wrexness]

Could've fooled me. It looks very similar to mine, and my case did come with the plexiglass side.

As for the specs on my computer... eh, I dunno anymore. XD A few years ago I built my desktop to see if I could actually accomplish it. I used probably mid-tier parts at the time (around '06 or so?) since I knew I wasn't going to be using it for gaming or anything - just some simple browsing as well as to tinker around with Ubuntu. I've been considering building a new rig, but I'd rather pay down some of my other debt before I go out and build a new one. Besides, I just got a new laptop a few months ago anyway and I hardly even use my desktop right now.

[Goldeneyeuro]

I've been wanting to go about building a computer for a few years now ever since I had an IT-related job, but since the most needed upgrade was the family computer where the primary user would be my mother, I decided that it would be better if I just bought one off the shelf and not have her run into and try to fix the little niggles and quirks that may come along with a custom rig. If this were a computer exclusively for myself, then that's another story. I'd say if you've got the time and expertise, go with building, since you do learn quite a lot about your machine. When I do move out, I'll build my own desktop.

What I do to try and address my desire to build is just take a store-bought computer and just mod it a bit- nothing major like CPU upgrades or overclocking, but at least taking the stock OS installation off and replacing it with a fresh install of what was on there or something better is one thing I do and seriously recommend (especially with HP computers- both my old DV5000 laptop and my current d5100t desktop 's performance improved by leaps and bounds when I reinstalled the OS- especially the d5100t since its stock OS was Vista Home Premium). Also replaced the hard drive on both those previously mentioned computers along with the HD on my current Dell laptop and occasionally had to upgrade the RAM. Otherwise, most upgrades are just new peripherials like keyboards, mice, and speakers (still loving the Logitech Z-5500s I have hooked up to the desktop and TV). Might be looking into upgrading the video card sometime this summer for the desktop.

My desktop's nothing to write home about, since it's 2 years old and I don't game much hence the rubbish GPU, but it's still a good machine with an above-average case and PSU that can take a few upgrades.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 GHZ
4 GB DDR2 800 RAM
NVIDIA 256 MB 9300LE GPU
Total of 1.25 TB worth of storage
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

[Alkaren Hyralt]

I have an i7 system, and one of the originals at that. I could OC it, but so far haven't really had a need to. All I really need to do is upgrade my HDs to larger ones, put in a second video card and get some more RAM.

Though really my system does anything I need it to do.


But always build you're own computer and never buy one. The cost difference is insane for what you get.