I have been planning to replace my aging computer for a while. First I have been waiting for my conscription to end and my contract to kick-in, so I'll have income. I had the money to buy a computer even before, but I didn't want to spend it. Then I was waiting for a better alternative than the DFI nForce 4 Ultra which was expensive, ran hot and required lots of fiddling. I have been waiting for an ATI-chipset-based overclocking-friendly full-featured not-overpriced socket-939 motherboard. Then AM2 came out, and with it better motherboards. Still nothing that awesome, and Anand said "wait for Conroe". Conroe came out in the summer, and yeah, it's awesome and I want it. But there are no decent cheap motherboards. The cheapest, most problematic board with Conroe/Allendale support, the Gigabyte DS3, costs a thousand NIS. And of course, this is as frustrating as ever:
| Item | US price | US price in NIS | Price in Israel | Ripoff rate PCT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 | 333 | 1458 | 2000 | 37.17 |
| Mobo | ASUS 975X P5W DH Deluxe | 240 | 1050 | 1700 | 61.90 |
| Ram | Corsair DDR2 PC-6400 2x1024MB Kit | 274 | 1200 | 1850 | 54.16 |
| Video | Brand GeForce 7300GT 256MB Silent | 83 | 363 | 500 | 37.74 |
| Storage | Western Digital Caviar 2500KS 250GB | 78 | 341 | 430 | 26.09 |
| Exch Rate: 4.377 | 4412 | 6480 | 46.87 | ||
To this I need to add a decently-quiet, well-ventilated case and a quiet, efficient, stable power supply unit. That can be a thousand NIS together. And I need a monitor.
The more I read about this stuff, the less I'm sure there's a good choice. Every part has problems, compatibility issues, etc. Wanting it to be stable, cool, quiet, and performant while not costing like a car appears to be too much.
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