In the last week or so, i've added a few more goodies to Trogdor (the computer I built recently). These are the last upgrades/additions that I've got planned for the thing, at least for the short to medium-term future.
I added another 2GB of RAM to the thing to bring it up to a total of 4GB (totally overkill, but the prices of RAM will only go up from here-on-out, so better to get it now than later), and also added a 500GB Western Digital Hard Disk to serve as my main storage drive.
I also bought a new fan to replace the original Antec case one with the intention of making the computer more quiet, but despite the specifications of the fan being quieter than the original case one, it actually turned out to be much louder. So i'm back with the original fan and out of pocket $30 :(.
Anywho, a internal pic of the updated Trogdor below:
Today I didn't go to work, after feeling sick last night and this morning. I blame the horribly expensive and just plain horrible Earth'n'Sea pizza that we had at the family dinner last night. I wasn't feeling well at all this morning, but it got better throughout the day without me having to restart my new streak again, thankfully. I don't know what it is with sickness and me lately, i think i've taken more sick days in the last few weeks (only 3) than I have in the entire of the previous year!
Anywho, I did a few geeky things today that i've been wanting to do for a while. I've finally installed VMware on the new computer and had a play with a few virtual machines. I also finally had a good session playing Lost Planet that was delivered from Hong Kong a week ago. This is probably the first proper DirectX 10 game, and the visuals in it are absolutely amazing even if the game itself is so-so.
Please explain why RAM prices are only going to go up??
Okay here is a quick explanation: firstly, generally the prices always tend to come down before the end of the financial year.
But this year they are even moreso lower because in the next few months they are releasing the next generation of computer memory (DDR3).
Once that memory comes out, the new stuff will be ultra-expensive. But as time continues and more people adopt DD3 memory it will come down in price, and as the older DDR2 memory gets used less and becomes relatively rarer, it will most likely increase in price.
So in summation, in my opinion in the last month or so is the best time to buy DDR2 RAM because it's around the end of the financial year and also just prior to the release of the DDR3 RAM.
But when you come to buy more DDR2 RAM in future it will be more expensive than DDR3. What are you trying to achieve buying DDR2 instead of DDR3?
DDR3 RAM will not be nearly as affordable as DDR2 RAM for at least a few years. Also to use DDR3 RAM, your motherboard needs to support it, which mine doesn't (the DDR3 motherboards have only recently been released).
So DDR2 will still be cheaper than DDR3 for quite a while, but as time goes on overall DDR3 prices will come down and DDR2 prices will go up.
(plus the motherboard only has 4 slots for RAM and on mine they're now all filled with 1GB sticks, making 4 total. And for 32-bit operating systems (the most common type) the most memory it can index is 4GB. So in order to use more, you'll need to change to a 64-bit operating system).
Clear as mud?
Straight as pie. Just one question though. You said DDR2 prices are expected to go up because it will become rarer. However, it seems the DDR2 will become inferior to DDR3 and therefore cheaper. Is this the case or is it more like comparing apples and oranges??
My question isn't to do with RAM (however I believe >2GB on anything but Vista is a tad wasteful)
How do find the ASUS cooler? I almost bought one, but went with a Zalman 9700.
I love the Asus Cooler. I basically wanted something that would be dead quiet and that I wouldn't have to worry about managing anything with fan speeds etc myself.
It has a PWM fan, so the motherboard controls the fan speed automatically and can even start and stop the fan while it's running. Though it is freaky to see the fan actually stop and then start again 5 seconds later...
In terms of performance, it keeps the CPU (mine a non-overclocked Core 2 Duo E6600) at about ~29C at idle, and under stress tests with both cores maxed out it only just pushes past 50C.
So overall, i'm extremely happy with it.
(plus the blue LEDs are cool! Too bad my case doesn't have a see-through side :()
My second choice was the Zalman 9700, but I think I was turned off by the slightly higher noise specs and it not being A PWM fan, as well as the included fan controller.