In my continuing effort to upgrade to a new computer, I have made a purchase for a brand new monitor. I chose the Sceptre X22WG and got it from Newegg. It is a widescreen 22″ LCD, and boy is it big. I thought it was just going to be marginally bigger than my previous monitor which I thought was 21″ but am now starting to think was only 19″. The quality is good too, it is really bright, have played both Sims 2 and EQ2 to test it out and both appear similar to a normal CRT monitor, not all grey and silvery like the previous LCD I had tried a few years back. In fact, in many ways the picture actually looks better. Thus far, my main problem is that my video card is an Nvidia 5900FX which really cannot handle this monitor so I have to keep the resolution fairly low. I am excited to get a new video card and turn the res all the way up on this monitor because I’m sure it’ll make for some stunning visuals.
Meanwhile, I’ve bought both the monitor and my tower in the month of December, straying away from my 1 new part per month limit. And during a tough month at that. So I think I’m going to consider the Monitor to be Janruary’s part. To kind of compensate for the early part I’m going to try getting my next piece in mid-February which at this point I’m thinking will be the Draft N Wireless router. Which one will likely be determined via sales and price reductions. I also am thinking it may be a good idea to use my $80 of gift cards on the router. By doing this I am essentially making it so that I won’t be actually paying for any new parts until March. Which should help me catch up to my credit card a bit. In march I may also worry mostly about wiring for the computer (round cables, fans, and dampeners to make the computer quieter). So that it is a low pay out month. April I can buy Vista…. Then finally in May use birthday money and hopefully replenished credit cards to buy the Video Card, 1GB RAM, A processor of some sort (right now leaning towards Intel but that can change) and the motherboard. I am hoping that buy May the prices on the DirectX 10 video cards will drop significantly enough so that I’m not paying a small fortune just for one. June would then be a month off and I may take July off as well until August when I’d start purchasing up a second Video Card to run SLI, a second smaller LCD monitor, and a second 1GB of RAM. Not necessarily in that order.
Hopefully with this plan I’ll have a brand spanking new computer for my birthday and I will have a computer by the end of the year that is good enough to last me a few years until some of my books/games that I’ve created pick up momentum and I can afford to really splurge. <crosses fingers>