PC Parts

I ordered some new parts for my PC from two different companies in order to upgrade to something a little better able to handle Vista and the games I like to play. And, frankly, because I wanted to.

I ordered the motherboard, CPU, and memory from Newegg.com, which is a California company that always has great prices and quick turn around, but I have to pay sales tax. On the same day and about the same time, I ordered a new video card from CompUSA.com online (I would have bought it or done a pick up from the CompUSA across the street from me, but it closed), which has higher shipping rates but no taxes.

I wanted at least a dual-core CPU. My new laptop at work is dual core, as is my wife's home machine, and I am impressed by the differences that makes in a system. Being a gamer, I like all the power I can get, too. However, when looking at the new motherboards, to service the dual core CPU I had keyed in on, I discovered a subtlety: none of those boards accepted my DDR ram (184-pin) memory chips and I couldn't find any that has an AGP port. Not one. So the 2 GIG of DDR ram I bought just over a year ago cannot be used in any MB I wanted, which is frustrating, and my decent if somewhat low-end AGP video card also couldn't be reused in the new system. Having to purchase brand new memory and a PCI video card, especially when I have perfectly good items already, upped the cost of the upgrade considerably. And smells a little like collusion to me, but I won't go into that now-- that may be a topic for a later blog entry.

I found a great deal on an AMD 64 x2 5600+ 2.8 dual core CPU, an ASUS M2N-E motherboard, and two 1 gig Crucial DDR2 RAM memory sticks from Newegg.com and purchased them. I was going to get a BFG Nvidia 7600 with 256 meg of memory video card too, but then I found an eVGA Nvidia 7600 card with 512meg of memory for the same cost with a $30 mail-in rebate from CompUSA. I prefer Nvidia to ATI even though a lot of sites and people say that ATI is faster because every ATI card I've owned has had some sort of issue-- sometimes due to a stranger flickering and poor polygon refresh, sometimes with program compatibility, other times with the driver updates (or lack thereof). So I stick with Nvidia now and am happy. I've had very good results from both eVGA and BFG lately, so look for their labels now.

Like I said earlier, both orders were placed at virtually the same time on Sunday morning. I used the same credit card to pay for both. I used the same shipping priority and service for both. Yesterday I received my order from Newegg.com and have already installed everything into my case and got it up and running (mostly- some things left to do tonight) using an old PCI video card I had left over. Just today I got the "shipping" email from CompUSA.com that they have filed my order and placed it for shipping tomorrow.

When I called CompUSA today about the order, the guy said that they have to verify everything. Well, my order with Newegg said the same thing. CompUSA guy said that they put the 1-2 business days notice to let you know how long it would take. Well, so did Newegg. The CompUSA guy said they have such high volume that it often takes the full two business days-- and that Sunday didn't count as one. Well, I know that Newegg does huge volume in So Cal, at least, and they counted Sunday as one of the two business days.

I wonder if CompUSA just doesn't hold onto some things on their online site for a couple of days. I've made a total of 3-4 purchases from their online site, and all but one of those has been delayed at least the two business days before the order was formerly placed and often didn't actually get picked up for shipment the next day after the order was finalized. While I am sure I will be happy with the video card when it finally arrives, I will think twice before ordering from CompUSA even if they do have a nice deal on something. I do not like this laissez-faire attitude and the length of time it takes to receive things. Newegg has always done it right and right now. That's how I want it.

Anyway, I at least I know the order is finally placed and, if it is picked up this evening and shipped from CompUSA's nearest state shipping yard, I should have it by Friday. I sure hope so, I would hate to get the machine up and running with all this speed and power using a crappy, five year old PCI card. That would mean no gaming for me this weekend, most likely.