A Tale of Xboxs, Yorkfields, and wasted months...Author: jawapro
Date: Thu 03/04/2008 11:19 PM
As a PC-Gamer, its rather embarrassing to admit this – but I have finished both Halo 2 and Halo 3 on my xbox in the last few weeks.
Why?
Well, let me tell you a story.
I returned from my Mount Isa trip in Early February (the 1st or 2nd or something). I had always planned to get a new computer after returning, so I started deciding what to get – and asking advice from my friends.
You see, I may be a geek – but when it comes to current technology, I wasn’t really up with it. So I asked my friends who were more knowledgeable.
Nifen gave me some good advice, Klutz was a great sounding-board (didn’t give much advice, but was happy to discuss options), and MartinLeader was helpful too.
But I mad the mistake of asking Turkey.
Don’t get me wrong – Turkey is a great friend of mine, and was much more current in hardware than I was. It seemed like a great person to ask.
Turkey and his friend Benny decided to help me out with the advice. I’d been planning to get a Quad Core Intel Processor. For non-geeks, that’s like having 4 processors in the one computer. I was going to get the Q6600, which was the best you could get at the time, without spending over $1000 on just the processor.
But the Turkey and Benny alliance said that would be stupid.
Why?
Apparently within the week, the new Intel Quads (codenamed Yorkfield) would be out. They were faster, better, and would cost the same amount (give or take $20).
They made a good argument, and it seemed logical.
So I decided to listen to them, and I waited.
Now, Benny is a Mac fan, so I should have realised his advice would be up the creek from the beginning – that was my fault.
The week passed, and no Yorkfields. The Benny and Turkey alliance swore it would be soon. So I kept waiting.
It’s now the beginning of April, so it took nearly 2 months.
And do you know what’s really funny – it wasn’t worth the wait!
The Yorkfields have finally been released. They are good CPUs, but not that much faster than the previous generation (Q6600). And here’s the kicker – they cost twice as much!
So after being told they would be out in less than a week, and cost the same as a Q6600, I’ve been disappointed on both fronts.
On a positive note, I now am much more current with hardware than I was – thanks to haunting website trying to find the late Yorkfields.
But I’m still pretty annoyed.
Not only did I wait for nothing – it was painful doing it. My current computer has been dying. I’m blaming a problem with the graphics card, but I don’t know exactly what’s up with it. It’s defiantly hardware.
A while ago, it started jamming when I played intense 3D games. I had to scale my games back a bit, but I was ok with that.
But over time, it’s gotten worse. I’ve had to scale back my games more and more.
For example – at the last Axon I played a lot of DOTA (Warcarft III mod). I can’t play that anymore, because the computer will cark itself after about 5 minutes.
It’s gotten to the state where it’s struggling to handle Windows. It’s frozen twice in just windows now. I don’t mean frozen as in just locking up and needing a reboot – it’s the hardware. The computer locks up, and I get awful artefacts on my screen. I know its hardware, because sometimes after a reboot, the artefacts are still there during the BIOS/POST screens and I have to actually kill the power and wait a while.
So I have had a dying computer, and waiting for these promised Yorkfields before I replace it. That’s why I ended up playing the xbox – because my computer was pretty much out for the count.
But as I said – the Yorkfields have landed.
After thinking long and hard (for a few hours at least) I’ve decided they aren’t worth the extra $300, and went for the Q6600 anyway.
They defiantly weren’t worth the wait.
My motherboard, CPU, and RAM are currently in transit – and should arrive shortly. Then I can finally build my awesome (hopefully) gamming rig.
The moral of this story?
Don’t take advice from your friends – it might just force you to play an x-box.
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