Out of Pod Experience

Really not a good time to be buying a pc right now.

Everything is changing in the next 3-6 months from Intel to ATI to Nvidia. New motherboards, new chips, new memory...

Whatever you buy today is going to drop in price so hard it'll knock your teeth out. I appreciate it's always a risk with PC's, but either you get the machine you were going to get today, at tomorrow's low low low prices, or you kick yourself for being impulsive.

I'm seeing e-tailers hiking prices all over with their existing stock and putting most mid-range configs on 'pre-order' only, meaning they are taking the orders and then only buying them at bulk to obtain higher profit margin diffusion. Sneaky.

If you just want to play BF3, buy a PS3 for a few hundred and bank the rest for next spring.

AK

Had a nice long post with well through out recommendations and it got eaten. Curse you forum gods.

Personally, after looking at the exchange rate for USD to Euros, 1,000 Euros is a good amount to buy a computer, especially if you're building it yourself.

For now, I'll just the following:

1. ASUS makes good motherboards for either Intel or AMD CPUs.
2. Save money and go with mechanical HDD's over SSD's. SSD's are expensive for their capacity. Seagate and WesternDigital are about equal as manufactures.
3. a GTX 470 is a good mid to high range card. I recommend EVGA as they make good cards.
4. I prefer AMD CPU's over Intel as they are generally cheaper to a "comparable" Intel CPU. But Intel does have some nice mid range CPU offerings.
5. get at least a 650 watt PSU, preferably from Thermotake.
6. full size towers are great if you plan to throw a lot of stuff in there, but if not, then go with a mid size tower.
7. never go with pre-built computers from companies like Gateway or Dell if you can help it. They're just overpriced junk.

If you shop around online at sites like Newegg or Tigerdirect, you can find many great deals. They have deals on bare-bones systems, package deals like a motherboard and CPU, etc.

If you're unsure on building you're own computer, find a friend with experience, look online for guides, and follow the manuals that come with the hardware.

???

14 wages a year?

wth does that mean?

not really that good a decision, you have some much better options there

Graphics Card: the 470 is beat by the 560 ti. All the makers are fairly good

I would switch from the x58 series to the z68 sandy bridge series
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68 LE
CPU: Intel i5-2500k
RAM: Corsair Vengence series, 8gb (2x4gb)
PSU: Corsair builders series 430W
HDD Western Digital Caviar black 1tb
Monitor ok
Keyboard ok i guess
Case ok
cooler: ok, but i might go for the coolermaster Hyper n 520



You save something like 50$ on the cpu and the motherboard is the same price (i can only find 1 Foxconn Flaming blade board on ebay which worries me) spend a little more on the better graphics card which draws less power than the 470 and performs the same if not better for only 20$ difference in price.

Convo me in game if you want some other specifics, i can go on ad nausium but that would be mostly irrelevant.

lol

I am looking at nVidia data and recommendations for GTX 470:
data: Maximum power of GTX 470: 215 Watts
recommendation: System power supply 550 Watts

I really do not see how you can even consider 350 Watts power supply. This power supply should not even be on your "radar".

The same source, this time for 560 ti:
data: Maximum power of 560 ti: 170 Watt
recommendation: system power supply 500 Watt

i'd suggest this as well. try to time it for boxing day type sales. if the bang for your buck is the goal, then give it just a bit more time if you have it.

i'm pricing out a new system as well but also have a power supply and case/coolers that i can reuse. everything else is going to be new, including a potential upgrade to windows 7, and solid state drive. but, not until the retail grinch flees for another year, or retailers get nailed with low sales and drop pricing to jump volume over higher margins.

best of luck.

It's not a bonus; it's just paid vacation. Europeans get paid once a month and typically get a 13th paycheck IF they've got a fixed, open-ended contract. If they're freelance or work contracts for only a specific amount of time, this does not apply...you don't get squat. The 14th paycheck is ridiculous and just plain idiotic in a place like Greece. Norway, sure...they've got money coming out of their ears, but Greece has been struggling for a long time. Mediterranean climates make people not give a **** anymore.

No, 485 euros is not the minimum annual salary everywhere, although it varies in different places. It's probably lower in Greece due to it being cheaper to live there, but not that cheap, and no, that's usually after taxes. Portugal and Greece have always struggled in comparison with their surrounding countries. However, people aren't dying of hunger in the streets like they are in the states. You have to see the entire picture to understand it. Someone may make 700 euros per month, but that goes directly to their living expenses since most everything else is taken care of. Most people in these countries live with their families until they're 30 as well; one reason being that they're just too inept to live on their own and are attached to mama too much (usually the males), but the bigger issue is that it's just masochism to move out by yourself knowing you're gonna have 50 bucks to your name at the end of the month. It's not like living with your parents in the states, which is usually hell because they still treat you like a teenager. Here, they come and go as they please and their parents are more than happy to still take care of them by feeding them, taking care of all their laundry, etc., so that 700 euros per month goes DIRECTLY to their pocket...all of it. Again, it's usually the males.

Roommates don't exist here for some reason. In the states, we couldn't wait to get out of the house. Put an ad up somewhere looking for a roommate, find a cheap apartment, and just split the bills...it didn't matter if you knew the person or not. This builds character and responsibility...and to be honest, it makes you a man instead of prolonging your adolescence into your 30's. It seems no one does that anymore even back home in the US, judging by the complete vacuity of the 20-somethings these days, completely content to mooch off their parents for as long as possible.

Living in Europe is a lot like being in the military...at least it seems like that for me (I was in the USAF before moving here). You don't make tons of money unless you're already wealthy but you don't waste it on crap like health insurance, exorbitant college fees, and basic human **** that people shouldn't be making money off of. Yes, the taxes are higher but it tends to even out and even comes out ahead for Europeans when factoring in all the bullshit we have to pay for through the nose in the states. In the end, I may make less per year here but I still have a bit more left over at the end of the month as long as I live within my means.

That said, it's not perfect by any means. The constraints put upon corps by their respective governments in terms of employee entitlements strangles any growth or creation of jobs because they simply can't afford to give everyone 14 paychecks, 35 days per year paid vacation, and guaranteed job contracts. Therefore, they hire fewer people.

There is definitely reason to be upset over the economy here in western Europe, but a lot of it is because most people here have never truly suffered or had to do without. They want everything and don't understand that it has to come from somewhere. They want to be paid like we're paid in the states, but they don't wanna be fired like we can get fired. They want the big house and the new car but they can't seem to fathom NOT having 30 days per year for vacation and guaranteed jobs. While some of it may be legitimate, from what I've noticed, most of it is just whining because they can't have everything they want. Did you know that if you get laid off here they pay you 80% of your wage TO STAY AT HOME? In Italy it's called cassa integrazione. It's cheaper for the companies to pay you to sit on your ass at 80% of your pay than to have you actually come in and work. What's more, THE PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. It's usually for a set amount of time, no more than a year. Yes, that's just how spoiled people are here.

You know what happens when you get laid off in the states? You pack all your **** from work in a cardboard box, go home, and start looking for a job the following day or else you don't eat, all without anyone paying you to sit on your ass while you COMPLAIN about it.

It's no different in the states. People there want the benefits we have here but don't wanna pay the extra 10% taxes to get it because taxes are for communists and thieves , and they'd enslave their children with their own debt as long as they can get new rims for the car and a bigger tv than the one they had last month. Just to show off to their friends, of course...not because they needed it or anything.

I am from Lithuania, and our minimum wage is about 220 euros. Wait a minute.. We have neither vacation or Christmas bonus (you get it or not, it depends on inner companies politics you work in). Also our climate is way colder. Maybe we also need burn cars in the streets, make huge riots for like a week like Greece do, and then give empty hand to EU - "hey we need more bilions , or .. if you don't help us, whole Eurozone be in trouble".

Can't wait until that EUCCCP will collapse, along with their muslims and faggotry , corrupting Europe's nations.