What I'm about to buy. I need a new HD, since I've run out of space; currently I have a 30GB HD, a 200GB HD and a 400GB HD, with the most important personal data backed up on each HD, but with the rest (movies and sci-fi shows mostly) not being backed up at all. The 1TB HD will let me back up everything I currently have, but there won't be space to back up new data, so I'm getting a DVD writer so that I can back things up onto DVDs. I also want a new case, since my current one is falling apart, does very little to reduce the noise of the components inside it and is poorly designed for airflow, and a new 120mm silent fan and 120-80mm adaptor to replace the loud 80mm fan on my CPU heatsink (I'll have to remove that fan by cutting it off with wire cutters, since the screws holding it on require a special tool that I don't have and have never seen). I'm also getting a SATA raid controller to use as an ordinary SATA PCI adaptor, since I have an old motherboard that only has IDE connections, and although I already have a SATA PCI card, I won't have enough ports on it for what I'm getting. It's a bit annoying to be spending £20 on a card for an ageing system since it'll be obsolete when I finally upgrade my motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card and possibly soundcard, but that could be several years from now, and it's an acceptable stop-gap measure.
I'm getting some RAM for my laptop too, since it runs like shit on the 256MB it came with, an extension for my PSU so that it'll reach my motherboard from it's unusual position at the bottom of the new Antec case and various other power adaptors and splitters, some good quality Sennheiser in-ear headphones, since I'm tired of the shitty sound I get from my cheap and nasty plastic headphones that are held together with cellotape (I chose the
Sennheiser CX 95's over a
Sennheiser PC350 Pro-Gaming Headset since it's cheaper and a review claimed it had a better audio balance and that the bass was weak in the PC350, but if any audiophiles want to chime in with advice, please do. 5.1 surround sound would have been nice, but I'm not even sure if my bittorrented videos support surround sound, and I don't play FPS's much), a 2GB compact flash card to replace a 256MB one I have and a new card reader, since my current card reader can't take the mini-SD card for my iPAQ and I've lost the SD adapter for it.
It's going to cost me £453, but it should improve my enjoyment of life by a fair bit, or at least diminish my annoyance at life. I'm particularly sick of having a loud whine and woosh from my computer in my ear all day, every day, though I think most of the high-pitched whine comes from the ancient 30GB HD, which will be off-lined shortly.
Other things for my future wish-list are a bigger LCD to replace my 17" slightly scratched one, and the aforementioned complete overhaul of my major system components. I'm running with an Athlon 2600XP, 1GB PC2700 DDR RAM and a Radeon 9600 graphics card, but it's still acceptable for most things I do, and the longer I put off a major upgrade, the better the components will be for the same money when I finally do upgrade.
Anyone have any advice before I wave goodbye to my money?
