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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Saturday, October 21, 2006

About the new PC

So what did I end up getting? I custom-ordered an HP Pavilion m7690y Media Center PC with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 processor (they don't offer the E6700 as an option), 2 GB of RAM, a 400 GB hard drive, etc. HP is curiously cheap with the video card options, so I took the low-end NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE (which is garbage) and will replace it with an ATI Radeon X1600 Pro or whatever. I'll research that before I get anything. The cost of the system is $1394, but it will cost about the same as the Dell once I replace the video card. The Dell had a better processor, but the HP has a TV tuner and associated Media Center hardware.

I've had excellent results with the one HP desktop I've purchased, a 64-bit a640n I purchased a bit over two years ago in order to test x64 Windows versions. Over time, it became my main desktop, and it's never had any major issues. (I did, coincidentally, somehow manage to wreck its power cable recently, an event tied to the death of the Lightscribe DVD writer. Curious.) The new Media Center PC is sort of a newer, higher-end version of the HP I already have. Hopefully, it will have the same reliability.

Anyway, this whole experience has been rather disturbing.

[ Posted at 11:42 AM | Permalink ]