(no subject)

I am pondering buying a new computer. I just got my last paycheck from the Red Cross, and I had a lot of paid-time-off days comig to me, so it's a nice bit of money. I should like to upgrade to a system that doesn't go into hysterics about The Sims 2 quite as often, but I am no twitch gamer and otherwise rarely need that kind of processor power. Basically, a good processor and a really nice graphics card should do most of it, I think. For baseline stats, I'm looking for:

512 MB RAM (or more)
60 gigs hard drive storage (or more)
GeForce 5200 or better video
Windows XP Pro
2.4 GHz or faster

I am not fussy about the rest of it. Integrated sound is fine with me, as is integrated networking. I do not much care about a dial-up modem's capabilities if one is included with the system. USB is nice. So is a quiet power supply. Tempting as they are, I do not need a pimpin', stylin', shiny, or otherwise modded case. I already have speakers. I have a monitor at the moment and while I am not all that happy with it, there is no room on my desk for bigger, and I would rather wait until I have my own place before buying a flat-panel display.

Any suggestions for where to look?

I think what upsets me most about this sentence is the guy's choice of words.

"As rhinos have weak eyesight, they would not spot me, but the real challenge would be to bypass their acute sense of smell. So I solved this problem by rubbing fresh elephant dung on my body and daily refreshed this fragrance."

News for you, buddy: 'fragrance' doesn't begin to cover it.

Bought the bits for a new system.

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X-X
Processor: AMD XP 3000
Memory: 512MB of Kingston PC-3200 DDR 400 RAM
Hard drive: WD Caviar 160 GBSD RAID edition
Video: ATI Radeon 9600XT- admittedly, a refurb, but Newegg.com has a return/exchange guarantee
Audio: meh, let the motherboard handle that
Optical drive: Lite-On 8X Double Layer DVD+/-RW Drive, Model SOHW-832S
OS: XP Professional, Service Pack 2 included
Case: Antec Solution Series Quiet Black Mid-Tower, 350W power supply included

I'm keeping my old monitor for a while, and my keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc. work okay. The mobo has integrated Ethernet, so that's all right. I know there are more socially responsible things I could spend this on- hell, I know I could be saving this just for me, never mind socially responsible- but it's my money, and it would have been vacation time if I hadn't left the Red Cross. That means it would've been spent on entertainment anyway, just as time rather than money...

I have a hard time spending large chunks of cash. Don't mind me.