So my home computer has been giving me all kinds of trouble lately. It has this nasty habit of spontaneously rebooting, sometimes several times in a row. Occasionally it gives me an error (BSOD) but mostly not. Can’t figure out if it’s hardware or software (I suspect a bit of both). It’s also getting a bit long in the tooth - Athlon XP 2000 (1.6ghz), 80GB HD, 768MB RAM, Radeon 9600XT video card, etc. It will run things okay but is seeming sluggish ever since I got that 2.8ghz machine at the day job. I was so frustrated I almost dropped a grand or so on an HP at Staples last week because I didn’t want to mess with it. But then I researched HP and they pretty much suck. So I’m back to building my own again, but I wanted a kit deal to save money and hassle.

So, I finally saw a barebones kit on TigerDirect.com that I liked: Intel 3.2ghz Dual Core Pentium D, 320GB HD, 16x DL DVD-RW, 1GB DDR2 PC4200, Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Case, 500 Watt Power Supply. That should make Photoshop perform pretty snappy, eh?

Then I jumped over to Arstechnica.com and looked at their build-up guide and picked up their recommendation for a PCI Express video card. That should make Half-Lif… er, I mean Photoshop, perform pretty snappy, eh?

When I get my $185 worth of rebates (off the $900 total bill) I’ll pick up Windows XP Pro and maybe another 1GB stick of RAM.

I’ve been wanting to defect to Apple but I just can’t get as good a machine for the money, and Mac OSX just isn’t worth the extra premium. If my business generates the same revenue next year perhaps I’ll get a Macbook or Macbook Pro.