My new computer

After using my notebook for my primary computer for a year I found that it had some limitations. Just saving my images was taking up too much room on my hard drive, even after I upgraded to a 60GB. Then I started moving all of my cd's to my computer, this also limited my drive space.

This past weekend I spent building my new tower system, mostly from parts I bought at New Egg and my local Central Computer. I was aiming for a performance computer with parts that are the most performance per dollar.

Since I do some computer gaming I opted for a nice video card, but also installed a dual core AMD processor for help with Photoshop and 3D tools. Two drives will help keep my images available and store them as a short time back up. Overall I'm really happy with the performance compared to my old tower and notebook. While I was adding a new computer I also bought a new LCD monitor. My 8 year old 19" CRT is out of focus and I felt it was worth paying $200 more for a LCD than another CRT.

After I got the OS up and running I installed Half Life 2, a game I've wanted to play since it came out last year. The first Half Life was a personal favorite with me, I just enjoy the story line, solving puzzles and shooting bad guys. The second is even better with great graphics and more things to do.

Here's a screenshot from my computer.

I'm trying to make a collection of screenshots but so far only have Half Life 2. These are all taken at 1280x1024 with full details. Very surprising to me the game actually runs pretty fast, but does stutter when loading new levels. I would love to see how this games looks on a 24" wide screen monitor!

Rob