Hi everyone.
After several months of lurking here on the forums and reading what everyone has to say I need a bit of help, so I decided to post an introduction first. I hope I'm doing this right
I'm 21 years old, live in Mumbai and like to think of myself as a computer enthusiast. I have been unhealthily obsessed with computers and technology for as long as I can remember, and assembled my first PC at around age 13-14. I like to keep up with the latest news and reviews and spend at least 6-8 hours online every day.
My current computer is unimpressive but has been a workhorse for me for many years now. I have an AthlonXP 2000+ on an MSI KT4V motherboard (KT400 with VT8235 southbridge) with 256 MB RAM and a Geforce 4 MX440SE graphics card. Don't laugh. The hard drives are 40GB and 160GB. I have a Plextor PX-W2410A CD-RW drive and I bought a BenQ DW1650 last week based on the advice I read here. Other than that there's a Creative SB Extigy USB sound device and nothing else worth mentioning.
As you can guess, I haven't been able to game much at home. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch so it hasn't been too much of a problem so far.
And like I said, I need a little help. I have an opportunity to buy some stuff from the US in the next few days and I don't know exactly what to do. The problem is I've just finished college and I don't know whether I'll be accepted into any of the courses I've applied for out of town. If I send for a graphics card (I'm thinking a 7600GT, ~$179) and some other stuff to build a decent new computer and I wind up in another city for the next year, it'll be a huge waste of money. If I use this opportunity to buy myself a budget laptop for the course and then I don't get in, I'll be stuck with two mediocre computers at home instead of at least one good one. It's a 50/50 chance I have to take or miss out on both possibilites.
I've done tonnes of research and this is really a last ditch request. I'm leaning towards the laptop right now. If it turns out I don't really need it, will I be able to sell it off here for a decent price? Or would I be better off trying to offload the graphics card etc. over here... There are many more issues involved but I think they'd be more suitable in the General Hardware category so I'll post there in detail.
Anyway, I'm really glad to be here and I hope to be posting actively from now on. Thanks for reading this if you've come this far, and any advice would be highly appreciated.
ephemera
After several months of lurking here on the forums and reading what everyone has to say I need a bit of help, so I decided to post an introduction first. I hope I'm doing this right
I'm 21 years old, live in Mumbai and like to think of myself as a computer enthusiast. I have been unhealthily obsessed with computers and technology for as long as I can remember, and assembled my first PC at around age 13-14. I like to keep up with the latest news and reviews and spend at least 6-8 hours online every day.
My current computer is unimpressive but has been a workhorse for me for many years now. I have an AthlonXP 2000+ on an MSI KT4V motherboard (KT400 with VT8235 southbridge) with 256 MB RAM and a Geforce 4 MX440SE graphics card. Don't laugh. The hard drives are 40GB and 160GB. I have a Plextor PX-W2410A CD-RW drive and I bought a BenQ DW1650 last week based on the advice I read here. Other than that there's a Creative SB Extigy USB sound device and nothing else worth mentioning.
As you can guess, I haven't been able to game much at home. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch so it hasn't been too much of a problem so far.
And like I said, I need a little help. I have an opportunity to buy some stuff from the US in the next few days and I don't know exactly what to do. The problem is I've just finished college and I don't know whether I'll be accepted into any of the courses I've applied for out of town. If I send for a graphics card (I'm thinking a 7600GT, ~$179) and some other stuff to build a decent new computer and I wind up in another city for the next year, it'll be a huge waste of money. If I use this opportunity to buy myself a budget laptop for the course and then I don't get in, I'll be stuck with two mediocre computers at home instead of at least one good one. It's a 50/50 chance I have to take or miss out on both possibilites.
I've done tonnes of research and this is really a last ditch request. I'm leaning towards the laptop right now. If it turns out I don't really need it, will I be able to sell it off here for a decent price? Or would I be better off trying to offload the graphics card etc. over here... There are many more issues involved but I think they'd be more suitable in the General Hardware category so I'll post there in detail.
Anyway, I'm really glad to be here and I hope to be posting actively from now on. Thanks for reading this if you've come this far, and any advice would be highly appreciated.
ephemera
We'll try our best to help you out 
hyeah: 
