After like 4 years or so, I'm finally going to get to use a desktop again. I'm planning to build my own customize ddesktop when next academic semester begins. Now I'm in the period of studying the best rigs for my budget. It'll tough trying to squeeze my demand for performance into a 1K budget.

Let's see my current choice of components are:

CPU
Choice 1: Phenom IIX4 955

Mobo
Choice 1: Asus 4A785D-M-PRO
Price: S$ 396 (Combo price with CPU)

Choice 2: Asus 4A78L-M
Price: S$ 372 (Combo price with CPU)

RAM
Choice 1: CORSAIR TW3X4G-1600C9D Dominator (4GB=2x2GB)
Price: $S 219

Choice 2: CORSAIR CMX4GX3M2A-1600C9 (4GB=2x2GB)
Price: $S 199

GPU
Choice 1: ASUS ATI EAH5770 CuCore 1GB (GDDR5)
Price: S$ 279

Choice 2: MSI ATI HD 5770 1GB Hawk Twin FrozerII (GDDR5)
Price: S$ 269

HDD
Choice 1: Seagate 1TB 7200.12/2-platter/low power/Faster
Price: S$ 119

Choice 2: Seagate 500GB 7200.12 / 16MB
Price: S$ 74

DVD Drive
Choice 1: HP 24X LightScribe SATA SuperMulti
Price: S$ 43

PSU
Choice 1: CORSAIR HX750 (750W) / 7yrs
Price: S$ 249

Choice 2: OCZ ModXStream-Pro (Modular) 700W
Price: S$ 185

Choice 3: PCPower & Cooling 750W : $188 / 750W
Price: S$ 188

Choice 4: CrossfireOCZ ModXStream-Pro (Modular) 600W
Price: S$ 139

Chasis
Choice 1: CoolerMaster Elite nVidia 334
Price:  S$ 89

Conclusion

Let's see, if I go for all my first choice components it would cost me S$ 1394. Crazy! Over budget by 400. What if all my last choice. S$ 1185... still over budget by almost 200.  I think I seriously need to reconsider my budget.. or my components of choice. But I've been using PC for so long and I haven't for once tasted a very powerful PC to suit my usage. For the first time, I really want to have that since I'm planning to have this for a long time. If you have cash, can go for this rigs, guarantee extreme performance.

I used to play badminton very often during JC time but after graduating from A level I stopped playing for quite a long while. I resume badminton fully in year 2. Anyway, below is the racket that I used and is using.

My first racket: Wilson Dynasmash 500

If I remember correctly I got this on promotion for S$69 . This is my first racket when I was really into badminton. That time I had no idea whatsoever how to choose racket. I didn't even know how to play in first place. So yes I simply bought this because my friends said it's decent and it was one of the cheaper ones in row. Dynasmash 500 is definitely good for smash. You can really feel the power in your smash, if you know how to smash that is. :P But for other aspects, not so good. My main problem with this racket is hitting a high back court shot and picking up a drop shot. The control and power is just not really there. Hence, it's not so easy to use for beginner but again when you're beginner, you can't really tell what's the difference also. As long as can hit and it's light then it's a good racket. But when you know to play, you'd start to see all these problems.

My Second Racket: Yonex NanoSpeed 800

I l♥ve my 2nd racket. I got it for S$89. Decent price for a Yonex Nanospeed series. I did quite  a bit of research before buying to make sure this time I get the right racket for my playing style and I did! XD This racket gives me a lot more control than the first. Hence, I can play more variety of shot instead of just trying to smash my way through. The con is that I have to sacrifice the smashing power and speed but in return, I have more control over my smash. I can now smash to the left or right side line almost at will. It feels good to be in control. (^.^) For net play, nanospeed 800 is awesome too. So in a way, it's a very balanced build racket, which is very well suited for player like me who's not very sure what I'm good at doing but just wanting to be able to do everything reasonably well.

Whoo.. finally I'm back. It's been a tiring 5 days at the seminar. Very tiring indeed. I have so much to write about so I shall start with the most overdue post.

In this post, I thought of listing the items in my wish list that I managed to own so far and those that I'm still saving up for. So here it goes.

My MP3 Player: iPod Nano 3rd Generation

For so long I've been wanting to own one of the Apple product and finally I got one. I bought this at a very good deal. The guy who sold it to me won it from lucky draw and he already has an iPod Touch. So he sold it away at S$150. That time the original price was still S$240+. However, now feel like selling it away and getting the 5th Gen. XD

Apple iPod is definitely an mp3 to go for sound quality, style and design.

My Phone: Sony Ericsson W980

Bought this one because the old one spoil so no choice. I didn't like it that much but it was the best deal I found in the forum. The seller signed plan and didn't want the phone since he's already using the smart phone. So he was willing to let it go cheap cheap and thus, I bought it to make use for the time being till have enough spare fund to get Android and iPhone.

W980 is definitely not recommended. Other than the sleek design and the 8GB built-in memory, which I didn't really use since I had my iPod, there's not many value-added points. It may not look like it in photo but the quality of manufactured material is not good and when scratches on surface it's very obvious. So for a rather careless user like me, this phone get old very fast.

My Hand-held Console: PSP 2006 Slim & Lite

This is one of the best deal I got too. It was only 2 month old when I bought it. The guy sold me at $150 when the original price was still S$360+. I got it for less than half price!!! XD On top of that, he gave me 4 original UMD games!! I didn't play UMD those since I have all of the game in iso file already. Finally, after a long time of daydreaming, I own one. I gave it only 3 stars because I'm not crazy over it like I thought I would. The buttons are hard to press which makes the whole gaming experience drop significantly for me. And after playing the console for sometime, I realize that I'm really a big screen person. I need at least a 22" screen to play my game and I couldn't care if it's portable or not.

My Storage: Seagate 3.5" 1TB & Western Digital 2.5" 320GB

Now, I have two 1 TB and one 320 GB. I use it more like a thumbdrive. And the 1TB is obviously for hardcore storage purpose. XD So far so good, they can still keep up for quite some time. I don't think I will need to a new one any time in the next 1 or 2 years.

My Camera: Cannon Digital IXUS 80IS

This camera is probably the oldest among all my 2nd hand gadgets. It's about 1 year old when I bought. But still almost as good as new because it was hardly used by the original user after he owned a DSLR. I got it for S$200 during the time when the original price was till around S$350+. Not really a fantastic deal for a 1 year old camera but what it make it fantastic was that the guy threw in extra 1 GB memory card and 2 spare lithium batteries!!! Each spare batteries can easily cost up to 60 bucks.

This is probably the last non-pro digital camera I'd get. If I ever go for a camera upgrade, I would for sure get a semi-pro or a DSLR. This just doesn't give a good enough picture quality.