The Splurge

Hey Friends! I did not make a post on Friday because I was more or less in “holiday mode”, but also a bit trepidations about something happening that day. Oddly enough it wasn’t actually about my Birthday and more about something that I did in honor of the day that made me deeply nervous. I turned 45 which seems like a big number all of the sudden and thank you all for your warm birthday wishes on various social platforms. Something you need to know is that spending large amounts of money on things terrifies me. On Thursday I did a thing… and wound up spending more on myself in a single sitting than I have ever done in the past… other than say an automobile. Even then the whole car buying experience stresses me the hell out.

First I think we need to get some details out of the way. My gaming desktop was getting a little bit long in the tooth as I have had most of the same set up for six years. The last major revision that I did was putting a graphics card in four years ago. While it still continued to perform admirably, I absolutely had planned on upgrading during this graphics card generation, and knew that realistically I needed to upgrade everything. In a normal climate I would have bought a bunch of parts and built my own system as I have done in the past. This is not a normal climate and pretty much all hardware is inflated to extreme numbers. Here is what my system of the last several years has looked like:

  • Intel Core i7-5820k 3.6 ghz
  • Asus x99-a / USB 3.1 Motherboard
  • MSI GeForce GTX 1080 ti Duke 11 gb
  • 24 gb ram
  • SSD Storage
    • 256 gb ssd system drive
    • 1 tb ssd storage drive
  • Mechanical Storage
    • 5 tb 7200 rpm storage drive

In the current situation we find ourselves in… everything is being scalped. Without extreme luck or the use of bots… you really cannot get a graphics card. As a result I could flip my current 1080 ti for about double what I ended up paying for it. However there has been a bit of a loophole if you are willing to take it. System builders seem to be getting a pretty regular supply of graphics cards though most of them have waiting lists if you are looking to buy a new system. Another thing that I learned about in this process is that effectively NewEgg is building new machines under the ABS brand and more or less sells them for the cost of parts. They arrive effectively as though you had slapped together the parts yourself and thrown an operating system on it with bare minimum of software installed.

Knowing I needed a new system… I had been periodically watching these machines to see what is in stock. On Thursday I noticed that they had a system with a 3080 in it… which is ultimately the graphics card that I really wanted. I would have settled for a 3070 had I found one of those… but I really wanted to stay with the product line equivalent of my 1080. Thursday I leaped and spent a significant amount of money… and when you are doing that… the extra $40 for next day shipping seems trivial. So around noon on my birthday I hauled into the house a truly ridiculously sized box and after some shuffling of my office I plugged the machine in and powered it up. The new system looks a little bit like this:

  • Intel Core i7-10700KF 3.8 ghz
  • Asus Prime Z490-P (wifi) Motherboard
  • Asus TUF Gaming Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition 10 gb
  • G.Skill TridentZ RGB 16gb DDR4 3200 MHz ram
  • SSD Storage
    • Intel 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD system drive
    • 1 tb ssd storage drive
  • Mechanical Storage
    • 4 tb 7200 rpm storage drive

The first thing I installed and played… was Quake II RTX Edition that I have been wanting to piddle around with for ages but never could due to the lack of an RTX card. I went back and forth about whether to go Ryzen or Intel. The equivalent Ryzen system was about $200 more and I was honestly not sure if it was going to bring me $200 more in joy? I don’t use my machine as exclusively a gaming machine but do a lot of creative and development work on it, and right now… the software that does those things seems to have more optimization for the intel product line. In any case I think the difference would be felt in the margins and since I am highly unlikely to really do anything that extreme on either processor it was probably a wash out.

My ultimate goal was to get the new machine which I named the “NormandySR2” moved in enough to be able to record the podcast on Saturday and edit it Sunday. I accomplished both goals and the only upgrade that I will probably make on the short term is to add 2 more sticks of matching ram in the system to take it up to 32gb. I’ve never had ram that looked pretty, and that I would care about matching to the existing ram that I had. I am still very much in the mode of install games and see what they look like with the new card. Cyberpunk 2077 looks really nice with raytracing turned on, and while I had perfectly cromulent performance before… it looks much nicer now.

As one is obligated to do so… I have also been playing some Doom Eternal because playing a Doom game on a new gaming rig just seems like a thing one needs to do. I still can’t believe I plunked down the amount of money that I did on a new gaming rig… but I am ultimately happy with the results. One of the catches with these systems is that you don’t exactly get to pick the SKU of the graphics card you end up with. I knew it would be a 3080, but I did not know which model so I was pleasantly surprised when it ended up one of the premium SKUs. The graphics card alone could be sold for around $2000-$2500 if one is to believe ebay sold listings, which isn’t that far off from the price tag of the total system.

The overall experience of ABS systems from NewEgg was pretty great. They used quality foam and one of those inflatable bag things on the inside to keep all the parts stable in shipping. While the concept of buying a prebuilt sorta hurts my gamer pride… I would absolutely do this thing again because it just worked flawlessly. So if you have been saving your pennies for an upgrade, you seriously might look at the prebuilt computer market. In many cases you can buy an entire system for less than the graphics card alone is selling in the third party market.

MixTape Mondays: Big Hair Tight Pants

Good Morning Friends! It is that time again, time for another MixTape. For those who don’t know what is going on here, every Monday I release a new MixTape as I share some of my musical tastes with you my readers. I was one of those kids who made MixTapes for my friends and as a completely failed attempt at flirting. There is a certain artform to a good album and this is my attempt to revitalize that whole experience that I have found I deeply missed. An old friend of mine told me over the weekend, that it seemed like I was missing creativity and creative outlets… and I guess this is one way of flexing those muscles. I do enjoy creating my nonsense album art for each release. However lets get on into the music.

Big Hair Tight Pants

This time we are diving back into the era kept alive by mascara, tight pants and copious amounts of extra hold hairspray. That’s right I am talking about the era of Hair Metal and Glam Rock. I am of a specific age that has allowed me to weather many trends, not the least of which is when the baddest dudes on the planet wore women’s cut tops and spandex pants. I have a deep nostalgia for this era of rock and once again I attempted to pull together some very well worn staples and a few deep cuts as we go. Honestly once again this is a bit of a build around… Hysteria by Def Leppard is probably my single favorite track from that era so of course I had to feature it.

  • Panama – Van Halen
  • Hysteria – Def Leppard
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Warrant
  • 18 and Life – Skid Row
  • Sweet Child O’ Mine – Gun N’ Roses
  • Livin’ On a Prayer – Bon Jovi
  • Poison – Alice Cooper
  • Dr. Feelgood – Motley Crue
  • Nothin’ But a Good Time – Poison
  • Thunderstruck – AC/DC
  • Cum on Feel the Noize – Quiet Riot
  • The Final Countdown – Europe
  • No More Tears – Ozzy Osbourne

Listen On Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

An there we go, another Monday and Mix down. This one is probably going to be fairly polarizing since the hair metal era is not exactly loved by everyone. The older I get the more nostalgic about it I am. For some reason this era always reminds me of State Fair concerts and the little “coke” mirrors that you used to be able to win on the midway with album art for all of these bands. If you are tuning in late to this project and want to catch up you can do so through my archive linked below.

AggroChat #348 – Modding and Mechs

Featuring:  Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Be warned, if anything sounds weird…  Bel is recording from a new gaming rig which seems to have brought back the whine for now.  Hopefully he can resolve that in the coming weeks.  We start the show talking about Mechwarrior 5 and the recent Mercs expansion.  We also talk about how it has essentially destroyed the mod that folks were running to get around inconsistencies in the base game.  This has lead to some mixed opinions among the AggroChat crew.  From there we talk briefly about The Outer Wilds and Biomutant before settling into a longer conversation about Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis.  Finally we wrap things up with a discussion about Ratchet and Clank and how Tam and Kodra are not as fluent in this universe.

Topics Discussed:

  • Mechwarrior 5
    • Mercs DLC Update
    • The end of Modding
  • The Outer Wilds
  • Biomutant
  • Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis
  • Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Still Driving the Mako

Hey Friends! I feel like I am stuck in somewhat of a rut. Right now I am playing Mass Effect 1 again and it is largely because it is familiar and easy to fall back into when I get home from work. I didn’t spend a ton of time on my most recent playthrough of this game and largely took the critical path. As a result I missed a lot of fairly important things like the whole Cerberus quest chain that takes place planetside. I don’t love the Mako or Hammerhead so I tend to avoid doing those missions… but in the first game at least you end up missing quite a bit of content by taking this stance. I am wondering how it will impact the later games because I think I have always skipped most of the planetary nonsense unless absolutely required. At this point I am staring down the barrel of the Virmire mission and I am not really certain what decision I am going to make.

I spent a good chunk of the weekend playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and I really need to return to that. The problem is when I get home from work I have not wanted to be up in my office… which is where my PS5 is currently hooked up. The living room is a communal space and I don’t have any of my devices hooked to that television as a result. So if I want to hang out downstairs… I am going to be playing something on my laptop which isn’t exactly conducive to console gaming. There are times I daydream about redoing my office and putting a couch up here… but that is never going to happen because I don’t have anywhere near enough room to do so.

Another console game that I really want to return to and finish is Final Fantasy VII Remake, especially now that is has added DLC. I went through the process of downloading the new PS5 version of the game and swapping over a save file from the PS4 version so I should be able to pick up where I left off. I also installed the Yuffie DLC so it is sitting there waiting for me as well. I was enjoying the game last time I played it so I could probably easily slide back into Midgar for some chill gaming. I’m coming to the realization that I need to just simply admit that I am a single player gamer and as a result should spend more time playing single player games.

I’ve downloaded and spent a very small amount of time poking around the Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin demo. It is interesting… and I get the whole soulslike comparison. So far I like it considerably more than a traditional souls game because it has a difficulty slider. I hope to spend at least a little bit more time this weekend poking about in the game.

Lastly there is the problem of Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis. I don’t love the game… and I was really hoping that I would. I am not sure what it is about the game but I am not attaching at all. In fact I like it considerably less than I liked baseline PSO2. I am not sure if I can pinpoint why though, but the entire thing just doesn’t feel good to play right now. It might simply be that I am in the wrong state of mind to really get into it, but whatever the case it is… I’ve tried a Hunter and a Ranger and neither one really feels good to me. This is a little sad since I was hoping this would be the game to unite the tribes… at least for a little bit, but unfortunately that does not seem to be the case for me at least.

The challenge that I keep struggling with… is I am nostalgic about when I used to play games with other people. However I never can seem to be in the right frame of mind to play the game that the bulk of my social group seems to be playing. I’ve reached a point where it feels like I am too old to make vast changes in my circle of friends, and as such given that I always seem to be playing the wrong game… I am just going to always been the odd man out. I am trying to reach a point of acceptance with this and just move on with finding the joy that I can from the games that I seem to be enjoying. That realization however stings a bit.