The Build Saga: Part Seven

Money woes.

I think that as a human being that if you SEE money that you want to SPEND money.  You see there is a little extra and you think "Oh, this 8 dollars isn't that big of a deal", then after 12 of those "no big deals" later, you end up down 100 bucks and wondering where it all went.  That has been the state of my PC building fund.  I didn't want to evacuate the money from my account, but just seeing it caused us to spend a little more than I'd like of it.  Cutting out some of the massive OT I was working will result in a smaller check than I anticipated and may result in me having to push back the building of the rig.  My original plan was to buy in stages, but this has gone horribly wrong.

Thankfully my next check will include a topped-out bonus from work, so it shouldn't hurt too bad.  This is just another setback.  The motherboard is still out of stock and so are the video cards.  No one seems to know when they will be coming back.  A lot of "we think it will be..." and "maybe around...." is all I can seem to find.  It's kind of sad.  I was ready to get this started, but was unable to spend the money... and now a portion of it is gone.  Don't get me wrong I made sure that all of my bills got paid and my son and wife got gifts for his (and my) birthday.

The guy with the 900 dollar system may have it sold, but I won't know until someone shows up to check it out over the weekend.  I know I won't be able to pull off a whole system and I was really hoping to have it knocked out by the end of January.  Hopefully they don't drag their feet too much and I can file my taxes for my wife and I get whatever shitty return I can back from the government.

I am not faced with a couple of options...

1. Buy some of it now
Before I manage to squander more money I can buy some of it now.  I know for sure that my budget currently includes enough to pick up a CPU, motherboard, heatsink and fan and RAM.  I can pick up the "essentials" right now.  I can put it together, make sure it works and all that jazz.  I already have a solid PSU and I know my current case would easily support any board and cooling solution that I choose.

2. Buy a nice nVidia card
The AMD cards are sold out.  They are incredibly popular among the mining community and I am not sure when they will be back.  I've seen some reports that suggest they are basically bought out through most outlets for a while, due to the insane popularity and willingness of people to throw money at distributors.  I do not know how long it will take to get a new card, but I'd like one before Spring.  nVidia has dropped their price and have some very attractive cards.  I am considering the ASUS Direct CU II GTX 780.  Supposedly lower heat and noise, along with great performance.  I don't know how much longer I would want to play with an HD6870.

3. Save for a rainy day
Save up my funds.  Maybe that dude won't sell his 900 dollar rig.  Maybe I can save up some money and throw it at him at the end of the month for a sweet new rig.  Maybe I can suck it up and dump a fuckload more OT in and just replenish my stacks and burn them on a killer system.

Ultimately, I don't know what to do.  I don't have the time right now to game properly, but in the near future I will.  I look forward to having a great time and doing it on a sick new PC.  I worked hard and I deserve it, dammit!  Hopefully something will break my way and it will turn out alright.