Last week, I lost my Dell Inspiron 531. I bought that Dual Core AMD64 in Sept 07. I definitely worked that thing. All of my data is fine as my 1TB (2 500GB drives) are working. That’s all I really care about. The motherboard appears to have overheated and burnt out. It won’t boot past the dell bios splash screen.

I have a similar machine at work except it’s a Quad Core. I also have a piece of shit Vaio I also purchased in 2007. I guess they weren’t making solid machines that year cause I am ready to ditch this thing. It wasn’t even a reliable backup last week. I am rocking a loaner Vostro. And you know what? It’s a lot faster than my 531 had been performing the past few months.

I‘ve been really thinking about getting a Macbook Pro later this year. It will be 10 years since I left Mac and it looks like they made a couple of *minor* improvements. But the time has come for me to get a real desktop. A real machine that can handle all of the home-made  porn work I do. I want a serious graphics card, a serious set of processors and a motherboard that can handle it. I want at least 6GB of RAM, if not 12. Most importantly, I want this kept quiet and cool.

The Alienware Area 51 x58 with Liquid Cooling is the perfect machine and just under $2000. That’s pretty much the same price as the Mac — unless I decide to go with the 17.

My choices aren’t cheap, in fact they are pretty high-end, but well worth it. I think it’s about time I take care of my personal hardware. This is what I do. What it do? San Dimas High School Football Rules! (Sorry @davidgagne, consider it quotable-gangsta tourettes)

Editors note: just in case it’s not perfectly clear, I am purchasing both of these computers in the upcoming months. That is my ultimate decision. I need both.