I'm beginning to spend more time thinking about how to upgrade my personal computer. As I have mentioned before, deciding what pieces of hardware to buy is frustratingly difficult, especially in today's market. This time around, I'm trying to pay more attention to user reviews at sites like NewEgg, and less attention to the dedicated hardware "review" sites, which tend to consist of more previews than anything else.

I'm currently leaning towards getting the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ CPU. I'm still trying to track down a good motherboard, and then I'll have to pick some memory and, quite possible, a new power supply. Throw in a couple of new SATA hard drives (the Maxtor drives I have are real crap), and a new graphics card, and you've got a brand new system.

I'm probably going to end up spending a large chunk of change on this upgrade, but I think it will be worth it. Selling my current components on eBay should offset the cost somewhat. I've always done a good job of taking care of my stuff, and I tend to keep the boxes that components come in, so that should help increase the price I get by auctioning them off. Plus, I'm getting a performance bonus at the end of this month at work, and that can only help.

Were I to have my way, and were I to know exactly what I want, I'd order the components today. But seeing as this upgrade is going to be rather expensive, I'm resigned to waiting a bit. I'll clearly have to put Amazon purchases and the like on hold for several months after I make this move. The old bank account can only handle so much spending.