I’ve always been a hardware enthusiast, and as such, I’ve usually upgraded my computer once per year. The last time I upgraded, I bought right on the ragged edge of the tech ladder. I was impressed that the system I bought has given me nearly two years of awesome performance, but with some of the newer games on the horizon, I’ve been starting to get the itch again.

I’ve been looking very seriously at the Core2Duo E6850. Intel has finally regained the speed crown from AMD (who has fallen behind in both the CPU and the graphics race with their acquisition of ATI); the lure of 1333 MHz FSB is also attractive. Couple this with a high-end Asus motherboard (if anyone suggests an MSI motherboard, I’ll ridicule you mercilessly), four GB of memory, and a GeForce 8800 GTX and I have a screaming system.

It appears I’ll need it. The list of stuff coming out in the next few months is daunting:

Half Life 2 – Episode Two (and Team Fortress 2)
Crysis
Unreal Tournament 3
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
World in Conflict
Hellgate: London

This might seriously cut into my writing agenda. Of course, I could forego the computer upgrade and just go for this.