I'm BAAAaaack

Long story short, I lived like a monk for the last 2+ months to save up my pennies and now have a brand spankin' new computer. Or, as we like to say in the fly-over states: 'puwter.
I like it. it is nice.
It's on an Asus M5A87 Mobo (http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/M5A87/)

in a Thermaltake V3 (Black) case (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1390&ID=1913)

using an AMD Phenom II X4 480 quad core cpu (http://shop.amd.com/US/All/Detail/Processor/HDX840WFK42GM?tabid=2) cooled by a fancy aftermarket CPU fan (http://www.xigmatek.com/product.php?productid=126),
facilitated by 8GB DDR3 SDRAM (http://www.corsair.com/cmx4gx3m2a1600c9.html)
and juiced up with a 500W power supply (http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2757),

a fancy schmancy new ATI Radeon 6750 video card(http://www.diamondmm.com/6750PE51G.php),
a 0.5 terabyte hard drive (wanted to get two and RAID-mirror them but prices kinda jumped what with all the floods and sech over there in Thailand). Also had to buy a monitor (13" LED), new keyboard and mouse.
And, because I want to learn how to be artsy, I also got a digital sketchpad. I tried it out the other night - it looks like a four year old drooled all over the thing (yeah, I'm that bad).
I wasn't able to cover the whole thing out of pocket (despite the monkery) so I will be laying low for a few more months. except now I will be slightly more entertained than I have been, reading Wheel of Time novels.
but here it is. all up and running

I had a few problems getting things up and running although that was entirely my own stupidity - who knew that fancy schmancy video cards require their own power cords? well, now I do... only took me a week to figure out - I thought it was the memory being incompatible.