Potentially the longest thread in history...

[TechnoChicken]

My 2nd job while in High School was pumping gas at a Chevron station for $1.75/hr. The boss sent me to a week long class to learn how to upsell things like fan belts, tires, oil changes, etc... After attending that class, I got a raise to $2/hr plus a 10% commission on whatever I sold. That was in 1971, things were cheaper then but wages were lower as well.

I've never been into fashion, brand names or expensive clothes and fashion accessories. I bought used cars and drove them for years until they fell apart while I watched friends buy or lease new cars every few years. I did my own oil changes and other maintenance and repairs. I did my own yardwork, upkeep and remodeling projects on my house. We had 4 kids so paying for daycare would have been killer so my wife and I worked different shifts (I worked 1st shift, she worked 2nd) so that one of us was always home with the kids.

When I attended college, I worked full time days and went to school at night. I paid for all my books and tuition at the start of each semester so never had any student loans to pay off after graduation.

We had one extravagance, we owned a 30 ft travel trailer. Have you ever heard the saying that a boat is just a hole in the water that you throw money in to? Well an RV is just a hole in the ground that you throw money in to. We took trips with that RV at least 1 weekend per month, all year round. We camped in the woods, the beach, the desert, RV campgrounds, etc...

I have heard that boat stands for "Bust Out Another Thousand"

 

[Joe C]

My 2nd job while in High School was pumping gas at a Chevron station for $1.75/hr. The boss sent me to a week long class to learn how to upsell things like fan belts, tires, oil changes, etc... After attending that class, I got a raise to $2/hr plus a 10% commission on whatever I sold. That was in 1971, things were cheaper then but wages were lower as well.

I've never been into fashion, brand names or expensive clothes and fashion accessories. I bought used cars and drove them for years until they fell apart while I watched friends buy or lease new cars every few years. I did my own oil changes and other maintenance and repairs. I did my own yardwork, upkeep and remodeling projects on my house. We had 4 kids so paying for daycare would have been killer so my wife and I worked different shifts (I worked 1st shift, she worked 2nd) so that one of us was always home with the kids.

When I attended college, I worked full time days and went to school at night. I paid for all my books and tuition at the start of each semester so never had any student loans to pay off after graduation.

We had one extravagance, we owned a 30 ft travel trailer. Have you ever heard the saying that a boat is just a hole in the water that you throw money in to? Well an RV is just a hole in the ground that you throw money in to. We took trips with that RV at least 1 weekend per month, all year round. We camped in the woods, the beach, the desert, RV campgrounds, etc...

The gas station I worked at was not a real service station. It was just a little hole in the wall called Kayo and the best you could get other than cheap gas was a moldy beef stick. The entire building was only about 10' x 10' square with a safe built into the floor. Bob the owner would stumble in after too many drinks and make sure we did inventory every night before closing. The biggest item to count were cigarettes

 

[Joe C]

I have heard that boat stands for "Bust Out Another Thousand"

Some around these parts donate boats....
https://www.boatangel.org/how-it-works.php

Welcome to Boat Angel /Car Angel Donation Center 501-C-3 NON-PROFIT boat donation charity. We sell used boats and yachts from across America. The boat donations are sold on ebay. We also sell car car donations for Car Angel. Your puchase of a donated boat and car helps us help others.

https://www.ebay.com/str/boatdonationshomeofboatangel

 

[PP Mguire]

When I attended college, I worked full time days and went to school at night. I paid for all my books and tuition at the start of each semester so never had any student loans to pay off after graduation.

Yea you can't do that these days unless you're maybe going to a community college or trade school....maybe.

Kinda like buying a mac... no?

Buying a Mac would be the equivalent of buying any other PC part that's not "technically" necessary. There are some people that prefer to use Mac only software though making it not really comparable to simply a name on some eye glasses.

 

[PP Mguire]

So I've been bored here and decided to play with my XP rig. Usually I stick to hella old XPish games but with dumb hardware like my 2500k and Titan X. My X-Fi took a shit on me so figured I'd switch to the onboard and run some experiments by putting the 8800GTX SLI back in.

To my astonishment I found that this setup can run games well into the last decade. I figured Skyrim would play on lower settings, but it pegged the 60fps cap at 1920x1200 all maxed with some GPU headroom to go for a little AA. I decided to give it an ultra hard game to run like Metro 2033. That game lagged me pretty bad with an i5 750 @ 4.5 and a highly OCd GTX 465. 1920x1200 at very high preset presented a respectable 45fps but dropping down to high gave me 60fps. I was not expecting that. I intend to try Farcry 3 and Crysis 2 next.

 

[Trotter]

Got a wild hair and decided to transplant my rig into the new case. Yeah, I might not get it all back together before the weekend...

 

[Spud1200]

@PP Mguire

How many GPUs do you actually own and what are they. With you talking about the 3080s I'm curious to know if you have any sort of set up were you are actually using all of what you have .

 

[PP Mguire]

@PP Mguire

How many GPUs do you actually own and what are they. With you talking about the 3080s I'm curious to know if you have any sort of set up were you are actually using all of what you have .

Too many to name. My entire house would be filled with full computers if I used everything I had, but try to remember I have a collection. Most of it just sits there pretty. Some honorable mentions:
Geforce 256 DDR AGP
3x Voodoo 2 12MB + 1 Voodoo 2 8MB
Voodoo Banshee PCI
Voodoo 4 4500 AGP
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
Geforce 3 TI200
Geforce 4 TI4400
Geforce FX 5900ZT
Geforce 7800GS
Geforce 6600GT AGP
Geforce 6800 Ultra AGP
Geforce 7900GTX
2x Geforce 7950GX2
2x GTX 480
2x 8800GTX
GTX 280
GTX 295
GTX 970
Quadro K5200
Titan X Maxwell

That's just what's sitting on the shelves on display on my wall in my game room with 3 motherboards and CPUs in them.

 

[Spud1200]

I was curious because at the prices of a half decent GPU these days I cant afford anything new. I've got a 750TI sitting their but don't have a system to put it in . I'm thinking about buying a decent case a PSU and transplanting my dell system from whats sitting in a slimline case to get the use out of it .

 

[PP Mguire]

I was curious because at the prices of a half decent GPU these days I cant afford anything new. I've got a 750TI sitting their but don't have a system to put it in . I'm thinking about buying a decent case a PSU and transplanting my dell system from whats sitting in a slimline case to get the use out of it .

You're not the only one, give it a year. Too many factors are causing ridiculous pricing and outages that won't smooth out until:
1 - Mining boom crashes
2 - Scalpers give up because supply meets demand
3 - Supply meets demand.