My 1300$ Mistake: A series of fortunate and unfortunate events about my first start gaming to what it is currently.

Write about something (an experience, an object, a tradition, a person, a song) that makes you happy.

 There is a lot of technology terms that are way oversimplified or maybe unclear.

    I honestly don't hold too many items or experiences close to my heart. I tend to grow out of it or get bored of it very fast however the one item that has been my pride and joy for the last four years is my hand-built computer and the experiences before and leading up to its construction. I have had some other items as a very young kid that I thought would never leave my side. When I was born my Tia had given me a small blue blanket as well as a little stuffed Eeyore from Whinnie the Pooh; the classic show that almost every kid has watched. I don't know why it was those two things that I held dear to me from such a young age but they stuck with me for easily 7 years. When I was seven or so I started to get bored of the blanket and plushie slowly not having them in my bed and just casting them to the side of my room. It's kind of sad now that I write this, it must feel like the toys from Toy Story when Andy didn't play with them anymore and they were just boxed up for years. 

    A few years after I grew out of childish toys I started to build a stronger interest in technology. I had always had a fascination with technology and gaming as you might know from previous blog posts. When I first started playing games I was probably like 10 or so playing low-quality and addicting io games which were a hit for kids back in 2010. I don't know if you remember but the game Agar.io, it was one of my favorites but I was playing using my trackpad and an old Toshiba laptop that seemed older than me. Now that most of us look back on it, the game was very bland however at the time it was really the only thing I could play besides games like War Thunder, a game about tanks and planes that was free. My parents hadn't really supported my "gaming" and still don't really support it so they did not want to buy me a computer or any game for that fact. I would continue to play these free games even after they were no longer popular for 2 years. My sister and I had a Wii that we had used for a very long time but it was just so old at this point so we stopped using it. 

    I would say around the time I was 12 I asked for a laptop for school that could also run some real games. My parents were not supportive of the idea of getting a new laptop at all for the fear of me playing video games. I am not sure why but they acted like that is somehow a truly terrible thing which is understandable knowing the culture and stigma against gaming. Mainly my mother had such distaste for the hobby. She did something that would make me so mad as a kid. As I said I needed a new laptop at the time for middle school, high school, and for home, however, I would ask and show her different laptops on Amazon or BestBuy and she would say something along the lines of "I won't buy you a gamer laptop!" or "I'm not paying a thousand dollars so you can have a gamer laptop". Something about this just pressed my buttons, calling me a "gamer" but also implying that I would become a failure in the process. Eventually, we were driving "up north" near a BestBuy and it was around black Friday and I asked if we could go in and look around. We ended up doing so, at this time I had absolutely no clue what a good laptop looked like or had in it. My dad who I thought was all-knowing about the topic told me to get one that had 4k resolution and something called a thunderbolt slot. (This was possibly one of the worst decisions I could have made). We paid an excessive amount of money for a laptop with nothing special or good in it. However, the basis of my knowledge was that a bigger number equals a better machine, so I  believed him. Obviously now I look back and can spot several issues with the purchase. The computer was made for I'm guessing picture editing, hence the 4k resolution, complimentary pen, touch screen, etc. However, what makes laptops and computers good for games or video etc would be the graphics card, this computer had something easily over 5 years old in it. Making it very hard to get good performance. 

    This matters because I had watched a lot of youtube at the time. I was fascinated by a few games, at the time Fortnite was easily the most popular game as well as a game by the name of Rainbow 6 Seige, ignore the name it has nothing to do with rainbows. (It is a game about a high-level breach team, known for sieging possible terrorist/large-scale threats. It has real-life scenarios like the Waco Seige in Texas.) Other kids in my class had played these games and had talked about them all the time. Games like Rainbow 6 were very hard to run on this laptop meant for photography and editing, primarily because of certain features like almost every wall was destructible which was very intensive and revolutionary for the time. I was barely managing to run this game at the time but I couldn't complain. For the next 2 years I would slowly evolve my "setup", I bought a very cheap 20 dollar desk that arrived missing several parts and was essentially cardboard, getting a decent mouse and headphones all from my money that I saved for this specific occasion and a cooler for my laptop that would just give it extra fans to cool totaling me ~100$. Over these 2 years, I would have made some of my best online friends and built a small community of 10-20 people. Sadly I no longer talk to them however I have never been so close to anyone else online since then, I could probably reconnect with them if I wanted but some are in college or no longer are active. 

    I realized how much of the stigma was just false. I had managed to keep everything in my life balanced as well as make some of the best friends I ever had. Just around 1 and a half to 2 years ago I had gotten very into the computer building scene. I would watch YouTubers just build PCs and make good budget builds because it's very expensive. You're probably wondering why I didn't just buy one from amazon or something. Well, the reason is you can lose easily 500-1000 more dollars doing that which can be 2x your build cost if you do buy it off amazon, this is known as a prebuilt. 99.9% of the time they are trying to rip you off and it's better to spend some hours learning the craft which is not really that hard. You can also make it completely custom, from the color of the wires to the perfect combination of parts or the exact design and brand of your choice. Having the ability to make something that is completely made from your own mind and will be exactly what you want was so cool to me. I utilized websites like PC part picker, it had every part on the market. It would check pricing from the top 10 reliable retailers as well as check compatibility, tell you the power output, tell you missing parts or suggested parts given a budget. 

    It took me months of trying to convince my dad and mom to even consider it. However, I put together a build that would last me the next 2-3 years easily. Once my dad got on board more he wanted to change some stuff which was a shock to me, however, I naively trusted his judgment again. Essentially he traded my current graphics card (one of the more important parts) for a far worse one that is about 100$ cheaper which was not worth and I would end up having to replace it. He wanted me to cheap out on a power supply that gives it energy (do not do this ever, you can save 50$ but possibly destroy a 1.5k$ machine in the process). And he didn't really do anything too substantial to the rest of it however cutting a staggering 180$ for about 50% less performance which is substantial in the PC world. I did not know this at the time but now I do and I hate that I let that happen. My mom had just been in the background for this which was surprising and it confused me, I could understand her limited knowledge on the subject but I would think she would be involved in it to some extent. Once all the parts had arrived the grand total was $1.3k, this is probably a lot you may think, but it's a really good deal. The laptop that I had been using for all this time was $1.5k, I ran a benchmark test (compares performance), and for 300$ cheaper, the computer I made was about 300% better in every manner. Nowadays people will pay upwards of $500 for a 10-20% difference. And for 150$ more on my side, it would be 350% better overall. 

    It has been so long since I did this whole process, and I am still happy with the purchase. Currently, I am selling the graphics card I own for 3x its original price due to covid and the computer price bubble. (the only reason it is so high is because of bitcoin mining which I won't dive into but the card is one of the best on the market for it right now.) And I am using that money to pay for a 3080 which is the very top of the line for easily accessible graphics cards only superseded by the 3090 and 3080ti, aka bigger number better card. If you remember how we decided to "save money" on the power supply, yeah, that backfired. I cannot use the 3080 that I have without a power supply that is 20$ more than the one I originally bought. 

*I hope you enjoyed my retelling of pretty much the last few years from my eyes on this topic, I know not many can relate or understand the community around gaming and PC building but hopefully this clears it up and you enjoyed reading one of the longest ongoing events in my life.