On Wed, 27 Jun 2001 11:01:15 -0500 "Thomas T. Veldhouse" <veldy at veldy.net> wrote: > Athlon might crap out on you in 1 week, or 10 minutes. Overheating > problem, yada yada yada. Well, you can just drive down to GNS or TM > and get it replaced. Good luck doing that online, and chances are, > the price you are given is OEM and you only have 30 days on it anyway. Overheating == user error. Overclocking or not. (No offense) I'm not trying to debate the particulars here .. but, in my experience - the only "bad CPU" I've encountered was a PI-100 that was garbage to begin with, and free-to-me. My gripe: The cheap mail order shops are never HQ'd in my home town .. Or, similarily, what's stopping local shops from doing the required volume (online) to compete? Simple, money, overhead -- why run a huge shop that makes a lot of money when low-volume & higher-prices results in the same bottomline. Doesn't help me though. CPU's, motherboards, HD's? By the time *most* of them die, they aren't worth the price of shipping/gas anyway. Unless you're ordering bulk for BigTime, Inc. .. why spend the money? To each his own, but I'll continue to agressively pennypinch and save $10 + $24 + $15 == additional component. Not to drag this out unncessarily, but in comparison shopping -- if one is truly interested in repair/warranty/support and doesn't mind the dirty feeling associated with free M$ software, buy a Gateway/Dell/*. One last note: Aside from hardware guides and hardware pass/fail websites, does a "I bought this, this was my experience" matrix exist out there? Link it up with strongnumbers.com and I'd check it before purchasing. -Jay