The tech envy is really setting in, and I think it might be here to stay. I really wanna build a new computer, but I’m not sure I should.

This is probably one of those things where there’s never really going to be a “good” time to spend that kind of money. Every time I think I can spend the money, something happens. Last month it was my car. This month it was the credit card bills from my pre-new-job shopping spree. Next month, who knows? Maybe it’ll be adoption costs for a dog, or some crazy sale that I just have to jump on. Or student loans. Or car insurance. Or Christmas shopping

There always seems to be something “better” I “should” spend my money on, is what I’m saying.

But I can’t help myself. For better or worse, I’ve started doing research, and coming up with options that may actually be feasible. Nvidia just released a new generation of graphics cards, for one. What does this mean? Well, the previous models are steeply discounted, of course, but even the new models aren’t that pricey (for a mid-to-high card, that is). Suddenly, I’m able to start coalescing around a target budget.

I also ran across this chart on Tom’s Hardware, ranking multiple generations of graphics cards into various performance tiers. Think of it as a Rosetta Stone for the byzantine naming conventions hardware manufacturers use. And for some reason, I thought it was a good idea to spend a good chunk of my free time this past weekend parsing the data and looking for trends (you know, as one does). During the course of this tedious yet compelling work, I came to the realization that the graphics card in my 6-and-a-half-year-old laptop is not nearly the beefy performer I thought it was. In fact, it’s more than halfway down the chart.

I know I should be a responsible adult and pay my bills. But the siren call of new hardware is getting stronger, and I don’t know that I want to be good. But at the same time, I don’t know that I can let myself splurge.