Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Curses to scan!
Well, the PC is almost all here. All except the motherboard, processor and blu-ray drive which, as you of course know, are quite important. As the title says, Curses to Scan! There is another problem which also has to be addressed, however, and that's the fact that the lack of a standard length for graphics cards means that I have a case (the Antec three hundred) which won't actually fit the graphics card I have (4850X2).
Now I know that there is a very good reason that the 4850X2 is so utterly massive, but who wouldn't benefit from a standard length for graphics cards being set down? Even a few standards, in the same way as there exists ATX, m-ATX, extended ATX etc. for motherboards. So we could have the BGF (Basic Graphics Form-factor), m-BGF, extended BGF and so on. Suddenly all the guess work is taken out of fitting a graphics card to a case - both will list sizes, all you have to do is match them up. It wouldn't even have to invlove any sort of major redesign for cases or graphics cards - just classify what currently exists and add them to the spec sheets. Hell, we don't even need to classify anything - just add the max length graphics card supported to a case's spec sheet. Graphics cards already have physical dimensions in their specs, so I guess what I'm saying is: Case manufacturers - sort this shit out.
That is all.
Now I know that there is a very good reason that the 4850X2 is so utterly massive, but who wouldn't benefit from a standard length for graphics cards being set down? Even a few standards, in the same way as there exists ATX, m-ATX, extended ATX etc. for motherboards. So we could have the BGF (Basic Graphics Form-factor), m-BGF, extended BGF and so on. Suddenly all the guess work is taken out of fitting a graphics card to a case - both will list sizes, all you have to do is match them up. It wouldn't even have to invlove any sort of major redesign for cases or graphics cards - just classify what currently exists and add them to the spec sheets. Hell, we don't even need to classify anything - just add the max length graphics card supported to a case's spec sheet. Graphics cards already have physical dimensions in their specs, so I guess what I'm saying is: Case manufacturers - sort this shit out.
That is all.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
NEW PC!!
Change of pace here, seeing as how Ubuntu has been a miserable experience and I'm utterly sick and tired of it. Subject for today: new computer!
Yes, I'm currently at that terribly exciting "waiting for the postman" stage, waiting for the following:
Phenom II 940
ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe Motherboard
2 x 2GB PC6400 Corsair Twinx
AMD 4850X2 2GB
Western Digital 640GB Black
Sony Bluray drive
Corsair 550W PSU
27" (!) Dell 2709W monitor
I'm particularly excited about the monitor, but also just the fact that it's been a few years since I assembled a PC. Bluray seems to be getting to the point that it's worthwhile, but burners are still outrageous at over €150.
The 4850X2 is an exciting prospect, in that it's two pretty fast cores for the price of one fast one, and accordingly offers great value except, of course, when driver support is shite. Which it seemingly often is. Anandtech were gushing about it though, and that's enough for me. I'll keep the updates coming on that one.
It's a relief to be able to buy an AMD CPU without feeling like a complete sucker (which, let's face it, you almost certainly were if you bought a Phenom). Anyway, the Phenom II is wonderfully price competitive, performance competitive, and generally pretty good across the board. Certainly up there with anything Intel offer at the price.
And then the monitor. Oh, the monitor... I take great pleasure in listing off the input/outputs on the monitor, so here goes - 2 x DVI-D (not entirely sure why), VGA, HDMI, Displayport, component, 5.1 audio out, 4xUSB, 9-in-2 card reader... Epic. There are some suggestions that there may be minor input lag issues, but all monitors seem to have some criticisims levelled at them, so we'll see what happens.
Stay tuned, I'll report back soon...
Yes, I'm currently at that terribly exciting "waiting for the postman" stage, waiting for the following:
Phenom II 940
ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe Motherboard
2 x 2GB PC6400 Corsair Twinx
AMD 4850X2 2GB
Western Digital 640GB Black
Sony Bluray drive
Corsair 550W PSU
27" (!) Dell 2709W monitor
I'm particularly excited about the monitor, but also just the fact that it's been a few years since I assembled a PC. Bluray seems to be getting to the point that it's worthwhile, but burners are still outrageous at over €150.
The 4850X2 is an exciting prospect, in that it's two pretty fast cores for the price of one fast one, and accordingly offers great value except, of course, when driver support is shite. Which it seemingly often is. Anandtech were gushing about it though, and that's enough for me. I'll keep the updates coming on that one.
It's a relief to be able to buy an AMD CPU without feeling like a complete sucker (which, let's face it, you almost certainly were if you bought a Phenom). Anyway, the Phenom II is wonderfully price competitive, performance competitive, and generally pretty good across the board. Certainly up there with anything Intel offer at the price.
And then the monitor. Oh, the monitor... I take great pleasure in listing off the input/outputs on the monitor, so here goes - 2 x DVI-D (not entirely sure why), VGA, HDMI, Displayport, component, 5.1 audio out, 4xUSB, 9-in-2 card reader... Epic. There are some suggestions that there may be minor input lag issues, but all monitors seem to have some criticisims levelled at them, so we'll see what happens.
Stay tuned, I'll report back soon...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Well I'm still using Ubuntu, for the moment, mainly because I haven't yet decided whether to go back to Vista or to have a go with Windows 7. I rather suspect that Windows 7 might be the way to go, but for the moment I've got 3 weeks out of College for Spring Break (woo!...) so I'll stick with Ubuntu for a little while longer.
I think the biggest disappointment so far has been the College network situation, so perhaps I can have a slightly nicer experience with it at home. Stay tuned.
I think the biggest disappointment so far has been the College network situation, so perhaps I can have a slightly nicer experience with it at home. Stay tuned.
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