If you need a really fast laptop for gaming or for video development, that is probably the most exciting field today. Here are some thoughts. The main one being that we are at the turn for notebooks with both the new nVidia Maxwell (GTX 980/970) class graphics processors and the arrival of NVMe and really…
Tag: PCs
We’ve been building lots of machines lately and it seems like we have struck out twice. Both times with cooler issues and once with a lack of an SSD: We got the nice case and it says there is 65mm of clearance, the problem is the (??!!) people who designed it put the Ac power…
I haven’t built a machine in a while and have never built a dedicated file server box. So lots of great learnings from the exercise. We’ve used first Mac Mini with Drobo and then Synology (nice embedded product), but now it’s time to go all the way to Linux with ZFS so wish me luck. Here…
Well overclocking has gotten in much easier. The ASUS P8Z77-V includes a utility that does overclocking for you automagically. And with parts like the Intel iCore 5 3570K, it allows overclocking and even warranties for it. We got to 34% overclock (3.8GHz to 4.4GHz) at the CPU this way and the GPUs got from a…
OK, I thought I could get away without an optical drive, but it is pretty clear that PC games are still delivered this way, so I still need some way to read them. Not everything is on Steam or downloadable yet (when will that be???). You do have to suffer with things like EA’s Origin…
Well the hard part seemed to be putting the hardware together, but it is really getting the software particularly when everything is flash. Here are the steps: Download the Windows USB Installer Put in your DVD and make it Goto the ASUS site and download all the many new drivers Goto the nVidia site and…
I got a Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD which is a pure sinewave version costing $200. It is confusing as there is also a model called CP1500AVR and CP1500AVRLCD. AVR means that it isn’t an actual sine wave, but a triangular. Not so good theoretically for modern power supplies that use PFC. If you can get away with it, the…
I’ve used the Nexus 120 SilentX fans for the last five years, but things always get better, so for quite a bit more money, you can get fans that are amazingly quiet and cool. SilentPCReview.com just updated their reviews and liked: Noiseblocker M12-S1. It is expensive at $22 a pop, but unreal quiet spinning at only…
Ok, so maybe I shook some confidence, but the we got the Aquarium PC to boot for the first time. It’s been five years since I’ve built a computer and this one with its 1000 watt power supply had me a bit worried. Fire extinguisher at the ready and it worked! You can see the…
Gaming mouse pads. Wow talk about major specialty items, but if you’ve ever played a FPS then you know how important speed and accuracy is, so the Steelseries QcK and the Razor Vespula look good. On Amazon, the massively big Steelseries QcK Heavy, QcK+ have great reviews as does the the Razer Scarab Expert Hard which is a little more…