After reading the premise I found myself saying "herb" out loud, in a somewhat vain (either definition works) attempt to ascertain whether or not I was pronouncing the "h." After a solemn time of deliberation and careful contemplation, I came to the inconclusive conclusion that m...
Thanks a lot for the info! So, it looks like I won't be going with a Sager/Clevo laptop. Do you guys have any suggestions or know of any good deals? Again, the main things he is concerned with are screen size (no less than 16"), HD size, CPU speed, and amount of RAM. In other words, he would ta...
I was recently asked by a friend, whose several year old XPS just bit the dust, to find a good laptop within a budget of ~$1,000. His preferences are a larger screen size (think 17.3"), keypad (pretty much standard with laptops of that size), and power over battery life. So, basically, he wants...
As a small update, I just wanted to say that I ordered my parts and have been enjoying the benefits of the quite impressive performance boost for about a week. I've been able to max out Just Cause 2, BF:BC2, and Aliens vs Predator without a problem. Not only that, but the cpu upgrade brought that 5 ...
Other than the onboard graphics, the biggest differences between the GA-870A-UD3, GA-880GA-UD3H, GA890GPA-UD3H, GA-890XA-UD3 and GA-890FXA-UD5 are probably in the PCIe X16 slots. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200022%252050001314%2520107191003%25201075707618&...
Would you consider the GA-870A-UD3 ? That'll do great! Thanks for the suggestion! I was originally going to get the GA-890GPA-UD3H which is $25 more. As far as I can tell, they're pretty much the same. Is there any reason I should pay the extra $$? If not, I'll get the cheaper one. Newegg has a $20...
The 890FX models are so much more expensive than the 890GX models. Is a 890GX Bulldozer compatible? youre set with anything featuring SB850, and ive yet to see an 890GX without SB850 :D That's good to know. I believe I'll save a little $$ and go with the GX... regarding blender, You need to make su...
Hey guys, Been wanting to upgrade my rig for a while now. I was originally going to simply upgrade my GTX 260 to a 5870 and my Phenom II 945 to a Phenom II x6 1090T. Then the 875k came along and I faltered. First, there is currently a deal over at TigerDirect to get one for $300 ($10 cheaper than th...
Ok, I decided to download the on-board Realtek LAN driver from the Gigabyte website. The installation process went fine until a dialog box popped up saying it could not locate the Realtek network controller. This driver was downloaded from the site after selecting my exact motherboard model, so it's...
First question: On-board NIC or stand-alone NIC. On-board. Second question: Have you done a forced new hardware search? I apologize for my ignorance, but how would I go about doing that? The only thing I've done is used the "Add New Hardware" wizard via the Control Panel. After it searche...
Hey guys, Earlier today, I was in the midst of a fun game of modern warfare and my pc was unceremoniously zapped by a power surge. It was still on,but my monitor was no longer receiving a signal. I turned everything off and let it rest. I then opened the case to check for any noticeable damage. Coul...
I recently downloaded the Just Cause 2 demo and have been having a lot of fun with it. I've probably restarted the 30min demo 8 or more times. Personally, I think it is a blast. I found the controls a little difficult to pick up, but once you get the hang of them (the grappling hook/parachute combo ...
Is it misleading to market DDR2 as 800MHz instead of 200MHz, or DDR3 as 1600MHz instead of 200MHz? It's the same exact concept, but it's considered misleading for GDDR and considered okay for DDR? The concept may be the same, but the application is different. Let's say a company creates two brands ...
That's pretty misleading (or worse) marketing if you ask me. NewEgg is listing the card as if it was 4x faster when it's only about %12 faster--just waiting for idiots like me to pick it up. Certainly not worth the extra $50...
Hey, I was browsing the list of available 5850s on NewEgg and came across this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102881 If you go into the specs you'll see 4500MHz listed as the effective memory clock speed. As the stock speed of the standard cards is 1000MHz, I was wondering...
Hey, I recently bought a new Asus monitor which works perfectly save for one thing: after 30 min of being on sleep mode, it won't wake up. Not only that, but the monitor buttons will not respond. Even the power button fails to do anything. The only way to wake it up is to unplug the power cord and t...
Hey all! To start, I'm pleased to announce the release of my first iPhone/iTouch app, ClueSOLVED, in the Apple App store! Simply speaking, it is a handheld Clue board game assistant. You can read more about it in the App store ( ClueSOLVED ) or my website ( ClueSOLVED ). If anyone would like to help...
Here's the thing: he was going to buy a system for $4,000 which has two GFX cards, an ok cpu, and 6GB ram, mainly for the bragging rights. Yes, I could build him something plenty good enough and a lot cheaper, but two GFX cards is still faster than one in the benchmarks--even if you'd never notice ...
You are in possession of 8 coins of identical appearance and a balance. One of the coins is either heavier or lighter than the rest. What is the optimal weighing strategy for identifying the different coin? My guess is: It can be done in 3 tries like so: 1) divide the coins in 2 piles of 4 2...
Thanks again for all the great suggestions! I replaced the 975 with a 965, the Corsair PSU with the Seasonic, and the two 500 HDs with a single 1TB F3--and now the total is around $3500! As far as the dual GFX cards go, I completely agree that it's pretty much overkill unless you're going with multi...
Hey, A guy I know told me he was going to buy the Alienware Area-51 ALX ( http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DPCWHX1&s=dhs ) which, as you can see, costs about $4,000 base specs. I told him I might be able to build a better one for about the same--m...
And donuts, I think you may be mistaken, with the suggestions eric gave me, all the motherboards feature DDR3 support. His link is to dual channel DDR3 RAM. There is a difference between dual channel DDR3 and triple channel DDR3. The RAM you chose was triple channel, which you would use for a suppo...
I will be using it for working while traveling and meetings, so it's not a DTR. Battery life is not really much of a problem, as the places I will be using it usually have an outlet. However, a decent life would certainly be a plus. As far as screen size goes, I figure 15" is the minimum screen...
Your programs do not work with a Macbook Pro? I think the prices dropped recently. From what I've heard, macs still don't offer quite as much bang for your buck, although their prices are coming down. Also, I really don't want to get into learning a new OS at the moment, and, though I realize it is...