Asus is a good motherboard brand but I've had good luck with ASRock too. Newegg slots the Z87-M Plus at $130 including shipping which is IMO a rather uncomfortable position between the much nicer Z87 Gryphon for $25 more and the feature-rich Asrock Z87M Extreme4 for $25 less. The newly launched 9-s...
According to the GeForce site, the average for a GTX460 with all of the settings maxed at that resolution should be about 61 FPS. To never drop below that, you're talking about upgrading the graphics card as well as the processor. But, in all honesty, it is WoW. You don't need to never drop below 60...
How do I know if I need the 2.5-3.5 conversion bracket and cables? Looking at the case you selected, the manufacturer says that the 3.5" bays are 2.5" compatible. I found this review on Tom's Hardware. The white brackets slide out and have mounting holes for both 3.5" and 2.5" d...
Now...to the system itself. There are a number of nettop options. But you might be better off building your own mITX system. It will probably be a little bigger, but you will get more bang or the buck. If you want the absolutely smallest case you can find, you could go with the M350 . You can also g...
MSI's cooler design does a good job at keeping the card operating at lower temperatures with less noise than the EVGA cooler. I have had MSI cards in the past. About my only complaint is if you need to send them the card, they do not cross ship. (I have read about them sometimes doing this if you re...
I do have a monitor that I can use in the mean time. Also I appreciate the recommendations and will look into them. What's the resolution on the monitor? That will have some influence on what graphics level you need to run a given game at a particular frame rate if you want to use the monitor's nat...
I've got a ASUS TF300. Great device. I think that if I were buying a tablet now I might wait for the imminent release of the TF700. July 16 seems to be the US release date.
I use MSE on some of my systems and Norton on others. For those that upgrade Norton Internet Security and shop sales it basically costs a stamp per year for 3 systems. It had gotten bloated in the past, but is fast and lightweight these days. Its idle time scans actually impact the computer less tha...
I would like a family plan with 4 phones (three smart, one not smart, whatever you call that). I would like the phones to have 2GB data and unlimited messaging. My main concern is monthly cost. Currently we are paying $145 for unlimited everything, but Verizon is screwing us over to get us off that...
I have a 120GB Intel 320 SSD. I had two drive failures -- probably a bad drive batch as the replacement was from the same source as the original. The third drive came straight from Intel and their support was great. I have had zero actual performance problems with the drive and absolutely love it. I...
7km/s? You sure that's not in a vacuum? The test chamber is 0.2 torr to 1.7 atm pressure. The lower pressure, 0.2 torr is about 0.0003 atm, so, yes, essentially a vacuum which is almost certainly where the high end velocity was measured. The main problem with a light-gas gun is that you need a supp...
I was at work teaching in a high school about 30 miles from NYC. We were having a normal class day. And, apparently some of the people from PE classes up in the weight room had a TV on during their workout and so news that something was going on started to leak out. This was the crash of the first p...
So then what's the CHEAPEST flashlight that has the CREE XM-L in it?
Probably something like the $35 Olight i1. That's a small, single-cell CR123-powered light. You can search the site referenced for XM-L and get a list of flashlights.
Life is too short for small monitors. Go for a 24" or a 27" if you can afford it. IPS is best, but I have seen 27" TN panels at compusa.com for around $400 or so. +1 for a larger monitor; +1 for the SSD over the Raptor drive. +1 on both from me as well. Though I would also say go for...
Never have I seen a better case for the original US copyright law of 1790 with its 28-year copyright (14 years with one 14 year renewal). It was fully intended that people would be able to make derivative works within their lifetimes of works that they saw early in their life. Case in point: Walt Di...
I take it that you are looking at this combo from CompUSA or an equivalent combo from TigerDirect (same company). Here is a NewEgg combo deal with a Pentium G620, Biostar H61MU3 motherboard, 4GB RAM, and Rosewill R363-M case. For Win 7, you really want at least 4 GB of RAM, what I am presuming is yo...
On Basilisk Station, David Weber (and the rest of the Honor Harrington Books) Old Man's War, John Scalzi Ringworld, Larry Niven Little Fuzzy, H. Beam Piper (and its reimagining Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi) March Upcountry, David Weber and John Ringo A Hymm Before Battle, John Ringo Into the Looking Gl...
It only has 128 MB of RAM which sort of limits linux distro possibilities...particularly if you want a GUI. But if you don't mind a bit of work, DSL comes to mind.
Guru Plug or one of the other systems on that site.
I do not know if you can run X-Windows on one and remote to it via something like NX. But the unit itself does not have a display output. There is a $200 model that does. The server version for $30 more has eSATA.
I like the build. Very similar to my current system. (P8Z68-V, i7-2600k, G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB -- do some CAD work and largish Photoshop images with the system, Intel 320/120 GB, Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000/2 TB, MSI N560GTX Ti, LG WH12LS30 BD, SB X-Fi Xtreme Music, Lian Li PC-A05N, Corsair AX75...
Audio: Asus Xonar DG Building your own rig is like an idea that keeps evolving. One that grows with you if you give it time and careful thought. For gaming, I would go with a Creative X-Fi Titanium . I was massively disappointed by the Xonar DG. It is more expensive, but, for gaming -- particularly...
You know the M5A97 is AM3+ as well, right? AMD 970, 900 series chips only ship on AM3+ boards (not to say that AM3+ only have 900 series chips, just that 900-series chips are automatically AM3+ boards) Either I misread the entry or they had a typo that said it was AM3. I did not realize that all 97...