I’ve had several blog entries in the past year about the differences between Intel and AMD. I had high hopes AMD’s new Bulldozer line of chips would give Intel a run for their money. Unfortunately, the consumers didn’t get what we all had hoped for. Quality competition between Intel and AMD usually means in better products and cheaper prices.
With Intel soundly trouncing AMD in the CPU marketplace, the only place I felt comfortable looking is Intel when I built my new PC during Christmas break.
Here is a rundown of the components I used:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA
Fractal Design Define R3 Silver Arrow w/ USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
I didn’t need the latest and greatest technology with respects to the video card and optical drive so I saved quite a bit there. I’m quite pleased with the resulting PC. Intel has a very impressive CPU with their Sandy Bridge line. I highly recommend them.
It’s been several years since I played video games on a regular basis. Most of the PC games that have come out in recent years just haven’t interested me in the least bit. I remember talking with “Ogre” a few weeks ago about the “good old days” of strategy and simulation gaming, a pair of genres which has pretty much become defunct since the early 2000’s.
Maxis just announced a new Sim City title and it’s definitely something that piqued my interest. Age of Empires Online did the same thing initially, but that fell to the wayside. I don’t want an “Online” version. I want a new sequel to the “regular” A0E games.
I confess to never being a fanatical Sim City player back when Maxis was making those titles, but I did enjoy the games to an extent. I think that nostalgic part of me is hoping this is going to be something that actually gets me back into PC gaming.
The old Sim City games were never the total city simulators I wanted. I’m a micromanager. I think that’s why I enjoyed RollerCoaster Tycoon so much. You could change virtually everything under the sun in that game, from coaster designs to the type of pathing your customers walked on. With Sim City, you were always limited to what actually went on in your city. Zoning residential, commercial, etc always felt like they had gamers on training wheels. It never gave me the control I wanted.
Maxis, please don’t screw it up. Give us more control over what happens in our cities. The new Sim City could be awesome.
Well I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. AMD seemed to never be ready to launch Bulldozer and it’s clear why: Bulldozer blows. I’m not an Intel fanboy, but it’s clear to me that Intel’s Sandy Bridge is far superior to AMD’s newest chipset release.
And to my delight, someone used that epic Hitler scene from the 2004 film Downfall and added the subtitles that fit AMD’s epic disaster. People have used this video to suit all sorts of failures. I love it.
I wanted to make a simple plea to specialty label Twilight Time, who recently announced the rights to several Sony movies for eventual release on Bluray. No specific films were mentioned, but I really have an issue with their business plan.
The Egyptian, a great 1950s film, was released at $40 on Bluray and limited to just 3000 copies. As much as I would have liked to have bought the film, there’s no way I’m going to pay that much for it. Drop the price and raise the number of copies available and you’ll do better.
Limiting your release to 3000 copies is almost begging pirates to make your movie available on bittorrent. You might as well just send them a copy!
When I read about GameStop opening brand-new copies of Square Enix’s new PC game Deus Ex: Human Revolution and removing a coupon from the publisher that would have given buyers a free copy of the game’s online version, I was shocked.
I realize that OnLive, the online service in question, is a competitor of the one that GameStop has, but how on Earth is what GameStop is doing even remotely legal? You can’t open a brand new game, remove a coupon, and sell the game as brand new! But tell that to GameStop.
Now that media reports have circulated and after talking to Square, GS has stopped selling physical copies of the game [they still sell digital versions] until Square ships them copies of the game without the free coupon for the rival service.
GameStop’s actions are completely ridiculous in my view, and I’m sure illegal as hell. I hope to see some sort of lawsuit come from this, whether it’s from Square or a consumer who bought the game as new, but it clearly wasn’t sealed.
GameStop was in essence really just selling used copies of Deus Ex at the “new” price. I guess GameStop really is only good for selling used games after all.
This week’s weather has been absolutely terrible. Monday, Tuesday, and today (Wednesday) have all recorded high temps of well above 90 degrees. At times, it was over 100, depending on where exactly you were.
These high temps would be expected in July/August, but early June? It’s made for a miserable week. You just can’t escape the sweltering temperatures. It’s taxing on the air conditioning as it not only tries to cool the rooms, but remove the high humidity. Both tasks have been difficult for my little window unit to manage.
There appears to be some relief on the horizon. Tomorrow, it’s not even supposed to hit 70 degrees all day! If the humidity isn’t bad, it’s going to be an incredible day.
I expect to be quite busy the rest of the week because you really shouldn’t exert yourself very much outside with this type of weather. A lot of people end up in the hospital with sunstroke and all manners of heat-related medical problems.
I tend to follow the Weather Channel’s advice regarding these hot days of summer: relax, stay inside or in the shade if outdoors, and drink plenty of water.
The same computer I had to replace the case fan last week just got hit by a piece of malware. I admit I should be more proactive in keeping this system updated, but I’m disappointed in Zap2it’s inability to secure their own website. They’re owned by Tribune, an enormous company with a lot of IT professionals. I would think they’d be well equipped to combat any would-be hackers interested in planting code in their server.
Had I not had a second computer to look for help with the removal of this piece of malware, I may never have gotten it removed. The malware hijacked the web browsers on my PC, making it impossible to search for help on the infected PC.
I tried transferring the required removal tools via Google Desktop, but the file transfer was rejected by the malware. I ended up wasting a perfectly good DVDR on less than 1 MB of software because I couldn’t find my damn USB thumb drive.
Zap2it’s issues now have me looking for a new TV Listings site. They were by far the best listings site.
I’m starting to have problems with the video card in my 3-yr old Dell. It seems to be getting hot, making the fan run much harder than it should. I wish I knew why because that fan is VERY LOUD.
The 512MB Geforce 8800GT was the top of the line at the time, but over time I’ve come to regret buying it. It was serious overkill and I haven’t played any games that needed that sort of horsepower in some time.
After taking a look at the IO panel of the Dell, I couldn’t find any monitor hookups that weren’t part of the Geforce card itself, so it looks like Dell tried to save a few bucks and went with a cheap motherboard that didn’t feature onboard video.
One solution would be to replace the card. I don’t really like this idea because it obviously means money out of my pocket.
The other solution I’m considering is removing the power cable to the video card and using remote desktop (actually Teamviewer) on my other system to use the Dell with the bad video card. Will this even work? Does the Dell need a video card since there doesn’t appear to be any onboard video? I’m worried about it not POSTing.
UPDATE: It may not be the video card afterall…. more in the comments.
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer dropped what I would call a bit of a bombshell this week when he commented on the release date of Windows 8: 2012. WTF? Is Microsoft crazy to release Windows 8 just next year?
I’m still happy with my Windows XP and Vista installations. I haven’t even considered making the jump to Windows 7 until I build a new PC. The issues I have with my two current PCs are nothing to do with the OS, but rather the limitations of the old hardware which is tasked with running those two operating systems.
I can’t imagine a feature in Windows 8 that would make everyone want to upgrade from Windows 7. I would imagine Microsoft’s going to make an even harder push on the people like myself who have been resistant to move to Windows 7 and instead convince us to get their new Windows 8.
I just don’t see Steve Ballmer or anyone within Microsoft creating an advertising campaign that would win me over. For me, it’s all about the Benjamins. I don’t have enough cash to build a new system right now or anytime in the near future. So Microsoft can’t count on me getting on the Windows 8 bandwagon just yet.
A new PC’s hardware is expensive enough. A new OS is going to set a guy back another $100-200, depending on the feature set he wants.
Every now and then I feel compelled to update software to get the latest features and get see various bugs get fixed. Firefox has been a very good browser for me, but I hated the fact that they removed the drop-down menu on the “Back” button in v4. A quick search of Mozilla’s support site revealed all I had to do was right-click on the “Back” button and I could see a list of the previous pages.
It’s not as convenient as it was in v3, but I’m glad Mozilla didn’t ditch it altogether, which is what I feared.
I wish all software companies had informative portions of their site like Mozilla does. They have a lot of contributors to help with questions.