What is making you happy right now

[Timbuk2]

Bit the bullet and ordered a new box ...

Details as follows:


Case: CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 400R MID TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard: ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM): 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card: 1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

1st Hard Disk: 120GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 130MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk: 1TB SEAGATE Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s HDD, 32MB Cache (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW

Power Supply: CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE

~

Spent a good 2 hours this morning reading up on SSD drives, and how they're used. Decided it's worth it.

[Ominous Gamer]

meant to get back to you about that. my bad.

I didn't even bother with an internal standard hard drive, but since you did, you may want to change the default location of your My music/pictures/whatnot. Depending on how you use the machine obviously.

[Kazuha Vinland]

Not a bad build at all. I don't see a 3rd party cooler though. You want that to kick that i7 2600K up to 4.5GHz at the very least. If I were you, I probably would have waited for Ivy Bridge and the nVidia GTX 6xx-series as they're not that far ahead. I also think you could have easily chosen a better SSD.

[Nessus]

Spent a good 2 hours this morning reading up on SSD drives, and how they're used. Decided it's worth it.

I hope this isn't a rude question in your culture, but how much did that thing cost?

[Sonic]

Welcome Sonic.

Used to peruse the old Atari boards? As that's where we all came from.

Yessum. I came from the old weplayhere forum. I'm pretty excited to be here, I haven't posted in a forum in a very long time so it's good to be somewhere. Haha...

[Timbuk2]

meant to get back to you about that. my bad.

I didn't even bother with an internal standard hard drive, but since you did, you may want to change the default location of your My music/pictures/whatnot. Depending on how you use the machine obviously.

Aye - will stick windows on there i guess, steam, other main apps that I use. Will take me a while to figure out how best to use it probably.

Not a bad build at all. I don't see a 3rd party cooler though. You want that to kick that i7 2600K up to 4.5GHz at the very least. If I were you, I probably would have waited for Ivy Bridge and the nVidia GTX 6xx-series as they're not that far ahead. I also think you could have easily chosen a better SSD.

Hmm I've always been paranoid about overclocking, even though I read that it's pretty much safe as houses nowadays. I just tend to avoid it and go for the quickest I can find unclocked when it's pc-buying time. Images of frazzled processors and expensive meltdowns have scarred my mind.

In terms of latest GTX/ and whatever Ivy Bridge is, I never buy latest stuff because of the ridiculously massive markup. One or two down from the latest is my usual tendency, as it tends to be much, much cheaper and never as big a difference in performance as the extra money warrants. I get as much performance as I can afford.

I hope this isn't a rude question in your culture, but how much did that thing cost?

The SSD drive or the entire box?

Not sure about just the SSD, as it's all packaged up in a custom build from supplier so is cheaper than it would be individually off the shelf.

For the entire box, it set me back £1,268, or a shade over US$2,000 in todays money.

Pretty decent price over here, in the land where every fekkin thing is waay overpriced.

It was more than £100 cheaper than the next nearest same-spec custom supplier I could find anyway, and up to £300-£400 cheaper than some other major custom suppliers for the same spec.

[Nessus]

So about 1,5 k€. That's not too bad, really. Hmm.

[Ominous Gamer]

Ordered 2 of these 120gb solid state drives.

New Seasonic PSU arrived today came wrapped in a black velvet like sleeve in a box 4 times the size of the unit

Ordered the memory today. 8gb of Corsair DDR3 (1333) for $23 after rebate. brings the build cost up to ~$343.

Need to find a case now, and the rest will wait till ivybridge (GPU, CPU, motherboard). Favoring the Antec Lanboy, but it seems kinda pricey, hoping to catch it on sale.

Gave up on the Lanboy case. The red one is sold out the yellow one is $170, and the blue one is deactivated in Newegg, which likely means the case is being phased out.
Picked up the Cooler Master Enforcer from CompUSA today instead.

200mm fan and 2 USB 3.0 slots in the front. Its got the cable routing on the far side too. Also has a front door covering the optical drives, which I haven't had/used since my classic Alienware case way back when.
but the best part is how the case handles SSD drives. So many of the cases use a sort of suspension or sliding rail system for the harddrives, and the smaller SSD design is kinda shoved in there as an after thought. This case has a rack riveted to the bottom of case specifically for the SSDs.

after tax it was $96 and and some change, so it brings my build up to ~$439 so far.

[Timbuk2]

Hmm.

Thinking of upgrading?

[Aimless]

Are there any funnel-shaped pc cases??

[Ominous Gamer]

Best you'll do is snail shaped

[Flixy]

The short film that I worked on as producer and production manager will likely be screened in front of a feature length film at the film festival in Oostende

[Kazuha Vinland]

Hmm I've always been paranoid about overclocking, even though I read that it's pretty much safe as houses nowadays. I just tend to avoid it and go for the quickest I can find unclocked when it's pc-buying time. Images of frazzled processors and expensive meltdowns have scarred my mind.

It's both safe and easy. With Sandy Bridge, you can basically do it with two clicks in the BIOS if you're not too delicate about tuning. With a 3rd party cooler, temperatures really are not an issue. Burning out a CPU is insanely hard to do, and even if that happens, there is nothing that separates a dead overclocked CPU from a defect stock one. You can trade it in claiming that you have a motherboard not capable of overclocking (the H-series). Not that it would be an issue though, as you basically won't kill it unless you use a flamethrower on it.

In terms of latest GTX/ and whatever Ivy Bridge is, I never buy latest stuff because of the ridiculously massive markup. One or two down from the latest is my usual tendency, as it tends to be much, much cheaper and never as big a difference in performance as the extra money warrants. I get as much performance as I can afford.

That might be true for televisions and the likes, but with new generations for CPUs and GPUs there is usually more value to be had. Not necessarily by going for the direct follow-up, but say go with the GTX 660 instead of the GTX 570, where the GTX 660 will be superior in every way - price included. GTX 670 will be better again in every way except price.

[earthJoker]

Lake Pfäffikon is frozen and open for public

[Timbuk2]

It's both safe and easy. With Sandy Bridge, you can basically do it with two clicks in the BIOS if you're not too delicate about tuning. With a 3rd party cooler, temperatures really are not an issue. Burning out a CPU is insanely hard to do, and even if that happens, there is nothing that separates a dead overclocked CPU from a defect stock one. You can trade it in claiming that you have a motherboard not capable of overclocking (the H-series). Not that it would be an issue though, as you basically won't kill it unless you use a flamethrower on it.

Hm ok that's persuasive. Will consider overclocking options in a couple of years time, when my box is no longer capable of smooth performance at top settings ...

That might be true for televisions and the likes, but with new generations for CPUs and GPUs there is usually more value to be had. Not necessarily by going for the direct follow-up, but say go with the GTX 660 instead of the GTX 570, where the GTX 660 will be superior in every way - price included. GTX 670 will be better again in every way except price.

Meh. If you always wait for the next new thing, you never end up upgrading. GTX6xx isn't even available from any of of the custom suppliers I looked at. The newest card available was the 580, which was ~£150 more than the 570 I went with. That extra cost is a far greater increment than that between the 560 and 570. This is exactly what I'm referring to, the newest card always has a huge markup. I can't afford that much.

The box I got is not top end, but for the price it is high-end, and that suits me perfectly.

[Aimless]

I find that instead of overclocking and upgrading your system it may be cheaper and more effective to underclock your brain

[earthJoker]

Lake Pfäffikon is frozen and open for public

It's really cool to see all those people on it from my window.

[BalticSailor]

Participated in a cross-country skiing trip, which started in one microbrewery and ended in another, both of those are considered to be among the best in Latvia. Tasted some beer that's available only at the brewery, and even got a bottle of a brand that was brewed specifically for this skiing event. Part of the route was planed on the surface of a frozen river, which was quite challenging, as it was quite difficult not to end up on the more slippery parts of the ice and sliding around with little to no way to move in the preffered direction.
It was a fun day, overall.

[Aimless]

These guys made my day

[Catgrrl]

Liked the vaccination one.

[Loki]

Ditto.

[Aimless]

Aww I want one of those Z1 workstations

[Ominous Gamer]

Say what you like about reddit, but you can't deny that they occasionally do decent things:

http://alexandrapusateri.wordpress.c...-an-orphanage/

small update, the wall is funded and finished

[Khendraja'aro]

Our Federal President Wulff has finally stepped down

[earthJoker]

You should get rid of the position all together, you won't find a person that is "würdig" enough.

[Khendraja'aro]

Actually, I think that Gauck, Lammert or Töpfer wouldn't make a bad fit, though. Gauck would be my personal favourite.

But, yeah, they could also simply get rid of the position.

[BalticSailor]

Life happened.
A random metal gig, it was almost over, the last band was playing their last song. Sure enough, I was (and still am) pretty drunk.
I asked a girl I had spent the most of the evening with: "So, how about a goodbye kiss?"
[a few minutes of making out]
She laughed: "Yeah, that sounds pretty good," followed by a smile I'll probably never forget.

'twas so fucking sweet...

[Aimless]

Have done some detectoring, and duck-breast has been sourced. Duck-breast prosciutto will be mine. Duck fat will be mine. Lonzino will be mine. Homemade bacon may be mine, not sure yet.

Also, red onion jam. Oh yeah

[Timbuk2]

So I dropped my passport on my Easyjet flight from Gatwick to Glasgow last weekend. Seems it fell out of my coat pocket when I took it out of the overhead locker after landing.

Only realised when I got to the hotel that afternoon and couldn't find it.

Hasty calls to Lost/Found at Glasgow Airport, Easyjet customer service, and the aircraft cleaning company Easyjet directe me toward.

No one had it.

Returning to London on the return flight wasn't an issue - Easyjet domestic flights only require a photo ID and a boarding pass. I had my photocard driver's licence on me so no issue there. The issue was more that I am taking the Eurostar to Paris this thursday for a long weekend which my other half organised, and obviously I can't go without a passport.

Passport agency here do operate a fast-track 5-day service, but it's damned expensive. It was the only option I had so had collected the application forms on monday from the nearest main post office, ready to head into town to get a new passport.

However, on tuesday, out of the blue, my other half got a phonecall from McKenzies, the aircraft cleaning company, saying my passport had been handed in by cleaning staff. McKenzies spoke to Easyjet, who provided contact details through the booking. They asked my other half to post a stamped addressed envelope to them, and they would post the passport back by return.

This I did. On friday I got my passport back. Efficient services all round.

[Aimless]

Rediscovering Knopfler