Speedy Speedy Drives (Part 1)

I’ve never been a big supporter of SSD upgrades. They do have advantages, though, but knowing your priorities, they can be too expensive for what you get.

First SSD involvement this month was having a pair of 256 GB Samsung EVO’s on the new PC at work. They came a few days after the PC so I was the one who installed them. I chose 2 of them to try out the performance benefits of RAID0. In the end, it proved no advantage in Perform3D. Boot times did lessen and I’ve already found that to be great, but for the actual work, meh.

Second SSD buy, this time it’s personal, was a 160GB Intel that I found in TipidPC. I meant to install it the next day, but I wasn’t successful in restraining myself. The result: The sluggish 5-year-old laptop that’s been sluggish ever since, boots under a minute and facebook within the next. Oh, it’s not really that personal as it serves as a gift to my mother who’s the primary user of that laptop.

(to be continued…)

Rebuild PC

I call it my SLI-PC, spare PC, or the Rebuild PC. Rebuild, of course is inspired by the Rebuild of Evangelion movie series. It’s made up of mostly second-hand parts with some bought brand new. Specs are tabulated below:

	Rebuild PC
	1st-Gen i5 w/ SLI
CPU	Intel Core i5-760 (2/h)
MB	EVGA P55 SLI
GPU	Palit 9800gt 512mb (2/h)
	Galaxy 9800gt 512mb (2/h)
RAM	2x Kingston hyperx blu 8GB ddr3-1600 (2/h)
HDD	Seagate Barracuda
ODD	Samsung DVD writer (2/h)
casing	Coolermaster 690 nVidia ed. (2/h)
	Coolermaster 140mm blue led case fan (2/h)
	Coolermaster 140mm fan (2/h)
PSU	Cougar 700w (2/h)
HSF	Coolermaster vortex plus
kybrd	A4tech krs-85 (usb)
mouse	A4tech op620d (usb)
monitor	Lenovo thinkvision 2240pwD (2/h)

I think it’s complete as I want it. I’m satisfied not like when it was in the HAF 922 that I have to sell soon.

The cooling seems better with more fans and the look is definitely cleaner. The problem I’ve had with this are the pretty random hangs. I hope it’s a loose connection issue I’ve resolved. If not, well, let the debugging continue.

Used parts with some new ones, it’s cost me around PHP 27,000.00. I need a pair of usb powered speakers and I think i know where I’ll get them. Soon, hopefully, so I can have another geeky sense of achievement. Oh, and the AVR, I keep forgetting that I have to get the one I bought repaired/warrantied and return the one I “borrowed” from the office.

Cooler Master Cases

I got myself a second-hand Cooler Master HAF 922 some time last year. I was in search for a worthy case with a transparent side panel to show off (to myself, at least) the SLI setup inside. It was a good deal because it was sold with a 700w Cougar power supply and a Samsung DVD writer. What sucked was how I brought it home. It took me a lot of sweat. Nonetheless, it has served me well as a cool (literally and figuratively) case for my SLI setup.

There’s just something about it that doesn’t feel right aside from the stickers that I chose not to remove and two 5.25” meshes that must came from another case—the front fan LED was red. It looked like an AMD powerhouse.

Alas, I found myself a Cooler Master CM 690 Nvidia Edition. Thanks again, TPC. This time, I had the help of my father in picking it up. I also find it a good deal with additional fans installed. There are some cosmetic damages but I’ll live with that. I have yet to transfer

Then I realized, I have 4 Cooler Master cases here in my room, the aforementioned 2, my CM 690 II, and my spare Elite 361. I’ll have to post the HAF 922 once I’ve transferred the SLI setup. As for the Elite, I’ve been reserving it for an AMD HTPC but I’m thinking of selling it, too, preferably packaged the Vortex+ HSF installed in the SLI setup.

So I have these 4, the PC downstairs is in a Centurion 5, my office pc I in a Centurion 5 II, my old office PC (now used by another) is in an Elite model (I can’t remember the model number). Talk about brand preference.

Benchmarks

I finally got myself to run benchmarks on my home PC and my work PC. Long story short, work PC is definitely good for work and home PC is good for home. Short story with details, here are comparisons saved online in futuremark’s website:

PCMark Work 1.0 results comparison:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/pcm8wrk/43455/pcm8wrk/43413

3Dmark Firestrike results comparison:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/1697177/fs/1698375

More on this sometime soon…maybe.

January Releases From Sony and AMD

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact and AMD’s “Kaveri” APU’s with the Steamroller microarchitecture are probably two of the most anticipated tech stuff that got me tuned in on the tech updates.

The Z1 compact was introduced at the CES 2014. It’s basically the Z1 but with a smaller size, resolution, and battery. But still, it’s nowhere near the midrange specs of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and HTC One Mini. I believe it’s the international version of the Z1 f that got me excited a few months back.

I’ve seen a comparison in size with the iphone 5 and it looks like the ideal phone for me. My cousin recently got himself a Z1. He’s a tall guy so I guess suits him well. The small person that I am makes me much more inclined to the Compact. Praises to Sony, by the way, for doing a mini, or now more appropriately a Compact, in its true sense, like Sony Ericsson did with the X10 Mini and Xperia mini some forgotten 3 to 4 years ago. Actually, for 2011, more like what they did with the Xperia ray. Okay…the mini, mini pro, neo, ray, and pro.

On the x86 side of things, yey AMD! With GCN 2.0, a slowly but surely improving Bulldozer architecture, and the fulfillment of HSA (once known/intended/idealized as Fusion), I’m looking forward to spending some cash again on a new PC. Or maybe I’ll be doing another ideal specs list. Yep, that’s a good idea.

Can’t wait to have these in the local market.

Christmas PC 2013

I’ll close out the year and have a Christmas post with specs lists. These are hardware lists with nothing on Windows. I really don’t know if I’d ask for a copy of Windows 7 or go with Windows 8.1. I’m leaning to Windows 8.1, though, given what I’ve written about it.

So now, if I were to buy a PC these days, it would have one of these 3 combinations:

	Intel Core i5 (Haswell)	AMD FX (Piledriver)	AMD APU (Richland)
CPU	Intel core i5-4670K	AMD FX-6300	AMD A10-6800K
MB	Z87 motherboard	AM3+ motherboard	FM2 motherboard
GPU	nVidia geForce GTX 760	AMD Radeon R9-270	(on-chip Radeon 8670D)
RAM	2 x 4gb DDR3-1600	2 x 4gb DDR3-1866	2 x 4gb DDR3-2133
SSD	160 GB SSD	160 GB SSD	160 GB SSD
HDD	Seagate 1TB (2x in RAID 1)	Seagate 1TB (2x in RAID 1)	Seagate 1TB (2x in RAID 1)
ODD	dvd writer	dvd writer	bluray writer
MCR	3.5" card reader	3.5" card reader	3.5" card reader
casing	Coolermaster 690 III	Coolermaster 690 III	Coolermaster Elite 361
PSU	Coolermaster Silent Pro M2 700	Coolermaster Silent Pro M2 700	Coolermaster Silent Pro M2 600
HSF	Coolermaster V8 GT	Coolermaster V6 GT	Coolermaster Vortex+

Winamp Is Going Goodbye Soon…Or Is It?

So I haven’t been able to blog properly. It’s been more than a month since my last update and I’ve got some unfinished and pending articles. Then I came across this a few days ago:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Winamp-to-Be-Discontinued-on-December-20-2013-402176.shtml

That almost broke my heart. Like my procrastination in techblogging, I actually just got to install Winamp on my desktop about a month ago. It felt good. I’ve been using Windows Media Player for my music for almost 3 years. I have Winamp on my 10-inch netbook, though, but since it got replaced by my 12-inch netbook months ago, well, I haven’t been using Winamp for a good amout of time. To think, I even made myself winamp skins during the Winamp 2.x days.

Then here comes hopeful news:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Wants-to-Buy-and-Save-Winamp-Report-402567.shtml

On my Windows 7 taskbar, I replaced IE with Chrome and WMP with Winamp. What if in the not so distant tech future, Winamp would be the preinstalled media player in Windows? That’s assuming the Windows OS thrives and doesn’t go self-destruct and MS doesn’t do a MechWarrior with Winamp.

I was getting ready to put Winamp in the same part of the tech past as MusicMatch, WinMX, and I can’t really think of more examples at the moment. Exactly! But there’s a glimmer of hope. Let’s keep ourselves hopeful.