Category: i7

Computing Longevity – Upgrading CPUs and Assessing Alternatives

Xeon W3690 CPU

For a while now I have been tempted to replace my desktop computer with new hardware. I originally built my current desktop back in the middle of 2009 with the following specifications: Intel Core i7 920, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 128GB Solid State Drive + 1TB Hard Disk Drive, 2 x nVidia GTX 295 video cards. Those specs …

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Lucid Virtu MVP – Switchable Graphics for the Desktop

Yesterday, I was asked by a friend of mine to provide an opinion on which CPU would be best suited for his new gaming rig and of course the CPU also affected what motherboard you select and the RAM configuration (dual or triple channel). Then you get to things like the graphics solution for the …

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Check a Power Supply Unit’s Efficiency

Here’s a tip for people looking to build a new computer or upgrade their existing one. Most things inside the computer will require power measured in “watts”. To put it simply, this measures the rate at which electricity moves through a circuit. One watt (1W) is equal to one joule of energy consumed in one …

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Watch for New eBay Auctions Using RSS

eBay RSS Feed in Outlook 2010

RSS is a great tool to make sure you can keep on top of new events without having the continually poll a stack of websites in your browser. One such example might be if you are keeping your eyes peeled for some bargain auctions on eBay but would get pulled up for having eBay on …

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Apple MacBook Air Unboxing

My wife had been hanging out for a MacBook Air and I had encouraged her to wait until the refreshed model became available with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). Well, that happened last week and the order was placed shortly thereafter. As always, I had to do an unboxing video. I cover some of the …

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Dell XPS 8300 Unboxing

This was an unexpected gadget but a colleague of mine recently bought a new computer to replace an aging laptop that gave up the ghost earlier in the year. Anyway, he’s handed over his Dell XPS 8300 to me to do some basic tweaking for him. So, of course, I had to unbox it. I …

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Graphics Cards Need Rethinking

In recent years, the graphics card industry has been pretty much a two horse race. nVidia has been around for a while after having taken out and absorbed 3dfx and has been sparring with ATi for most of the last decade. What has become apparent to me, at least on a basic level, is that …

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iTunes for Windows – Good, Bad or Ugly?

Apple iTunes APIs

Not too long ago, Steve Jobs made a general comment regarding platforms in defence of the changes to the iPhone SDK agreement, specifically: We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform. Somehow, the extrapolation has been made that Steve …

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Earth Hour – What are you doing?

With Earth Hour upon us this year many people may be giving some thought to energy consumption, consequential bills and the potential impact upon the planet (although people debate for and against the existence of global warming). I am always looking for new ways to cut the use of energy and thought I’d share a …

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