Yup, so Christmas came a little early to the Duncan residence! Just a few days back, I decided that it was time to retire my 4 year old, 3.0ghz Pentium 4 HP rig. Installed Vista on it earlier this year, and I've been tortured ever since, while the applications keep getting more and more memory hungry. For development on FlyingGiants, I am constantly in the Adobe CS3 Suite-- Dreameweaver, Photochop, Illustrator, and many other applications for simple video editing (I use a Intel MAC with Final Cut for all the videos on the site), and photo resizing and various manipulation. Ugh. Anyways, been slowed to a crawl.

Some of you may know, I'm a techie from waaaay back. I've been working in IT, and for the past 5 years, Internet Security. I've always been a BIG fan of, "hey dude, go buy a Dell" in leiu of going full on best buy noob dork home brew systems. It's been about 10 years since I build my own PC, and decided to do it again.

The current generation of Intel processors are hitting 3.3ghz on the high end - in QUAD core configurations. What's a core? Think of it as being KINDA like running 4 seperate processors of the same speed. I say KINDA because there are a few caveats that are technical in nature that are way to geeky for this conversation.

In early 2007, Intel released the Q6600 - a Quad Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz chip that turned out to be a BEAST. Why? Because you can overclock this puppy to some astronomical levels. What's overclocking (OC'ing)? In the system bios, or pre-boot motherboard configuration, you can kick up various voltages, and system speeds which will actually increase the system processor and bus speed. Honestly, it's pretty much the same as dumping extra octane, or nitro into model airplane fuel for better performance. The results are the same too. When OC'ing, HEAT is a very important variable, along with countless other factors.

Not going to go into how to OC a processor, but check out these excellent links:

http://www.wikihow.com/Overclock-a-PC
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/cpuoverclocking/

Video overclocks:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/141

There are tons of videos of people OC'ing on Youtube, this guy did a cryo freeze and got his P4 to run at 5.0ghz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyK3WlWTi10

AAAAANYWAYS. I'm not going that extreme. Why OC? Bang for the buck. The Q6600 is $275, and with a little OC, I can make it perform to the same specs as it's $1100 counterpart. Again, not going to go into all of the ins and outs of OC'ing, but if you want to do it, get ready to do some serious research. Being new to OCing, it took me a good few nights of sitting back and clicking away. Google is your friend.

This is the system I purchased:

Antec Ninety Nine case - massive cooling
4gb Corsair DDR2 800 with the big heat sync
ASUS motherboard which later turned out to be a turd of OC'ing. Ended up replacing with ABIT L35 Pro (EXCELLENT!)
NVidia 8800GT 512mb video - new video card on the market
2x Pioneer DVD burners (gots to burn them DVD's!)
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler
Artic Silver 5 CPU grease
Intel Q6600 Quad 2.4 G0 Stepping (G0 is very important of OC'ing, google will tell you why)
Dell 24" panel monitor - BAD TO THE BONE! Don't research, just buy a dell panel
5.25" CF card reader
Antec modular 700 watt power supply
Extra 120" case fan
QTY 2 Western Digital Caviar 500gb SATA 3 HDD's

All up cost, around $2k. You can get this figure around $1000 for the CPU alone with some shopping.

After all the research I did, that was the configuration I ended up with. I ended up OCing the 2.4 CPU to 3.2ghz on air cooling (many are running 3.5+ on water cooling with excellent results)!! I'm currently running Vista 64 Ultimate, and it's pretty darn snappy! Vista is still however a pig, but service pack 1 (SP1) is on it's way, currently as a release candidate, and gold expected in Q1 of 2008. Many have bitched about Vista, and moved back to XP, and honestly, from all my experience, I cannot blame them EXCEPT, the general rule of thumb with Microsoft OS's, is WAIT TILL SP1 to install. NT4, 2000, 2003, and XP all fit this bill. Vista will definitely solidify this practice.

So, that's my new PC story. If you're want to build a home brew PC, I recommend it to the advanced user who understands hardware, and components. It's not for the faint of heart. If you want a killer system, but don't want to deal with the hassle, Dell's or HP's are my favorites, in that order. They will run for ever. If you have any questions, fire away. Anyone else out there a OC freak?

And BTW, buy all your shiz from NewEgg.com. Read all their product user reviews. It's an amazing, and content rich site.

Enjoy,

Max

Just came about this. It's a very interesting throwback to pc technology of the past 35 years.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/the...ime?page=0%2C0

I personally think the Apple II (1977) should have been the #1, or at least higher than Windows XP. Bleach. The AII was the first computer I owned back in 78. I was programming binary and ACOS on that puppy when I was 8. You think we have it bad with Chinese knock offs, that computer was ripped off hugs back then. Clones all over the place.

Anyways, cool link. check it.

What do you think should have been number one?

Alright hatas.

There's been more talk around this place about my teeth in countless posts, threads, and even videos, and it's time to lay down the law. As of today, we are instituting a zero tolerance tooth talk moratorium here at FlyingGiants. Why? Take a look at the attached picture. After a visit to my dentist, I was handed this little gem on the way out the door.

Oh wait, what's that Madmax? A $5600 bill to keep those pearly whites in my mouth? BUT WAIT! There's more! Guess what Max? That doesn't include the $1500 root canal that isnt on the bill! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugin SWEEEEEEEEET! Man! I thanks doc. You made my day.

So next time you think you're cute by deifying my yap, think again. Aparantly I'm a yuk mouth.

Considering chewing on an M-80 to get this over with. Dentures are the way to go.

I'm jumping in on momo's TV blog here, and let it be known, I'm a huge CSILV fan. Only TV show I watch. Our Tivo has nothing but CSILV and Family guy recorded.

Okay, ***. Grissom and Sarah are going to get married. Who freaking cares. Just saw it in an ad for next week's episode and I'm furious.

Bring in the fonz. This show is junk.

Got a chance to see this movie with Monica last weekend, and all I gotta say is this - Academy awards, best movie of 2007. It's like american pie, animal house, road trip, and van wilder all wrapped up in one. Don't wait for the DVD, get in the theatre NOW!

And an interesting factoid... You know where Blink 182 got its name? From the movie Scarface starring Al Pacino (yes, Wilson Chaparro's evil step brother). That movie held the record for the most uses of the "F" word - 172 times. "Blink" meaning "beeeep".... Get it?

Superbad smashed the record using the F word something like 195 times.

And for the record, I hate going to the movies. The last movie I saw was the last Star Wars, I was soo ticked off at these kids that were yappin whilst heavily engaged in a gummy worm induced crack binge, that I got free return tix that sat in Monica's wallet for 3 years. We used 'em to see superbad. Madmax 1, Edward's Cinema 0.

12 stars.

MD

I guess. Just found this on Break.com while killing time this Sunday evening. This homemade flamethrower video kicks ass, but the total lack of cohesion in the middle of the video, where the dudes roll a 70" TV down stairs makes it a true gem. Brilliant.

http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=362984

Hiya Crew! If you found this, welcome to my personal blog here on FG! Feel free to post questions, or comments about the new system, and I'll answer 'em.

Before you get started, be sure to read our... erm, Getting Started link in the Blogs area of the navigation above.

So what do you think?

Today me and my buddy Brett Bayless (HeyDick on FG) took our brand new DW Foamies BAF Yak out for some flying. Little windy, but had a blast. Tore through about 5 packs before the wind became too much. Good times.