What the heck am I talking about? Well, Samsung’s CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo drive of course. Unlike Combo drives from other competitors, the Samsung SM-348 belts out the most wicked drive specs this side of Saturn.
In the continuation of our budget gamer series that I started with the Soltek SL-75FRN-L nForce2 Motherboard, today we’re going to look at the video card side of things. The XFX Platinum Gamer's Edition GeForce4 Ti4200 Turbo AGP 8x 128MB DDR with VIVO & DVI card is one heck of a mouthful, but that’s not always a bad thing in this business.
Now that the Mhz race which drove the 90's has more or less lost it's appeal and with virtually everyone quite happy to stay with their 1Ghz+ PCs, people are beginning to dream of getting more functionality from their PCs than just playing games etc. PC's small and quiet enough to drive your DVD system, to connect to your network and still be able to work on is a new trend thats beginning to emerge, it is from this premise that 'HTPC' has been born.
In my few years of building computers, I’ve switched cases more often than any other piece of hardware. Whenever I build computers for friends and family, I always stress to them that the case isn’t the part to scrimp on; even so, I usually end up having to work in a small, cramped slab of jagged steel that’s not necessarily conducive to good airflow. Months or weeks later, I’ll get phone calls asking how I crammed so much stuff into the space, how I managed to install the drives without cutting myself on the case edges, or complaining about how Motherboard Monitor is screaming at them about overheating and that they could fry an egg on the case top. I can’t say I didn’t warn them.
WThere is always the possibility of adding something a little extra to your laptop or desktop machine. Apple includes an Apple Pro Mouse and Keyboard with every machine the ship from the factor, but fail to include a scrolling feature on either product. Therefore, to fill you technological void, Griffin Technology went to the drawing board and thought about how they could offer the scrolling feature on a Macintosh in style. The designers came out with something along the lines of "stunning" and impressive.
With so many video cards manufactured so closely to the reference design provided by the GPU makers, choosing one that is unique is hard enough, let alone one that speaks to your inner geekness. It is almost like shooting fish in a barrel, when it comes to making the seemingly important choice. Sure it’s fun to shoot the gun and get your card, but once you get it home, it smells like fish, and none of your fellow freak geeks are saying “Holy Mackerel”.
Case Modding has grown tremendously from its early origins only a few years ago. It is not uncommon to walk into a computer store and be greeted by a slew of case designs varying from exotic aluminum cases to weird animal themed cases to the common boring beige case designs. While many may opt for ready-made designs, there remain those that would rather modify their boring beige cases into labour-of-love affairs.
I can't tell whether it was the three cans of cola or the sheer anticipation of MacWorld, but I absolutely couldn't sleep last night. You see, I'm a recent Switcher to the Macintosh world, and I couldn't wait to discover what magic the Expo would hold. Though many websites prophesied a dull MacWorld, I must agree with Steve Jobs that this is in fact one of the most exciting chapters of Apple's history.