Jeez this graphics card is massive. It's thick enough to take up two upgrade slots, and it's heavy as well. Thankfully it fit inside my case with room to spare. Driver issues aside it performs as expected. The fans are off most of the time unless I'm gaming, and it's got this LED logo that I set to "breathe" and matches the red lighting in my case (it fades between bright and dim). And it came in a week early to boot. :)
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
2016 Rant/Share/General Discussion Thread
I wish I had the time and money to build a new monster machine like that lonne :(
I keep intending to with my old giant Dell XPS tower but I never quite get around to it. It's still on Vista and crashes all the time. I use it as my media centrer pretty much because of the great sound-card and speakers and it's hooked up to a big screen.
BUT, I think I might spend my money on a newer Samsung Note tablet… maybe the pro model. Those are cheap now and they're amazing light weight screen tablets. Way better value than a Cintiq any day- or even a Microsoft Surface.
And I am taking notes because my laptop will need replacement eventually. I am so glad I held off putting Windows 10 on it. My PC has Windows 10 and I hate it. Between the operating system and the anti virus software the thing is a freaking snail compared to my laptop running 7. Outside of cropping I cannot do any Photoshop on my PC because the computer will stop cold and I have to wait for it to catch up.
@Lonnehart: I know what you mean about the graphics card. I had to build an additional support in my case just to keep the weight of my card from stressing out my PCI slot and causing my screen to go black. All of the modern rendering engines for 3D modeling software offload their processing calls to the graphics card, so I have no choice but to install a really beefy one. When I am rendering, the fans are pretty much screaming all the time. Ideally, I should get something like an Nvidia Tesla, but those are preposterously expensive.
ozoneocean wrote:
I wish I had the time and money to build a new monster machine like that lonne :(
I keep intending to with my old giant Dell XPS tower but I never quite get around to it. It's still on Vista and crashes all the time. I use it as my media centrer pretty much because of the great sound-card and speakers and it's hooked up to a big screen.
BUT, I think I might spend my money on a newer Samsung Note tablet… maybe the pro model. Those are cheap now and they're amazing light weight screen tablets. Way better value than a Cintiq any day- or even a Microsoft Surface.
Well, the card WAS a budget card at $219 on Amazon. That was before resellers bought Amazon's stock of the cards before reselling it at an even higher price (taking advantage of the fact there's not a lot of them around). Seems to happen every time a new video card is put out. As for Amazon, I suggest looking around for computer parts and upgrading as you need. I know that saves me money in the long run (I just upgrade here and there, not the whole machine). Heck… I'm still using my mid-tower case from nearly a decade ago.
My machine isn't really that much of a beast. Well… compared to the more expensive rigs touting the newest i7 Intel processors, 32GB memory, Solid State Drives with Terrabytes of storage and NVidia 1080 graphics cards…
I used to spend around 5K on my machines…
NO WAY I would spend that now! It was never worth it.
I am tossing up between a powerful but fairly inexpensive home built rig and a powerful ultrabook…
It's tricky. The last computer I bough was a Samsung series 9 ultrabook and it has bee simply excellent. Still runs beautifully (but I need a reliable backup).
So the thing IS, given that experience and the fact that I don't game, I could be happy with another ultrabook- they take up less space, use less power, are portable, look nice, are physically cool and don't contribute to heating up my house during the long summers…
The disadvantage is they are harder to upgrade and you pay more for the form factor than their performance.
Heh… I wish I had $3700 U.S. to blow on a machine all at once. Though to be honest my own machine cost less than $1500 (all performance but budget parts). I know the Intels and Nvidias perform better as far as gaming goss, but I'm satisfied as long as the machine does the job well.
I don't normally use laptops, so it's hard to know what I'm buying when looking at one. If I could, I'd drop money on this…
MSI GP72 Leopard Pro-694 17.3" GAMING LAPTOP NOTEBOOK
Or even better… THIS
XOTIC MSI GE72VR Apache Pro 009 - 17.3" Gaming Laptop
-edit- Finally figured out how to make links… except maybe sausage links (gonna have to look up Youtube for that)…
With those laptops, tTat's about as much as I'd like to pay…
Maybe even less.
Budget parts are a good way to go. More expensive parts have JUST the same chance of breaking. I know that OH too well. Even if you believed the Apple myth, hahaha, no matter what you pay your stuff WILL eventually break, sometimes sooner rather than later.
The only thing I prefer not to skimp on are hard drives.
You could go for a Solid State Drive. They don't wear out so easily… unless you're constantly writing large files to them.
Funny how that works. SSDs wear out when you write to them, but hard drives wear out when you READ from them (making them perfect for mass storage while you can use an SSD for programs you need to load into RAM fast)…
On Saturday I went to the lovely Victoria Hall in Fremantle to be part of the Great Gatsby night. I was dressed up to the 9's in my vintage white tie and tails that was actually FROM the 1920s.
My date did not show, but I got a few drinks in me, socialised and had fun anyway.
I won the Best Dressed award and took home free dance lessons and wine- BOTH of which I will be taking advantage off.
On the way home I decided to catch the train. Walking down the street I met and befriended many people, having some good conversations with slightly tipsy people on the tail ends of their nights out.
At the train station a man was surrounded by train police complaining loudly. He dodged buying his ticked and was going to get a fine. I offered to pay the $100 fine for him, but the police refused… Weirdos.
A nice guy and his wife were also on the platform and witnessed the event. I got to chatting with them and found out he's a musician for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO). He said they have a job going for a graphic designer…
I'm going to try applying for that ^_^
My current job is good, I have a LOT of freedom but I don't work enough hours… I find I need more and more money these days. I have a crap tonne of skills so I'm really confident in my abilities, and I would LOVE to work for the Orchestra.
@Oz- A Gatsby themed party sounds like so much fun. There were a lot of parties in the days of prohibition.
The local police department has started to use drones to chase after suspects. There was a low flying drone in my relatively safe neighborhood and then I heard it talking (not to me) "Come Out, this is the Police" or "stay indoors, we are chasing a suspect with a canine". It made me think that they could use these drones to spy on people when they are in the bedroom or bathroom and having a drone right outside the window is not my idea of privacy.
I just saw Hacksaw Ridge in theaters. It was pretty violent and I needed to step outside a few times during the battle scenes.
I work in an area bounded by major highways and loaded with industry as well as several pipelines. I wish I just had drones to deal with. Colonial pipeline patrols with helicopters, the TV stations have helicopters, the police have helicopters…
Then where I live there are executive transports, medivacs and the Coast Guard. Army and Navy training flights also follow the coast. And they fly low so the whole house shakes. Drones are a lot less obtrusive.
But then I have been snuck up on by low flying light observation helicopter. He flew nape of the earth to mask his rotors. I was eating my mre and he popped up from behind the ridge in front of me. Close enough to see the color of the pilot's eyes.
And please no jokes about black helicopters. I am very good with recognizing helicopters by nomenclature and paint scheme. Ain't nothing I see in the sky i can't id. Used to be my job.
This is my favorite helicopter to jump out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_Alouette_II
fallopiancrusader wrote:Like the one in M.A.S.H ^_^
This is my favorite helicopter to jump out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_Alouette_II
For the people who forget their chutes "Suicide is painless" XD
How many times have you jumped?
The actual M*A*S*H helicopter is the Bell H-13 Sioux which first flew in 1945! An earlier piston engined helicopter compared to the Alouette II which has a gas turbine engine and first flew 12 years later.
I've only flown in a Bell Jet Ranger and a Huey. But I don't jump out of them:-D
However, if you are ever over Central New Jersey, feel free to drop in and we'll do lunch.
ozoneocean wrote:fallopiancrusader wrote:Like the one in M.A.S.H ^_^
This is my favorite helicopter to jump out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_Alouette_II
For the people who forget their chutes "Suicide is painless" XD
How many times have you jumped?
I have just over 600 jumps under my belt
ozoneocean wrote:
W O W! O_o
That is a MASSIVE amount of jumps! That must cost a mint!
Back when I had a lucrative job, I used to do a lot of skydiving. I would burn through about 400 USD in one weekend, doing ten jumps each day. Now that I am a starving artist, I don't jump anymore. I still kept my parachute, though, in the hopes that doing webcomics will one day make me obscenely wealthy! XD
bravo1102 wrote:
The actual M*A*S*H helicopter is the Bell H-13 Sioux which first flew in 1945! An earlier piston engined helicopter compared to the Alouette II which has a gas turbine engine and first flew 12 years later.
I've only flown in a Bell Jet Ranger and a Huey. But I don't jump out of them:-D
However, if you are ever over Central New Jersey, feel free to drop in and we'll do lunch.
I used to do a lot of Skydiving in Williamstown, NJ! I can't drop in for lunch though, because deliberately landing outside of the drop zone is frowned upon by the FAA :(
fallopiancrusader wrote:bravo1102 wrote:
The actual M*A*S*H helicopter is the Bell H-13 Sioux which first flew in 1945! An earlier piston engined helicopter compared to the Alouette II which has a gas turbine engine and first flew 12 years later.
I've only flown in a Bell Jet Ranger and a Huey. But I don't jump out of them:-D
However, if you are ever over Central New Jersey, feel free to drop in and we'll do lunch.
I used to do a lot of Skydiving in Williamstown, NJ! I can't drop in for lunch though, because deliberately landing outside of the drop zone is frowned upon by the FAA :(
So is flying at low altitude over residential areas but that never stopped any executive helicopter. As my rattling windows will attest.
Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!
I was invited to a great traditional Thanksgiving feast with the family of the little girl I tutor. It was such a great meal of turkey, ham, cocktail shrimp, cranberry jelly with ridges, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato pie, green bean casserole, gravy, and fresh fruit.
Everything was very good, and it was not until the end of the meal that I had to listen to one "liberal idiots" comment and an opinionated discourse of the left-wing brainwashing agenda of California's Universities.
kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!
I was invited to a great traditional Thanksgiving feast with the family of the little girl I tutor. It was such a great meal of turkey, ham, cocktail shrimp, cranberry jelly with ridges, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato pie, green bean casserole, gravy, and fresh fruit.
Everything was very good, and it was not until the end of the meal that I had to listen to one "liberal idiots" comment and an opinionated discourse of the left-wing brainwashing agenda of California's Universities.
What about the in your face impassioned speech about racism and sexism or the incredulous stare from your mother over how could you even THINK of voting that way? And then a speech about immigration and the second amendment.
Some of us get it from both ends at family gatherings. :(
And there's the debate over the real first thanksgiving in Jamestown.
I wonder what countries other than the U.S.A. celebrate Thanksgiving…
One thing about buying computer parts is this… NEVER skimp on the power supply. One of my niece's roomates (had thanksgiving dinner at the place) asked me why her computer kept shutting off. One look at the thing running and found out the PSU (it's that big box with the fan inside that's in the case to which you attach your power cord) was too weak for what the girl had in her system (which was pretty beefy compared to mine). Even worse… it was a cheap Chinese made power supply which I was pretty sure would've caught on fire and/or exploded had she kept trying to use it.
Nowadays it's recommended that one should buy a PSU that's around 700 to 850 watts AVERAGE power (not PEAK power). Or whatever label that reads how much power you will always have whether the power supply is under load or not. It should have the "80 Plus" badge on it as well. That badge indicates that the PSU is at least 80 percent efficient or better (with the bronze badge around 80 percent to the platinum/titanium badges at over 90 percent). Also be careful about the manufacturers of the things. The best brands are Corsair and EVGA (the brands I can remember off the top of my head).
Yeah… Never skimp on the computer's power supply or you might find your house burning down… It's amazing that a lot of people who put their machines together see it as an afterthought…
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