Pegasus

And with out of the ashes rose a “Pegasus”

So when I got home from hunting I came home to a desktop rig that would not turn on, after 3 hours of dicking with it I still couldn’t get it to post. This is the 5th time this year it’s done something like this to me and 3rd time since August.

So I did what any sane normal person would do, I ordered the parts for a new PC.

So 3 days and a bit of money later I now have a desktop rig and laptop rig that are truly on par with each other in almost all aspects except for one.

After screwing with Vista for 3 days to finally get it where I want it I am no longer of the opinion that those Mac vs PC commercials were were advertisments… THEY WERE WARNINGS!

Vista vs MAC OS X, hands down no contest MAC OS wins and I’m not saying that just because I have special place in my heart for Unix based operating systems either. It truly is the better OS, except for that whole playing games thing… Steve Jobs, hell Fake Steve Jobs even, if your reading this GAMES ARE NOT BAD THEY ARE GOOD!

So yeah I’m on Vista but it is nice to have a desktop rig that can play all of my games again. I guess that is why I bought a MAC so I could do work on it and not be bothered with all of the games.

Two final thoughts…

1. I know a few of you (Clint) are probally kind of curios as to what I got for a rig, The general specs are a…. Intel E6850, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HD (main system drive), 8800 GTS 320MB Video Card.

2. I also upgraded from Tiger to Lepoard on the Mac over the weekend… I found the icon for a PC file share server to be how you say… Intersting : )

Pegasus revisited….

3 months of MAC Book Pro bliss and I have to say I’m not regretting my purchase one bit. Dual booting with Win XP and the MAC OS is nothing short of the best of both worlds. Granted I think my total time in Windows is something like 6 hours while not playing “Supreme Commander” other then that it is all Mac all the time. I would even go so far as to call the Mac my primary computer.

However to every “Ying” there is a “Yang” and the “Yang” in this case is my desktop. All 75 pounds of it. I’ve been mulling over the next iteration of “Yang” for a while and I know it won’t be a iMac… I love my Mac Book but honestly I do use my desktop primarily for one thing.

Gaming.

While I can game on the Mac Book under Windows I do like that I have a desktop with a full size keyboard. And after a couple of hours you really begin to apperciate that full size keyboard.

And the fact that I have come home to a computer that says “failed cpu test” on boot twice in the last month tells me it’s time to start really thinking about a new rig.

I have the case picked out… it’s my usual ungodly huge case.

I’m having pain and consternation with other pieces parts and I now am formally soliciting input. Please note that this input will be throughly hashed through and then hashed through again with another party (you know who you are) before landing on a final configuration.

Here are some talking points…

– Dual Core 6750 vs Quad Core 6600…. the dual core has a faster front side bus and is more over-clockable then the quad core. The quad core is a quad core. Price diffrence is ~$75

– SLI…. It seems like a good idea if you actually do it. The kicker is when you strap together two mid range cards you still don’t equal the current high end. And for the over all cost of the two mid range cards you can get a kick ass high end card. Also which platform Nvidia 650 or 680?

– Hybrid drives will be out soon if they aren’t already. I’m not one to pick up on new technology very often but this one does seem like a winner.

Other considerations, the new chips from Intel and AMD will be out in the next couple of months. Is there enough reason to wait for those chips or utilize what is out there currently? (Personal thought, most of the new chips will be of the quad core and 1300mhz fsb variety and may very well warrant sitting tight).

I’m defiantly in hurry to build this rig as I’m happy with the MAC Book and my Wii (and since Metroid 3 comes out next week I know that is going to keep me busy).

Pegasus Rising……

So in the course of the last two weeks I have gone from seriously considering a MAC Book Pro back to building a new Desktop PC.

The reason… a fucking game

Yes the one reason I had against the MAC has reared it’s ugly head and bitten me.

Though I’ve finally landed on a configuration that I’m pretty sure that will hit all of the right notes with “Vista” (I don’t know why they call it “Vista” we’ve seen this before it was called MAC OS X in 2002 and we were in shock and awe then… I guess when you’ve seen one “Vista” you need to see them all)

So anyway I’ve landed on a configuration pending approval from the lending department.

Oh look at that the lending department just got back to me… WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M DENIED!!!!

Inconsiderate bastards. Since I am the lending department!

OK I need to go sell my body to some lonely sorority girls at ASU….. This is going to take a while.

Once again the ol desktop is getting a bit long in the tooth and is starting to approach it’s three year upgrade cycle. This time around I’m presented with a different set of circumstances then what I’m used to.

1. CPU speeds have basically flat lined for the last 24 months. All CPU speed gains are being made by tweaking manufacturing processes, on die cache, instruction sets, and dual cores. The dual core thing is probably the most significant change to happen in a long time. Sadly it’s not the march of technology it’s the bloat of a certain OS that runs the world.

2. Video Cards change like the direction of the wind. It’s the one thing in the PC world that is still barreling along full speed.

3. Vista… When will it be worth the upgrade? Is it worth it to load vista upfront and take advantage of it’s neat new features (dx10, aero, other things) or do I keep running xp pro for another 3 years?

4. Hard Drives, the first solid state hard drives are coming to market in the next 3 to 6 months. First gen tech is never a sure bet but these things may break alot of those rules.

There are other considerations but these are the top 4.

You know this would all be a lot easier if there was a way to play all of my games under MAC OS X as easily as I do under windows. Actually if I could play EVE and Half-Life I would be very happy.

So begins Project “Pegasus”