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My New ATI Sapphire 5770 Video Card and Other System Upgrades

I recently began planning for my upgrade to Windows 7. I usually buy a new system whenever upgrading my OS,  however I did research on new systems and didn’t see the cost benefit of doing this even after having owned my current system for almost 2 years. The newer CPUs just don’t offer a large enough performance gain for me when compared tomy current Intel e6850 3GHz CPU.

Itching to at least get a few system enhancements I looked into where I could make some upgrade improvements. I started with my video card. I occasionally like to play games on my PC so this was a good place to start as I had an Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT with 512Mb of RAM which could use an upgrade now that I have a Samsung T240HD 24-Inch LCD HDTV Monitor capable of a 1920 x 1200 resolution. So I went to Tom’s Hardware which offers a great post every month that breaks down which video card is the best to buy at various price points. Here’s the post I read and my timing appears to have been pretty good.

As mentioned in the video there were 3 cards tied in the $150 price range. There were a few key reasons I chose the 5770 over the others. It’s a newer generation card and the only one of the 3 that supports Direct X 11. Secondly I it was the only one that supported 4 video outs. It has 2 x DVI 1 x HDMI and a DisplayPort. Lastly the card uses the newer 40-nm semiconductor process technology which uses less power and produces less heat. This makes this card the quitest of the bunch as well which is an issue for me. My last several cards were pretty loud when playing games.

So having decided which card to buy I now had to decide which company to get it from. There are quite a few of them that OEM the card and each offers small distinctions between them and in some cases they will vary in speed. I headed over to Newegg since the reviews on there usually provide some good guidance as to which computer hardware to buy and I found the Sapphire to be the highest rated of the 5770’s on there. I headed over to Amazon to see if they had the card which they did for $10 less than Newegg and no tax.

So I tested the card with Call of Duty 4 and it ran beautifully at 1920 x 1200 resolution giving me well over 60 FPS on average. It also ran very quiet the entire time. I’m very happy with this card.

I also decided to go from 4GB of RAM up to 8GB since I was moving to the 64 Bit version of Windows 7. This should offer me some more headroom to run multiple apps without worrying about gobbling up memory. For this I found a great deal on some Corsair 4 GB (2 X 2 GB) Memory Kits for $79.99 a pair. These were very cheap for some highly rated memory designed for over-clocking which I wasn’t planning on doing anyways but what the hell. They look pretty cool with their heat spreaders too. More sexiness for inside the case to go with the pretty Saphire girl which nobody will ever see.

I then decided to remove the 2 x 500GB Western Digital drives that were running in RAID 1 fashion to be replaced with a single 1TB drive. I figured I didn’t need the RAID 1 inside my machine anymore having recently built a RAID 1 NAS. I just need to make sure that I’m continually backing up to it. I chose the Seagate Barracuda ST31000528AS 1 TB SATA Version 12. I like that I’m removing one more moving part, hot and noisy item from my case.

Lastly I decided to replace my DVD Burner which was the only thing using the IDE interface. I wanted to replace it with a SATA version so I could remove that ghastly looking cable (which nobody will ever see) with a nice clean SATA version. I chose the Plextor PX-880SA 24X DVD Burner with LightScribe and 2MB Cache. This also was a high rated drive at Newegg and I purchased it there for a mere $39.

Mini Review and Video of Keurig Coffee Brewing System

I don’t fancy myself as a coffee connoisseur (read snob) but I do like a decent cup of coffee. I’m also that person that can’t be talked to in the morning until I’ve had my first cup. A few years ago I learned about the Senseo Pod Coffee maker and bought one soon after.

I became a huge fan of being able to quckly brew a single cup of coffee. I also really enjoyed my Senseo, but alas the unit died on me recently and I was prepared to replace it but had been hearing buzz about the Keurig Coffee Brewing System and decided to do a little research.

Everything I read about it pointed to a pretty good system. So a few weeks ago I’m walking the aisles of my local Costco when low and behold I came upon a special Keurig package deal. It was for the Keurig B60 model, came with a ton of sample K Cups (the single serving cups used) and even included an adapter to use your own coffee as well. I figured I had to try it and snapped it up.

Overall the system is somewhat similar to the Senseo but there are a few noticeable differences. For one this unit is built much better and feels sturdy. The K cup system is also a lot cleaner than using the exposed coffee pods. No muss or fuss having to clean parts after a brew. Brew time appears to be about the same. The Keurig does have 3 cup size settings (small, medium, large). You can really only use the first two settings with standard K cups, I tried the large but the coffee tasted to weak for my taste. The large option is nice if you brew your own with the adapter where you can control the strength.

The system came with a ton of sample coffee’s and so far I’ve enjoyed the Newman’s Own Organics Special Blend (Extra Bold) brew the best. It also came with a selection of Teas as well as hot chocolate. There seems to be huge support from coffee makers for manufacturing K cups. So basically it has great support in the market and seems to be sold and stocked in many outlets now.

I do admit that I miss the forthy crema that the Senseo used to generate but I’m willing to trade it for the better tasting coffee the Keurig makes. If you are in the market for a single cup brewing system you should definitely take a look at the Keurig. Overall I’m very happy with it. they also offer smaller models than the one I got.

My Video Demo

Other Resources

• Review of the Keurig vs. Senseo vs. Tassimo
• Keurig B50 Review at Geardiary.com
• Keurig Coffee Makers on Coffee Geek
• Chowhound discussion of Pod coffee makers

My Gear – iPhone Black Leather Texture Holster Case for Under $3

I was in the market for a case with a belt clip for my iPhone 3G and was searching through Amazon when I came across this case which had gotten 56 reviews with a 4+ star rating. It looked good and furthermore it was only $2.41!

I ordered it and was a little skeptical but after having it for 2 days I have to say it’s an amazing deal. I also ordered a silicone skin from the same vendor for about the same price and as you can see from the picture it still fits well in the case. It uses a magnetic flap for the cover. Both the headphone jack and speakers are exposed well with the phone sitting in the case. I was also pleasantly surprised to see it had an X (unintended logo for X PRIZE :) I highly recommend this case if you are looking for something similar.

The third party that sells this through Amazon is Bargaincell.com and the case is listed on their own site for $12.50 which would still be a good deal.

Go snap this up before they’re gone.

My Memory Upgrade – Just Because it was too Cheap not to

I’m running a Dell 8400 3.2GHz system with 1Gb of RAM and didn’t have a real need for more memory until recently. I’ve been contemplating getting VMWare up and running to play with Vista and Linux in an isolated environment. I was working on a friends system and while doing so decided to temporarily borrow some of his ram and drop it into my system. It was nice to have the extra memory and I decided to look around at RAM prices which I hadn’t followed to see were prices were.

I was pretty amazed when after doing a little searching around on dealnews, techbargains, and fatwallet I was able to find a 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB dual channel kit) of DDR2 memory for only $70 with free shipping at one of my favorite online merchants newegg.com so I decided they were too cheap not to buy them. I could then easily get about $30 for the 1GB dual channel kit I already had in the system making the upgrade net at only $40, but I decided to be nice and put the memory in my son’s computer.

As I went to the page to provide you with the link I come to find out that they dropped the price another $5 to only $65…amazing…Here’s the Link

Search to Buy the Best Hair Dryer for my Wife

My wife’s current hairdryer had just died. It was a pretty good one that had cost her ~$100 (I had no idea they could cost that much). But she really liked it. We went to Costco and she bought some $20 model they had over there and had been using it but knew that she didn’t like it as much. Being the tech gadget freak that I am, I decided to employ my research and purchasing skills as if I were buying some new computer accessory, to find her the best hairdryer I could as a birthday gift.

So I searched around for some reviews and comparisons of top hairdryers out there. The best I found was “How to pick the best professional hair dryer” at Missiko.com and “Buying The Right Hair Dryer” from CBS News. After reading each of these it became clear that a two rose to the top which were the Farouk CHI Turbo & Rocket Ionic hair dryer as well as the T3 Evolution Tourmaline hair dryer. I learned about what makes these higher end hair dryers so much better based on use of negatively charged ions, tourmaline, and ceramics. So my next step was to find some user reviews for each of these which I found over at a commerce site called Folica.com. They had a good number of user reviews for the Chi Turbo, Chi Rocket as well as the T3 Evolution. After thinking about it some more I decided to get my wife the Chi Rocket. Needless to say my wife was very happy not only with the hair dryer I bought her, but with the research I did to make sure I got her the best one.

Guys, let me tell you, going through a process like this to get your lady a tech gadget can go a long way in getting her to appreciate the nuances of getting better gear. It can also open the door to her understanding why we go through so much trouble selecting our gear. Hopefully she will understand this as I decide which High Def DVD player I will be purchasing soon.