What Have I Done???

Oh no!!! I might have inadvertently caused someone to have a gadget lust breakdown!!! What if he goes ahead and buys it??? What oh what will his wife say if he did...

Bag Shopping...

Thanks to an extremely helpful sales person and @kevinck80, the new MBP is sitting rather nicely in its new bag!!!

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It Has Taken A While...

It has taken a while but I'm glad to say that after 20 years, I have come full circle and I have replaced all the pc's and laptops at home with their Mac equivalents... Hopefully I made the right move... May the iMacs and MBP's serve me and Jeanie well...

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Full Speed Ahead!!!

 

OH YES!!!

Pocket Goodness…

After a brief chat with tech-guru, Ian Ho of “Life is Good! : The chronicles of a gadget freak” fame, I decided to go out and get myself a new pocket toy!!!

 

Now all I have to do is order that extra battery and I can run a portable hotspot for 5 hours!!! More than enough for a trip to Penang!!!

The Throat Mic Revisited!!!

I got the throat mic a few weeks ago, and I’ve been putting it through it’s paces ever since… I have to say that while it does feel weird initially to have something wrapped around your throat it does deliver on the goods on all fronts!!! Voices are clear and crisp both on the mic and earplug… The only thing you might want to watch out for is the volume… It does seem to be louder than the official headsets, so you might want to crank up the volume a little less enthusiastically!!!

Overall, I would say its a fine purchase if you play alot of multiplayer games but if you’re just into casual gaming, there are cheaper alternatives!!!

A New Mic!!!

My wireless mic has been giving me problems lately so I went out to get a replacement last Friday.

Instead of opting for the usual MS branded ones, I got a MadCatz one instead!!! Not any MadCatz one mind you but the throat mic designed for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2!!!

A full review will be up after I’ve used it for a week. So stay tuned.

Paiseh!!!

So paiseh that I haven’t been updating my blog diligently for the past few weeks… Its just that I have been distracted with some new gadgets and games… Wanna know what those gadgets and games are??? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post!!!

Parts Update (Part 5)…

Just a few days shy of a month from the previous parts update and I have added something new to my desktop…

What did I buy this time???

Well I got myself one of these!!!

What will I buy after this???

Multiple Offers…

OK… Its decided then, if I can get my hands on a Q9550 at the Digital Mall tomorrow, then I will sell my Q9400 to one of the individuals that made an offer for the same this afternoon…

Gadget Shopping In Taipei (Part 2)…

(Note: The previous post can be found here)

I mentioned a while ago that Taipei was a gadget freak’s Mecca and almost every gadget that you can lust for is available… However, the shopping experience is marred by a fundamental flaw… The surprisingly low number of money changers around the shopping areas (Note: money changing services are available at banks in Taipei but a passport and a valid reason for the exchange is required. A single page form must also be filled)… And to make matters worse, most of the vendors that offered brilliant discounts and prices, only dealt in cash!!! So now this would be a pickle as most of the banks shut early and if you get a good offer on some pc parts, you will not be able to change your RM into NT and buy it!!!

So my advice for any budding shoppers out there is to bring double the NT you initially planned to bring over for shopping in Taipei because you’d never know what you will find…

Choices…

Would you consider the following pc for your day to day web surfing, instant messaging and an occasional game or two???

Part	Price (RM)
CORE 2 DUO E7400 2.80 1066 3MB	395
GIGABYTE EG41M-ES2L | G41 | D2-SVGL	200
LG SATA 22 x DVD-RW	75
2 x 2GB KINGSTON PC 800 DDR 2	200
WESTERN D. 320GB	155
SAPPHIRE HD4650 1GD2-128 650 800	210
TAGAN STONE ROCK 500W APFC 80+	289
ATX CASING	90
Total (RM)	1614

Or would it be a little excessive and would the following alternative be a better choice???

Part	Price (RM)
DUAL CORE E6300 2.80 800 2MB	285
GIGABYTE EG41M-ES2L | G41 | D2-SVGL	200
LG SATA 22 x DVD-RW	75
2 x 2GB KINGSTON PC 800 DDR 2	200
WESTERN D. 320GB	155
SAPPHIRE HD4650 1GD2-128 650 800	210
TAGAN STONE ROCK 500W APFC 80+	289
ATX CASING	90
Total (RM)	1504

Let me know what you think (I need to keep the budget below RM 1650)…

A Plausible Alternative…

In my previous post, I was contemplating giving my desktop some bells and whistles by adding a NZXT Sentry LX fan controller… The reason I even thought about it was something Calvinzzz said…

“If you gonna build something, might as well make it kurang ajar”

(Trust me, he not only preaches the above, but lives it as well… How many households do you know of that has a purpose built router costing RM 1k+???)

I was about to plonk down the RM 2++ for the fan controller when, Tech and Gadget Supremo, Ian Ho of Life is Good!: The Chronicles of a Gadget Freak, suggested that I look at the fan controllers that Zalman had to offer instead as they not only had better features (shows power consumption) but they just scream “sexy”!!!

And he was right!!!

After browsing the Zalman offerings, I now have my heart set on the fan controller shown above…  Now if only I can track down a unit by this weekend… Hmmm…

Should I???

Should I pimp my desktop with a NZXT Sentry LX fan controller??? Hmmm…

Desktop Specs…

After all the upgrades, here’s the specs of the desktop…

Q9400 @ 3.8 ghz

Gigabyte EP45-UD3R Motherboard

LG DVD R/RW Combo Drive

320 WD Blue hdd

HIS ATI Radeon 4890 GDDR5 1gb

Belkin Wireless G Desktop Card

KIngston Hyper X DDR2 8500 4gb (2x2gb kit)

Cooler Master Hyper N520 cpu cooler

Gigabyte Odin Pro 800w

Zalman 120mm 2000 rpm fan x 2

Coolermaster Elite 333 Casing

Vista Home Premium 32-bit

I wonder how long it will be before I amend the current setup again…

Parts Update (Part 4)…

As I was a little worried about the power requirements of the new add-on’s, I went shopping today and got a new psu… I did my homework beforehand and it was basically, I had to make a choice between a Gigabyte Odin Pro 800w (Modular), Xigmatek 750w (Modular) and OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w (Modular) psu… All of which are “80 plus certified” and have garnered sterling reviews from many enthusiasts websites…

In the end, I chose the Gigabyte Odin Pro 800w (Modular) psu over the two others based simply upon the fact that the price per watt was the cheapest…

Besides, I managed to get a discount on this one instead of the other two…

Here are some pics before the install…

 

Thanks to Calvinzzz, the new psu has been shoehorned into my desktop while the loaner unit has been returned to KevinMYUS…

Now that the psu has been upgraded, it should be enough to last me for a few more upgrades… I wonder what I will add on next??? Hmmm…

Parts Update (Part 3)…

I totally forgot to check the power requirements when I got the 4890, it seems that 500w is the bare minimum and that became known to me when I started getting warning messages all over the place!!! Thankfully due to a swap with KevinMYUS, I’m back on track with a slightly more powerful psu…

So it is fair to say that the following benchmark was made possible by KevinMYUS heheheheh…

Parts Update (Part 2)…

As you know, I recently put together a desktop and its my first ever non-prebuilt system…

And not too long after, I updated the parts a bit, in the bid to get more enjoyment out of my little system… After that little update in May, I managed to keep my desktop related purchases to a minimum (gaming peripherals, mice and speakers don’t count ok) and that has garnered massive approval from the wife… Well after behaving for 2 months, I made another upgrade… What did I upgrade???

The graphics card!!! I swapped out the Sapphire HD4850 DDR3 512mb for a HIS Radeon 4890 DDR5 1024mb!!!

Here are some benchmarks with Far Cry 2…

In addition to the above, I’ll try to get my hands on the RE5 benchmark and post an update as soon as possible… Till then I guess I’ll ponder what I’ll update next…

Gadget Shopping In Taipei (Part 1)…

As you would have noticed, a few posts ago I mentioned that I just got back from Taipei… The city is essentially a gadget shopper’s Mecca… I was always under the impression before I left for Taipei that Guanghua, was an electronic market that I could go through within 2 hours or so… Boy was I wrong…

Well you see, this is Guanghua market…

Well more accurately, this is where the market starts… Where does it end??? Well I don’t know to be honest because my feet didn’t survive more than half way…

Its also interesting to note that they have stores and stores dedicated to the sale of single items… For example, there are stores that sell only gaming mice and they have stores that sell only cooling fans!!! Now if that market isn’t a Mecca for gadget enthusiasts, I don’t know what is…

In addition to the above, the shops in the area close at only 10.00 or 10.30 pm every night so you can shop and your leisure… it is also worth mentioning that the sellers are not very sales driven in the sense that they don’t really push you to get anything and would encourage you to shop around and only purchase the items that suit your needs…

In addition to Guanghua market, another place worth checking out is the NOVA store… Nova is fantastic because they split the store into several floors and areas… For example, there is a whole floor dedicated for gaming mice and keyboards, one whole floor for monitors and displays, one whole floor for a DIY section and a whole floor for consoles and games…Prebuilt systems and laptops however, are displayed next door at a sister outlet…

Now can you imagine the mind boggling shopping experience that I had???

(to be continued)…

Nothing Goes The Way You Want It To…

I was gonna do a post about some gadget purchases I made lately but lo and behold, things were not meant to be, my ISP decides to screw me over with a shitty connection…

Aih… looks like my rapidshare traffic allocation for today is going down the tubes as well…