Category: computer upgrade

Heatsink Upgrade to Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus on AM3+ Review

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

The Girlfriend does a lot of video recording and editing internet companies. She runs an i7 processor and an Nvidia 970 video card with 16 gigs ram. She uses Camtasia software for a lot of her work. During the phase of compiling, we noticed sometimes her pc would crash, or lock up. After we installed speedfan we realized that she was hitting 180+ degrees so her intel was peaking high.
Until we could find her a new heatsink for her work horse, we tried to get by with my Athlon II X3 445 (Tri-core cpu) and my AM2 6 core which I bought for $5 at Epic A resell store.

This was a hard fact to face. The i7 is flat out a beast, and my AMD machines were completely useless for her. Except maybe recording. Rendering a video that she just compiled normally would have taken 10-17 minutes on her machine (when working right) ended up saying it would take 45 minutes on the AM2 and approximately 3 hours on the tri core.

So we took a trip to the computer store and bought the best heatsink they could advise, and what has the best/most reviews on line. We bought her computer a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. Her temperature now stays in the 110s while compiling. Oddly there is no noticeable damage to the cpu or motherboard.

PcCooler Heatsink

PcCooler Heatsink

IMG_1218 My AMDs that I was proud to have had running for so little investment, were crushed in the dirt and now useless for every function in the house. Between her video work and my autoCAD work, it was time for an upgrade. So I (being the true AMD Fan I am) took a trip to the local computer store and brought home an AM3+ 8320 processor, 16 gigs of pny Anarchy 1866 ram, and an MSI 970A-G46 motherboard. of course a new case. Dropped my Geforce GTX460 Video card in and slapped on the factory heatsink, installed a spare power supply we had. Installed windows 7 and pushed the computer to her and said “well, try it out”.

We head back up to the computer parts store and buy a $21 heatsink.  Give it one test and find that it was time to take another trip to the computer store to buy the exact same heatsink we bought for her intel cpu. Within 1-2 minutes of rendering, the temperature of the processor jumped from the cool 98 degrees up  near 140 degrees and was climbing faster every second. The PCcooler heatsink is great for dissipating heat, at idle. but it was as if there was a threshold of like 115 degrees before it’s method of absorbing and dissipating heat become utterly useless. I will not throw it away. I will be installing it on another pc, but I’ll have to add an extra fan or something experimental.

Since I remember the instructions for the girlfriend’s computer came with instructions and spare parts for an AM3+ processor, I decided to search for the same heatsink.

I found the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus sounded like and looked like the same heatsink. Chased down the reviews and found everyone complaining about the install instructions but praising the cooling. Bought it for $35 and got free shipping.

DSC_0002It took all of about 10 minutes to install the new heatsink. I admit I cheated and watch this guy’s video though. I had to remove one side case fan for clearance, the processor heatsink was just too tall for my ENERMAX case.
Right away I went to rendering a video I compiled last night . When I tried to render the video last night, though the new computer made light work of the task, my cpu temperatures got to 145 degrees.
but now with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus heatsink, re-rendering the same video took less than half the time it did last night and temperatures never exceeded 116 degrees.

The build is finally a success. and total cost under $600. and so far nothing runs slow, nothing hangs so far and it seems my autocad is flying. even using the knock off brands of cad design like bricsCAD, nanoCAD or ProgeCAD. They all run smooth with no pausing, no “thinking”.

Temperatures while in autocad never exceed 113 degrees.

I even ran a windows benchmark.
tempsidle
Sorry about the screenshot with in a screenshot. Only way I could think to get both scores up at once.

Review score for the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Ease of installation: 10/10
visible appeal: 10/10
effectiveness: 10/10
noise factor: 9/10

Final score: 10/10

Extra score = Instructions booklet usefulness: 1/10

Why Microsoft is pushing windows 8

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Though the world would like to use windows 7 and continue running their computers the way they are used to , and continue being familiar with their desktops and computing atmosphere.

Microsoft will not let that be the option. they will pay all of the cnets and zdnets and mashables and verges to do reviews that say how fantastic some stupid function is.. like siri and it’s ability to misspell on apple products (dif company same tactics) . Bad pr is still pr.
They will make you want that one stupid tiny function so bad, you will settle for the assream the rest of the o/s has.. and it will be so idiotic, like mine sweep will have purple background… or something useless.

Why does Microsoft want to go this route? Why does Microsoft want to go the “apps’ route and touch screen and big puffy buttons?

because the apple and Microsoft court case where Microsoft had to prove they were not ripping off apple, and Microsoft was just a software company.. not a computer company. so the courts forced Microsoft to agree to never make computers.

Now Microsoft is in the telephone and tablet business.
When they bought Nokia, they confirmed it.
because they aren’t computers. They can’t make computers.. but they can make tablets.
as long as they don’t call them computers.

but this is just Microsoft rolling back to the windows 3.01 look. Minus Program manager.

Black Friday Deals at Office max

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Its finally here!  OfficeMax has just released that their Black Friday Deals will be online, at officemax.com, starting at 6am EST on Thanksgiving (11/22).Plus, on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, you will receive Free Shipping on ALL orders over $20.  The rest of the Black Friday Deals can be found in the links section of the GAN interface.

**Online Store Pickup Disclaimer: In order to give you the best experience during this busy Thanksgiving holiday, we will not be offering Online Store Pickup during this time

 

Also, remember to follow us on Twitter – @OMX_Affiliates
Black Friday Deals – Online starting Thanksgiving at 6am EST, plus Free Shipping on $20
http://www.officemax.com
11/22 – 11/23
Black Friday: Save 30% on all regularly priced Furniture
 11/22 – 11/23
SAVE up to 50% on HP Inkjet and LaserJet Printers

SAVE up to $130 ON COMPUTERS Plus, SAVE $20 on Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010 with the purchase of any Computer.
http://www.officemax.com/catalog/search.jsp?searchText=Search+by+Keyword+or+Item+%23&freeText=specials+computers
11/18 – 11/21
SAVE 30%, WHEN YOU BUY 3 of Your Favorite Office Supplies

http://www.officemax.com/home/custom.jsp?id=m2990002
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FREE Duracell® AA Batteries, 10-Pack when you purchase 2 HP ink cartridges priced $24.99 or higher

http://www.officemax.com/catalog/refill/inkNtoner.jsp
11/18 – 11/21

$27.99, When You Buy 2 BOISE X-9® 8.5×11 Multiuse Paper, 10-Ream Case Limit 2

Paid advertisement by Officemax.

BitCoin Review

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Have you found it yet? Have you found the magic pot full of magic money that you can’t get anywhere except if you build it yourself using your computer?
Have you found your GUIMINER or have you found bitcoin plus?
With bitcoin plus, you log into the website and you just click on “Start Generating” and it starts. You are instantly generating money. tiny minuit fragments of a penny. every hour you get paid 0.00002728 bitcoin. So, what ever the current trade value of a bitcoin is, divide that by 0.00002728 and you will see what the value of an hour is to you. not a whole fricken lot.
So you search for alternatives or someone comes along and tell you how you can get more bitcoins faster, by explaining how it works. Your friend tells you that you can get a program that lets you generate the bitcoins for yourself at a much faster rate. Since bitcoinplus uses Java to run, and we all know how dead goat fast that can be. So it sounds plausible and you are now intrigued.
Your friend tells you the name of a program that you can use to do mining with. For me, it was Guiminer (Graphical user interface miner). With Guiminer you have to get the bitcoin wallet. So you can store your bitcoins in.
So now you installed the wallet and you have the guiminer on your desktop. Now what? You open the guiminer and click on the first thing you see “start mining’ nope, jack squat. So you go to the menu area to try and figure out what in the settings is set at a default what ever. Nope, again, jack squat. So now you Google how to start this stupid thing and you find some post saying ‘ I am new to this so be kind” you are thinking “ding ding found one”. Go in to read it, nope jack squat. First line out of that dudes question is ” ok I am running a Linux network that is coded to BLAH BLAH BLAH” Lost me. you are thinking ” Ok now I just want the dang thing to run once. Three days go by of refining your Google search and finally you get the jest of it. open the mining program tell it to open the wallet as a server (dude I have no idea why) tell the mining program to look locally for a server. now it works, you are cranking about a cool 30 Mhash per second. You leave your machine running all night and wake up like a 7 year old on Christmas morning only to find. Jack Squat. So now you start looking for some math to see if you will make money. Sure you will. In 111478 months. You will make a whole 50 bitcoins.
So now you find that you have to join a gang, or what ever they call them, and have yourself a bitcoin lan party because someone realized that if you run a mining pool, you can mine faster and get more bitcoins. The system is supposed to be more organized that way. But after a few days, you get back to the same spot and see that you just made the guy hosting the pool, quite a bit of money. but you. you are making. Yep you guessed it. Jack squat.
So. Again you hunt for other reasons to hope this thing is useful. You find pictures upon pictures of people who make their own mining pool. Like some guy who has like 20 computers, each computer has 4 video cards on them to help mine faster using each graphics card GPU. and you think to yourself ” well heck yeah, eventually that will start to pay off’ and then you remember that 111478 months thing and try and divide that by each video card you see in the picture and shake your head at the insanity of the whole thing. Or you totally ignore any logic and continue to tell yourself there’s money in it somehow.

Oh, I assume the reason the bitcoin value dropped so much, is the early 6 months it’s value was cranked up stupid high, by the powers that started it, to get more people to help them with what ever in the heck they are doing. not because the stock market crashed. Just simply because no one wants anything to do with it. To much work, to much effort for very little pay out.
I have got to say that bit coin mining is useless.
If you do the math of the money wasted on electricity running what ever material it takes to generate bitcoin, you will be at a loss.
It’s not for broke people, to come into money with. It’s a toy for rich kids. and they validate it with an end result of 5 months later saying “see? I got $20 so it isn’t worthless”.
Don’t fall for that.
in the end you were better off staying on the bitcoin plus website and just letting it run in the background and not cause any trouble on your computer. No you will never get rich with that, but at least it feels like you are doing something with a computer that is already on anyway.
Bitcoin review
2/10
for people with addictive nature.

***update so I don’t seem like a jerk, just explaining logic behind my post***
if the money of pooling is split up amongst everyone, it would seem less profitable for the guy with 900 computers running the app, than the guy with one computer running the app.
one thing I have learned with these android phones, the more stuff you run, the faster your battery dies. This would lead me to believe that the apps are causing usage of electricity.
Means the phone that when all items are stripped and I am running a basic install of android, the battery lasts between 8-14 hours. With all average running apps the battery is between 3-6 hours, depending on what you call average apps.
note the power connector at the back of your video card, it is not there for luck. It is there for a reason. one can assume the electric bill is slightly effected by someone who upgrades to that. Especially if their computer runs all hours of the day and night, with no down time. add an app that runs that card, you can assume (from the android reference) that you will be using more electricity than just having the machine on. Run an app like guiminer, where your card is running at 50% higher temps. Mine got up to just under 180, normal temp is 105. you can surely assume that the ap is using a lot more power, along with the video card it’s self using a lot more power.
Now chunk in a second video card, and run at higher speeds (I Did this, but I didn’t see much performance increase), and re-math your power consumption.
I keep my computer turned off as much as I can.
I keep my electric bill under $50 a month (except last month, Texas weather at 100+ degrees got me to $75ish)
I wouldn’t want to see the slightest increase to my power bill for something so complicated and barely explained. I would not see the profit of it. Especially if you only see less than $100 a month in profits.
Something close to the topic with nearly no actual answer to teh original question. How much electricity am I consuming as I generate bitcoin

Low Cost Barebone from Compusa

Posted onAuthorTruXter

ECS IC780M-A DiabloTek Barebones Kit – ECS IC780M-A Mobo, AMD Phenom X4 9750 CPU, Zalman CPU Fan, Centon 2GB DDR2 RAM, Seagate 320GB HDD, LG 24x DVDRW, DiabloTek ATX Mid-Tower Case, 400W Power Supply

 

To see images of this barbone budget computer build click here for images.

$199 for the beefy budget computer.

Specifications
ECS IC780M-A Motherboard

Processor Socket: AMD
Processor Interface: Socket AM2+
Form Factor: ATX
Processors Supported: AMD Athlon 64
AMD Phenom
AMD Phenom II
AMD Athlon II
HyperTransport Bus: 2600MHz (5200 MT/s)
Northbridge: AMD 770
Memory Supported: 400MHz DDR2
533MHz DDR2
667MHz DDR2
800MHz DDR2
1066MHz DDR2
Memory Type: DDR2
Number of Pins: 240-Pin
Maximum Memory Supported: 4GB – 32bit
32GB – 64bit
Number of Slots: 4
Max. Memory Supported Per Slot: 8GB
Channels: 6 Channels
LAN Type: 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit
PS/2 Keyboard Connectors: 1
PS/2 Mouse Connectors: 1
USB Ports (Total): 8
USB Rear Panel Ports: 4
USB Onboard Headers: 2 – (expandable to 4 USB ports)
LAN Ports: 1
IDE Headers: 1
Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s Headers: 4
ATX Power Connectors: 1 24-Pin Connector
PC Power Connectors: 1 – 4 Pin
PCI Slots: 3
PCI Express X1 Slots: 2
PCI Express X16 Slots: 1
RAID Support: Yes
RAID Modes: 0
1
10
AMD Phenom X4 9750 Quad Core Processor

Manufacturer: AMD
CPU Type: Desktop
Processor Interface: Socket AM2+
Processor Class: Phenom X4
Processor Speed: X4 9750 / 2.40GHz
Cores: Quad
Cache Size: 4MB L2 + L3
Fan: Not Included
Wattage: 125W
Additional Technologies: HyperTransport
MMX
Enhanced Virus Protection
AMD64
Cool’n’Quiet
Unlocked Multiplier: No
Instruction Set: SSE
SSE2
SSE3
Zalman Hydraulic Bearing CPU Cooler

Fan Type: CPU Cooler
Socket Type: 775
AM2
AM2+
AM3
1156
1155
Bearing Type: Hydraulic
RPM: 1400 ~ 2700 RPM
Connector(s): 4 Pin (PWM)
LG GH24NS50R 24x Internal CD/DVD Drive

Cache Size: 2 MB
DVD+R Write Speed: 24X
DVD+RW Rewrite Speed: 8X
DVD-R Write Speed: 24X
DVD-RW Rewrite Speed: 6X
DVD Read Speed: 16X
DVD-RAM Write Speed: 12X
DVD-RAM Read Speed: 12X
CD Write Speed: 48X
CD Rewrite Speed: 32x
CD Read Speed: 48X
Color: Black
Length: 6.5″
Width: 5.7″
Height: 1.6″
Weight: 1.5 lbs.
Load Type: Tray
Interface Type: SATA
Enclosure Type: Internal
Type: CD/DVD Drives
Centon 2048MB PC6400 DDR2

Memory Category: Desktop
Memory Type: DDR2
Memory Speed: PC6400
Memory Speed MHz: 800MHz
Memory Size: 2048MB
Total Memory Size: 2GB
Memory Modules: 1
Memory Channels: Dual
Memory Socket: DIMM
Pins: 240
Seagate ST3320418AS Barracuda Hard Drive

Drive Type: Internal
Capacity: 320 GB
Interface: SATA 3.0Gb/s
Interface Type: SATA
Spindle Speed (RPM): 7200
Buffer Memory: 16 MB
Average Latency (msec): 4.17
Temperature, Operating (°C): 0 to 60
Temperature, Nonoperating (°C): -40 to 70
Shock, Operating: 2 msec (Gs): 70
Shock, Nonoperating: 2 msec (Gs): 350
Diablotek CPA-9611B ATX Mid-Tower Case

80mm Fan Ports: 3
80mm Fans Included: None
Form Factor: ATX Mid-Tower
Compatible Motherboards: ATX
µATX
Side Panel Type: Vented
Power Supply: Not Included
External 5.25″ Drive Bays: 4
External 3.5″ Drive Bays: 1
Internal 3.5″ Drive Bays: 6
Expansion Slots: 7
Front USB Ports: 2
Front Audio Ports: 2
Depth: 17.5″
Width: 7.5″
Height: 17″
DiabloTek PSDA400 Power Supply

Form Factor: ATX
Wattage: 400W
Modular Cabling: No
Fan: 80 mm
Input Voltage: 8A@115 / 5A@230 V
+3.3V: 26 A
+5V: 35 A
+12V 1: 15 A
-12V: 0.5 A
-5V: 0.5 A
+5VSB: 2.0 A
Motherboard Connector: 20+4 Pin
4-Pin P4: 1
4-Pin Floppy Connector: 1
4-Pin Peripheral Connector: 4
SATA Power Connector: 4

All of that for $199 before tax.
Computer case, motherboard memory and processor with AMD quad core cpu, dvd burner. Everything a barebone system needs. Now all you need is an operating system. If you check my previous build your own budget computers, you will see that I have listed many inexpensive operating systems.
FY Tiger Direct and Compusa are the same company.

Budget Computer Build – Work Horse Edition

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Another build of a computer for people on a budget. This one will be the fast, upgradable strong running computer, for cheap.
For Doing Office work with lots of horse Power. Peach Tree,Quickbooks,Autodesk any heavy resource software you can throw at this beast should be easy running and show very little weight on this machine.

Very Nice case for under $45.
Windows 7 Ultimate for under $130
1TB Hard Drive for under $55
Motherboard And Cpu Combo under $120 Athlon II X2 250 (2 x 3.0GHz – 2MB Cache – 4000MHz FSB)
4 Gigs Memory PC3-10600 under $35
500 watt Power Supply under $50
19 inch Monitor under $120

$555 Home built computer with Operating system still sealed in it’s package. Beating this price and power combo will not be the easiest task. Of course if you have any of these items, subtract it from the total and then see what  the cost would be. In most cases people will leave out the monitor and the Operating system (especial windows 7 ultimate) and consider that  a computer.

So the barebone computer would only coast you $305
TigerDirect

Installing Hard Drive in External Case

Posted onAuthorTruXter

If you are wanting to set up an external hard drive, by using an external hard drive case and an internal hard drive that you are wanting to use with it, I assure you, this is not a hard task.

For this build and install of the external hard drive kit, We have an acomdata external hard drive case with sata and pata capabilities. Under $30 at Fry’s. The hard drive we are using is a sata 500 gig Seagate under $45 at Fry’s.

First step is to get all of your hardware  and spread it out in seperate locations so you can keep your parts visible and easy to distinguish.

External Hard drive Kit.

See that? there is very little in that set. Manual, Power cable, usb cable, case, standing base and hard drive .

Next Step is to open the external case. Usually two up to 4 small screws at one of the ends of the hard drive case.

opening external hard drive case

Now you just have to slide everything out of the external hard drive case. With this one you just push to the other end.

Ejecting the tray

Some of the external hard drive cases have wires inside that are connected to light, just look closely for the wires to slide off , this hard drive case does not have wires for lights.

Dissasymbled External hard drive case

Now the simple step is to connect the wiring before you rock the hard drive into the external case.

Connecting the wires to a hard drive

Inserted hard drive in external case

Now begin to reassemble  your hard drive case. most just snap together.

External Hard drive Build

Now you are just reversing everything you did before, only now your gadget weighs a tiny bit more.

Final touches

Put screws back in  for the end face plate and then set the stand.

tightening stand for external hard drive case.

Now you just have to connect the usb cable and the power supply  and then power on the Hard Drive.

External Hard drive connected

Now that you have the hard drive set up and connected, look for the light on the outside of the case to be on to confirm all is working. Some external hard drive cases have a blinking light if you messed up.

Now watch your computer for any notifications saying that a new device is connected. To take that a step further, look at your list of storage devices and see if a new device shows up in the list.

eternal hard drive

Most Companies that make external hard drive cases, don’t force you into proprietary software, but some do. if your new device does not show up in the list, you may have a few steps to perform before you can access your software stored on the new electronic component.

I hope you liked the HoWto, if you have any questions feel free to ask them below, comments are always open.

Microsoft and the Cloud

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Microsoft and the Cloud

Cloud computing in it’s real form is using an off site storage and operating system. Cloud computing is booting up your computer and the cmos/bios calls out to an off site location and is given the proper command to tell your computer to boot up. This giving you, the owner of your computer, no ability to control your content because your computer does not have it’s own storage. Because it simply does not need it. Yes your computer will last longer. but your computer will practically be like a cable box. you will not be 100% in control of your surfing and or your content.

Currently the definition of cloud computing is a lesser than what it really is.
From wikipedia October 2 2010

Cloud computing is Web-based processing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the smart phones.

Being able to network your material across locations and platforms, fine. That’s excellent. But the moment it gets changed to you having to install this and that to operate better with the cloud and the instance you lose features and functions and personal control of processes, is the clue that this is going to be something we do not want. A gradual acclamation into forfeiting freedom, creation, knowledge, learning and teaching.

The reason Why I say it’s Microsoft and the Cloud is because they seem to be pushing the cloud like crazy on their recent commercials. But cloud computing has been around since before windows Vista. I am assuming they expected windows Vista to not be a flop. That way the buzz about Cloud computing would be just prime for Microsoft to jump on the term. but now they are almost two years into windows 7, Microsoft is now boasting “the cloud”.

It seems they have (for now) Separated Cloud Computing and “Online Operating System“. Here is one that lets you test it. (there is one that forces you to install Microsoft Silver light, but lol no way dude)Here is a fake one that limits what you can do, done in flash.
Hey the whole online operating system is perfect for grand parents, aunts and the idiot who thinks he is to tough to learn. an online operating system is not for the kid growing up who needs to learn how to build a computer and fix an operating system and test theories and some day be a rocket scientist. An online operating system is for people who will learn nothing hands on from their computer, but get a chance to use wikipedia and google a bunch.

With comcast setting a cap and saying that if you use more than 250 gigs of bandwidth (internet) a month you have will have to pay for each meg that you go over. 250 sounds unreachable right? Imagine all the times you drag something around your computer from one drive to another. Imagine if your computer was scattered all over the internet. Yeah 250 gigs will burst in a week. and in that case, a web based operating system surely is not for a company that has lots of backed up documents.

We need to vote that we can never be forced into online operating systems and that all companies who make stuff for web bases operating systems, also make the software compatible with local storage computers, and no one can decorate the web based operating systems to be better.
what gets me is palm hp and Linux and Microsoft and apple are all pushing this like it’s the biggest and most wanted thing, but when you ask people how they feel about it, the respond with ” I have no idea what you are talking about” . We don’t want it,
Do not decorate it to be something it is not and do not give it to us in small tiny doses and then strip us of the last final thread. We know it will happen.

I’m sure to some it may look as if i am screaming the sky is falling. Sad thing is, when it does fall, My site will be gone and blocked and all of my traffic will be gone. Some stury of incompatible with the new internet or some lame crap.

DON’T TOUCH MY COMPUTER AND DON’T TOUCH MY INTERNET

I am not against or for net neutrality. Quit saying “either or” because what it is now, is not “either or”. Let’s keep the internet as it is and you need to quit capitalizing on it.

There needs to be a third picket sign at the rally that says ” LEAVE MY INTERNET ALONE! ”

Right now as it is, the biggest mover what has helped computers evolve the most is being shut down. PC Gaming. go to three game stops and tell me how many at all three have pc games anymore.

Selecting a Flat Screen Monitor

Posted onAuthorTruXter

So you are looking for a monitor for your computer. You are not 100% certain as to what you are looking for. Simply because you are either just coming off an old CRT monitor, or one of the first breeds of lcd monitor. If you are just now coming from the first breeds of flat screen monitors then I have to tell you, quite a bit has changed now. A nice new flat panel monitor will do you some wonders. If you are coming from a CRT monitor ( I will assume it was a very high quality CRT monitor) then you are not looking at better, or worse resolution, . What? what you say? We can feel safe in saying that this is a whole new ball game now. First gen flat screen monitors were no comparison to crt monitors. Now days it is finally a whole new game. It’s low cost high quality now. Wide screen areas. With the advent of High def televisions (HD tv). We got a huge choice in upgrades and tweaks and inventions that shot monitors through the roof in their evolution.
So let’s get into the budget tech review and explanation to help you select a good flat screen monitor. I will make this simple as possible. Bring the Flat Screen Monitor into an easy way to shop. After this you might as well upgrade your television. You can use this review when making that choice also. I just don’t believe the resolutions or image quality will be near as crisp as what you will see with your new monitor.
Here are 4 very important things to look at , Resolution, Scan Types and Contrast ratio and of course the one that isn’t listed on any boxes or manuals: blackness (black levels), view degree, light reflection.
Now to explain these qualities. I will use my best “Redneck definitions”. Well. In a sense.

Resolution
How many pixels across the top by how many pixels down the side. Screen size is not defined by resolution but a key ingredient in image quality is. You can have a monitor that is eleven inches across the top and six inches down the side (small wide screen)(not the right way to measure a monitor, but should be). The resolution for this flat screen monitor example could be 1440×900.
Then you look at a monitor that is 32 inches across the top and 17 inches down the side. This larger monitor could have the exact same resolution of 1440×900.
In this case, bigger is not better. Not at all. a monitor at that size would have to have a resolution of “4320×2700” to even compare. Kinda unachievable. but who wants tiny monitor ?
720p is better than 1080i.

Scans
Progressive scan and interlaced scan.
Progressive is the latest and newest higher quality. you are better off getting Progressive. Some videos and 3d programs still use interlacing so you may want to look into what kind of deinterlacing is used on the monitor or hope it is handled well with your video card.. Think of Progressive as very fast stacked lines to make an image.
Interlaced was dropped for the most part. Think of Interlaced as as static you would see on your old television. Every other pixel or so flashes while the next one is loading. Kinda

Most people can not see the difference between the two flat screen monitors. Unless they use both types of monitors for a while and then switch between them after long use. After using progressive scan, I get a headache when I use interlaced now.

Contrast ratio
There are two terms that get mentioned when talking about Contrast. Static and Dynamic
Static is very important, dynamic is bonus points.
Static is the Native settings fixed contrast.
Dynamic is your contrasts fluctuation range.
The higher the static, the better
If the dynamic contrast ratio is the only thing listed and it says something along the lines of 200,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, it might sound a bit fishy. but I would surely grab that monitor before I would even walk near a flat screen monitor with a 2000:1 static contrast ratio. Typically the static is 75%-90% of the dynamic. Usually. Good luck with that?
My monitor 10,000:1 . Does not list if it’s dynamic or static. I am assuming the static is atleast 8000. While the flat screen monitor in my office is 800:1. poor quality at work.

unorthodox but important, blackness, Viewing Angle, light reflection
If you turn the monitor on while a light is on in the room and the screen goes all white while you are looking at a Yin/Yang Symbol. Well the black levels on that flat screen monitor/ flat panel monitor are crummy
Light Reflection is what you see when you turn a light on and the glass (if it’s glass) reflects back at you so much that you can’t see the display.
Viewangle, stand dead in front of the monitor at a comfortable distance (3-4 feet), step once to the left and twice to the right and see if the imaging gets hard to see, watch the edges and the corners for a looming growing shadow as you move. People who stand dead beside the monitor to check it….. um…. you really have no idea how to use the monitor do you? really, why in the heck would you want to stand next to it while you use it ? but you do want to know it looks good when your loved one looks over your shoulder as you watch a video together.

So.. What is 720p 1080p and all that stuff about?
Easily said by today’s basic standards for a monitor’s design, look at the resolution for the side and round down to the nearest res.
So if the resolution of your monitor is 1440×900. Then you have a 720(look at the 900. yep that simple). It didnt use to work like that but pretty much all flat screen monitor companies use the same standards these days. You have a 95% chance of that being correct.

TLDR -(to long didn’t read) Summary below
My flat screen monitor tech specs.
Contrast Ratio 10000:1 (the ratio of the luminance of the brightest color (white) to that of the darkest color (black) that the system is capable of producing)
Brightness 300 Nit (Candela per square meter)
Maximum Response Time 2ms
Aspect Ratio 4:3 (The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension)
Horizontal Viewing Angle 170°
Product Type LCD Monitor
Vertical Viewing Angle 170° (viewing angle is the maximum angle at which a display can be viewed with acceptable visual performance)

I hope this helps you select a good flat screen monitor in your future.

BFG GTS 250 Review

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BFG 250 GTS

Purchased one month ago aVideo card, BFG 250 GTS 1gb from the local fry’s store for $123.49. Heck of a deal coming from two Nvidia 9500gt 512 mb Video cards. Played a few games of Grand Theft Auto IV  with it. Saw the best in game benchmarks over my past video cards. Fan was quieter than my old cooling system on my  twin 9500 gt cards. Temperature was much Higher. On first boot with that card Speedfan saw the temperature at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. While my 9500 gt cards saw temps of 90 on average, 105 after stress, boot temp was around 85. My son’s 240 card temp after stress reads 95*. That’s after about an hour of playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

Gpuid aka Gpu-Z benched

GPU Z Screenshot

BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 OC 1GB PCIe 2.0

Performance
GPU NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 250
Core Clock 750MHz (vs. 738MHz standard)
Shader Clock 1836MHz
Shader Model 4.0
Texture Fill Rate 48 Billion/sec.
Stream Processors 128
Memory
Video Memory 1GB (1024MB)
Memory Type GDDR3
Memory Data Rate 2240MHz (vs. 2200MHz standard)
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth 71.7GB/sec.
Connections
Bus Type PCI Express® 2.0
Display Connectors 2 Dual-Link DVI-I
RAMDACs Dual 400MHz
Multiple Monitor Support Yes
HDCP Capable Yes, Dual link (Requires other compatible components which are HDCP capable. Designed to meet the output protection management (HDCP) and security specifications of the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, allowing the playback of encrypted movie content on PCs when connected to HDCP-compliant displays)
HDMI™ Capable Yes (Requires adapter and audio cable, sold separately)
NVIDIA® SLI® Support Yes, 2-Way & 3-Way

I got frustrated with the temperatures being so bad. Sometimes in game I would see temperatures all of the way up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. So I removed the heatsink to see what could be causing it.

Actual Board

After close inspection, I noticed a part had been hitting the heatsink.

Flaw in BFg 250 gts 1gb Design

Looking at the heatsink I see they had designed the heatsink to accommodate for this issue, but about 1/2 an inch away.

I tried sanding down the heatsink to get more clearance, I tried drilling holes the size of the part. That actually helped. So no longer was the heatsink pressing on it, it also wasn’t vibrating against it. Look at the wear.

One month later

The temperature had not lowered no matter what I tried (while still using factory parts). I boot up my computer and start to play Need for Speed Carbon. The screen filled up with speckles. I had to reboot the computer. After the reboot I let the computer idle for a moment and then I checked the temperature with Speedfan and statistics with cpu-z.

Read outs after crap out

Not a good read. 16x card reading at 4x. after 1 month.

but for the one month of testing, the card was amazing. It played every single game I threw at it. It’s speeds never hesitated, except when it got hot. once the card would get hot, I would see some pretty tragic lag. The nvidia 240 my son has plays modern warfare 2 with high resolution and never once budges or lags. The clock speeds of that card are a bit lower than the clock speeds of the 250. If you have a low budget a warning  because the one I got died after a month of occasional hard gaming light video editing and plenty of cad design and photoshop work.

I must inform you that I did not overclock my card. I did not overclock my motherboard. I did not overclock my memory or my processor. I save that for after I get new parts. I was happy with this card so, I never bought a new card. now I have to. Tigerdirect.com, here I come.