Recent content by meester

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    Folder structure for personal data

    What do you think is the best place to keep your data, at home? I keep photos + MP3s on a network share. I keep bigger programming projects in source control, and smaller ones in My Documents. I have some spreadsheets which are ongoing and need to be regularly updated, and I have others...
  2. M

    How come the iPad is still more popular than the Surface?

    I use an iPad 4, it weighs 660g. I have never felt that it is heavy. The Surface Pro 3 is 800g, which is heavier, but not absurd.
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    Want to ditch my iPad for a Windows device

    No smaller than the big ipad, and about the price of an ipad.
  4. M

    Want to ditch my iPad for a Windows device

    I have had an ipad for about two years now. I use it every day for web browsing. But I'm kinda sick of being cramped by Apple's DRM and other BS. So I want to try Windows. Real Windows that I can run software on. Is there something that would give me say: (a) 8 hours web browsing...
  5. M

    APU Wars - Ongoing APU Review by AtenRa

    The A8-7600 is a very nice chip. It's the sweet spot for the current gen of AMD APUs, in that A6, A4 are dual core, and there's a nice upgrade over the previous A8s in terms of graphics hardware. I am not sure how well it overclocks. But the A10-5600K is interesting also, due to pricing.
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    Is there any reason to use FX CPUs right now?

    Basically, for 99% of people, no. An FX costs within $10 of an i3, which is a superior choice for home purposes. The X4 is a little cheaper, but even so, $30 in a first world country is nothing. (And bear in mind that the most popular PCs sold have a Celeron low-power J1800, so even an X4 is...
  7. M

    Crackling in speakers

    I have a Soundblaster Xtreme Musics. I've had both for 6 years or more. I'm running Win 8.1 I'm finding that there is a crackling/distortion in the audio when audio plays (silence when no audio), which does not occur immediately, but maybe sometime after the system is booted (rebooting fixes...
  8. M

    No dual core love in 2015

    Q6600 came out in 2007. By 2010 it was already the past.
  9. M

    No dual core love in 2015

    This is correct. Both Xbone and PS4 are AMD CPUs with many cores, so that's what games are being built for. IPC might be better on Intel, but things are only going to get worse for those with only two cores, given that the AMD consoles will be driving PC development as well. Here in the UK...
  10. M

    Gaming TV PCs

    My son is 12 going on 13. He doesn't play strategy games, but maybe that's because he's never tried. I don't think a mouse and keyboard would be too comfortable on the sofa. I guess TV gaming tends to make games more casual, and less time-consuming in one session. So that's probably a good thing.
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    Gaming TV PCs

    Well I don't necessarily want to. I was more wondering how well it works with the typical PC gaming line-up. Obviously console games are designed to work at 10 feet, I'm not sure how that plays with PC games. I was thinking of building a mini-itx gaming PC for my son (ahem), rather than...
  12. M

    Gaming TV PCs

    I owned an Xbox (the original one), Nintendo 64, and a Wii. But I'm thinking of building a GTX 750/750 TI gaming PC to go in the living room. In many ways it makes sense in that there's a 42" Panasonic 3D TV, and a nice set of 5.1 hi-fi speakers + 5.1 AV receiver. OTOH, I'm not sure on...
  13. M

    SSD upgrade

    Thanks for the advice, I think I have learned my lesson on the 80GB SSD and will go for a 512GB. The MX100 from Crucial is £150 for 512GB. The Samsung 840 Evo is £160 for 500GB. Kingston V300 480GB £156 Just get the MX100? And I guess I need to reinstall Windows, because I have software...
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    SSD upgrade

    My server does nightly backups. Is an SSD much faster as a system drive than a hybrid drive?
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    SSD upgrade

    I have a Intel X25-M 80GB SSD. And a 500GB hard drive, which has SMART fail. It's just a productivity PC - no gaming. I also have a server with several TB of space. I would like to ditch the undersized SSD, and go for a larger drive. I'm not sure if it should be SSD or hybrid drive...