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Even the 840 Pro isn't that expensive actually, just ordered one today.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147193

Traditional disks are STILL about 10x the capacity and 1/10th the price-per-capacity of SSDs, as they have been since they arrived.

We don't have 10 years of history of SSDs, but we do have of flash which are obviously closely related. 10 years back:
Slashdot comment system for Drupal

Flash at around 128MB @$50.

And HDD at around 160GB @150.

Today it's flash around 128 @$55.

And HDD at 3TB @$150.

1024x increase in flash for the same price point. 18.75 increase in HDD capacity for the same price point.

I decided to see the halfway point, in 2008:

Flash at 16GB @ $55

HDD at 1TB @ $140

8x growth from flash, paltry 3x from HDD in 5 years.

Both seem to be slowing but Flash seems like it going to be stronger and the winner eventually.

Traditional disks are STILL about 10x the capacity and 1/10th the price-per-capacity of SSDs, as they have been since they arrived.

We don't have 10 years of history of SSDs, but we do have of flash which are obviously closely related. 10 years back:
Slashdot comment system for Drupal

Flash at around 128MB @$50.

And HDD at around 160GB @150.

Today it's flash around 128 @$55.

And HDD at 3TB @$150.

1024x increase in flash for the same price point. 18.75 increase in HDD capacity for the same price point.

I decided to see the halfway point, in 2008:

Flash at 16GB @ $55

HDD at 1TB @ $140

8x growth from flash, paltry 3x from HDD in 5 years.

Both seem to be slowing but Flash seems like it going to be stronger and the winner eventually.

Citation? Last time I checked, the largest WD disk available is "only" 3 Tb.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236599

THE PRICE WAS NOT TWICE YOU LYING SHILL.
4670K: $229 Proof: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
A10: $149 Proof: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331

Even if the 4670K was twice the price.. .and it's not... the CPU is just a fraction of the total system price, so the delta gets even smaller.

You never owned a 4670K, and frankly given how well Intel supports its drivers under Linux, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want you doing anything that involves computers if you can't get a simple Linux installation running.. but then again, since you're lying, you never did any of those things anway.

THE PRICE WAS NOT TWICE YOU LYING SHILL.
4670K: $229 Proof: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
A10: $149 Proof: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331

Even if the 4670K was twice the price.. .and it's not... the CPU is just a fraction of the total system price, so the delta gets even smaller.

You never owned a 4670K, and frankly given how well Intel supports its drivers under Linux, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want you doing anything that involves computers if you can't get a simple Linux installation running.. but then again, since you're lying, you never did any of those things anway.

Guesss what moron: You can buy vastly cheaper Intel parts that are price competitive with AMD and still having faster performance. But since you are some irrational kick of comparing parts that shouldn't be compared, LET'S PLAY: AMD was stupid enough to release a $900 CPU that's provably slower in practically every workload than my boring old Haswell part that cost $550 less and doesn't cause the lights to dim when I turn it on. Therefore, I get to say that ALL AMD parts cost at least $550 too much using your irrational fanboy logic! YOU'RE WINNER!

Here are a couple more reasons:
1. Intel CPUs are only twice the price because you ignorantly choose to compare top-end Intel parts against AMD parts that have a fraction of the performance. P.S.: I know that you are a liar and that you never owned or even used a 4670K... because 4670K goes for $229 on Newegg, while that magic A10 part goes for $150... Now you obviously went to a young-earth creationist school, but here in "reality" $229 is a hell of a lot less than twice of $150..

Oh and I also know that AMD APUs don't magically make RAM, SSDs, etc. magically cheaper so the overall delta in system price is a joke when you consider the fact that the $229 4670K is guaranteed to be faster than AMD's 2014 product lineup where you get to spend another $150+ for Kaveri then spend more for a new motherboard... in order to be slower & guzzling more power than what you could have already owned. So, please, tell me again how a new motherboard + $150 APU is CHEAPER than a system that is guaranteed to have a faster CPU, has a $75 video card that is guaranteed to give better performance, and has a lower power envelope.. I INVITE YOU.

Evidence, you stupid shill, something that you don't like to read:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331

Another reason why it's morally superior to buy Intel if you care about open source instead of just being some shill who acts like he is a God because he made it halfway through an Ubuntu install once:
AMD has dumped some out of date documentation on the internet for third parties to do their Linux driver development for free... Intel *pays* people to develop the entire Linux graphics stack.. and yes, that includes pretty much the entire infrastructure that makes it possible for any AMD gpu to run in Linux. If you want to be such a purist do this: Take out all the code that bad-old Intel wrote and see how well your amazing AMD graphics work on Linux, now do the reverse with AMD & Intel: guess what still runs fine because AMD doesn't do squat for the Linux graphics stack?

I choose to do the morally right thing (and intelligent thing) by spending less than 10% more on the total purchase price to get parts that are faster on a price/performance basis than AMD in the CPU and support Linux. You obviously don't choose that, but please stop acting like anyone who doesn't goose-step to your marching music should be sent to a Kim-Jong camp, OK?

Guesss what moron: You can buy vastly cheaper Intel parts that are price competitive with AMD and still having faster performance. But since you are some irrational kick of comparing parts that shouldn't be compared, LET'S PLAY: AMD was stupid enough to release a $900 CPU that's provably slower in practically every workload than my boring old Haswell part that cost $550 less and doesn't cause the lights to dim when I turn it on. Therefore, I get to say that ALL AMD parts cost at least $550 too much using your irrational fanboy logic! YOU'RE WINNER!

Here are a couple more reasons:
1. Intel CPUs are only twice the price because you ignorantly choose to compare top-end Intel parts against AMD parts that have a fraction of the performance. P.S.: I know that you are a liar and that you never owned or even used a 4670K... because 4670K goes for $229 on Newegg, while that magic A10 part goes for $150... Now you obviously went to a young-earth creationist school, but here in "reality" $229 is a hell of a lot less than twice of $150..

Oh and I also know that AMD APUs don't magically make RAM, SSDs, etc. magically cheaper so the overall delta in system price is a joke when you consider the fact that the $229 4670K is guaranteed to be faster than AMD's 2014 product lineup where you get to spend another $150+ for Kaveri then spend more for a new motherboard... in order to be slower & guzzling more power than what you could have already owned. So, please, tell me again how a new motherboard + $150 APU is CHEAPER than a system that is guaranteed to have a faster CPU, has a $75 video card that is guaranteed to give better performance, and has a lower power envelope.. I INVITE YOU.

Evidence, you stupid shill, something that you don't like to read:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331

Another reason why it's morally superior to buy Intel if you care about open source instead of just being some shill who acts like he is a God because he made it halfway through an Ubuntu install once:
AMD has dumped some out of date documentation on the internet for third parties to do their Linux driver development for free... Intel *pays* people to develop the entire Linux graphics stack.. and yes, that includes pretty much the entire infrastructure that makes it possible for any AMD gpu to run in Linux. If you want to be such a purist do this: Take out all the code that bad-old Intel wrote and see how well your amazing AMD graphics work on Linux, now do the reverse with AMD & Intel: guess what still runs fine because AMD doesn't do squat for the Linux graphics stack?

I choose to do the morally right thing (and intelligent thing) by spending less than 10% more on the total purchase price to get parts that are faster on a price/performance basis than AMD in the CPU and support Linux. You obviously don't choose that, but please stop acting like anyone who doesn't goose-step to your marching music should be sent to a Kim-Jong camp, OK?

I've been using that Zalman design for several years already, which was an improvement over the previous Zalman design I was using for the same dusty situation. That is what has worked best for me over time.

However I appreciate the suggestions for water cooling from this thread. I haven't been considering it, and when I did long ago, it was too exotic and pricey, and I was concerned about water-related risks as well.

I was doing some Saturday morning window shopping, and I suppose if I was to buy a new case + cooling comb right this moment, I'd focus on a 140mm exhaust area & water cooling.

http://www.maximumpc.com/nzxt_kraken_x40_review

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352029

"High End CPU Cooler" is as much of a scam as "High End Bottled Water".

No, it really isn't. Besides having quantifiably better cooling capabilities, these high-end coolers are often much quieter. I have a Noctua NH-D14, and while it's not as pretty as, say, the Thermaltake FioOCK from TFA, I find it far superior to any stock solution I've ever used. I can't even hear the thing, despite it having two 120mm fans.

So you have 2.4 pounds, that extends 5" above the mother board, then more than likely it sits sideways.
That's a lot of stress on anything over a period of time. Moving your system at all increase the chance of spider cracks.

And my feelings over these type of coolers, I've always gone with an enclosed water cooling system
http://www.newegg.com/Water-Liquid-Cooling/SubCategory/ID-575?Tpk=water%20coolers

They are small, light weight and can remove a lot of heat Using a CORSAIR H50 (no longer being sold),
i7-950 chip at 4.4Ghz running OCCT for a hour and never got above 65 C

I now use a Thermaltake CLW0217 It keeps my system very cool. But I wouldn't recommend it to anybody, as it takes up
an entire USB header and requires Windows software to operate it (fan control). I just want it full on, so soon to be rewiring it that way.

You'll want want one of these ... nice and bright, and goes all the way up to 144 Hz.

ASUS VG248QE Black 24" 144Hz 1ms (GTG) HDMI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313

In a single 5.25 inch slot you can fit 4, 2.5 inch drives.

Or even six.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998144

Water cooling would be a lot more useful if there were some genuinely nice, well-designed cases out there to put these water-cooling systems into. Even the high-end cases aren't very good; they're much too large, they're plasticky and cheap, they don't have toolless drive bays, they have way too many drive bays, etc.

Ah your not looking hard enough I've had water cooling for over two years now in a very nice
cooler master haf 922 steal case, I can't find the heat transfer rate just the CPU temps which have never
gotten above 75 C with OTTC (i7-920 overclocked to 4.5Ghz).

I started with a H50 that looks a lot like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181031
a radiator with tubes running to and from a copper block that sits on the CPU, water or some liquid being propelled by a small pump.
A lot less weight than other coolers.

I just got a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106190
which has twice the radiator surface area. This is water cooling in every respect, but only for the CPU, the new radiator took
some work to fit in my case but I managed, it sits sideways. My case is made for water cooling, all the fittings and tubing for CPU,
video cards and memory.

Running OTTC system stress tester the small radiator and fans blew a lot of heat away from the CPU and kept it at a very decent temperatures.

A very nice case is the Cooler master HAF 932, I bought it for my son, it's a bit larger than mine, the new radiator would of fit nicely in it
and it comes with rollers :} though we never installed them http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119213
Steel case with plastic front bezel, the top is made to pour liquid into a reservoir covered by rubber if not used for that, He runs a H50 himself.

These water coolers work very well in limited space, http://www.newegg.com/Water-Liquid-Cooling/SubCategory/ID-575?Tpk=water%20cooling I just like a large case cause I do use a lot of dives/CD/DVD's and plan on another video card soon, plus open space in a case really helps air flow.

Water cooling would be a lot more useful if there were some genuinely nice, well-designed cases out there to put these water-cooling systems into. Even the high-end cases aren't very good; they're much too large, they're plasticky and cheap, they don't have toolless drive bays, they have way too many drive bays, etc.

Ah your not looking hard enough I've had water cooling for over two years now in a very nice
cooler master haf 922 steal case, I can't find the heat transfer rate just the CPU temps which have never
gotten above 75 C with OTTC (i7-920 overclocked to 4.5Ghz).

I started with a H50 that looks a lot like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181031
a radiator with tubes running to and from a copper block that sits on the CPU, water or some liquid being propelled by a small pump.
A lot less weight than other coolers.

I just got a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106190
which has twice the radiator surface area. This is water cooling in every respect, but only for the CPU, the new radiator took
some work to fit in my case but I managed, it sits sideways. My case is made for water cooling, all the fittings and tubing for CPU,
video cards and memory.

Running OTTC system stress tester the small radiator and fans blew a lot of heat away from the CPU and kept it at a very decent temperatures.

A very nice case is the Cooler master HAF 932, I bought it for my son, it's a bit larger than mine, the new radiator would of fit nicely in it
and it comes with rollers :} though we never installed them http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119213
Steel case with plastic front bezel, the top is made to pour liquid into a reservoir covered by rubber if not used for that, He runs a H50 himself.

These water coolers work very well in limited space, http://www.newegg.com/Water-Liquid-Cooling/SubCategory/ID-575?Tpk=water%20cooling I just like a large case cause I do use a lot of dives/CD/DVD's and plan on another video card soon, plus open space in a case really helps air flow.

Water cooling would be a lot more useful if there were some genuinely nice, well-designed cases out there to put these water-cooling systems into. Even the high-end cases aren't very good; they're much too large, they're plasticky and cheap, they don't have toolless drive bays, they have way too many drive bays, etc.

Ah your not looking hard enough I've had water cooling for over two years now in a very nice
cooler master haf 922 steal case, I can't find the heat transfer rate just the CPU temps which have never
gotten above 75 C with OTTC (i7-920 overclocked to 4.5Ghz).

I started with a H50 that looks a lot like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181031
a radiator with tubes running to and from a copper block that sits on the CPU, water or some liquid being propelled by a small pump.
A lot less weight than other coolers.

I just got a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106190
which has twice the radiator surface area. This is water cooling in every respect, but only for the CPU, the new radiator took
some work to fit in my case but I managed, it sits sideways. My case is made for water cooling, all the fittings and tubing for CPU,
video cards and memory.

Running OTTC system stress tester the small radiator and fans blew a lot of heat away from the CPU and kept it at a very decent temperatures.

A very nice case is the Cooler master HAF 932, I bought it for my son, it's a bit larger than mine, the new radiator would of fit nicely in it
and it comes with rollers :} though we never installed them http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119213
Steel case with plastic front bezel, the top is made to pour liquid into a reservoir covered by rubber if not used for that, He runs a H50 himself.

These water coolers work very well in limited space, http://www.newegg.com/Water-Liquid-Cooling/SubCategory/ID-575?Tpk=water%20cooling I just like a large case cause I do use a lot of dives/CD/DVD's and plan on another video card soon, plus open space in a case really helps air flow.

Water cooling would be a lot more useful if there were some genuinely nice, well-designed cases out there to put these water-cooling systems into. Even the high-end cases aren't very good; they're much too large, they're plasticky and cheap, they don't have toolless drive bays, they have way too many drive bays, etc.

Ah your not looking hard enough I've had water cooling for over two years now in a very nice
cooler master haf 922 steal case, I can't find the heat transfer rate just the CPU temps which have never
gotten above 75 C with OTTC (i7-920 overclocked to 4.5Ghz).

I started with a H50 that looks a lot like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181031
a radiator with tubes running to and from a copper block that sits on the CPU, water or some liquid being propelled by a small pump.
A lot less weight than other coolers.

I just got a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106190
which has twice the radiator surface area. This is water cooling in every respect, but only for the CPU, the new radiator took
some work to fit in my case but I managed, it sits sideways. My case is made for water cooling, all the fittings and tubing for CPU,
video cards and memory.

Running OTTC system stress tester the small radiator and fans blew a lot of heat away from the CPU and kept it at a very decent temperatures.

A very nice case is the Cooler master HAF 932, I bought it for my son, it's a bit larger than mine, the new radiator would of fit nicely in it
and it comes with rollers :} though we never installed them http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119213
Steel case with plastic front bezel, the top is made to pour liquid into a reservoir covered by rubber if not used for that, He runs a H50 himself.

These water coolers work very well in limited space, http://www.newegg.com/Water-Liquid-Cooling/SubCategory/ID-575?Tpk=water%20cooling I just like a large case cause I do use a lot of dives/CD/DVD's and plan on another video card soon, plus open space in a case really helps air flow.

> I currently have a 2 TB WD Black system drive - what do I replace it with?

You don't. You _augment_ it with an SSD.

OS + Critical (most often used) apps on the SSD. Everything else on the spindles.

The elephant in the room is that SSDs are unreliable so of course everything is backup on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which you should be doing anyways, right?! I suggest FreeNAS http://www.freenas.org/ which is based on BSD and supports ZFS. Even has a GUI if you don't want to mess around with the command line. Or if you use Linux you can use ZFSonLinux http://zfsonlinux.org/

If you just want to a buy an off the shelf solution that just works Drobo is OK.
http://www.amazon.com/Drobo-Storage-Gigabit-Ethernet-DRDS4A21/

For SSD can personally recommend

* Samsung 840 PRO Series http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147193
* Intel 320 or 520 Series http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=intel+ssd

Cheapest SSD prices are < $0.75 / GB. Just wait for them to go on sale (Black Friday, etc.)

> I currently have a 2 TB WD Black system drive - what do I replace it with?

You don't. You _augment_ it with an SSD.

OS + Critical (most often used) apps on the SSD. Everything else on the spindles.

The elephant in the room is that SSDs are unreliable so of course everything is backup on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which you should be doing anyways, right?! I suggest FreeNAS http://www.freenas.org/ which is based on BSD and supports ZFS. Even has a GUI if you don't want to mess around with the command line. Or if you use Linux you can use ZFSonLinux http://zfsonlinux.org/

If you just want to a buy an off the shelf solution that just works Drobo is OK.
http://www.amazon.com/Drobo-Storage-Gigabit-Ethernet-DRDS4A21/

For SSD can personally recommend

* Samsung 840 PRO Series http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147193
* Intel 320 or 520 Series http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=intel+ssd

Cheapest SSD prices are < $0.75 / GB. Just wait for them to go on sale (Black Friday, etc.)

> What I'm really waiting for is 100Hz screens without ghosting,

They exist already.

* Asus VG248QE 144Hz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313
* Asus VG278HE 144 Hz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236293

The real breakthrough is nVidia's LightBoost mode which forces a black frame after ever rendered frame.
http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/

The brightness is decreased by 50% but that's why the 248 and 278 are twice as bright as regular TN LCDs.

The Apple Cinema has slightly better colors (since it is an IPS panel) but I prefer the Asus 248 for 120 Hz gaming.

> What I'm really waiting for is 100Hz screens without ghosting,

They exist already.

* Asus VG248QE 144Hz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313
* Asus VG278HE 144 Hz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236293

The real breakthrough is nVidia's LightBoost mode which forces a black frame after ever rendered frame.
http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/

The brightness is decreased by 50% but that's why the 248 and 278 are twice as bright as regular TN LCDs.

The Apple Cinema has slightly better colors (since it is an IPS panel) but I prefer the Asus 248 for 120 Hz gaming.

SSDs aren't really what killed home-burned optical media, it was USB sticks in multi-GB size at reasonable cost. For storage a 4TB HDD for $179 beats a stack of optical discs by miles and makes discs unfeasible even as backup, the reason to burn discs was portability but USB sticks mopped up that market. Today either you copy to your stick and bring it (push) or your buddy visits with his stick to bring home (pull), either way you don't need any one-time discs. Or using any online service instead, that too.

The downside to HDDs (and for that matter SSDs) is that they need babysitting, the one thing I'd like optical media for is if they can promise me high-capacity discs I can put in a drawer (or more likely a safety deposit box), forget for 20-100 years and still read fine. Wouldn't even need to be a home burner, as long as I could have a home reader - I'd upload a disc image to some burning service, they'd ship the finished disc in the mail. There's a lot of static data I'd like to keep without having to copy from HDD to HDD regularly in order to keep it alive.

First: you will be able to soon, there are 4 slot boards that have maximum memory at 64GB (there just aren't 16GB ram sticks widely available yet). Secondly: what game cannot be cached in 28GB of ram? (leaving another 4GB for things like the OS)

The problem is that Apple's lineup doesn't update as frequently as ***every competitor combined***, so people like to bitch nine months after launch that an Apple computer is overpriced.

No, the problem is that the price doesnt update as frequently as every other competitor.

You are arguing a straw man right now. Nobody complained that Apple doesnt update their Air feature set more frequently. The complaint continues to be that Apple will try to sell this ultrabook at the current price well beyond the point where competitors have much nicer solutions at much lower prices.

The proof is quite simple:

If you purchased an 11.6" Macbook Air 30 days ago, it cost you $1100 but what was inside was a 1.7ghz i5-3317U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, with a 1366x768 display.

These specific features are common in ultrabooks, but for the same money you can have an upgrade:

Same price (little lower actually), 1.7ghz i5-3317U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

How about a faster CPU too, 1.8ghz i5-3337U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

Wow, its $100 cheaper!, 1.8ghz i5-3337U, 128GB SSD, 8GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

The Apple Premium remained in full effect for ultrabook shoppers last month, and will be again be in full effect a month from now too.

The problem is that Apple's lineup doesn't update as frequently as ***every competitor combined***, so people like to bitch nine months after launch that an Apple computer is overpriced.

No, the problem is that the price doesnt update as frequently as every other competitor.

You are arguing a straw man right now. Nobody complained that Apple doesnt update their Air feature set more frequently. The complaint continues to be that Apple will try to sell this ultrabook at the current price well beyond the point where competitors have much nicer solutions at much lower prices.

The proof is quite simple:

If you purchased an 11.6" Macbook Air 30 days ago, it cost you $1100 but what was inside was a 1.7ghz i5-3317U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, with a 1366x768 display.

These specific features are common in ultrabooks, but for the same money you can have an upgrade:

Same price (little lower actually), 1.7ghz i5-3317U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

How about a faster CPU too, 1.8ghz i5-3337U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

Wow, its $100 cheaper!, 1.8ghz i5-3337U, 128GB SSD, 8GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

The Apple Premium remained in full effect for ultrabook shoppers last month, and will be again be in full effect a month from now too.

The problem is that Apple's lineup doesn't update as frequently as ***every competitor combined***, so people like to bitch nine months after launch that an Apple computer is overpriced.

No, the problem is that the price doesnt update as frequently as every other competitor.

You are arguing a straw man right now. Nobody complained that Apple doesnt update their Air feature set more frequently. The complaint continues to be that Apple will try to sell this ultrabook at the current price well beyond the point where competitors have much nicer solutions at much lower prices.

The proof is quite simple:

If you purchased an 11.6" Macbook Air 30 days ago, it cost you $1100 but what was inside was a 1.7ghz i5-3317U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, with a 1366x768 display.

These specific features are common in ultrabooks, but for the same money you can have an upgrade:

Same price (little lower actually), 1.7ghz i5-3317U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

How about a faster CPU too, 1.8ghz i5-3337U, 128GB SSD, 4GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

Wow, its $100 cheaper!, 1.8ghz i5-3337U, 128GB SSD, 8GB DDR3, 11.6" 1920x1080 touch screen, convertible.

The Apple Premium remained in full effect for ultrabook shoppers last month, and will be again be in full effect a month from now too.

Newegg price for the ASUS monitor seems to be USD $3.5k

For the Sharp, it seems to be USD $5.3k

Newegg price for the ASUS monitor seems to be USD $3.5k

For the Sharp, it seems to be USD $5.3k

Well if they're turning a valet parking invitation into a free inspection, there's also nothing stopping you from putting these 100dB contact-break alarms on basically everything including the trunk, glove compartment, etc. Let's see how mister TSA wanna-be likes his job when he gets 100 decibels in his face any time he touches anything but the steering wheel.

I live in an apartment and it has one of those pathetically insecure chicken wire cages upstairs for additional storage. A $1 wire clipper and you can steal everyone's stuff so I put 4 of those contact break alarms under a cardboard box containing my stuff. Then I drew an arrow and "do not move or touch - pressure-sensitive alarm will sound" and that's the last thing anyone will steal. It'd work just as well for car searches except put the alarm on the inside so instead of a deterrent, it's a punishment of sorts.

There you go.

The only problem is that you start running into problems where games require alot of VRAM. Since in a CF setup the VRAM is mirrored across both GPUs, you are limited to 1GB in that setup (2GB if you run this card), but then you are around the $300 mark. BF3 at the settings I run eats up about 2.3GB. So I'd rather pay the $150 extra, have the higher frame rates, and the extra stability... and possibly have an upgrade path for later down the road.

a 50 gb bluray is a little over 10 4.7 gb dvds. if you're playing $20 for 100, that is paying $2 for the same storage as 1 $3.6 bluray dl because of how close the bluray pits are, a 6x burn is about an hour for a dual layer, more if verification of burn is done. and btw single layer blurays (25gb) are $30 for 25 discs or $1.2 per media http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817130156 that is $2.4 per 50 gb worth of data, or 4 cents more per dvd in terms of storage cost. and dvds have delamination issues while bluray has it's layers at the bottom of the disc. allowing a standard cdr style blank. i said it was affordable and it is i didn't say it was cheaper rather that it is affordable. well worth it trying to find files on a spindle of dvds when a fraction of the plastic can hold way more data per resource. but 9 nm laser media is impressive if it gets developed and works as promised.

50 gb bluray are affordable. i have a 10 spindle of them they cost $36 or $3.6 per blank http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817607055

No, this was a standard trackball you'd find in an office supply store, just the largest one you'd typically find. The ball was about the same size as a typical billiard ball. It may have even been the same, Ive seen people use billiard balls (usually the 8) in opto-mechanical trackballs. It was a lot like this Kensington, but beige and it had only two buttons and a scroll wheel rather than the scroll ring. It didn't matter (she only used the ball part) until I had to hack it to think the middle pedals were its scroll wheel. Everyone else used a mouse on the right, and her trackball lived on the left.

The one she was using for buttons and that I initially hooked the pedals to was this Logitech, with a rather small ball intended to be operated by the thumb. I think you can see why this would be awkward for any kind of foot manipulation, even if used only for buttons and scrolling.

and you can do Xbox 360 level graphics on a $300 android. Apple could easily subsidize that and get the cost down to $150. They probably wouldn't even lose that much money if they bought in quantity. The Shield's a niche item, I bet nVidia's not making that many of 'em.

Wait, so for $300 you can get something akin to a 7 year old device that cost $280! Sign me up. And why would Apple make an android device?

and you can do Xbox 360 level graphics on a $300 android. Apple could easily subsidize that and get the cost down to $150. They probably wouldn't even lose that much money if they bought in quantity. The Shield's a niche item, I bet nVidia's not making that many of 'em.

Which $400 gaming PC that can play games with comparable graphics to forthcoming PS4 games would you recommend?

Forgot to answer you, $400 might purchase the video card. I built mine and my sons both for less than $1100 each.
almost everything through www.Newegg.com.

Searching on Newegg.com for "Gaming computer" shows systems from $500 to $1700
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100019096%20600030537&IsNodeId=1&name=Gaming%20%26%20Entertainment&Tpk=gaming%20computer%20system

But again you can save a lot if you/he were to build it yourself.

You can get a gaming PC for about $400 but it will be entry level, when it comes to PC's better to spend at least a little bit more and get something that will last a while.

This one is $529 and is more than a match for the new generation of consoles.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229285

The biggest thing about investing in the price difference on a gaming PC is that when your not playing games, you can do a LOT of other things on a PC. So the price difference is more than made up for.

All this being said, I am lucky and have enough money to do both, I tend to buy 2 consoles from each gen and keep a gaming PC around. This will be the first gen I do not buy at least 2 of the consoles at launch. I own a Wii-U and I don't plan on getting a Xbox One, I also do not trust Sony enough to pick up a PS4 at launch my PS3 was not a good experience for me... Always seems like I spend more time updating the firmware than actually playing it.

SSD is an absolute DOG for extended writes

The technology may have gotten past this hurdle. Consider this random $129 SSD with 175MB/s sustained write speeds. I don't think I have any spinning rust that can beat that.

Do be careful of manufacturers peddling 'max write speeds', though. If it's not sustained, it's effectively a buffer benchmark.

That's probably too small of a sample to draw any reliable conclusion don't you think? Even if you had 1 SSD that lasted 20 years, does that really tell us anything, statistically?

For what it's worth, I bought my first SSD, a 30GB OCZ Vertex SSD (original version) on 6/21/2009 (i just logged into newegg and checked) and it's still going strong without a single problem. It's since been "demoted" to my HTPC in the living room, which has been great because the bootup is very "appliance-like" and it's completely silent.

Oh and if you were curious - I paid $139.00 for it in June 2009. For comparison, today you can get a 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 for $119. So 15% cheaper for 2.5x the performance and 4x the capacity in 4 years. That's what I call progress!

Who has that warranty?

Not Seagate (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248015

Not Crucial (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443

Not OCZ (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

Not Intel (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167154

Who has that warranty?

Not Seagate (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248015

Not Crucial (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443

Not OCZ (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

Not Intel (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167154

Who has that warranty?

Not Seagate (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248015

Not Crucial (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443

Not OCZ (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

Not Intel (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167154

Who has that warranty?

Not Seagate (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820248015

Not Crucial (3 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443

Not OCZ (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

Not Intel (5 year)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167154

Are there no limits to OEMs cheaping out on parts? Really? They can't just buy an existing product? They have to have their awful vendors do it for slightly cheaper despite typically epically screwing it up? Here's the thing they just invented except oops, this one's over a year old and is faster and more respectable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227744
And don't forget the fastest single drive in the entire world:
http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Z-Drive-Series-Maximum-ZD4CM84-HH-300G/dp/B005HU0KCG

Here's a motherboard and cpu for 32 cores.. ;-)

AMD's architecture is awesome for very parallel loads... in a lot of ways much better than Intels...

Here's a motherboard and cpu for 32 cores.. ;-)

AMD's architecture is awesome for very parallel loads... in a lot of ways much better than Intels...

A couple-year-old Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet card, which works fine with a 2000 Dell Dimension.
And there's this video card that uses PCI (Fermi, not Kepler, but it's NVIDIA's 2012 entry-level card)

Although I do not use PCI cards, PCI is still a current technology. Are you sure you are not confusing it with the ISA slot?

One example of a current motherboard with a PCI slot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131931

"The cards will be external thunderbolt peripherals, but it's the same idea"
No you are wrong.
Since you mentioned NewEgg here is what a high end workstation motherboard looks like.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131817

It offers 72 PCIExpress lanes. Thunderbolt works fine for drive arrays but it will fall flat for things like GPU compute cards like the Tesla or high end video cards.This board also supports 8 memory slots and two socket 2011 chips... BTW that means it will support Ivy Bridge e when it it ships. This workstation motherboard has twice the memory capability, three times the expansion capability "Thunderbolt 2 offers the same bandwidth as PCIExpress x4", and upto twice CPU power as the new MacPro. They call this a server board but it is used in a lot of workstations http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131861&IsVirtualParent=1 As you can see it offers even more memory and IO.
It is just not up to doing high end work but it will have a high end price. Not to mention the price of repairs when anything breaks. High end workstations are tools the new MacPro is more of a fashion statement. And that makes me sad because I love OS/X but Apple refuses to offer a good workstation class machine.
Let's hope that apple keeps ignoring the Hackintosh community. OS/X will now support Ivy Bridge e so that opens up more options for the community when it ships

"The cards will be external thunderbolt peripherals, but it's the same idea"
No you are wrong.
Since you mentioned NewEgg here is what a high end workstation motherboard looks like.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131817

It offers 72 PCIExpress lanes. Thunderbolt works fine for drive arrays but it will fall flat for things like GPU compute cards like the Tesla or high end video cards.This board also supports 8 memory slots and two socket 2011 chips... BTW that means it will support Ivy Bridge e when it it ships. This workstation motherboard has twice the memory capability, three times the expansion capability "Thunderbolt 2 offers the same bandwidth as PCIExpress x4", and upto twice CPU power as the new MacPro. They call this a server board but it is used in a lot of workstations http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131861&IsVirtualParent=1 As you can see it offers even more memory and IO.
It is just not up to doing high end work but it will have a high end price. Not to mention the price of repairs when anything breaks. High end workstations are tools the new MacPro is more of a fashion statement. And that makes me sad because I love OS/X but Apple refuses to offer a good workstation class machine.
Let's hope that apple keeps ignoring the Hackintosh community. OS/X will now support Ivy Bridge e so that opens up more options for the community when it ships