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So, current-gen MacBook Pros have 2 out of 3 of those, only missing the Ethernet.

Yep... they gave us HDMI which was missing last round and then fucked the ethernet. I still bought one, its a good laptop...but this is still a shortcoming with with, one that feel is significant.

I honestly think that the ship has sailed on Ethernet on laptops.

I honestly think that is miles away. wifi is dog slow compared to eithernet. I want my next laptop a few years out to have 10gig ethernet...my next gen laptops CPU and SSDs can keep up with that...

Full-size VGA? Sorry, the world got rid of those at the same time as HD-DVD drives. VGA sucks sucks sucks and deserves to die.

I'd like to agree, but I do not. Every single new monitor comes with VGA. If I'm anywhere, and someone hands me a monitor, I don't know what it will have on it (DVI? HDMI? Displayport? some of the above?) but I know it will at least have VGA.

Helll here is a BRAND NEW monitor that you can buy today that only has VGA:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Is it crap? Yes. Is it likely being bought for point-of-sale, receptionists, telemarketing pools, and help desks and so forth the world over? And anywhere else someone needed a lot of monitors and wanted them cheap? You bet.

The brand new $15,000 server I received this week... is equipped with VGA and only VGA. The brand new surveillance camera systems I just received... internet enabled of course, but the boxes had a VGA port (and only VGA) as well if you wanted to plug in a monitor to interact with it directly.

(Granted these latter 2 examples have nothing to do with ever being connected to my laptop, but it illustrates my point that to suggest that the "world got rid of VGA" is simply bullshit.)

I've never been to a conference or even a conference /room/ that didn't have proper cables for modern video.

Try a small business boardroom. Gear is often 5-10 years old. If it works, they don't mess with it. Especially if they've had it professionally installed, and the projector is ceiling mounted, and the cabling is run through the walls and then under the floor and up through the meeting table or something. Even if they bought a new projector last month, they just plug the existing 30' VGA cable that's in the wall into it.

I was in a VGA equipped boardroom just last week.

They somewhat filled that void with a range of very expensive iMonitors

Dell sells a 5k monitor for $1900. For a hundred dollars more, you can get a 5k monitor from Apple - with an i7 computer built in.

that also happen to come equipped with a rather permanently configured computer inside of them, reinforcing my original point.

Apple's point is that most people don't upgrade their laptops beyond the occasional memory upgrade. That doesn't work for everyone, which is why they are free to buy what they want that does what they want, from the manufacturers they want. Zombie Steve isn't holding a gun to anyone's head.

the prices being charged are just nuts pretty much sums up the history of Apple for the last 15 years if not the entire history of the company.

Hateboi Distortion Field. You're going to pay the same price for a new Galaxy as you are for an iPhone 6S. Newegg has a Dell 5k display for $1900....for a hundred dollars more, you get that display in a 5k iMac plus a computer with an i7 processor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/... - $50-$55, come in a variety of case colours, and has the basic cables included.

Newegg.

"Requires 42A on the 12V Rail" = 504 Watts.

From the article (I know, I know, but I was curious):

"The huge bottom line here is that gamers don't have to sacrifice performance to save energy," Mills said. "You can have your cake and eat it too. In fact, the efficient systems run cooler and quieter, both of which are desirable attributes among gamers."

...and...

They were able to achieve a 50 percent reduction in energy use while performance remained essentially unchanged. Additional energy savings were achieved through operational settings to certain components, yielding total savings of more than 75 percent.

Which is to say, quite right, it sounds like they are talking about diminishing performance a bit, but if they've figured out some decent ways to cut the amount of energy the system is using, it would sound to me like they may have created some additional headroom for overclockers dealing with overheating. After all, a cooler system may indicate you're leaving untapped potential on the table.

Having looked through their site, it appears that all they've really done is calculate the cost per watt for the performance offered by various components, and have made some swaps to get similarly- or better-performing components that operate at lower wattages, but their research is far from comprehensive. For instance, they posted a market survey that covers the efficiency of 9 PSUs, but PSUs are already rated based on their efficiency (e.g. Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze), and there are significantly more comprehensive lists out there that address the topic of how well the PSUs live up to their claimed standard (and that are also updated regularly as new PSUs hit the market). Likewise, you can find similar work done for other components.

If their site had done a better job of pulling those various resources together so as to provide a better bang-for-your-buck on your utility bill list and was comprehensive enough that I didn't feel like they were leaving out the vast majority of the products aimed at gamers, I'd have been much more favorably-inclined towards them, but this kinda seems like a weekend project done by a father and son team who have environmental aspirations. Merit worthy, certainly, but not worth much consideration from gamers (yet?).

Okay, so you have no idea how to compare performance? Let me show you how easy it is!

The GTX 960 is 60% faster than your GTX 560. Let me tell you how easy it was to figure this out:

1. TechPowerUp review shows GTX 680 7% faster than the GTX 960.

https://www.techpowerup.com/re...

2. Older TechPowerUp review shows GTX 680 70% faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

https://www.techpowerup.com/re...

GTX 960 is 100/107 the speed of the GTX 680 = 0.93

The GTX 680 is 100/59 the speed of the GTX 560 Ti = 1.7

1.7 * 0.93 is almost 60 percent improvement. And that's from a $190 card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

And if you must have more performance, this is over twice as fast as your GTX 560 Ti, and is only $300.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Now, quit your complaining. Both Nvidia and AMD are up against a wall because there's only been one process node shrink since 2011. 14nm is due next year, but until then they had to make magic happen with Maxwell (it's a more efficient architecture, making better use of available compute and memory resources to reduce costs).

That said, the GTX 680 is on the exact same process node as the GTX 960, and it cost $500 on release! So if they can offer nearly the same performance for $200 today, imagine what they can do in a year or two when they actually have a process shrink to work with!

Okay, so you have no idea how to compare performance? Let me show you how easy it is!

The GTX 960 is 60% faster than your GTX 560. Let me tell you how easy it was to figure this out:

1. TechPowerUp review shows GTX 680 7% faster than the GTX 960.

https://www.techpowerup.com/re...

2. Older TechPowerUp review shows GTX 680 70% faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

https://www.techpowerup.com/re...

GTX 960 is 100/107 the speed of the GTX 680 = 0.93

The GTX 680 is 100/59 the speed of the GTX 560 Ti = 1.7

1.7 * 0.93 is almost 60 percent improvement. And that's from a $190 card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

And if you must have more performance, this is over twice as fast as your GTX 560 Ti, and is only $300.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Now, quit your complaining. Both Nvidia and AMD are up against a wall because there's only been one process node shrink since 2011. 14nm is due next year, but until then they had to make magic happen with Maxwell (it's a more efficient architecture, making better use of available compute and memory resources to reduce costs).

That said, the GTX 680 is on the exact same process node as the GTX 960, and it cost $500 on release! So if they can offer nearly the same performance for $200 today, imagine what they can do in a year or two when they actually have a process shrink to work with!

My Acer V17 Nitro has similar specs and was a lot less money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

That is a newer version of what I have.

Intel Core i7 4720HQ (2.60GHz) (quad)
16GB Memory
1TB HDD
256GB SSD
17.3" 1080p IPS display
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5

Mine is last year's model with the 2.5 GHz version of the i7 and the 860M GPU. It is rocket fast and smooth, if you think it takes a Mac to do that, then you haven't used a nice notebook, which this is.

The above machine is $1,200, it is heavier than the MacBook Pro, to be sure, but it has nice build quality (it is more solid than most consumer machines) and it has good cooling for the CPU and GPU. Battery life is great when not playing games (the NVIDIA GPU really eats into it for gaming).

The Mac is just stupid expensive for what it is, other than perhaps for people who want light weight at any cost.

---

BTW, my main desktop is a Core i7 4770K and this notebook feels just as fast. I've also played with Macs, and I'll grant they are lightweight and works of art, but they aren't faster running Windows.

Your not coming remotely close to the limits of external hard drive enclosures. See http://www.promise.com/us/prod... and http://shop.promise.com/index....

GP said, "external raided enclosures get rather pricey", which you've proven. That Pegasus2 (promise) 4 bay, 4tb, raid array weighs in at $1,199.00. That thing actually has 4x 2tb drives, so I suspect it could be configured in RAID5 for ~6tb of usable space, but that's still over a grand for that.

The inexpensive way to go is to use a dumb enclosure. For example:
* $99 - 4 bay USB3.0 & eSATA by mediasonic: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
* $269 - 8 bay USB3.0 & eSATA : http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Or go a bit more pro level but get it used. For example, a Dell MD1000 for $199 with 15 SAS/SATA bays: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-P... ... throw in a bunch of 3tb WD Red's at about $120 each, and come out far below the price of that promise stuff.

Your not coming remotely close to the limits of external hard drive enclosures. See http://www.promise.com/us/prod... and http://shop.promise.com/index....

GP said, "external raided enclosures get rather pricey", which you've proven. That Pegasus2 (promise) 4 bay, 4tb, raid array weighs in at $1,199.00. That thing actually has 4x 2tb drives, so I suspect it could be configured in RAID5 for ~6tb of usable space, but that's still over a grand for that.

The inexpensive way to go is to use a dumb enclosure. For example:
* $99 - 4 bay USB3.0 & eSATA by mediasonic: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
* $269 - 8 bay USB3.0 & eSATA : http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Or go a bit more pro level but get it used. For example, a Dell MD1000 for $199 with 15 SAS/SATA bays: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-P... ... throw in a bunch of 3tb WD Red's at about $120 each, and come out far below the price of that promise stuff.

They're actually not that expensive anymore (i.e. $100-$200 range):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

I bought an Epson All-in-one inkjet a couple of years ago. I've printed maybe 100 pages over its lifetime, yet have changed the cartridges twice. I bought a black original Epson cartridge recently (because apparently the ink in the previous cartridge had evaporated or something), only to find out that after a certain period the printer refuses to print anything if you don't replace your color cartridges as well.

That was the point when it became just a scanner with a document feeder (which was what I originally bought it for). Fuck it. When I need to print something, I go to a copy shop. That was what I ended up doing everytime I tried and miserably failed to print something on that ridiculous inkjet anyway.

If you don't want a crippled DRM stick? Then accept you are gonna need an HTPC. You can get one of the Chinese ARM boxes but I find they are rather limited on the amount of software you can run on 'em, a better choice IMHO would be to get one of the AMD Socket AM1 chips which is what I've been using at the shop. Crazy low power (average around 8w-12w according to kill-a-watt), GPU powerful enough to do 1080P with no sweat or lagging, and if you don't want to spend $$$ on an OS you can slap on OpenELEC and have a 10 foot UI OOTB.

But if all you want is the cheap stick? You are gonna have to accept they are nothing but DRM delivery medium, your only real choices are the cheapo Chinese ARM nettops (which again severely limited on apps, no OS updates make them vulnerable to hack, limited playback and media options) or go with a full blown HTPC. Considering that HDMI makes everything plug and play, the AM1 makes an APU powerful enough and ULV while being cheap easy to come by, and the sheer amount of options an HTPC gives you from serving media to your entire house by slapping a multi TB drive and having your entire media library always accessible to streaming and casual gaming makes the HTPC a no brainer IMHO. I know a lot of my HTPC customers start with the sticks then quickly get tired of the limitations and want to "trade up" to something with more options.

Try one, I bet you'll find it does all you want it to do.

Powerline networking (http://www.newegg.com/Powerline-Networking/SubCategory/ID-294) is another solution. I hang a Roku off of a powerline network node and it consistently streams HD well.

There are tons of super compact PCs available nowadays with Intel and AMD chips. They are larger than the ridiculously small Compute Stick but are still only as big as a few CD cases.

Like this AMD A6 based Zotac ZBOX for example. Fully built up with 4GB RAM, 64GB SSD, AMD HD8250 graphics - can be easily used as a dumb terminal (even as a decent standalone). Then use a remote desktop app to control your desktop. And get a wireless keyboard like Logitech K400 (or its big brother). You will still not be able to game (possibly) but you can pretty much do everything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

They are also throwing a sale to celebrate.

http://www.newegg.com/When-We-...

I was taken a little by surprise over this yesterday when I got the email about it, I wasn't even aware of the court fight going on. I am happy to hear that Newegg is standing up to the trolls, and their shirt about it is kind of cute.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

They are also throwing a sale to celebrate.

http://www.newegg.com/When-We-...

I was taken a little by surprise over this yesterday when I got the email about it, I wasn't even aware of the court fight going on. I am happy to hear that Newegg is standing up to the trolls, and their shirt about it is kind of cute.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

A better choice for an HTPC would be the AMD Athlon 5350. Its only $49, has a max TDP of only 25w, and it has enough GPU power to run Battlefield 4 so it has more than enough GPU to perform any task you'd want an HTPC to do. The AMD drivers come with a set of codecs so pretty much any video will be hardware accelerated, great for HTPCs which is why I've been using these a LOT in the shop. Cheap, low heat, great graphics, whats not to like?

Linux support for the AMD APUs has been getting pretty damned good lately (thanks to AMD opening their docs and hiring devs) so the Linux guys can pair that chip with a copy of OpenELEC and make themselves an insanely cheap HTPC, we're talking sub $150 if you hit the sales. Personally I like to use Windows 8 on 'em, as IMNSHO the only place the Metro UI works really well is as a 10 foot UI, just pair it with this remote keyboard and voila! Badass HTPC that can even do light gaming for crazy cheap.

As for TFA? Costs $540 and is less powerful than cheaper previous releases.....sounds like a pass. Of course the elephant in the room for both AMD and Intel is their chips became too powerful years ago and with the exception of a teeny tiny niche that uses every cycle on their PC the chips are just too powerful compared with the work the average user has for 'em to do. To use a /. car analogy its like selling everybody funny cars just to go to the store, then being surprised they aren't all lining up to buy the new funny cars with JATO boosters.

Hell even the gamers don't have to buy like they once did, I used to have to buy every other year, now? The PC I replaced was over 6 years old and was still playing games just fine, only reason I replaced it was the oldest needed a PC so I figured I'd use it as an excuse to pass down my Phenom II X6 and grab myself an FX8320E...fricking kicks ass BTW, paired with an R9 280 it plays everything I want in glorious 1080P....but so does my X6, since the oldest has the exact same GPU and his games are just as smooth and look just as good as mine does!

You look at what the AVERAGE, not hardcore gamer, does with their PC? They play casual games like FB games, watch videos, check email....shit that a Pentium dual laptop from 2008 has NO problems doing. Hell even the Intel shrinks for power savings really aren't that big a draw for most because at the shop I've found the average user is away from the plug for a max of 3 hours, a feat my 2011 AMD netbook has zero problems pulling off with a 4 year old battery!

This is why I have no problems staying an AMD shop despite AMD staying at 28nm, because even at 28nm they are still vastly overpowered compared to what the average user does (especially when you look at non rigged benchmarks) because once we went multicore chips went from "good enough" to so insanely powerful it isn't even funny.

Hell if I could still get the boards cheap I would probably have no problem selling Phenom I quads, just as I have no problem selling those cheap Athlon quads now for everything from office boxes to HTPCs, they are just more powerful than anything the average person does by a pretty large measure.

Sure, but around 900Mhz is, inaddition to amatuer and ISM also "private land mobile" certified, which means that the manufacturer could be licensed to produce devices that transmit in that range for a variety of things. The proxyham seems to use this radio module

No, from the pictures and text in the Hackaday article, it is using this product, which is an unlicensed bridge. (As is the one you link to.) Manufacturers of products that use licensed allocations do not obtain the licenses, it is the end user who does, or one party to the communications (as is done by cellphone providers to cover the licenses for Part 22 cellphone use.)

Manufacturers must have FCC certifications that authorize manufacture and sale of products that meet the technical standards for the intended frequency and regulatory use. If this device did not meet the FCC rules for the intended use, then the FCC could, and would, confiscate the offending products and levy a fine for violation of the rules. They do this on a semi-routine basis when they uncover a dealer who is selling illegal power amplifiers that can be used in the 11m (CB) band.

If "over 200 distributors", including NewEgg, are selling this device, then it is a good assumption that it is not illegal for manufacture or sale. Ubiquity states that this is for unlicensed wireless. Thus use of the device in a system where it is performing its intended function is not the issue.

Sure, but around 900Mhz is, inaddition to amatuer and ISM also "private land mobile" certified, which means that the manufacturer could be licensed to produce devices that transmit in that range for a variety of things. The proxyham seems to use this radio module

But I admit I know very little about radio waves in general, in licensing, or in practice. I did know not the expect 6 sig-figs on the range though. But yeah, I assumed 900MHz at least id'd which licensed block of freqs it fell within... like 2.4GHz implies it falls in a specific subset.

PS: To control one of these, you want a "flying mouse remote". It's a keyboard that "mouses" by waving it in the air.

I didn't know that was a thing. It sounds like a neat idea that would be absolutely terrible to control, but I haven't used one so I wouldn't know.

A while back I picked up one of these compact wireless keyboards with built in trackball for this sort of application. Would recommend.

First - there's no reason you have to spend two grand. I went to Home Depot and spent a total of $5.99 for a 12x36 painted shelf board. When I want to stand, I put that on top of a box on my desk, and put my mouse and keyboard on that. Advantage: not only is it cheap, but your setup is portable to any desk that has a monitor arm.

Second - and this is the really important bit - be careful to stand correctly and don't stand too much in the beginning. Build up to it.

What can go wrong? I have personally experienced these two -

1. Don't stand on an uneven surface (like, the padding under the carpet has separated). Less that a half an inch can give you sciatica, which is horrible.
2. DON'T LOCK YOUR KNEES. If you feel yourself getting tired, sit down. You need to keep a micro-bend in your knees, otherwise it's a small but significant hyperextention, which will lead to pain.

Starting out, a kitchen timer might help. Sit for a while, stand for a while. Good luck.

How is using blu ray cheaper than hard drives?

3 TB will fit on 120 25-GB BD-Rs. At 40 cents each, that's $48 in media costs. If you do like I do and reserve 20% for dvdisaster error-recovery data, you're still only looking at $60.

A 3 TB WD Green will set you back $95. (Want to spring for the NAS-rated Red drives instead? That'll be $119. Their absolute cheapest 3 TB hard drives are a couple of models from Seagate and Toshiba at $90 each.)

How is using blu ray cheaper than hard drives?

3 TB will fit on 120 25-GB BD-Rs. At 40 cents each, that's $48 in media costs. If you do like I do and reserve 20% for dvdisaster error-recovery data, you're still only looking at $60.

A 3 TB WD Green will set you back $95. (Want to spring for the NAS-rated Red drives instead? That'll be $119. Their absolute cheapest 3 TB hard drives are a couple of models from Seagate and Toshiba at $90 each.)

How is using blu ray cheaper than hard drives?

3 TB will fit on 120 25-GB BD-Rs. At 40 cents each, that's $48 in media costs. If you do like I do and reserve 20% for dvdisaster error-recovery data, you're still only looking at $60.

A 3 TB WD Green will set you back $95. (Want to spring for the NAS-rated Red drives instead? That'll be $119. Their absolute cheapest 3 TB hard drives are a couple of models from Seagate and Toshiba at $90 each.)

Unless you are pushing for serious OCing? Its really not needed as long as you have a decent case so it doesn't end up a hot box. You'd be surprised how many times folks spend all this money on CPUs and GPUs and slap 'em in some shitty old Dell box and then are shocked! that the thing is overheating and shutting down constantly.

And the bitch is PC cases that are good really aren't expensive and will last for many years so its just a dumb move to cheap out in this area. I built my PC using a Rosewill Thor as the case and with a Sapphire R9 280 along with an FX8320 using a ZALMAN CNPS11X Performa which is about as cheap as one can get when it comes to CPU coolers and the highest I have been able to get either the CPU or GPU is 118F, and that was after 6 hours of War Thunder booming and zooming. Within 4 minutes of stopping the game? Back down to below 85F.

So as long as you use a PC case with good airflow? Temps really aren't a problem at stock speeds. Sure if you want to crank up the OC liquid cooling will help but that is a pretty niche group and most of my gamer customers whom ask me about going liquid? After talking to them it turns out they stuffed all their parts into some uber cheapo shitty case.

Unless you are pushing for serious OCing? Its really not needed as long as you have a decent case so it doesn't end up a hot box. You'd be surprised how many times folks spend all this money on CPUs and GPUs and slap 'em in some shitty old Dell box and then are shocked! that the thing is overheating and shutting down constantly.

And the bitch is PC cases that are good really aren't expensive and will last for many years so its just a dumb move to cheap out in this area. I built my PC using a Rosewill Thor as the case and with a Sapphire R9 280 along with an FX8320 using a ZALMAN CNPS11X Performa which is about as cheap as one can get when it comes to CPU coolers and the highest I have been able to get either the CPU or GPU is 118F, and that was after 6 hours of War Thunder booming and zooming. Within 4 minutes of stopping the game? Back down to below 85F.

So as long as you use a PC case with good airflow? Temps really aren't a problem at stock speeds. Sure if you want to crank up the OC liquid cooling will help but that is a pretty niche group and most of my gamer customers whom ask me about going liquid? After talking to them it turns out they stuffed all their parts into some uber cheapo shitty case.

Unless you are pushing for serious OCing? Its really not needed as long as you have a decent case so it doesn't end up a hot box. You'd be surprised how many times folks spend all this money on CPUs and GPUs and slap 'em in some shitty old Dell box and then are shocked! that the thing is overheating and shutting down constantly.

And the bitch is PC cases that are good really aren't expensive and will last for many years so its just a dumb move to cheap out in this area. I built my PC using a Rosewill Thor as the case and with a Sapphire R9 280 along with an FX8320 using a ZALMAN CNPS11X Performa which is about as cheap as one can get when it comes to CPU coolers and the highest I have been able to get either the CPU or GPU is 118F, and that was after 6 hours of War Thunder booming and zooming. Within 4 minutes of stopping the game? Back down to below 85F.

So as long as you use a PC case with good airflow? Temps really aren't a problem at stock speeds. Sure if you want to crank up the OC liquid cooling will help but that is a pretty niche group and most of my gamer customers whom ask me about going liquid? After talking to them it turns out they stuffed all their parts into some uber cheapo shitty case.

Buy a nice directional antenna and walk around pointing it at them :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

It would be well worth the price for entertainment.

Yeah, the article is super accurate..." Now here’s the funny thing: BackBlaze’s experience with the 2TB Seagate drives was flawless. It had zero failures."
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

This doesn't pass the smell test. 20Gbps seems way too fast for wireless when wired (or fibered) 10Gpbs switch ports and NICs are so expensive. For example, this 10Gbps NIC is over $400: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

    I must be missing something here...

15 yard penalty, anecdote of a single purchase does not equal evidence, just as your complaints about that ATI laptop from before the sale isn't "proof" that AMD, a separate company, doesn't support their products.

Sapphire offers 2 year warranties on their cards which is pretty standard for the graphics industry and their cards are reviewed highly by their customers with an average of 80% rating 4 stars or better, which again is pretty standard when it comes to GPUs.

And please stop blaming AMD for the fact you got a bad ATI product when AMD didn't even own the company at the time your IGP was sold. AMD drivers are just as solid as Nvidia, they wouldn't sell millions of cards if they weren't, and their support on both the Windows and Linux side I would argue is better because 1.- On Windows its trivial to use the older drivers on the latest version, such as the XP era 2400 Pro cards I have running in many an office building with Windows 7 and 2.- On the Linux side they've opened their specs and are paying the devs to work on the FOSS drivers with the goal of replacing the proprietary driver with a FOSS one. With Nvidia their hostility towards Linux is bad enough Linus flipped them the bird in sheer frustration.

In conclusion...one anecdote does not equal evidence, and one "badly supported" card by the no longer existing ATI (which it was pointed out several times by many people including myself how easy it was to get that card to run on any OS you wanted it to, you blew off any offers of assistance) does not say anything about the current state of AMD drivers in 2015.

This $470 dollar pc would blow your console out of the water.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

LOL. The PS4 uses a HD 7870 GPU. You think a system with a GTX 750 will "blow it out of the water"?? Keep dreaming.

This $470 dollar pc would blow your console out of the water.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Not too sure about that. It might compare to last gen, but that GTX 750 is middling, and would probably choke on some games coming out now (Witcher 3, e.g.), much less what's to come later in the current gen. It would probably play most games from 2014 back without blinking, though, kind of putting to lie the consolers' claim that you have to pay $1k+ for a gaming rig.

The old 660 Ti is starting to show its age, and I really wanted to play W3. =\ The damn video cards are still the beast of the cost, though. :P

I have a top notch stereo/Dolby/whatever sound field u need system (All Sony for compatibility), beats anything I could hope to put together again. It's sitting in storage as the introduction of HDMI made it obsolete.

I have a HDMI to optical switch, works quite well.

I'll be damn! http://www.newegg.com/Product/... I didn't know these existed, I guess I fell for the line that you can't bypass HDMI, so no options for me. By going through the optical port is doesn't.

Thank you,

The equivalent i5 setup is going to be $450.

Just to point out even more how this is false, Newegg has a combo of the most expensive i5 CPU that they sell that has the CPU, mobo and 8 GB of RAM and it is still just under $400. As I expected, you were basically either making up that price or you purposefully tried to pick expensive parts while using a Newegg combo for the price you got for the 7850k. And that i5 CPU in that combo is way faster than the 7850k.

Where did you find that? The lowest price I found is $176.97 for the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB.

For your reference:
NewEgg
Amazon
eBay

$109.. if you can believe Neweggs *already up* "Windows 10 Home"... http://www.newegg.com/Product/... .. If MS is gonna give it away free to Win7/8 current users, *why* is NewEgg thinking people are going to pay *them* $109 for it... oh wait.. I think somebody famous once said "A sucker is born every minute".... Guess that answers THAT question...

If you mean sucker as in being a Windows user, unfortunately there are still many applications that require windows and MS Office. If you mean sucker as in purchasing windows when it is "FREE" then you are mistaken. You and what seems like many bloggers seem to be sorely mistaken.. Microsoft isn't going to give me free licenses to run Windows in virtual machines or to upgrade copies of XP or Vista. Therefore, licenses need to be purchased.

$109.. if you can believe Neweggs *already up* "Windows 10 Home"... http://www.newegg.com/Product/... .. If MS is gonna give it away free to Win7/8 current users, *why* is NewEgg thinking people are going to pay *them* $109 for it... oh wait.. I think somebody famous once said "A sucker is born every minute".... Guess that answers THAT question...

Newegg has it available for pre-order and set for an August 31 release date.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Following Microsoft's usual pattern, you can expect RTM to be at least 6 months prior to general availability. So yeah, I think mid July is a likely time period.

http://apcmag.com/pirated_wind...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
http://store.vmware.com/store/...

New laptop, an SSD, and VMWare Workstation, all for less than $1,000. The key here is TinyXP, the custom-built flavor of XP circulating the internet that uses 50MB of RAM after installation. Boot time for all of them would certainly be measurable if not staggered, but 16VMs on a laptop that's got 16GB of RAM, running stripped down XP installations that have one job...I think it's doable.

I still think the Layer 3 Switch option is a better one. Where that might be a bit more of a problem would be with regards to whether the update software is capable of handling the possibility of seeing more than one device available to update at the same time. Even though it's possible with networking tricks to get all the pumps addressable at the same time, there's no guarantee that the software is built for that use case. For that matter, it's entirely possible that the software will throw up if multiple instances are attempted to run concurrently. Thus, the 16-VM route may be necessary for that reason, regardless of whether or not a layer 3 switch could solve the networking problem.

http://apcmag.com/pirated_wind...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
http://store.vmware.com/store/...

New laptop, an SSD, and VMWare Workstation, all for less than $1,000. The key here is TinyXP, the custom-built flavor of XP circulating the internet that uses 50MB of RAM after installation. Boot time for all of them would certainly be measurable if not staggered, but 16VMs on a laptop that's got 16GB of RAM, running stripped down XP installations that have one job...I think it's doable.

I still think the Layer 3 Switch option is a better one. Where that might be a bit more of a problem would be with regards to whether the update software is capable of handling the possibility of seeing more than one device available to update at the same time. Even though it's possible with networking tricks to get all the pumps addressable at the same time, there's no guarantee that the software is built for that use case. For that matter, it's entirely possible that the software will throw up if multiple instances are attempted to run concurrently. Thus, the 16-VM route may be necessary for that reason, regardless of whether or not a layer 3 switch could solve the networking problem.

I own a computer repair shop among other tech businesses and have ripped open and worked on thousands of laptops. I'm not talking out of my ass and I didn't get my experienced from computer ricer idiots on Tom's Hardware that water cool their dogs. Metal frames have significant advantages over plastic frames, especially if the laptop is not just used as a tiny desktop that almost never leaves one spot.

There are plenty of places in the world for cheap laptops. Some people can't afford a nice shiny fancy laptop and some people have other reasons for not wanting to buy a more costly unit. In your case, you got burned by a Thinkpad which have been overpriced shitty laptops with terrible keyboard layouts and BIOSes that actively work against you for a very long time. Lenovo and Thinkpads being shit in general doesn't make all laptops and manufacturers shit. I once bought an eMachines eME527 on an Amazon Lightning Deal for $280. It practically defined the phrase "piece of shit cheap laptop." I used it as my main laptop for a year before selling it. It wasn't the fastest thing ever but it got the job done. I understand why someone would buy such a beast, but they are still cheap shitty laptops in the end and that means lots of compromises were made to hit that price point.

It's all about what compromises you are willing to accept. In my case, I like not having hot palmrests and being able to get work done faster, especially since I always get paid by the job and not by the hour. Having a "top of line piece of crap in a metallic case" laptop means I get my work done quicker which means I make a higher hourly rate. The laptop literally pays for itself. For someone doing casual (read: not getting paid for it) or low-power (MS Office) stuff that rarely moves the laptop around, the shitbox is probably fine and may even be a better value.

"You have to consider local, internal attacks..."

If you know of an attack that works against a Windows XP limited user, please mention it. It is likely it could be fixed without Microsoft's support.

"XP is dead. It's lifespan is over."

Software doesn't die. Are you saying that, after literally thousands of bug fixes, Microsoft had still not fixed all the vulnerabilities in Windows XP? That's certainly possible; Microsoft makes more money if there are vulnerabilities, since people pay full price for the next version of the operating sytstem.

"we had major difficulty getting drivers for things as simple as SATA controllers for it"

SATA add-on cards.

"If you have ANY significant number of XP machines, it's time to pay the pittance that an entirely new machine would cost"

That's not the problem. The real cost is in all the configuration and teaching people to use new computers. There are programs, lots of them, that don't run on Windows 7.

"And Windows 10 is expected to be free..."

I'm guessing that Windows 10 will be "free" because it will force a lock-in to Microsoft's methods.

"If you have a "network", especially a business one, of any description, you are negligent in sticking on XP now."

What is particularly vulnerable about XP on a network? We use a software firewall on each computer, Windows 7 or XP, and everyone operates as a limited user.

"You can't secure XP. ... there's no real thing as a limited user in XP because it's basically a cinch to demonstrate privilege escalation using any number of pieces of bog-standard software on XP..."

Look at this video of a "privilege escalation": Windows XP local privilege escalation. It's total nonsense. One of the comments: "When you try this without administrator rights you get an error: Access is denied."

Uh, you sure you were searching for the Intel 750? Because Amazon lists it for $471 for the 400GB model, or $1200 for the 1200GB model. Which is quite a bit inflated from NewEgg's pricing but not exactly the $2400 you listed.

Oh wait, I should have read the rest of your post first. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you?

This is why I tell folks unless they are doing something where they have to have a mobile computer? Buy a desktop, hell even if they have to have a mobile computer they are often better off buying a cheap desktop AND cheap laptop than trying to do it all on a laptop because of the compromises required for the insane "thin is in" trend we are getting pushed by the OEMs.

Remove the crazy low temps that mobile devices have to hit? You can have a computer that can play Titanfall on an APU that costs just $36 bucks shipped. Spend an extra $16 for the 5350? You can run just about any game out there on low, which means in the real world you can do every task your average user does in a day, from MSO to 1080P video, and have a nice experience doing so. Of course that is what happens when you remove the insane-o temp barriers the mobile devices have, you remove the boat anchor and let the chips really stretch their legs.

But the dirty little secret in the PC biz is as I've been saying for years, which the numbers back up is that for Joe and Jane Average? That first gen C2D or Turion X2 laptop is more than good enough for what they do,surf the web, play FB games, check webmail, we've had multicores for a decade now so more and more are finding they just don't need to replace until the unit wears out. Even Apple's much discussed and lampooned "gotta have the new model!" fanboys seem to be thinning out as they find their last gen Macbooks and iPads do everything they want them to do.

To use a car analogy its like having a Ferrari to drive to the store while the car lot brags " Come buy the new Ferrari, with 20% better gas mileage and 15% more speed!"...we already got more than we need now for the tasks at hand, thx anyway.

The cabling wouldn't be much of a mess if if you use something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Some of newegg's return policies are garbage.

What's infuriating is that USB drives used to come with hardware write switches and now you can't find them anywhere.

That's funny since a two-second Google search showed where I can find them on Amazon and Newegg.

Link to entry level. You can choose an upgraded version with SSD, or save some money and add your own. Either way, it's a solid system, ample power, excellent cooling. Web browsing and basic office software will get about 4 hours on the battery, under full (gaming, presumably physics sim) load you'll get just under two hours.