> that's quite a different thing than the arrogant coders who feel that their colleagues are incompetent if they cannot follow uncommented code. if someone cannot follow my code then I feel I have done something wrong, not them.
IMO, _proper__ commentting discusses WHY you did something. If someone wants to understand HOW it was done, read the code, as you correctly reason. Any half-decent coder should be able to figure out what the code is doing.
> Now unless you're an idiotic, dirty, lazy hippie who thinks everything should be free, you will have to admit that unless people are going to get paid, there is no way they are going to spend all that time and effort on drug development even if the end result means lives are saved.
I was going to mod you down as troll/flamebait since you seem to be an ignorant greedy capitalist but that wouldn't encourage people to actually discuss and raise above this ignorance. Namely,
a) you are generalizing and making claims without any justification or evidence that:
i) hippies are idiotic, (Oh No! Some people think that there is MORE to life then just money. How idiotic of them for wanting to share!)
ii) _only_ hippies think everything should be free, (You _do_ realize that animals have lived on this planet millions of years without "paying" anyone. The universe provides everything you need to exist -- it is only greedy capitalists unable to imagine a world without money.)
b) that altruism is idiotic, (You _have_ heard of Philanthropy, right? I guess no one does anything for the betterment of mankind for free.)
c) that is is OK to put a price on saving a human life. (i.e. "Sorry, you can't afford this drug -- you deserve to die.")
> Turns out the profit motive is a terrific way to get people to do useful things. Who'da thunk that people were willing to work so hard in order to get ahead. Amazing, isn't it?
Now I don't disagree with you that, yes, money provides a great incentive, but thankfully dinosaurs that think money is the _only_ way to motivate people are dying. The problem with big pharma is that basically it only caters to those who can afford to live, or put another away, it sends the message that "you only have the right to life IF you can afford it." I'm sorry but EVERYONE has the right to life, regardless of the cost. It is only an idiotic system that places different values on people's lives -- namely those that can afford to not die. Sorry, but one day you will grow up and realize that the only humane way is to _remove_ PROFITING from people dieing.
While I love the speed the SSD (and the prices is hitting the "magic" $1/GB) you're forgetting the HUGE elephant in the room with SSD that almost no-one seems to notice...
He purchased eight SSDs over the last two years ⦠and all of them failed. The tale of the tape is frankly a little terrifying:
Super Talent 32 GB SSD, failed after 137 days
OCZ Vertex 1 250 GB SSD, failed after 512 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 251 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 276 days
Crucial 64 GB SSD, failed after 350 days
OCZ Agility 60 GB SSD, failed after 72 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 15 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 206 days
Intel confirms its first place with a return rate of the most impressive. It is followed from Crucial, which significantly improves the rate but it must be said that the latter was heavily impacted by the M225 - the C300 is only reached 1%. The return rate for failure are up against Corsair and OCZ especially in the latter confirmed by far his last position. 8 SSDs are beyond the 5%:
> As much as I don't like Zynga at all, I'm going to have to ask you to explain how what they're doing is writing human Skinner boxes.
Do you even _actually_ understand the difference between a Game and a Toy ?? Since you seem to be totally ignorant of the subject here is the "Cole's" notes of Fundamental Game Design:
A game _must_ have (in order to be a game):
* a winning (and by definition a losing state)
How do you "win" at Farmville or any of all the other shit they produce?
Please come back when you understand the difference between "hard wins" and "soft wins." It would behoove you to play L4D and WOW until you learn the difference. While you are at it, please study film, story-telling, and "closure."
Zynga's games are nothing more then sleezy game design because it is completely dis-respectful to the players's time. It is capitalism applied to game design -- how can we extract as much money out of the player in the shortest time possible while stringing them for a long as possible.
In fact, most "social games" are neither social nor games, they are: a) anti-social b) are toys (no way to win)
Micro-transactions are just the latest fad in how to be disrespectful to the gamer. The other is have two in-game economies where you can pour RMT in, but not OUT, but you can happily convert one economy to the second, one way of course.
The third way is to have a pseudo-RTS but force the player to wait minutes, hours, or DAYS just to apply "next turn." They've taken the worst of turn-based games and real-time strategy games and completely bastardized the marriage. Sid Meier's Civilization is one of the great games of all time, not because players are constantly "given interesting choices to make" (although that is part of the secret), but because it is _respectful_ to gamers -- the _players_ themselves control the game pace in a reasonable fashion. i.e. wait X turns. OK, next, next, next. Mini-goal accomplished.
So, yes, Zynga produces nothing shit, aka human skinner boxes. Please come back when you've actually studied game design Mr. Amateur Clueless.
Nice link on the hot/crazy SSD failures... reading how Coding Horror suffered a backup failure reminds me of the oblg. Linus quote "Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it" =)
NewEgg (and to some degree mWave) is the cheapest place to order all the computer parts you need to build your rig. Good selection, fast service, but what makes NewEgg stand out from all the others is 2 things:
a) You can see the 5 star break-down ratings from actual customers b) You can not only see the total number of reviews, but sort products by "most reviews" AND read each and every mini summary from customers
The "ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard", has avg. 4/5 eggs (stars) 485 customer reviews
Clicking on the eggs we see 5 eggs = 71% (285) 4 eggs = 15% (60) Which means 86% think this is a great product. Translation: For a high-end AMD system, you can't go wrong with this product!
Before I order anything I _always_ see what is the most popular item AND read the reviews to see if there any issues other builders are having with it. Wouldn't you like to know BEFORE hand if the OEM drivers are buggy?
Buying a product with only 1 star means you are probably buying junk.
Their category organization for finding products is good too.
> If a civilization develops the concept of boolean algebra, and then that civilization is completely destroyed and all record of the concept of boolean algebra is lost, "boolean algebra" ceases to exist. That is mostly correct, but you're forgetting one little fact -- the universe is a giant mind, so nothing is "truely" lost.
> If another civilization arises and redevelops a concept that is in all respects similar, it is still not the same concept. That may be false; if they come up with the same boolean "laws" then it is the same concept. i.e. If two people on either side of the universe come up with the concept of 0,... 9, and identical '+' processes, the concepts are the same. How they are implemented and thought about, may be very well different, but the concepts themselves are identical.
> "Abstract objects" or "mathematical objects" don't exist in general, Uh, if they don't exist, then how are you able to _refer_ to them then?
Ask any mathematician if infinity exists, and they will go "Of course, stupid". You are confusing existence with being dependent on the physical, when they are in fact meta-physical. i.e. Physical Existence is sufficient, but not a requirement.
Proof: If time is physical, then show it to me. If numbers are physical, then show it to me.
The fact that we can _separate_ meta-physical things into different objects is PROOF that of their existence.
> You'r confusing cause and effect here....more like, "I play 203 hours every night and 10 hours on the weekends, therefore I am single," rather than the other way around...
Negative. I was married at one time. We used to play WoW together. Spent the first ~2 years playing toons with each other before I got bored of the game.
Methinks you don't understand Truth nor Knowledge...
0. Truth doesn't depend on a popularity.
1. I did this experiment because I wanted to know if gaming had any effect on _my_ brain. Gaming may very well not effect 95-99% of people, but would would you rather draw your knowledge from? From some theoretical scientist who is so far removed from the subject that he doesn't get grok what the fuss is, or someone who understands the _potential_ effects first hand?
2. Granted what is true for one may be false for the many, or what is true for the one may be true for the many, but regardless I have proven something that is true for me. To anybody that claims gaming doesn't effect a person's mind I can have proof otherwise that's a nonsense claim.
3. ALL objective knowledge is subjective. There only about ~4 absolute truths; _everything_ else is relative.
>> They have produced great x86 compilers for years, so producing a new compiler for a new chip shouldn't be too difficult since they are already experienced with x86 and Itanium > Hahahaha! Spoken like someone who has never been involved with compiler design or spoken to any compiler writers. Tuning a compiler for a new architecture is not a trivial problem.
Having worked on a C/C++ compiler for the PS3 & PSP, I concur! Compiler writing is non-trivial. Sure, you can get 80% of the way there, but code optimization is a dam tricky beast to do _well_.
> How does frequent gaming affect people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.?
I can answer that for someone ~ 40. (I've been gaming since the early 80's)
I used to be a extreme hard-core gamer -- typically putting in 80 hrs every 2 weeks playing L4D, TF2, BF:BC2, Diablo 2. Yes, 80 hours. (When you're single, you can play 2-3 hrs every night, and 8-10 hrs on Sat & Sun =) Before that I played UO and WoW for 4 years each.
I decided to do a radical experiment this summer -- no gaming for 1 month.
The results really surprised me.
I found that with extreme gaming my mind was effectively overclocked by ~ 10x. I was _always_ having thoughts -- my mind was constantly racing, jumping from thought to though. I was _extremely_ bored waiting for people to finish up their sentence. When they were only 10% started talkig I was already processing what they were going to say, my response, and already thinking about 2 other interesting things. My sense of time whenever on the computer was completely accelerated. A few hours would seem like minutes.
With no gaming I found my mind was effectively under-clocked by ~ 1/2, but that I was more efficient! I could actually go 5 - 10 mins without any thoughts whatsoever. It was almost as good as when I used to meditate. When I was on the computer my sense of time was extremely more accurate and was able to manage my time very efficiently. I found I was actually interested in what people were saying, and wouldn't mind if they took a while to formulate their thoughts. I found myself calm, and able to stay focused, no matter what the subject was. For a while now, I've had one wish in life: "To never be bored" -- this certainly came dam close! One could get lost in every moment and really savor life.
With the sharp contrast I can definitely attest that extreme gaming & Internet can be a very bad mental addiction. It is ironic that physical drugs (caffeine, alcohol, etc,) are harder to get on, but harder to get off. Mental addictions are extremely easy to get started on, but thankfully easier to get weaned off of.
Going forward -- I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I really _love_ gaming and spending time with all my online gaming friends. I also see the "harmful" effects, so there is only one solution: These days I'm trying to be more balanced. Only a few hours a week of FPSers -- and spend more time with real-life friends, and doing other activities, such as getting out more, going to the gym, etc.
I would highly recommend everyone do a personal experiment. This is the _only_ way to truly _know_ how gaming effects you. If you find you are not effected, then great! If you found you are, then that is good as well because now that you armed with information you have choice on what to do differently. Either way you learnt something.
Ignore the idiot AC. He would rather bitch about somebody _doing_ something then post their "brilliant" plan, because it is far easier to be an arm-chair critic then get off his/her ass and do something.
Your idea of "private libraries" is a great idea. Everybody pools in, and takes turn watching the movie(s). Could even do something like DKP and/or some software match up wish-lists amongst everyone.
RSA patent filed on December 14, 1977, approved as #4,405,829 titled "Cryptographic Communications System and Method" to MIT, Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman. However, since it was published before the patent application, it could not be patented under European and Japanese law.
Seriously, how the fuck do you patent a NUMBER ???
Slashdot Mirror
> that's quite a different thing than the arrogant coders who feel that their colleagues are incompetent if they cannot follow uncommented code. if someone cannot follow my code then I feel I have done something wrong, not them.
IMO, _proper__ commentting discusses WHY you did something. If someone wants to understand HOW it was done, read the code, as you correctly reason. Any half-decent coder should be able to figure out what the code is doing.
EXCEPTION: If you are doing something tricky, then document that. i.e. http://www.codemaestro.com/reviews/9
And you've shipped _how_ many games again?
> The classic FPS games (Wolfenstein, Doom, and so on) were all keyboard-only.
Uhm, NO. I used WASD+Mouse + Y Sensitivity = ~ 0.1 on Doom.
Took me a week to learn how to aim with the mouse (left/right) but it was worth it. You could do 180's and 360's all day long on the mouse.
> Now unless you're an idiotic, dirty, lazy hippie who thinks everything should be free, you will have to admit that unless people are going to get paid, there is no way they are going to spend all that time and effort on drug development even if the end result means lives are saved.
I was going to mod you down as troll/flamebait since you seem to be an ignorant greedy capitalist but that wouldn't encourage people to actually discuss and raise above this ignorance. Namely,
a) you are generalizing and making claims without any justification or evidence that:
i) hippies are idiotic, (Oh No! Some people think that there is MORE to life then just money. How idiotic of them for wanting to share!)
ii) _only_ hippies think everything should be free, (You _do_ realize that animals have lived on this planet millions of years without "paying" anyone. The universe provides everything you need to exist -- it is only greedy capitalists unable to imagine a world without money.)
b) that altruism is idiotic, (You _have_ heard of Philanthropy, right? I guess no one does anything for the betterment of mankind for free.)
c) that is is OK to put a price on saving a human life. (i.e. "Sorry, you can't afford this drug -- you deserve to die.")
> Turns out the profit motive is a terrific way to get people to do useful things. Who'da thunk that people were willing to work so hard in order to get ahead. Amazing, isn't it?
Now I don't disagree with you that, yes, money provides a great incentive, but thankfully dinosaurs that think money is the _only_ way to motivate people are dying. The problem with big pharma is that basically it only caters to those who can afford to live, or put another away, it sends the message that "you only have the right to life IF you can afford it." I'm sorry but EVERYONE has the right to life, regardless of the cost. It is only an idiotic system that places different values on people's lives -- namely those that can afford to not die. Sorry, but one day you will grow up and realize that the only humane way is to _remove_ PROFITING from people dieing.
> I still can't fathom spending $300 on a video card....and feeling like I got a slammin deal in the process.
Did you miss the $300 Radeon 5970 on the NewEgg Black Friday sale too? =)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103195
While I agree it's hard to justify that price point, that combination of THAT bang/buck is phenomenal !
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063.html
Specifically ...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-8.html
While I love the speed the SSD (and the prices is hitting the "magic" $1/GB) you're forgetting the HUGE elephant in the room with SSD that almost no-one seems to notice ...
SSDs have a TERRIBLE failure rate.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html
and ...
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=fr&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.hardware.fr/articles/843-7/ssd.html&usg=ALkJrhjecZZv1F6d_oT-dr41FPFYOIkVCw
At the _current_ price point & abysmal failure raite, SSD sadly has a ways to go before it catches on with the main stream.
Any "moral" justifications are a) RELATIVE / ARBITRARY, and b) ORTHOGONAL to the issue of copying.
> And claiming the price is too high is simply not moral justification for stealing a book, electronically or otherwise.
How the fuck do you "steal" a number (that represents reality such as textual, audio, and/or visual information) ???
ALL of reality can be represented numerical, you stupid smeghead. The only thing you can do, is COPY the _representation_.
> As much as I don't like Zynga at all, I'm going to have to ask you to explain how what they're doing is writing human Skinner boxes.
Do you even _actually_ understand the difference between a Game and a Toy ?? Since you seem to be totally ignorant of the subject here is the "Cole's" notes of Fundamental Game Design:
A game _must_ have (in order to be a game):
* a winning (and by definition a losing state)
How do you "win" at Farmville or any of all the other shit they produce?
Please come back when you understand the difference between "hard wins" and "soft wins." It would behoove you to play L4D and WOW until you learn the difference. While you are at it, please study film, story-telling, and "closure."
Zynga's games are nothing more then sleezy game design because it is completely dis-respectful to the players's time. It is capitalism applied to game design -- how can we extract as much money out of the player in the shortest time possible while stringing them for a long as possible.
In fact, most "social games" are neither social nor games, they are:
a) anti-social
b) are toys (no way to win)
Micro-transactions are just the latest fad in how to be disrespectful to the gamer. The other is have two in-game economies where you can pour RMT in, but not OUT, but you can happily convert one economy to the second, one way of course.
The third way is to have a pseudo-RTS but force the player to wait minutes, hours, or DAYS just to apply "next turn." They've taken the worst of turn-based games and real-time strategy games and completely bastardized the marriage. Sid Meier's Civilization is one of the great games of all time, not because players are constantly "given interesting choices to make" (although that is part of the secret), but because it is _respectful_ to gamers -- the _players_ themselves control the game pace in a reasonable fashion. i.e. wait X turns. OK, next, next, next. Mini-goal accomplished.
So, yes, Zynga produces nothing shit, aka human skinner boxes. Please come back when you've actually studied game design Mr. Amateur
Clueless.
I think the gist you were getting at was:
The best thing about America? Capitalism.
The worst thing about America? Capitalism.
Sorry you got modded down; people would [almost] always rather shoot the messenger then actually listen to the message. :-/
> Even Windows 3.1 had a "real" kernel, which supported pre-emptive multitasking
No, Win 3.1 did not pre-emptive multitasking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preemption_(computing)
> I'd only clicked on a couple of articles since Jon Stokes left,
Agreed! Jon "Hannibul" Stokes articles were extremely well-written; explaining the latest esoteric hardware in [almost] layman's terms.
It's too bad he left Ars Technica -- the site jumped the shark a while ago and is everything is dumbed down. At least AnandTech is still [relatively] OK.
http://arstechnica.com/staff/palatine/2011/07/send-off-jon-hannibal-stokes-marches-his-elephant-army-away-from-ars.ars
Sad that none of the links work ... for his "Classic" Essays ;-(
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/cpu.html
Nice link on the hot/crazy SSD failures ... reading how Coding Horror suffered a backup failure reminds me of the oblg. Linus quote "Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it" =)
If it was _that_ important don't you think he would of at least mentioned it, instead of explicitly saying to celebrate his death?
NewEgg (and to some degree mWave) is the cheapest place to order all the computer parts you need to build your rig. Good selection, fast service, but what makes NewEgg stand out from all the others is 2 things:
a) You can see the 5 star break-down ratings from actual customers
b) You can not only see the total number of reviews, but sort products by "most reviews" AND read each and every mini summary from customers
i.e.
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=22&name=AMD-Motherboards&Order=REVIEWS
We see that:
The "ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard", has
avg. 4/5 eggs (stars)
485 customer reviews
Clicking on the eggs we see
5 eggs = 71% (285)
4 eggs = 15% (60)
Which means 86% think this is a great product. Translation: For a high-end AMD system, you can't go wrong with this product!
Before I order anything I _always_ see what is the most popular item AND read the reviews to see if there any issues other builders are having with it. Wouldn't you like to know BEFORE hand if the OEM drivers are buggy?
Buying a product with only 1 star means you are probably buying junk.
Their category organization for finding products is good too.
Hope this helps
> If a civilization develops the concept of boolean algebra, and then that civilization is completely destroyed and all record of the concept of boolean algebra is lost, "boolean algebra" ceases to exist.
That is mostly correct, but you're forgetting one little fact -- the universe is a giant mind, so nothing is "truely" lost.
> If another civilization arises and redevelops a concept that is in all respects similar, it is still not the same concept. ... 9, and identical '+' processes, the concepts are the same. How they are implemented and thought about, may be very well different, but the concepts themselves are identical.
That may be false; if they come up with the same boolean "laws" then it is the same concept.
i.e.
If two people on either side of the universe come up with the concept of 0,
> "Abstract objects" or "mathematical objects" don't exist in general,
Uh, if they don't exist, then how are you able to _refer_ to them then?
Ask any mathematician if infinity exists, and they will go "Of course, stupid". You are confusing existence with being dependent on the physical, when they are in fact meta-physical. i.e. Physical Existence is sufficient, but not a requirement.
Proof:
If time is physical, then show it to me.
If numbers are physical, then show it to me.
The fact that we can _separate_ meta-physical things into different objects is PROOF that of their existence.
> You'r confusing cause and effect here....more like, "I play 203 hours every night and 10 hours on the weekends, therefore I am single," rather than the other way around...
Negative. I was married at one time. We used to play WoW together. Spent the first ~2 years playing toons with each other before I got bored of the game.
Methinks you don't understand Truth nor Knowledge ...
0. Truth doesn't depend on a popularity.
1. I did this experiment because I wanted to know if gaming had any effect on _my_ brain. Gaming may very well not effect 95-99% of people, but would would you rather draw your knowledge from? From some theoretical scientist who is so far removed from the subject that he doesn't get grok what the fuss is, or someone who understands the _potential_ effects first hand?
2. Granted what is true for one may be false for the many, or what is true for the one may be true for the many, but regardless I have proven something that is true for me. To anybody that claims gaming doesn't effect a person's mind I can have proof otherwise that's a nonsense claim.
3. ALL objective knowledge is subjective.
There only about ~4 absolute truths; _everything_ else is relative.
>> They have produced great x86 compilers for years, so producing a new compiler for a new chip shouldn't be too difficult since they are already experienced with x86 and Itanium
> Hahahaha! Spoken like someone who has never been involved with compiler design or spoken to any compiler writers. Tuning a compiler for a new architecture is not a trivial problem.
Having worked on a C/C++ compiler for the PS3 & PSP, I concur! Compiler writing is non-trivial. Sure, you can get 80% of the way there, but code optimization is a dam tricky beast to do _well_.
Great post BTW.
> How does frequent gaming affect people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.?
I can answer that for someone ~ 40. (I've been gaming since the early 80's)
I used to be a extreme hard-core gamer -- typically putting in 80 hrs every 2 weeks playing L4D, TF2, BF:BC2, Diablo 2. Yes, 80 hours. (When you're single, you can play 2-3 hrs every night, and 8-10 hrs on Sat & Sun =) Before that I played UO and WoW for 4 years each.
I decided to do a radical experiment this summer -- no gaming for 1 month.
The results really surprised me.
I found that with extreme gaming my mind was effectively overclocked by ~ 10x. I was _always_ having thoughts -- my mind was constantly racing, jumping from thought to though. I was _extremely_ bored waiting for people to finish up their sentence. When they were only 10% started talkig I was already processing what they were going to say, my response, and already thinking about 2 other interesting things. My sense of time whenever on the computer was completely accelerated. A few hours would seem like minutes.
With no gaming I found my mind was effectively under-clocked by ~ 1/2, but that I was more efficient! I could actually go 5 - 10 mins without any thoughts whatsoever. It was almost as good as when I used to meditate. When I was on the computer my sense of time was extremely more accurate and was able to manage my time very efficiently. I found I was actually interested in what people were saying, and wouldn't mind if they took a while to formulate their thoughts. I found myself calm, and able to stay focused, no matter what the subject was. For a while now, I've had one wish in life: "To never be bored" -- this certainly came dam close! One could get lost in every moment and really savor life.
With the sharp contrast I can definitely attest that extreme gaming & Internet can be a very bad mental addiction. It is ironic that physical drugs (caffeine, alcohol, etc,) are harder to get on, but harder to get off. Mental addictions are extremely easy to get started on, but thankfully easier to get weaned off of.
Going forward -- I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I really _love_ gaming and spending time with all my online gaming friends. I also see the "harmful" effects, so there is only one solution: These days I'm trying to be more balanced. Only a few hours a week of FPSers -- and spend more time with real-life friends, and doing other activities, such as getting out more, going to the gym, etc.
I would highly recommend everyone do a personal experiment. This is the _only_ way to truly _know_ how gaming effects you. If you find you are not effected, then great! If you found you are, then that is good as well because now that you armed with information you have choice on what to do differently. Either way you learnt something.
Cheers
Ignore the idiot AC. He would rather bitch about somebody _doing_ something then post their "brilliant" plan, because it is far easier to be an arm-chair critic then get off his/her ass and do something.
Your idea of "private libraries" is a great idea. Everybody pools in, and takes turn watching the movie(s). Could even do something like DKP and/or some software match up wish-lists amongst everyone.
Its worse then that ...
RSA patent filed on December 14, 1977, approved as #4,405,829 titled "Cryptographic Communications System and Method" to MIT, Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman. However, since it was published before the patent application, it could not be patented under European and Japanese law.
Seriously, how the fuck do you patent a NUMBER ???
http://www.langston.com/Fun_People/1995/1995AYU.html
> What about 4 6990's in quad crossfire I have no clue if thats even possible,
Here's your answer ... just shy of 100 fps in BF:BC2 256x1600 4xAA
$1499 each
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/Mars_II/
> 1) the i7 2600k is $300, not $500
i7 = Mobo+CPU = $500
AMD = Mobo+CPU $250-$300 (depending if you want Crossfire or not)