Watch My Next PC Being Built

Well isn’t this a bit of a coincidence. The guys at Tested.com are building what is essentially my next PC. They’ve recorded an instructional “How-to” video of them assembling it and since I’m waiting for CentOS to install, I’ve decided to give it a watch.

My system isn’t going to be as hardcore or high grade as theirs. It’s not going to sport a Core i7, or a Geforce Titan or a $155 Seasonic PSU despite how awesome it looks. Here’s a spec sheet for a PC if I were building it today:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K – $226.99 @ NewEgg.ca

MB: GIGABYTE GA-Z77N-WIFI – $128.99 @ NewEgg.ca
ASRock Z77E-ITX LGA 1155 Intel Z77 – $174.99 @ NewEgg.ca

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 – $93.99 @ NewEgg.ca

SSD/HDD: SAMSUNG 840 120GB – $99.99 @ NewEgg.ca

Case: Bitfenix Prodigy White – $79.99 @ NCIX.com

GPU: Radeon 7850 1GB – $169.99 @ NCIX.com
PowerColor Radeon 7870 PCS+ – $235.99 @ NCIX.com

PSU: CORSAIR HX series HX650 650W @ $119.99 @ NewEgg.ca
Rosewill Capstone-650 650W @ $94.99 @ NewEgg.ca
OR
Rosewill CAPSTONE Series CAPSTONE-550-M 550W – $94.99 @ NewEgg.ca
SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W – $89.99 @ NewEgg.ca

Cooler: Corsair H100 @ $116.99 @ NewEgg.ca

It’s not too expensive but like I said I’m not planning to build it now. I am planning to build a new PC for Intel’s upcoming Haswell CPUs which should arrive sometime this summer. I miss getting my hands on new hardware so I’m looking forward to that build very much.

Learn about the Space Shuttle Enterprise

If you haven’t gone to visit Tested and their new redesign, here’s a reason to: videos like these. These long form videos about interesting topics and places like the Intrepid Museum in New York.

When they produce content like this, Tested reminds me of a mini-Discovery Channel without the commercial interruptions. I love it and hope they continue down this route.

Checkpoint: Octoberkast 2012 Edition

checkpoint-octoberkast-2012-edition

I spent most Saturday watching Tested.com’s Octoberkast 2012. I didn’t stay up for 24 hours straight but I did manage to watch most of it live. It was an entertaining show and they raised quite a bit of money for Child’s Play. The archive will be up by Monday and they will be keeping the donations opened until November 16.

I was trying to play Final Fantasy XIII-2 and watch the podcast at the same time. The results were pretty poor to say the least. I was far too distracted to solve the relatively simple “puzzles” in the last levels and my patience for the cutscenes was pretty thin. I did eventually reload and watched all the cheesy nonsense again. So all I have left to do is beat the final boss which requires me to grind some more levels before I can do so.

I hate that. And you can be damn sure that I’m putting that as a point of criticism in my review.

Modernist Cuisine

Food + Science = Super Tasty Food

Modernist Cuisine is super fascinating to me. I’m not much of a cook but watching Maxime Bilet get into the nitty gritty science behind each ingredient and how he uses equipment usually found in a laboratory to make food taste even more amazing.

 I’m envious of Will & Norm who get to taste these concoctions. They get to taste pea butter and pea juice that was extracted from a washing machine sized centrifuge. So good.

Once I stock up and finish settling in my new home, I’m going to look up one of these “Modernist Cuisine at Home” recipes and try it for myself. (Which if you notice is after October 8, 2012). They have another book called “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking” but that’s $500. I love eating tasty food but I’m not willing to commit that much into it.

The New Tested Is Awesome

Last month’s mind blowing news had folks worried that their favorite Whiskey Media sites were going to succumb to drastic changes that would spell doom for what we’ve all grown to love and support over the last few years.

So far nothing much has changed for GiantBomb, but Tested, on the other hand, have expanded their coverage from technology and gadgets to just about anything that nerds find cool. And nothing exemplifies their new direction better than their interview with the Paper Airplane Guy:

After watching that video, I was completely sold on the new Tested direction. I didn’t even care about the fact that Will and Norm weren’t prominently featured anymore. The duo was still delivering great content and most importantly they were delivering content they were interested in.

My favorite part of their “This Is Only a Test” podcast was always “Fake Outtakes” at the end because they indulged in other topics of passion outside of smartphones and graphic cards. I’m very pleased to see them do pretty much anything that tickles their fancy now.

I haven’t checked Tested for a few days now because I knew if I did, I’d have to owe the ISP even more money. There’s just so much more fascinating articles and — most importantly — videos to go through. The old Tested wasn’t able to sustain this kind of output while staying “on topic”.

They were a niche version of tech blogs like Engadget before, but now they’ve grown into a completely different beast.

If you wish to see more Tested videos, check out their site.

FYI: Diablo III release date, GiantBomb sold to CBS & More

Announcements

  • Diablo III releasing May 15th, 2012 (via Blizzard)
  • Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition & Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition coming (via BaldursGate.com)
  • GiantBomb sold to CBS Interactive (Gamespot) (via GiantBomb)
  • Tested now working with Mythbusters (via Tested)

Diablo III’s release date was sooner than expected. I guess the changes they alluded to weren’t as time consuming as I thought they were going to be. The release has been a long time coming, but I can’t help but feel sorry for Torchlight II. I hope those guys find a good window to release their title and find an audience.

I have no comment on the BG1 and BG2 Enhanced Edition announcements. I’ve never played those games and thus have no nostalgia for them.

Both the GiantBomb and Tested news were easily the highlights of the day for me. Jeff Gerstmann and GiantBomb are going back to Gamespot’s parent company, CBS interactive. It’s a weird move, but with most of the old guard gone and John Davison running the show over there, I think it will be fine.

The most pleasant surprise was finding out that Tested will be working Mythbusters.

Craziness! I can’t wait to see what kind of shenanigans they will conjure up with their respective budgets now.

As long as Tested and GiantBomb’s voice remain their own, I’m okay with all of this.