Building a PC Part 2

So in my last post, I went over some of the CPU’s and motherboards you may want for a high performance PC.

Now in this part I will be showing you some of the Coolers you might want, and also the RAM.

Cooler

The components in your computer produce large amounts of heat. If left unchecked, high temperatures can lead to a reduction in performance and shorten the lifespan of your system’s parts. your CPU is one of the biggest sources of heat. That’s why they are designed with energy efficiency in mind and have built in heat-dissipation features. There are some passive CPU coolers that have a small fan to whisk the hot air out of your case. They are quiet and cheap, but just don’t have the power to adequately handle the high temperatures generated by a high end PC that you may be building.

That’s why your going to need a more powerful cooling solution, especially if you plan on overclocking your system. Active coolers typically use a combination of a heat sink and a fan to keep temperatures low, but they can be noisy. Water coolers are even more effective at dissipating heat, but they are more expensive and harder to install. Luckily, none of this will be a problem because from what I’ve researched, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus is perfect because it’s cheap, easy to install and will keep your CPU running at a safe operating level.

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

Price €25

Compatibility You won’t need to pore over lots of specs to make sure your cooler will work with your system. But you will need to make sure that the cooler you want is compatible with the type of CPU and processor socket you’re working with. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus supports the LGA1156 socket type and the Core i7-860 CPU I’m using in my build. From the reviews and tests I’ve read about, this one is the best with it’s miniature price tag of €25.

Base Material As far as metals go, copper is both highly malleable and an excellent conductor of heat. That’s why heat sinks and base plates for cooling systems are made of copper.

RAM

If you can hear your hard drive churning as your PC slows to a stop, then you need RAM. Your CPU uses RAM (or random access memory) to quickly access data it needs without having to look for it on your hard drive, which is much slower at writing and retrieving  data. More RAM means more space for the data your applications and games access regularly, which means that any time your CPU performs a task, it can access the information quicker, speeding up the entire system.

You’ll want at least 2GB of RAM to run Windows 7. I myself am going to buy four 2GB sticks of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 RAM for a total of 8GB of RAM. This will be more than enough to keep your operating system and games running smoothly. The Asus Maximus Formula III motherboard I featured in part 1 has four DIMM slots for RAM.

Corsair XMS3 DDR3 8GB (4x2GB)

Price €180

Type Most gaming rigs or high performance computers use either DDR2 or DDR3 RAM. DDR3 RAM can transfer data much faster than DDR2 RAM, and it is fast becoming the new standard. That’s why I’m using four 2GB sticks of DDR3 RAM with the Asus Maximus Formula III motherboard. DDR2 and DDR3 RAM are not compatible, so make sure you check the DIMM sockets before you buy anything.

Speed The RAM I’ve selected is DDR3 , which means that it is capable of running at 1333MHz. RAM speed can also be expressed by its maximum bandwidth. If you look up specifications for Corsair’s DDR3 1333 specifications it will say 2=”PC3 ,” which means that it can approximately move  MB per second.

Timings You’ll see four numbers separated by dashes when you look at your RAMs timings . In this case, the DDR3 1333’s timings are 9-9-9-24. These four numbers to the amount of time that it takes your RAM to perform various functions. The most important thing to make sure that the timings on your RAM sticks match if you add more at a later date.

Also Recommended

Corsair Dominator-GT 8GB (2x4GB)

€508

If moneys not an issue and you have serious plans for overclocking, this is the RAM for you. A special dedicated fan to keep you RAM cool is included.

That’s it for Part 2 guys. In Part 3 I will be covering Video Cards and Hard Drives.

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Building a PC Part 1

So, over the last 3 weeks I have been researching on building a custom computer. I think now I have sufficient information to be able to write a blog post on it. So I’m going to do a series on components I recommend for building your own ultimate high performance PC. I will be doing this in many parts with a few components covered in each post.

Welcome to Part 1,

I will be going over the CPU and Motherboard.

CPU

Often referred to as the “brains” of your computer, the CPU (central processing unit, or proc) is one of the important components you’ll select for your new PC because this is where most of your systems calculations take place (with the exception of very powerful videocards). Today, most CPU’s feature multiple cores, and you’ll often see chips advertised as having dual or quad cores. Think of these cores as miniature CPU’s working together in parallel to process information faster. Unfortunately, not all games or applications are programmed to take full advantage of more than two cores. Still, quad-core processors are a great investment for PC gamers, allowing you to play a game with two cores with plenty of processing power to run background applications with the others.

Intel Core i7-860

Price €223

Cores This refers to the number of cores present in your CPU. Most games don’t take full advantage of more than two cores, but that doesn’t mean the extra processing power from the quad-core CPU will go to waste. The Intel Core i7-860 CPU featured here has four cores, and you’ll be glad you have them.

Clock Speed This is the speed at which your CPU can complete a processing cycle and is measured in gigahertz. It’s a fancy way of describing how fast your CPU runs, but the number can be deceiving since CPU’s often use different processing methods. But, in general, the higher the CPU’s clock speed, the better. The Intel Core i7-860 runs at 2.80GHz.

Socket This is very important. You can’t just place any CPU on any motherboard. CPU’s connect to your motherboard with specially designed sockets, so you’ll need to make sure that your CPU’s socket  matches the one on your motherboard and vice-versa. The Intel Core i7-860 supports an LGA 1156 socket, which will work with the Asus Maximus Formula III motherboard.

Also Recommended

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

€145

The AMD Phenom is surprisingly affordable  considering how fast it runs – and its unlocked multiplier makes it especially useful for overclockers. This CPU is an excellent choice if you opt for a motherboard with an AM3 socket type.

Intel Core i5-750

€160

This CPU uses the same Lynnfield architecture as the Intel Core i7-860, uses 45nm process, and comes packed with 8MB of L3 cache. It’s clock speed is a little slower than the i7-860 and doesn’t support Hyper-Threading, but its modest price makes it an excellent alternative for the sleeker i7-860 featured above.

Motherboard

If the CPU is the brains of your computer, think of the motherboard as its spine. Also referred to as the mobo, mainboard or printed circuit board, your motherboard is what binds and connects every component in your system, directing traffic and coordinating tasks. It even acts as a bridge to your more mundane external inputs and outputs, such as your mouse, keyboard and speakers.

Choosing the right motherboard is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when selecting parts for your new computer. It will determine what kind of CPU you can choose, what type of graphics cards you’ll be able to install and what kind of RAM you’ll be able to take advantage of. It’ll also play a big roll in whether you can overclock your system (and how easy it will be to do it). That’s why I’ve saved you the trouble by selecting the Asus Maximus Formula III. It was designed with PC enthusiasts in mind, and comes with utilities that made overclocking  easy for beginners.

Asus Maximus Formula III

Price €200

Chipset The chipset is one of the most important parts in motherboard. It coordinates communication between your CPU, memory and local bus. In addition to directing the flow of traffic within your system, the chipset determines which features your motherboard will support, like whether or not you can take advantage of multiple graphics cards with SLI and Crossfire setups. A good chipset will transfer data and use power efficiently. The Asus Maximus Formula III uses Intel’s P55 chipset, which supports both SLI and Crossfire setups.

Processor Support Often referred to as the “socket type,” this determines what kind of CPU will work with your motherboard. The Asus Maximus Formula III supports the LGA 1556 socket and will work with the Intel Core i7-860 CPU that I have suggested for you.

RAM Support You can’t just stick any old stick of RAM into your motherboard. You’ll need to check your motherboard’s specifications to find out what kind of RAM is compatible, and how may sticks of RAM are optimal for performance. The Asus Maximus Formula III requires DDR3 RAM and has four 240-pin slots to support up to 16GB of RAM.

Also Reccommended

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6

€170

A solid motherboard for a reasonable price, the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6’s 24 phase power feature spreads the workload between additional power circuits to keep your motherboard cooler-and comes with 6 DIMM slots which may come in handy should you want to load it with the higher density DDR3 RAM sticks in the future.

Asus P7P55D Pro

€135

An excellent choice for gamers who want a motherboard that does it all without breaking their wallet, the Asus P7P55D Pro comes with all the amenities you’d expect for modern motherboard. The specialized tabs for its PCI-E slots and design for it’s DIMM slots also make installing graphics cards and more memory easy for beginners.

In the next part I will be covering the Cooler and RAM.

AOL sell’s Bebo

Two years ago, AOL tried to redeem their social networking efforts when they bought Bebo. It was announced that they paid $850 million for it.

Bebo started to fail from the day it started being used. It had a mere 5 million users in February. Which was nothing compared to the huge 210 million users on the social networking giant, FaceBook.

AOL recognized how much of a fail their website was and in they April announced that they were going to either sell or shut down the site.

The company that is buying the site is Criterion Capital Partners. But it hasn’t  yet been announced how much they will be buying it for. I would think it is a fraction of the $850 million paid two years ago.

In my opinion this isn’t great for the FaceBook community because Bebo houses the younger teenager community with user names such as Robbie Boiiii 2kAii10 or xXxXxXxiiTz Yur BabexXxXxXxX. If FaceBook starts getting users with these kind of user names, I will most likely be looking for a different social networking site.

Until next time,

Eoin

Xbox 360 New Slim Version

So that Microsoft will actually sell their new  Xbox 360 Slim they have dropped the prices of the older Xbox360 consoles.

So Microsoft ended E3 2010 with a bang! Just when everyone thought the show was over, Microsoft decide its time to unveil the new Xbox360 Slim. It’s alot nicer looking than the original Xbox360. Its smaller, sleeker and all of those sharp edges give it a sexy look.

If you buy this console it is black as standard. Its very shiny. Microsoft claim that it is very quiet, however that could not be decided by anyone attending well, because its a conference with thousands of people there.  The new console will have built in Wi-Fi for ease of connectivity. It has a huge 250GB hard drive as standard. The price tag on this brand new console is $299. The same as the older 360 console.

What blew everyone away was that Microsoft announced they would start shipping that console today.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Until next time,

Eoin

Why wouldn’t you want an iPhone 4?

Who wouldn’t want something this nice? I mean its beautiful, the looks of this phone makes you want it without even looking at the the features of it. Hmm, what features? Lets get into that now.

So the new iPhone 4 is going to be epic. Its list of features is endless. There are 3 main features of the new device according to Apple.

One of the most anticipated is MultiTasking: This lets you run apps in the background of whatever app is open on the foreground. Steve Jobs did a great example of the multitasking at WWDC 2010. He opened his mail app, which had a link in it. Normally without the multitasking, after you click the link the phone would open up a Safari webpage displaying the contents of the link. This was great, but if you wanted to go into your mail again you would have to go to your home screen then open your mail app and go back to where you were before tapping the link. What Steve Jobs did was tapped the link, which as it would normally would opened a Safari web page displaying the content. But, once he wanted to go back to his mail all he had to do was double tap the home button which opened a small display on the bottom of the screen. This was the list of all of the open apps at that time on the iPhone. So all Jobs had to do was tap his mail icon and the phone brought him straight back to mail app in the very same state it was before he opened the link in Safari. Also the new multitasking allows you to do a lot more media and entertainment wise too. Again at WWDC 2010 Steve Jobs wanted to be able to listen to his Pandora live radio streaming app while he was doing something else. This is easy with the new multitasking. He just opened Pandora then pressed his home button and chose what ever app he wanted with his music still streaming in the background. Overall, the new multitasking looks amazing. It seems that Apple spent a great deal of time perfecting it.

The next feature is FaceTime: There have been many devices brought out with front facing cameras for video calling but none of them were successful in any way. Maybe some people tested it just to see if it worked, but that was about it. The main reason for no one ever using the video call features on their devices is because they were never given enough information about it. Apple are changing this and creating a lot of hype about the front facing camera and its video calling capabilities. The front facing camera has the perfect field of view and focal length according to Apple so that it will always present the best possible light. Using it is should be simple. Just go over the desired contact and if they have an iPhone 4 also, you can press the FaceTime button and an invitation will pop up on his/her iPhone asking if they would like to accept and connect the front facing camera for a clear video call. You can also use the back camera to broadcast what you can see at the minute. Just one tap of the button and it connects the back camera beside the LED flash. That way you can do a live stream of your surroundings at that time. Overall I think the FaceTime will be used alot by iPhone users just because its so easily accessible.

Now one of my favorite new features of the iPhone 4. The Retina Display: This looks amazing. Well rightly so, its producing more pixels per inch that the human retina can physically see. Yep thats right, the iPhone is giving a display so good that its inhumane. This display will look amazing for viewing almost anything, whether its looking at a YouTube video or viewing a webpage or sharing photo’s or even just watching a movie, the Retina Display will make it a very good experience. To add to the Retina Display’s awesomeness there have been great improvements in the glass used on the iPhone. It is the same materials used in the windscreen’s of helicopters and high-speed trains. The glass has chemicals on it to make it harder, more scratch  resistant and twice as durable as the 3gs. There is LED backlighting on the Retina Display and the auto brightness setting is more advanced with a high quality ambient light sensor. Battery life is saved when calling because when the phone is put close to an ear the proximity sensor turns off the display to save battery and also so that the heat off your ear doesn’t accidentally dial a number.

Once I get the phone myself, whatever date that will be when it is released in Ireland. I will do a full HD unboxing video and then I will do a video review also.

Until next time,

Eoin

My first post.

Hey everyone/anyone.

My name is Eoin. Im 17 and I’m from Ireland. I am very interested in technology and anything to do with it. On my blog I will be writing my thoughts on some of the newest technology, I will be posting links to any of my new YouTube videos, which will consist of Photoshop Tutorials, Vlogs, Gaming videos, Unboxing’s and much more. I should be getting very active on my YouTube once my exams are over. I’m very new to this blogging scene by myself. So I will slowly build this up. Much love to anyone that reads this. 🙂

My YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/OhiiN

My Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=556336498

My Twitter: @OhiNxD

Email me: smurphy.eoin@gmail.com

(more networks coming soon, I havent get around to setting them up yet)

Thanks everyone,

Eoin.