boozerc

Yeah I'd definitely go with Ryzen because you don't need the 9900k for the niche 1080p 240Hz gaming use-case. I'd also recommend just doing a full platform upgrade because older i7's are overpriced anyways because people know that they can charge more and still have it be cheaper than a full platform upgrade.

CPU Benchmarks
 
Cinebench R15:
Cinebench R15 is a test that uses the Maxon Render Engine, it lets the CPU calculate the image and then based on the time taken to complete it will return a score. It has both multi and single cores tests. I've included both results for you to look at. Read more.
 

 
In the multicore test most of the more mordern and high end CPUs do a pretty good job, the 8320 does very well in this test for its price and had it been a higher clock speed it'd easily score much higher or the same than the i5 counterpart. 
 

 
In the single core tests things look a little different, as expected the latest Intel processors are at the top of the charts, however disappointingly AMDs offerings are sitting towards the bottom of the chart, not entirely unsurprising but given the age of some of the parts in this comparison you'd expect a little more from a 2012 chip.
 
Cinebench R11.5:
Slightly older version of the Cinebench render engine, it drops some instruction sets but I included it as a lot of other R11.5 results are available online for your own comparison.

 
Results are very similar to the R15 scores here, AMD are doing well in multithreaded testing here and offers an impressive value again.
 

 
The Haswell offerings again offer very strong performance in this test, with everything else trailing pretty far behind.
 
AIDA64 CPU:
This is a simple integer test that uses a 10x10 chessboard calculation and tests the CPUs prediction ability, there's a penalty for mispredictions. CPUs with long pipelines will typically struggle in this test due to the penalty for a misprediction. Read more.

 
Performance wise Intel's i5 CPU is doing very well in this test, not far behind is AMDs 8 core offering which comes in a little cheaper. However we do see the older Q9650 beating out the 6 and 4 core AMDs which would suggest AMDs branch prediction isn't particularly good. And in the last few spots are the dual core CPUs which is expected as this is a multithreaded test.
 
MaxMem:
Maxmem is a memory benchmark that'll test the IMCs capability to handle the RAM, typically DDR3 platforms and newer chips should do pretty well in this test.



 
In these tests I'd expect DDR3 platforms to have a advantage by default due to the banwidth available, however the Haswell memory controller seems to be far ahead of AMDs offerings, in this test it's over 5x the speed. I suspect the program may not be optimized for AMDs architecture or perhaps AMDs IMC is just that slow.
 
 
And the latency would be linked to how old the IMC is and what memory technology is in use.e This seems to be pretty linear in terms of age with the newest chips having the lowest latency and the oldest ones having the highest.
 
Multithreaded PI & Linpack:
This benhmark is another timed mathmatical calculation, the Pi benchmark calculates Pi to 80,000 decimal places using all available threads. The Linpack does the Linpack calculation on all available threads. Read more.


 
Given that it's a multithreaded test the multicore offerings seem to do pretty well, there appears to be a bottleneck on the FX chips at around 19.8 seconds as both the 6 core and 8 core offering scored very similarly, but the 4300 is trailing behind. 
 
SuperPI 1M & 32M:
Super PI is a pretty classic floating point benchmark, it uses a single thread and it measures the time to calculate Pi to a set amount of decimals, in this test I'll use the popular 1M and 32M presets. Read more.


 
Due to only using a single thread the G3258 and 4690K perform very similarly, and the FX series would score the same if they were at the same clock speed. In this test all but 1 Intel chip beats out AMDs offerings which would indicate a problem with AMDs implementation of the x87 instructions which are used in this test.
 
WinRAR:
This is the benchmark built into WinRAR, it's a fairly simple multithreaded integer test, in these tests multicore CPUs with strong integer power (namely the FX series) are likely to perform very well.

 
As expected AMDs CPU offerings do very well in this test, AMDs Bulldozer (And derivatives) are designed on a CMT architecture that they originally intended to implement into servers, as multithreaded integer workloads are fairly common in that environment. And as expected the weaker dual core CPUs fall behind in this test.

So, majority of us have installed a new motherboard and run into having to just install our operating system to accommodate the new hardware.
Well, I'm going to share a little trick that I know on how to be able to use the same OS install on the new hardware problem free.
This is something that I use personally and very often in a computer shop environment.
It's much easier to just do this instead of having to backup someones data, move it here, install the os, move it back. That sucks. 
 
WARNING - WARNING
I only recommend this to users who are comfortable troubleshooting. 
I have never had an issue with the software itself. 
Used this hundreds of times.
Just better to be safe than sorry.
But problems can happen. I don't want to be responsible for someone messing something up.
So please, take caution when trying something like this.
It can always be fixed. Nothing a OS re-install can't repair haha.
WARNING - WARNING
 

It's a pretty simple .ISO called Paragon Adaptive Restore.
It was a free tool offered by the Paragon Software company up until about 2010 when they started to adapt it into their paid programs only.
I have contacted the company about distributing the software and they had no worries about it since they will offer a download to it if asked
 
Current Download Link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3gyoaqlx29d6yxw/AADAYBACDOK0by5GVHaAMoJha/Paragon%20Adaptive%20Restore (Updated 7/30/14)
File Size: 154 MB
File Type: ISO Image
 

Start off by creating the bootable CD.
I personally use the program ImgBurn (http://www.imgburn.com) to create my cd's.
Once the CD is booted, restart the computer and boot to the CD.
 
Make sure your current motherboard has been REPLACED with the new motherboard.
These are the steps to follow once your new motherboard has been installed.
 
1. Accept the end user license agreement by checking the box and hitting Accept.

 
2. Select "Adjust OS"

 
3. Select the Operating System on the drive.

 
4. Select which option - I normally choose Adjust the OS automatically.
4.5. I rarely have the use the second option.

 
5. From here you will see the software injecting and editing the proper drivers.

 
6. Paragon hasn't changed anything yet. It needs your permission to apply the changes, click Yes, Apply the changes physically.
6.5 After this do not interrupt anything and just restart your computer normally and everything should boot into Windows.

 
You will need to remove older drivers once in Windows and install your new drivers.

Different pads change the sound signature of all headphones, though it's more noticible on closed headphones.

First mechanical keyboard. Cherry MX Browns.
 

First mechanical keyboard. Cherry MX Browns.
 

Cooler Master Storm QuickFire Stealth - Brown Cherry MX Switch $69.99
 
http://www.frys.com/product/7922310?site=sa:adpages%20page:P15_FRI%20date:122013

First mechanical keyboard. Cherry MX Browns.
 

Yes sir.

First mechanical keyboard. Cherry MX Browns.
 

Hey guys. Long time lurker, first time poster.
 
The purpose of this build is to replace my aging Athlon 64 X2 5000+ system with something a little more current. I do a lot of photo and video work. Not much gaming right now but I am very much looking forward to StarCitizen. I needed a smaller form factor to fit beside my desk and sound output is extremely important. I wanted to build in enough cooling so that I could throw in a couple R9-290x's (or whatever the latest and greatest card is when StarCitizen is finally released) in crossfire and not be worried about needing cooling upgrades. I managed to shoe horn 3 rads into the 350D for a total of 600mm of radiator area. I will update this build log when I decide on what GPU will fill the void. I bought most of the parts from NCIX and Dazmode and the radiators from FrozenCPU. All three companies were a pleasure to deal with.
 
Parts List
1 x Intel Core i7 4770K Unlocked Quad Core 3.5GHZ Processor LGA1150 Haswell 8MB Cache Retail
1 x ASUS Gryphon Z87 mATX LGA1150 Z87 DDR3 3PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 SLI SATA3 USB3.0 HDMI Motherboard
1 x ASUS Gryphon Thermal Armor AIRFLOW-BOOSTING Dust Repel Armor Kit
1 x Corsair AX860 860W ATX 12V V2.31 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply Active PFC 120mm Fan
1 x G.SKILL Sniper F3-1866C9D-16GSR 16GB 2X8GB DDR3-1866 CL9 240PIN 1.5V Dual Channel Memory Kit
1 x Corsair Obsidian 350D mATX Black Window Gaming Case 2X5.25 2X3.5 2X2.5 Front USB3.0 Audio No PSU
1 x Samsung 840 Evo Series MZ-7TE250BW 250GB 2.5in SATA III Internal SSD Single Unit Version
5 x Corsair Air Series SP120 120MM 2350RPM 62.74CFM 35DBA High Static Pressure Fan
2 x Bitfenix Alchemy Multisleeve 3-pin to 3 x 3-Pin Y Cable Splitter - 60cm Black
4 x DarkSide Dimmable 20cm LED - Cold White - Jet Black Sleeved w/ 3-pin Fan Connector
4 x DarkSide 3-pin Fan to 4 pin Molex Adapter
 
1 x Koolance RP-1005BK 1kW Series Reservoir and Pump in 5.25" bay - Black
1 x Koolance Temperature Sensor 10K ohm
12 x Swiftech 3/8IN X 5/8IN LOK-SEAL Compression Fitting G1/4 - Black
1 x Swiftech MCRES-MICRO-R2 Clear HI-FLOW Water Cooling Reservoir 3/8IN & 1/2IN Barb Fittings
1 x IandH Silver Kill Coil - Antimicrobial .999 Fine Silver Tubing/Reservoir Strip
1 x PrimoChill PRIMOFLEX™ Advanced LRT™ Crystal Clear 3/8 ID 5/8 OD Tubing (10FT)
1 x Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper Slim Profile Dual 120mm Radiator
1 x Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper Slim Profile Single 120mm Radiator
1 x Alphacool NexXxoS UT60 Full Copper Dual 120mm Radiator
2 x XSPC 120mm Dual Radiator Gasket
2 x XSPC 120mm Single Radiator Gasket
1 x EK Supremacy CPU Water Block - Plexi Copper
1 x EK Supremacy Precise Mount Add-On Naked Ivy CPU Block Adapter Hardware
1 x XSPC Sleeved 3mm Dual LED Module - White
1 x EK DDC X-TOP CSQ - Acetal
1 x XSPC Laing DDC Stand Black Plexi
3 x BitsPower 90 Degree Double Rotary Adapter M/F G1/4 Black BP-MB90R2
1 x BitsPower 60 Degree Rotary Adapter M/F G1/4 Black BP-MB60R
1 x BitsPower 120 Degree Double Rotary Adapter M/F G1/4 - Black BP-MB120R2
2 x BitsPower 8mm Spacer Extender Adapter - G1/4 Male/Female - Matt Black
1 x BitsPower 25mm Spacer Adapter Male/Female - Matt Black
 

 
I delidded the CPU which lowered me about 10 degrees C on average. I used the hairdryer method...

which is a lot less crazy than the hammer method. I didn't even need to use the hairdryer. Just place the CPU correctly and squeeze the IHS off. It works perfectly and unlike the hammer method, there is a lot less oppportunity for disaster. The very first guy to take a hammer to his brand new 4770K must have had more balls than brains.

 
After the obligatory air cooled burn in, I started cramming all the water cooling into the case. I didn't take any pictures of the build phase, sorry. This is the completed build. One ST30 240mm rad in the top with two fans in push exhausting air. One ST30 120mm in the back with a a fan in pull as the intake. One UT60 240mm in the front with two fans in push intaking through the front panel.

 
EK Supremacy water block is mounted with the Naked Ivy mounting kit. This lowers the mounting point to account for delidded CPUs. 

 
Swiftech MicroRes is mounted to the side of the radiator with industrial strength velcro tape. The inlet tube bend is tight but no where near kinking. The PrimoFlex tubing has awesome bending characteristics but I might end up replacing it as I can already see some plasticizer fogginess. Temperature probe is plugged into the bottom port and fed to the fan/pump controller. You can see the hacked controller at the top of the pic. 


 
Just love the look of the Obsidian series cases.


 
Theres two 3mm LEDs in the water block and four 20cm LED light strips from Dazmode to light up the case.


 
The Koolance RP-1005BK res/pump/controller unit was a major dissappointment. Firstly it didn't fit. It is about 5cm too long and hits the motherboard long before it is fully inserted. Also, it is almost impossible to bleed. The pump will only burp it's air if you tilt the whole case to the front and towards you. Ofcourse when you tilt it, the water will leak from the fill port so you have to plug it. Fill the res, close the fill port, tilt the case, run the pump, lower the case, open the fill port, fill the res, close the fill port, tilt the case....It is a crazy ridiculous process to bleed the system. I do love the fan/pump controller though so I chopped off the entire back half of the unit, dumped the res, moved the pump and just kept the electronics. This image is pre-hack with the lid opened up.

 
The Alphacool UT60 radiator has a hole at the bottom as a drain port. I figured I can make use of it so I broke out the dremel and cut a opening in the bottom so I can easily drain the loop at the lowest point.

 
The back plane has lots of cables to manage. Short of creating a custom length wiring harness, I think I did a pretty decent job. I guess the only thing that really matters is that the back panel closes without squishing anything. The fans are connected using three-way splitters. The two fans in the front go to channel 1 on the fan controller. The two fans in the top and the single fan in the back go to channel 2. I clipped the RPM lead on all but one fan in each group. I used the voltage limiter included with the SP-120 fans to lower the sound signature.

 
The clearance on the upper rear corner is tight. The top rad bolt is touching the 8 pin connector locking tab. The back rad hose is touching the fan. It definitely all has to go together in a very particular order.

 
This shot is of the top front of the case. The top ST30 radiator's ports exit inside the top drive bay so space is tight and it's pretty difficult to work in there. I had a 180 degree snake fitting but I found that the 60 degree + 120 degree placed the compression fitting in the perfect place so the tube is perfectly horizontal across the top. On the outlet side, I had to dremel out some of the drive bay to get a hose between the top rad and the res. Not the cleanest cuts but it will never be seen anyways.

 
I used one of the tooless trays that came with the 350D to mount the HDD to the floor with double sided tape. The SSD is just stuck to the HDD with more double sided foam tape. I tried getting both drives in the empty 5.25" slot up top but they just would not fit no matter how I tried.

 
Air to water yielded more than 20 degree C drop in CPU temp under Prime95 stress. The Air temp probably would have been a lot higher if I left it to bake for a while. I only left the test run for a couple minutes. Ambient was 21.5 degrees C for both tests.
 
Air

 
Water

 
When I overclocked but I always lean more towards stability than squeezing out every last MHz. Also, the silicon lottery gave me somewhat of a lemon and no matter what I did, I could not find 12 hour Prime95 AVX stability at a x44 mulitplier even with all other clocks turned down and voltages turned up. If I just go by Aida64 or XTU, I could get up to x45 on the cPU and x41 on the cache but I do not consider that 100% stable.
 
My final settings ended up being:
CPU Mulitplier = x43
CPU Voltage = 1.200V
Cache Multiplier = x41
Cache Voltage = 1.195V
VIN = 1.8V
DRAM = 1866
DRAM Voltage = 1.5125V
XMP timings
All other default or Auto
 



 
To-Do List
1) GPU. R9-290 with water block probably.
2) Fill hole in front of fan/pump controller
3) Try new fans. Not super impressed with the Corsair Fans. I think I'll try to get my hands on some Gentle Typhoons.
4) AX860 has some coil whine. I can hear it from about 2 feet from the case. Not sure if it's worth starting an RMA to get it replaced. Anyone else have coil whine issues with the AX860?
5) Swap hoses if plasticizer issue get worse.

I dropped the hard drive that contains the OS and all other important files on the floor. Miraculously, it still works.

I dropped the hard drive that contains the OS and all other important files on the floor. Miraculously, it still works.

Hey Guys thought I'd share my Nexus 7 install with you.
 
UPDATE: Static and White noise issues were minimized by using a 15 Amp In Line Noise Filter/Suppressor. I've Also added an OBD2 Bluetooth scanner in my car which connects to my tablet to display information such as Engine temps , speed , rpm , fuel consumption etc etc
 
Background info: 
I recently purchased my Subaru Liberty 2006 (MY07) 3.0R Spec B Manual after slaving away underground for about a year and was extremely excited and seriously happy with my decision. Thankfully it had already had a lot of work done to it in regards to the audio setup with the stock head-unit replaced with an after market Alpine CD-5030 along with the required $600 fascia , Amp in the boot powering the stock subwoofer and speakers in the door replaced.

 
So basically after contemplating purchasing an extremely expensive Pioneer double din head unit or buying an "App Radio" I decided both these options were either way too expensive for what they were or didn't fit my needs and or desires. Hence the start of this project.
I was going to do a piece by piece forum post with updates and pictures but I was too excited and end up getting it all done first whilst taking pictures along the way.
 
Planning:
Firstly i looked a lot of other nexus 7 installs and found out 2 things. Firstly I'd need a 2012 Nexus 7 Rooted with Timur's USB ROM and a Joycon EXR Steering wheel controller.
I wanted to have the steering wheel controls actually work since the previous owner had done the audio upgrade but had left the controls not working. I considered also creating a reversing camera using a USB webcam I had lying around but the Field of view was horrible so i decided against it.

 
Parts:
Nexus 7 with Timur's USB-ROM http://mehrvarz.github.io/nexus-7-usbrom/
Subaru 7" AV Panel Kit http://bit.ly/HENwJ7
Subaru Info Panel Relocation Kit http://bit.ly/1ew24ZO
JoyCon EXR Steering wheel controller http://bit.ly/17U0iOb
USB OTG Y-Cable http://bit.ly/1cK9ngn
4-port USB Hub (Random Belkin 4 port hub)
 
Cost:
Nexus 7 - $170 (I was lucky enough to find one on ebay "Used" that when arrived literally looked like it had never been touched)
Subaru 7" AV Panel Kit - $250
Subaru Info Panel Relocation Kit - $128 ( Extremely expensive for what it actually is but thats JDM for you)
Joycon EXR - ~$56 inc Postage to Aus
USB OTG Y Cable - $14.90
Misc equipment like a new soldering iron , wire , solder etc etc was around $100
 
Total = Approx $700 
 
For all the parts to arrive from Japan , Korea , Australia and so on it took about 4-5 weeks in total and it was a LONNNGGG 5 weeks of waiting patiently for the gear to finally arrive and for me to make a start. But finally they arrived.




(NOT MY IMAGE OF JOYCON JUST USED FOR EXAMPLE)
 
The idea was relatively simple. Put tablet into new fascia , give it power ,plug accessories in and off I go. But nothing is ever that simple and the project ended up taking quite a bit longer than I expected. The thing that took the most time was RESEARCH. 
Finding information as to which wires out of the million that were there were for Steering wheel controls was mission impossible. Thankfully with help from some guys on Club.Liberty and  SVXdc from Legacy GT forum I was able to pin point the two wires under the steering column that were the signal wires for the steering wheel controls.




 
With the wires soldered and extended through to where the tablet was going to sit I was able to plug in the Joycon EXR and test/program the unit using a laptop. This process was relatively painless , the program just took some getting used to. Basically all that had to be done was to detect the 6 buttons and drag and drop what action I wanted them to do.

 
I then had the idea that if my tablet was to lose all power (become flat) , I would not be able to turn it back on again as it would just sit in that "charging" state with the picture of the battery. Therefore I decided to have a go at extending the power button and externalizing it.
The issue was that it was really really small and the soldered didnt seem to want to stick it it. I eventually managed to get a decent contact ( well what i thought was decent) and it work flawlessly. Until of course I moved it with even the slightest amount of force causing the solder to just come right off.
After about the 5th attempt at this I had in fact managed to melt the minuscule traces on the ribbon cable and broke the whole thing haha. I then ordered a new one off Ebay for $5 but being that it was from America , it cost me $23 for postage  :? 
Any how here is a picture of what it looked like when it worked.


 
When the new ribbon cable arrived I decided to give up on that idea for now and possibly revisit it later on if I had either A. Learnt how to solder properly or B. Had another spare as a back up   :lol:
 
Mounting it wasn't very hard, maybe a little fiddly but I used some hot glue for test fitting purposes and soon enough had a good enough position to start drilling some holes

 
It was shortly there after that i realised the Micro USB port and 3.5mm Jack were in horrible positions (Ran directly into one of the vents). I had 2 options either A. Find some right angle connectors that fit B. Drill holes into the air vent and run the cables through them. 
Thankfully I had a brain wave and decided to take apart the tablet again and have a look at the connectors themselves. It appeared that they too were just flexible ribbon cables underneath the stereo speaker bar. So I removed the screws holding down the speaker bar and Ribbon cable , lifted the connectors up in a right angle position and put the speaker bar back in place. 

 
I then marked up some slots on the back panel (case) and cut them out forming small gaps for the connectors to poke out of.




 
The connectors felt a bit loose and wobbly so I cut up some mesh from an old 5.25" drive bay cover and used it to screw the original screws into. I then hot glued and super glued them down to make sure they wont move.


 
After that all I had to do was Re test the Joycon , Test the USB Hub , Memory sticks and made sure the USB ROM functionality was working correctly. For Internet connectivity I will be using my HTC ONE via Bluetooth tethering , Wifi Hotspot or most likely via a direct USB cable as I dont want to drain my phone battery as I drive.


 
Moving the Information panel wasn't hard at all , I just followed the picture instructions that came with the kit (although the writing was in Japanese).


 
Now all that was left to do was connect the RCA cables to the AUX Input in the head unit, plug everything in and hope for the best. 
Here is some final pictures. 



 
Shout out to everyone who gave me advice , tips and tricks and especially Timur for creating such an epic Kernel. If anyone has any questions feel free to PM me or contact email me at johndhodder@hotmail.com.au and ill try help you as best I can. Cheers

Welcome!
I thought I would share a project I have been working on for a few years! Some of you may have seen it on other forums or somewhere else but now I have started the work log here as well. It is a fully custom chassis built and designed by me.
 
I have been a long time watcher of LinusTechTips on youtube but I never realized that this forum was here. Because of that I never got around to make a work log here for the whole progress only the last month or so of the build. Anyway I hope you will enjoy it! (Updated the pictures to the final ones and added videos!)
 
History behind the Project:
About 5 years ago I decided that I was going to water cool my computer. Back then I had a Antec P180, not exactly the perfect chassis for water cooling your components. I looked at a lot of different chassis but I was never really happy with any of them. So I started sketching on my own design. First they were really awful, but as time progressed I got better and better at drawing. Early drawings was in MS-paint. I then moved on to Google Sketchup and finally Autodesk Inventor. I have probably gone through about 30 different designs until I finally decided on this one. This was my first custom designed chassis and also my first ever water cooled computer! The basic goal was to design a very quiet high-performing system with a minimalistic and clean design.
 
Edit: Compiled all the Pictures and Videos in the first post.
 
Making of Model 01:



Final Result:


The "complete" work log is almost 500 pictures. Below is a compact 100 pics of the process and the final results. If you want ALL 500 pics check out this album: http://imgur.com/a/dTRqx 
(all text and info is included in pics! You will not miss a thing!)
 





















































 
 
 
FINAL PICTURES
 
                                                         
If you have any questions you can go ahead and post it here or via pm and I will always try to answer!
 
Edit: Changed the first post to a "final post" with all the pictures, videos, text etc.

Deleted post due to no longer supporting LTT/LMG August 2023.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1KZjl
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1KZjl/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1KZjl/benchmarks/
 
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($224.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($73.19 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Asus Z87I-DELUXE Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($185.98 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($165.20 @ NCIX US) 
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card  ($671.98 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Silverstone FT03S MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($153.28 @ NCIX US) 
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  ($23.99 @ Newegg) 
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  ($23.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Silverstone 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply  ($99.99 @ NCIX US) 
Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor  ($553.93 @ Amazon) 
Other: Standard Objective2 Headphone Amplifier ($114.99)
Total: $2491.49
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-04 23:59 EDT-0400)
 

My name is Ashe. I am Japanese. i'm telling this story mostly for my own stress as i need to relieve it, but also because i believe many people here could learn from some of my experiences. and the first forethought is this. if any of you are offended, shocked, angry, or xenophobic about anything i say, go fuck yourself and go live in a cave plz.
 
 
you see, in my own society, i am ostracized by many. I am considered half japanese. you see my true father was a white man on business in japan, and happened to well... force my true mother to sleep with him. this was back in 1990 and even today that causes shame in many forms in society (though not to the extent many believe, and families still support the women most of the time), however my true mother could not keep me so i was adopted out. the only people that would take me were a missionary couple from Florida that adopted me. Throughout much of my child i was ridiculed for my looks, for my families religion, and for many other things that caused older people to look at me as a foreigner. in my own home i was considered unwanted. i barely look japanese as well (only in my eyes and my hair). all my life i was seen both as an outcast and as a visitor, never truly accepted and at best considered a guest. such attitudes are horrible and now that i live in america i cannot fathom how anyone willingly does so to other americans. this country was founded off of freedom of religious and sociological persecution, yet it is even more prevalent to be discriminated in the usa than my home country. everyone here needs to learn to love, and accept each other among kindness and compassion. because life is too short to go around with discrimination and hate against everyone.
 
another life experience i had was that i'm a rarity even among americans. my family moved back to america when i was around 12 years old and was taken to various psychiatrists because i could not handle the change well. throughout that time there i was "diagnosed" as transexual/transgendered. throughout my life all of my friends were women and a few boys. i never understood the male mindset and didn't get along with the inner circles. plus it didn't help that i have what many consider stereotypical feministic mannerisms such as a love of crafting and sewing, arts and music etc.
This caused a rift in my adopted family, because my father being an evangelical priest saw it as a slight on god. This is another thing everyone should learn. NO MATTER the cause, you should never use your personal beliefs to discriminate or ostrasize those that are different. everyone is a human being, and we should all treat each other with kindness. if we did there would be none of the issues that are being faced today. i see many people around me that shy away or look scandalized when they see people of all walks of life around them. rich white people look down on others. the black community judges the more fortunate. asian families distance themselves from others because of "rudeness" and odd famililal beliefs. christians look on everyone with pity because they are "fallen" and "sinners". embrace and love everyone; it is the only way to live a peacefull and happy life.
 
when i was around 18 i got a job with a certain studio company as an audio engineer. i was living a very easy life and loved my work. i got to meet many different people, and was able to express myself creatively through music, whether it was my own during off time, or through others as a craftsmen. (always  do what makes you happy in life, because what 'm doing now makes me miserable and stresses me out. it is not important how much money you make, or what kind of situation it puts you in, because if you truly love what you do that won't matter). 
when my boss and various others in the company learned that i was transgendered, i was promptly discharged from my job. they used the basis of a previous clients review (i did not properly express their image) as means of dismissal. that experience left me out to dry and i struggled to find new work. the music industry is very tough and cutthroat, so i wasn't able to find avenue back into it. i sought out temp agencies and eventually landed in kansas city for contract work. after a while contracts dried up and now i'm actually homeless, and have been so for the past 8 months. i now live in my car and have been saving up what i can to fund a trip back to japan. throughout all this i learned many things, and i cannot properly express them all, except to say that i spent too much of my life as a wall flower and have payed for much of it. i also learned that intollerence is more prevalent than kindness in many walks of life.
 
anyway i wrote most of this down mostly for myself, but if anyone has questions feel free to pm me or to ask in this thread. i apologize for the spelling errors and lack of proper grammar, i'm doing this on my phone and its hard to get everything correct. 

I realized just how good Inception is after watching a 40 minute long presentation about it. Just shows how this movie flew over everyones head.
 

Dat introo....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6psF38djBFU
yeeh...

I think I already stated how I feel about them. But I will do it again, just so it is clear.
For reference I played over 40 hours of FFXIII. I never touched XIII-2, but I know enough about it to give an opinion on it based on my experience with XIII. 
XIII is the equivalent of running down a hallway for 40 hours. I am not kidding. Many other Final Fantasies offer exploration throughout the games, I, IV, VII, VIII, and XII are notable ones that did this. The scenery is beautiful, but not worth the aforementioned hallway syndrome.
This is made worse by a somewhat boring story. I just could not care about the characters beyond how beautifully rendered they were. Looks is about the only thing I have good to say about XIII. 
There are next to no NPC's. There are no towns, a staple of pretty much every single other Final Fantasy. No interaction beyond the characters themselves. This would be fine if I could bring myself to care about them in any shape or form. About the only one I like is unique only in that he has an adorable creature living in his hair. But that is about as far as that attachment goes.
The combat is a further development of a Turn based/Real Time hybrid system. XII had a lesser version of this, but I found that acceptable. XIII is annoying. However, if you like RTS games, you will probably like the combat. I personally hated it but that is because I prefer turn based myself. This is personal preference. 
The leveling/ability to customize your characters is absurdly linear. Most other Final Fantasies have a class system or a leveling setup where you can make each character custom tuned to how you want to play them. The leveling system in XIII is akin to it's linear nature when it comes to areas and exploration. You get what you get, and the only opportunity to customize or deviate is .... never. Unless you take into account the combat system, but even then, one character will always be the best at his or her class. Others will try and fail. 
Mind you, that was true of other Final Fantasies (such as III, the US one, where only one character could use Magic), but those were usually plot based. XIII's setup with this is not. It just is at is for whatever reason. That, and, usually, if you trained someone long enough, they could surpass the person who got the obvious advantage at a certain type of ability, class, or stat. It just took a lot of grinding. 
I could go on, but you can pretty much apply everything I have said to what I have not covered to get an idea on how it is. Final Fantasy XIII does what other FInal Fantasies did, true enough, but it combines it in a toxic way to where the game, in my personal opinion, is simply not fun to play in comparison to the other Final Fantasies. It does not deliver in what most, if not all, other Final Fantasies do. 
And do not even get me started on XIII-2. It is terrible in pretty much every way possible. It magnifies XIII's problems while fixing few, if any, of them. 
If you want to play Final Fantasy but modern, get X/X-2 HD Remake if you have something to play it on (I forget if it comes out on Xbox 360 or not). XIII is a terrible way to first experience Final Fantasy. And I would go so far as to call that fact because I feel so strongly about it. 
Call me biased, call me whatever, but from everything I have seen, XIII was just a terrible game in the realm of Final Fantasies. Beautiful, artistically, and graphically, but terrible in every other regard. 
Take my words as you will.

I'm SLOWLY digging out from under the mess of this new editor.  BRING BACK TEXT TAGS. PRETTY PLZ.
 
Note: It's getting complete, somehow. Post your complaints corrections and additions below. Everything is my opinion, even if it has a graph or flies in the face of something Linus said.
 
First watch this:
 

FAQs:

What's the most important thing I can do to improve my audio experience?
 
 
I have a low impedance headset. People tell me that onboard audio is terrible and a dedicated soundcard will improve my audio experience. How much will it really improve?
 
What is a DAC? How is it different from a soundcard? Which is better?
 
So, do I need a better soundcard or external AMP/DAC or is my onboard good enough?
 
I think I need a better soundcard. What should I look for in a sound card or an external AMP/DAC?
 
What should I look for in a pair of headphones?
 
I was thinking about buying good high impedance headphones in the future. Should I just get the amp/dac or soundcard now that would drive them, and buy the headphones later?
 
Should I get a cheap soundcard with virtual surround like dolby headphone or use a headphone with discrete drivers?
 
But I want a surround sound headset! What are the advantages of a good pair of headphones with a cheap mic?
 
OK, fine, but can't you just tell me what to get already and be done with it?  This is all very confusing!
FEATURES:

Headphones:
 
Surround Sound:
 
Speakers:
 
AMPS:
 
DACs:
 
Sources:
 
Microphones
 
Charts
 
Links to headphone and Amp reviews on LTT forums (Please check for broken links and report!):