Transferring to a new site | raysware.com

I will be moving to a new site, raysware.com on 17th of march. Thanks to you guys for visiting my blog and looking at my rants or review on computer things. At first, I was thinking whether raysware.com or terencesware.com would sound better. Terence, by the way, is my alias :).....seriously, I think I watch too much Alias (J. Garner rocks!) to make a alias of my own.

Anyway, to ease the reader by typing less word, I decided on "raysware.com". Why do I want to ditch the free blogger and use paid web hosting? Because I want the freedom to edit many things~ Besides, having your own domain sounds cool!

The company that provides the web hosting service that I used is T&N Communications. They currently having a promotion till the end of this month, which is 31st of March 2009. That promotion is, buy 1 year of web hosting, get another year free. For old user, renew this year, get another year free.

I bought the RM15 web hosting (starter plan) which included 1GB space with 10GB bandwidth and another RM 35 for the domain name. Simply said, for 2 years I will be paying RM 85 (RM 15+RM35*2) as domain name is not included in the promotion. I just hope that the 1GB space will be enough for my blog.

Any comments on decision to change to paid web hosting? Or questions regarding to the web hosting service? Just leave your comments here :)

My thoughts on Overclocking Phenom II to 6.5GHz

If you haven't watch the video below, please do so. Otherwise you won't understand what I'm ranting about.

Nice, now that you watch the video, don't you think it's a little bit wasteful to use the liquid nitrogen to overclock the Phenom II to 6.5GHz? I mean, to convert a gas form of N(nitrogen) to liquid N must have used up quite a lot of resources(money, energy). If they have the money to do this kind of a thing, why don't they put those money into their R&D to create a better cpu that can rival the core i7 under NORMAL conditions(air cooling).

Maybe this is a publicity, to make people think that "Oh my! Phenom II processors are so overclockable! I'm so gonna get one now!" But, do you know that, under air cooling, Phenom II more or less has the same overclock range as Core 2 Quads. Given the cheaper price, Phenom I would definitely be my choice.

So, do you guys and girls agree with this publicity tactic? Maybe the resources could have been used to do better things such as improving designs to beat the core i7? Please kindly leave your comments here :)

March 2009 PC Configuration Guide | Phenom II X3 to X4

Thanks to the competition between Intel and AMD, prices of Core 2 Quad and Phenom II have come down significantly over the month. What's more, there's a fact that Phenom II X3 can turn into a X4 simply by buying X3 cpu with Biostar 790GX+SB750 chipset motherboard, then set the ACC (Advance Clock Calibration) to auto. And BINGO, you get an X4 cpu for the price of a X3. Quote from the guru3d, "Only with the 904xxxx-stepping; this tweak seems to work, not with 0849xxxx". So good luck with your search :)

Now let's continue with this month's guide:

• 2k pc can play games at 1440*900 or 1280*1024 or 1680*1050 resolution with medium to high settings.
• 3k pc can play games at 1680*1050 or 1920*1080 with medium to high settings
  

And here's the pc guide for 2k pc (Most items are based on C-zone pricelist as of 4/3/09):

• CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5200+ (2.7GHz) - RM 210
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM DDR2 800MHz 2GB *2 - RM 160
• Motherboard: Albatron KM740G- RM 200
• Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB SATA2 16MB Cache - RM 195
• GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD4830 512MB - RM 380
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW SATA - RM 75
• Monitor: Acer X203 with speaker (20" wide) - RM 380
• Casing: Cooler Master Elite 340 - RM 125
• PSU: Cooler Master Extreme Power 460W - RM 160
• Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop - RM 89

Total : RM 1974

Note 1 : With monitor prices falling down, each penny can get you a bigger screen size. The Acer monitor incorporates the speaker, thus I removed last month's speaker. Having more budget to spend, thus I increased the HDD size.

And here's 3k pc guide:

• CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 710 2.6GHz - RM 465
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM 2GB DDR2 800MHz * 2 - RM160
• HDD: Western Digital 640GB SATA - RM 230
• Motherboard: Asus M3A78-EM - RM 300
• Graphic Card: Palit HD4850 SUPER 512MB DDR3 - RM520
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW SATA - RM75
• Monitor: Acer X233 23" wide LCD - RM 560
• Speaker: Edifier M1350 2.1 - RM 80
• PSU: OCZ Stealth X Stream- RM319
• Casing: Cooler Master Elite 340- RM 125
• Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop - RM 89

Total : RM 2923

Note 2 : The Phenom II X3 720(2.8GHz) beats Phenom X4 9850(2.5GHz) hands down, so I presumed that X3 710 can beat X4 9650 since both are 200 MHz difference from the cpus mentioned above. Because the 710 is cheaper than 9650 and offer more performance than it, thus 710 is the wise choice.

Note 3 : Phenom II X3 710 is a new cpu, thus you must update the motherboard with the newest bios to support it.

How's my configuration? Do you have other opinions? Please kindly leave them here :)