News: Joost is piling on the channels

Joost has added yet more channels and content. Now they feature such illustrious shows such as "World's Most Stupid Criminals" and Green Day music videos.

What is Joost?

It is an attempt at free internet TV. You can find out more information here.

News: EVGA 750i Mobo!

The new EVGA 750i SLI FTW motherboard has been released with the following specs:

• 45nm Support for the latest Intel CPUs (Wolfdale and Yorksfield)
• Solid Capacitors
• 6 Phase Power Design
• 2 x 16 PCI-E for Superior SLI Performance
• Capable of reaching extreme overclocks above a 1600MHz FSB
• An onboard CMOS Reset Button
• DDR2 speeds of 1066MHz and beyond

I'm a little disappointed that things are still DDR2 (even though it's DDR2 1066). Let's hope to see more mobos move to DDR3 as the year goes on.

Also - there's a contest on the EVGA website to win this mobo. Check it out here.

Contest: 1337 it up!

I, along with the rest of the internet, am aware of the craziness called 'leet speak'. However, instead of being annoyed, I find it intriguing.

Here are the rules: Post one comment in leet (1337) speak on this blog post about something you find interesting.
-You may post once a day, every day, until the contest is over.
-The contest ends Apr 13 at Midnight EST.

The winner will receive one(1) XFX GeForce 8500GT video card (as reviewed earlier).

You may only post ONCE per day.

Good luck!

Review: XFX GeForce 8500GT

I figure since I plan on giving one of these away I should, at least, review it.

Since this is the first review, I should probably go over how I plan on doing this. My reviews are targeted towards people who don't necessarily want to know all the numbers and raw data but rather the practical uses for things.





Specs:

Core Clock: 450Mhz
Memory Size: 256MB
Memory Clock: 667Mhz
Memory Interface: 64-Bit
Memory Type: GDDR2


Ok, let me start by saying this: the 8500GT is not the most powerful card in the world. That being said, power isn't everything. This card is entry level. It's meant for someone who is upgrading from a stock card or building a computer on a low budget. If you are a first time PC builder then this is something you want to look at.

It's a smaller card, and will be able to fit into most any case including LANboxes and mini-towers. I find that these are also very silent, the fans never roar and it never heats up too much. Again, this is good if you have a smaller case.

Let's look at what this baby can do. I ran, with this card, Command an Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Jade Empire, Battlefield 2142, and World of Warcraft. All of those games were very playable. C&C3 would play at 20-30FPS (FPS, for those that don't know, means Frames Per Second) at medium settings, Jade Empire (which is a port from PS2) played on it recommended settings with little to no lag, BF2142 played on High settings perfectly, and WoW hovered around 40FPS with medium-high settings.

Then something amazing happened. I bought a second card. If these cards were playable alone, put two in SLI and they become amazing. It will cost about $130 to buy two and they can outperform most other cards in that price range. FPS for all games jumped by about 10, it also let me scale up the graphics.

Now, finally, let me say that if you want to play something like Crysis, then this isn't the card for you. Even in SLI these will choke horribly on that game (or games like the upcoming Farcry 2). But if you're just into MMOs or Counter-Strike type games, then I would suggest this as an excellent purchase.

Introduction!

Greetings and salutations!

Welcome to my blog (such as it is)! My goal here is to provide quality reviews of computer hardware, software (including games), and cell phones. I've picked these three things for one reason: there is a LOT wrong with all of em. This not only gives me an abundance of content but also means I will be able to help people that much more with an fair, non-bias review.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself; I'm a young person undergoing what I suppose can be called an education. I, in my spare time, build computers to sell on eBay, play video games, watch quality movies and anime, and write.

Hopefully this blog will benefit you in some way, because that's what it's here for.

P.S. Please ignore my atrocious grammar.