I HAVE A NEW TOY.

[theweaselking]

"It makes a sound like God Himself getting an erection. You know, a faint thrumming whirrr and a little halo?"

So, my graphics card threw a heat sink and needed to be replaced under warranty.

They didn't have any more of my cards, so they sent me a replacement.

My Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 and I are going to have a little bit of ALONE TIME together now.

HO-LEE-SHIT.

Comments

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

But what will the children look like...?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They will be magnificently rendered, regardless.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

LOL, indeed.

[spondee.livejournal.com]

...I'll be in my bunk.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Did you seriously just drop $500+ (!) on a video card?

I want to live in a world where I can do that.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it was sent as a warranty replacement for a lesser, out-of-stock card.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You are correct.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

No.

This was what they sent me to replace my previous card, which was both under warranty and dead.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Oh gods yes, I love it when you talk dirty. :D

(Sadly, such forbidden pleasures of hardware ain't going to happen to me.)

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

So what's it getting broken in with?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm finishing Bioshock 2 while Supreme Commander 2 finishes downloading.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Oof. I'm sorry.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You have an objection to RTSen with non-complete-moron-Apple-level interfaces?

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I meant the first part. That's an extremely shiny card, and breaking it in with the half-assed sequel to a pretty lousy FPS just seems like kind of a waste.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've got leftover sentimental value from System Shock 1, which is one of the best games ever made.

And, really, I couldn't finish Bioshock 2 due to crashes from the overheating previous card. So that's what I opened.

Men Of War and Assassin's Creed[1] can wait until tomorrow.


[1]: No, literally, AC1. I refuse to purchase anything that uses modern UBI DRM. Older UBI DRM is, well, completely cracked already. Congratulations, UBI, you've invented a system by which an honest and wealthy consumer *can't* give you money. Dumbasses.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

I didn't try Assassin's Creed, but I watched the girlfriend play it, and the whole "no subtitles" thing just looked extremely irritating. A lot of times it was hard to make out what anybody was saying, and there's really no excuse for not giving you subtitles even if they're disabled by default.

Also the controls looked pretty obtuse.

[anktastic.livejournal.com]

Pfffft. Real men (such as myself) get it on with nVidia Quadros. In my case, nVidia Quadro FX1800.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Not a gaming rig = not interesting to a dude whose closest contact with AutoCAD is work that I'm not doing.

[anktastic.livejournal.com]

I'm talking hardcore 3D here. Maya. Houdini. Modo 401. Serious 3D.

I just got my second core i7 920, triple-channel DDR3 computer. Shortly after installing the PC I lost consciousness for hours when my erection hit my forehead. Now, that's hardcore - and both include graphic cards that would bully yours if they went to the same school.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You're talking about *rendering apps* and *3D modeling*.

Not *gaming*.

Which is to say, your cards are worse and would make me less happy because they are not nearly as good for what I want.

[anktastic.livejournal.com]

Hey you are no fun if you are going to get all rational on me!

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Does the 295 make that lovely jet engine sound on boot too? I've got 2 280s and am rather glad they never hit max fan speed after that power on blast.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Just a little bit of whirring - once the fan spins up, it's pretty quiet.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Wait, you use four slots for video cards?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

What else are you going to use them for?

No, seriously. The only thing I *ever* plug into PCI-e slots is video cards - why *not* use 'em all?

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Just 2 slots on the mobo, but yes, 4 slots at the back of the computer. Why not use them? Everything else is on the motherboard these days so the slots are usually empty.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

True, the last time I really paid attention to desktop PC tech everything was on PCI cards and the whole transition to everything-on-the-motherboard was just beginning.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

By the time PCI was getting to be in use (later 486, mid-line pentium 1), and quite a bit before, all the basic stuff was on a single card (Multi-IO), and all you typically had in a PC was graphics, Multi-IO (2xIDE, floppy, 2xserial, parallel, sometimes proprietary mouse), and a sound card -- or if you were a gamer, you had two Voodoo 2 cards with it, of course.

When ATX hit (mid to late Pentium/P-MMX), the multi-IO card came integrated on the motherboard (My Asus TX-97E was actually an AT-format version of an ATX board, that had those 6 connectors as lots of pin headers), and you just had graphics, sound, and network.

Far cry from the old days, when even expansion from the base memory of your XT could well be on an expansion card on the 8 bit ISA bus, let alone the hard drive controller, floppy controller, serial port card, etc.etc.

[spartonian.livejournal.com]

John nerdgasm'd....