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You might as well just spend a little extra for a U2312HM...
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5930 Posts
Its a good enough monitor for the price. How do you like it?
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hm... my eyes arent quite trained to see differences between monitors, but it is an improvement over my old monitor. i was wondering if there are any "step-ups" that might be worth it, presumably 50-70 bucks
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The weaknesses are apparently the stand and the responsiveness (ghosting issues). If both don't bother you, then it's a good deal. Black depth and contrast ratio should be better than many competitors in that price range and a little above.
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Yeah, every ASUS I've ever had honored their rebates. Faster than most too.
Reviews for rebates are pretty stupid. A lot of people don't even know how to do them properly, so they complain. If you follow everything to the letter, it's very hard to not get a rebate. The problem with rebates is the difficulty in doing them.
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So I've decided to forget about a laptop and go straight to a desktop, anybody like to pick parts for me?? :D I'm going to be using it for mostly gaming (sc2, skyrim, diablo3), ms office apps and quickbooks. My budget is about 600-650 dollars, but I'll need a monitor too so I can't tell you my resolution. Maybe about 150 is what I'd like to spend on a monitor. I'd prefer a case that glows somewhere but if they are too much I can do without it . I can order from newegg but I also live close by to a fry's.. thanks!
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Does $600-650 include the monitor? Is an OS needed?
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i5 2400 a h61, 4gb 1333, dvdrw, a hdd, bitfenix merc alpha, cx430 or equivalent, 6870
That's basically what you are looking for at that budget for that purpose.
Btw I just spent an hour arguing with a guy, the argument started when that guy came to me and said "I'm gonna buy the new AMD 8core 3.6Ghz bulldozer" and when I said intel's way better and he should get 2500k he said "but amd has 8 cores and intel only 4 so amd is twice as fast" and the argument was painful
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Spend some time in an engineering firm or something technology oriented. You will see people who will use their degrees and EE titles to argue the dumbest things.
Over the break I had a little chat with an EE, and found out he was into computer building. He proceeded to rave about Bulldozer, and I discretely corrected him that Intel was much better. He laughed at me until I told him 8 cores doesn't amount to anything when 6 of them are being ignore for most applications / games. He then said, "that's not the CPU's fault, that's the OS." I'm like, "does it really matter? if it's not being used it's not being used." Then he proceeded to lecture me on how benchmarks were useless and Anandtech, bit-tech, etc. were all software engineers who couldn't cut it in hardware.
My brother is also an EE, but he knows when to back down when he's wrong. I tell you, a lot of times, the stigma that most engineers grew up social outcasts and now in dire need to prove their dominance / e-peen feels absolutely true.
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Of course, a degree doesn't give you common sense. Any sensible engineer knows that you don't design hardware in a vacuum (figuratively). If the hardware will be used with certain software, and users care about the output of said software, then you design the hardware to do best with that kind of software and evaluate its performance by the efficacy in running that software.
edit: I would argue that AMD is more forward-thinking than Intel in terms of long-term design goals, but that doesn't help them in terms of current products. They have a greater emphasis on heterogeneous computing, Fusion, etc. towards a vision (Vision lol) of GPU shaders on die being totally integrated with the x86 cores and sharing the workload for all kinds of non-graphics tasks. Or at least they used to, before the CEO / management shakeup. Who knows now.
On January 23 2012 06:22 jacosajh wrote: My brother is also an EE, but he knows when to back down when he's wrong. I tell you, a lot of times, the stigma that most engineers grew up social outcasts and now in dire need to prove their dominance / e-peen feels absolutely true. I don't think this is quite true. I agree that a large part of it is by nature and self-selection into this field of study, but part of it is also the training.
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Cores are the new MHz, I feel. More is better is the opinion of the uninformed masses. Oh well, if it gets AMD more sales to advertize Bulldozer as the "World first 8 core consumer CPU" (like they did at IPL3), then more power to them. We could use some more competition in the CPU market.
Bulldozer isn't really a proper 8 core chip though. Plenty of resources are shared by the 2 "cores" in a single module, making it somewhere between 4 cores with HyperThreading and a true 8 core chip in terms of parallelism.
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On January 23 2012 06:11 Myrmidon wrote: Does $600-650 include the monitor? Is an OS needed?
Yes the 600-650 does include the monitor, so about 500 or so left for actual hardware. No OS needed, sorry I didn't make that clear.
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On January 23 2012 06:22 jacosajh wrote: Spend some time in an engineering firm or something technology oriented. You will see people who will use their degrees and EE titles to argue the dumbest things.
Over the break I had a little chat with an EE, and found out he was into computer building. He proceeded to rave about Bulldozer, and I discretely corrected him that Intel was much better. He laughed at me until I told him 8 cores doesn't amount to anything when 6 of them are being ignore for most applications / games. He then said, "that's not the CPU's fault, that's the OS." I'm like, "does it really matter? if it's not being used it's not being used." Then he proceeded to lecture me on how benchmarks were useless and Anandtech, bit-tech, etc. were all software engineers who couldn't cut it in hardware.
My brother is also an EE, but he knows when to back down when he's wrong. I tell you, a lot of times, the stigma that most engineers grew up social outcasts and now in dire need to prove their dominance / e-peen feels absolutely true.
Wait EE as in Electrical Engineer? Or someone from IEEE.
Also i am not sure AMD is very forward thinking. Bolting on more cores seems to be the motto of the day, and every day, for AMD at the moment.
I hope ATI is really bailing them out right about now.
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On January 23 2012 06:49 Medrea wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2012 06:22 jacosajh wrote: Spend some time in an engineering firm or something technology oriented. You will see people who will use their degrees and EE titles to argue the dumbest things.
Over the break I had a little chat with an EE, and found out he was into computer building. He proceeded to rave about Bulldozer, and I discretely corrected him that Intel was much better. He laughed at me until I told him 8 cores doesn't amount to anything when 6 of them are being ignore for most applications / games. He then said, "that's not the CPU's fault, that's the OS." I'm like, "does it really matter? if it's not being used it's not being used." Then he proceeded to lecture me on how benchmarks were useless and Anandtech, bit-tech, etc. were all software engineers who couldn't cut it in hardware.
My brother is also an EE, but he knows when to back down when he's wrong. I tell you, a lot of times, the stigma that most engineers grew up social outcasts and now in dire need to prove their dominance / e-peen feels absolutely true. Wait EE as in Electrical Engineer? Or someone from IEEE. Also i am not sure AMD is very forward thinking. Bolting on more cores seems to be the motto of the day, and every day, for AMD at the moment. I hope ATI is really bailing them out right about now. Most people who are IEEE members are electrical or computer engineers (damn, reminds me that I have to call them up soon about my membership lol). EE generally means electrical engineer.
Bolting on more cores is a short-term tactical solution. Bulldozer is a radical departure from the past, and so is Llano. AMD in the past was responsible for bringing the memory controller into the CPU, pushing for 64-bit processors, and so on. Did you not read what I said about heterogeneous computing? I was talking about long-term strategy in terms of many years down the road.
Then again, you can very well argue that Intel today knows they have an edge in execution, both in terms of manufacturing and lower-level architecture design. So there's little motivation for them to think of a different vision for long term development...unless they're scared of ARM and so on supplanting x86. And already we see them getting some design wins in terms of bringing x86 to tablets and so on. Android will run on x86. Atom used to be a crappy kind of afterthought that kind of sucks (and it still is), but in late 2012 and from then on, it's going to be serious business.
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EE = Electrical Engineer, or what a lot of them designate themselves it appears; I never heard of it either until I continually heard a couple of them refer to themselves in such fashion over the last few years.
Of course, I know it's not true. I don't even try to make such generalizations in writing most times since I know how bad it looks professionally, but it just really seems like it at times. Especially when you're surrounded by several of them flexing e-peens. It's like they don't even have a conversation. They're just waiting for the person talking to shutup so they can say their "1-up." I swear, sometimes it's like Dragonball Z where they just purposefully gradually raise their power levels waiting for the ultimate trump card. Guess I'll just leave it at that.
Eh, forward thinking doesn't really amount to anything if it's not being acted upon. Apple is also forward thinking and does so in a way that almost forces compliance. But who knows, maybe this is the path their taking to that ultimate goal. I guess we'll see. But for now, I'll stick to what makes sense and works better
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On January 23 2012 07:01 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2012 06:49 Medrea wrote:On January 23 2012 06:22 jacosajh wrote: Spend some time in an engineering firm or something technology oriented. You will see people who will use their degrees and EE titles to argue the dumbest things.
Over the break I had a little chat with an EE, and found out he was into computer building. He proceeded to rave about Bulldozer, and I discretely corrected him that Intel was much better. He laughed at me until I told him 8 cores doesn't amount to anything when 6 of them are being ignore for most applications / games. He then said, "that's not the CPU's fault, that's the OS." I'm like, "does it really matter? if it's not being used it's not being used." Then he proceeded to lecture me on how benchmarks were useless and Anandtech, bit-tech, etc. were all software engineers who couldn't cut it in hardware.
My brother is also an EE, but he knows when to back down when he's wrong. I tell you, a lot of times, the stigma that most engineers grew up social outcasts and now in dire need to prove their dominance / e-peen feels absolutely true. Wait EE as in Electrical Engineer? Or someone from IEEE. Also i am not sure AMD is very forward thinking. Bolting on more cores seems to be the motto of the day, and every day, for AMD at the moment. I hope ATI is really bailing them out right about now. Most people who are IEEE members are electrical or computer engineers (damn, reminds me that I have to call them up soon about my membership lol). EE generally means electrical engineer.Bolting on more cores is a short-term tactical solution. Bulldozer is a radical departure from the past, and so is Llano. AMD in the past was responsible for bringing the memory controller into the CPU, pushing for 64-bit processors, and so on. Did you not read what I said about heterogeneous computing? I was talking about long-term strategy in terms of many years down the road. Then again, you can very well argue that Intel today knows they have an edge in execution, both in terms of manufacturing and lower-level architecture design. So there's little motivation for them to think of a different vision for long term development...unless they're scared of ARM and so on supplanting x86. And already we see them getting some design wins in terms of bringing x86 to tablets and so on. Android will run on x86. Atom used to be a crappy kind of afterthought that kind of sucks (and it still is), but in late 2012 and from then on, it's going to be serious business.
Yeah, those darn memberships. I have a few to renew myself. AICPA, FMA, IMA, etc. All cost so much money too >_<
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Of course, consumers want what's best now. Hoping that software developers will somehow bail you out and optimize for your hardware years later when currently you're getting owned, is bad strategy. I said forward-thinking, not correct-thinking. 
edit: btw the DBZ power-up scenario is no joke, and it definitely does happen, though not always in a mean-spirited fashion. Even friends will engage in it. I suspect the seeds are first sown when trying to do homework together (most importantly, when comparing answers) or projects.
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No I did read it. I just dont consider it very forward thinking since we have been doing parallel computing since the, what 70's? The move to 64 bit is good, but heterogeneous computing is mostly old wine in new barrels to me.
When I think of forward thinking. I think of things like: + Show Spoiler +http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/3m-and-ibm-to-develop-new-types-of-adhesives-to-create-3d-semiconductors-129315058.html
Good fucking luck is all I have to say to them. And I would definitely say that low-level architectural designs and manufacturing processes are way more forward thinking. But I would since I went to school for Computer Engineering (albeit that was 10 years ago). And I think it is going to stay that way until we hit nine nanometer processes. At that point all of this multi-compute business is going to be way more important because quantum tunneling is going to be a lot harder to tackle.
PS: I hate it when Engineers go into DBZ mode. Engineers in one field should shut the fuck up when talking about something outside of there field. Especially when to get into that field is way harder than there own. For example:
Electricians (not really an engineer) versus HVAC Engineer.
I hate electricians. Sorry. I dont hate you I hate your job.
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