Monte Carlo

As ever, thanks. I looked at the build you recommended and from that worked backwards... I'm angling for the i7 Black Pearl in a less stupid case. http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/Liquid_i7_Black_Pearl/ Looking at this: [*]CPU: Intel

I've read that an i5 processor is better for gaming that i7, and that the threading feature on new i7 chips is extraneous for gaming. Thoughts?

I appreciate the sentiment but I cannot adequately express the sense of terror buidling my own system creates in my techno-retard brain.

Srsly, the more I read reviews online the more confused I get.

ty

I'm kind of easy, I could go bigger.

I cannot, at

I have a nice but nothing special Samsung monitor. I'll keep it, but want a new 23" one. I have little or no interest in 3D and no, the rig won't be linked to a TV. I want the machine to be overclocked, the Alienware option appears to be medicore in that respect. Edit: Oh, and I want the machine to look nice. Seriously, this lives on the ground floor of the Schloss Monte, in full view. It's like a piece of furniture and I like design. It's one of the reasons I love Alienware.

I have a Chillblast gaming rig, Rampage Formula motherboard, with: 2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66 GHz Windows Vista (Home Premium) 32 bit Os and 4.00 GB RAM GeForce GTX 260 It's overclocked. Been a great computer, like I say I've had it for four years and now I'll probably use it as a spare machine in my home office. Oh, and Chillblast have been on the up since I last used them... they are now pretty expensive too. To be honest, a nice computer is one of those luxuries I can afford, I'd rather run a crappy car (which I do) than have a crappy rig.

And lastly... the Alienware Aurora is a tad cheaper and I love the look of it (this will live in a part of my house where it will be seen). However, the out of the box version appears to be underpowered. http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1410/pg15/alienware-aurora-r4-gaming-desktop-review-conclusion.html Looking at the upgrade page at Dell, what should I be looking at to make this four year future-proof? http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=d00amw01&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&model_id=alienware-aurora-r4 Again, I genuinely appreciate any advice.

Hmmm, I'm going to have to up the budget, but then again I'm realistically going to get five years out of this... http://computers.top...arl-review.html Any thoughts, it consistently scores well in reviews and they are available in the UK. Edit: Which processor? i7 3930K or 3960X ? I know the latter is more expensive but do I realistically need it?

What do we think of Cyberpower? They certainly talk a good job.

'Regime Change?' don't make me laugh. The pejorative there is that the replacement is pro-Western right? Er, like the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, right? Or the new not-very-pro-Western Libyan government? The bottom line is that every whiff of anti-authoritarianism in hitherto one-party dictatorships is stymied by the usual suspects, sort-of-Communist China and corrupt one-party kleptocracy Russia. The nuances are there if you zoom in, but it's arguably simpler once you zoom the lens out.

It's scary that a whole generation of geeks are going to grow up thinking that this is what naked women look like.

Cnotract phones. Meh. I'm stuck with my Blackberry for another year, don't get me wrong it's OK but I woke up one morning and wanted a phone with a really fast browser that wasn't Crapple. This led me to the Android / Samsung S3 series... but it's still a year off as I'm tied into contract. In the meanwhile I'm going to buy a Kindle Fire when it comes out as a portable stop-gap / e-reader.

Where are the loony-tune pro-Russian posters when you need them? Your government is supporting Assad, let's hear why.

^ I don't even need to read the EULA to know that this guy is simply talking bollocks. It's watertight.

Tough.

I've been underwhelmed by everything they've released since KOTOR II. The Force Unleashed games, expecially, disappointed me. Hopefully it's not just a rehash of The Force Unleashed, but staring one of the Clone Wars era characters. I'm not a SW fan, but not a hater either. I just think that the franchise is cursed. Last SW game I enjoyed was either TIE Fighter or that AoE SW RTS rip-off which was actually quite good fun.

Have just had a GoG frenzy ---- Temple of Elemental Evil, FO Tactics and Heroes of WW2. All for pennies. Awesome website. More power to them.

Not only is this wrong, it's criminal. Facism pure. Yes, it's wrong but I'd say we were moving more towards a Corporatist position, not Fascism. Sorry to be a pedant, but the 'F' word does tend to get bandied around a tad too casually. I hope you agree.

LadyC, I'm worried about my barbarian in NM and Hell. Level 30 now, I still need to be mindful of those toxic Act III critters. I've got a yellow 228 armour shield that is socketed, it helps but if I try to go 2H weapon or DW I'm taking too much damage. OTOH I feel that the Demon Hunter is a much more viable hi-level choice, all that tumbling, traps, AK47 fully auto skillz madness and invisibility is ideal for kiting / planning on mob control. Whaddya think?

Taking a short break from Diablo 3, I played a game of Company of Heroes today, a 4 v 4 on The Hochwald Gap. I played Wehr, which on my main account I'm a paltry level 8 (I'm level 12 Panzer Elite, which is my favoured faction in CoH). It was a mid-level game, the other side were level 8 - 14 (3 x Ami, one higher level Brit). The Hoch is a bit of a cheesy almost-mirror-map with two main entry / exits onto the battlefield from the main base areas. There is an island on the east of the map which is resource-heavy and I was on slot 5, i.e. the dude who has to (a) support mid map expansion (b) block the foot route onto the battlefield for the other side and © help take the resource island. The pre-game lobby banter was priceless. One guy was mouthing off about how badly we were going to be whipped. Anyhoo, the game starts. Now I'm OK at CoH... nothing special but I'm definitely not a noob. It was one of those high starting resource games so I made 4 pio squads, 2 MGs and a sniper and made my way to the island and foot-crossing. The guy in the base next to me was also wehr and pio-spammed a bit more than me, but it was no big deal. The Amis facing us, OTOH, engie-spammed like mewling infants and rushed the island. OK, they took it but then they stated dropping paras which is a complete waste of manpower and they soon fell to flamers, snipers and MG42 teams. Meanwhile, I flammenwerfed the footbridge and decided to go Blitzkrieg doctrine FTW. On the other side of the map the two PE players were doing well against the fairly skilful Brit player who was clearly trying to establish a sim city, as well as try to early-game dominate with Bren Catrrier spam. We secured the island, the enemy drained by MGs, mortars and snipers. I realised that we were up against even bigger noobs than I suspected when they started pissing MP and fuel away on MG bunkers in strange places. The really mouthy guy was the worst offender and badly let down the decent players on the other side of the map. Halfway in and the Axis have about 70% map control. I'm building good Vet 2 infantry and StuHs, Tier 2 spamming my way to victory. Then the dropping starts. Some people think that the AI that replaces droppers is better than bad players ---- I beg to differ. I routinely comp stomp Expert CPU and would rather deal with it any day than a reasonably good human. The PE guy drops and all of a sudden his well considered tank destroyer strategy heads south as the CPU spams pointless units and hurtles them into the maw of Brit seventeen-pounders. Me and my other Wehr teammate consolidate the island and head east, curving up and around the woods southeast of the main bridge that marks their entrance onto the battlefield. We hold the line and I get the Blitz war machine boost that allows me to trade munis for MP... this allows me to make flakpanzers and panthers and then it's GG. Mouthy Ami player says nothing as he drops like the big wet girl he most surely is. Just another day on CoH but after six years it's still brilliant MP fun. It's $3.99 on Steam this weekend. FFS buy it. Cheers MC

I am prepared to do some stuff for Blizzard on this lawsuit pro bono.

Thanks for all this, although some of it is going over my head. My current Cooler Master case reminds me a bit of the Corsair, but I'm loving this one... http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=corsair+graphite&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=EeE&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1680&bih=858&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=O5DBETKV4oMrlM:&imgrefurl=http://www.overclock.net/t/1173997/why-do-computer-cases-look-so-stupid/260&docid=1QuLX01ui8CZ-M&imgurl=http://cdn.overclock.net/c/c9/c9fddb5f_Corsair-Graphite-600T-Starwars-casemod.jpeg&w=480&h=600&ei=yKTAT6vtIYGt0QW7vd2eCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=870&vpy=68&dur=5326&hovh=251&hovw=201&tx=124&ty=147&sig=106413501240894981284&page=2&tbnh=157&tbnw=126&start=28&ndsp=39&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:28,i:175