rbandrews: (simcity)
rbandrews ([personal profile] rbandrews) wrote2013-06-19 11:04 am

New computer

I built a new computer yesterday.

I've been thinking about doing this for a while. My only-laptops-forever plan had some problems, like, laptop graphics cards suck, and when a laptop gets old you have to replace the entire thing. What finally spurred me on was general frustration at work and wanting something fun and escape-y to mess with, so, I spent a little of my savings and got a few giant boxes from Newegg.

The specs are:

- Intel i5, 3.4 GHz, the new Haswell type.
- 8 gigs of RAM
- Nvidia GTX 770 video card.
- 23 inch IPS monitor

These are really good specs for a gaming machine right now. Faster hardware exists but not by a lot, and certainly not by enough to justify the price difference.

Putting it together didn't go too badly, the hardest part was probably getting Windows 8 on it (no DVD drive, I was using an external one). The biggest difference is that enormous (compared to a laptop) monitor and how sharp and nice it is. I can't wait to put Linux on there and code on it.

I was only able to try playing one game on it last night, because I have to redownload everything from Steam. I got Skyrim at about 11:30 and played part of a dungeon. It runs beautifully, perfectly smooth framerate at "ultra high" detail and 1920x1080 resolution. Wow.