I started building my old gaming PC in 2008, an AMD Athlon 64 dual-core CPU with Nvidia 9600GT GPU, a cheap motherboard and power supply, and a case that I modified with wood and acrylic glass.
Category: Reviews
Raijintek Morpheus II
RX Vega 56 launched in August 2017 with a blower-style stock cooler that is incapable of adequately handling the excess heat from this GPU at its full performance level. The default settings deliberately limit the power consumption and fan speed to keep it running comfortably within its physical limitations. Can it be improved with a different GPU cooler?
External GPU with Thunderbolt 3
The AKiTiO Node Thunderbolt 3 eGFX Box is a 7Kg black metal powered external enclosure for connecting a full-size graphical processing unit (GPU) to any computer with a Thunderbolt 3 port. The front 12cm fan can be removed to make room for a water cooling radiator. The carry handle helps it to be more portable than a full tower PC, although it is bigger in real life than it seems in photos.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Deus Ex is widely regarded as one of the best computer games of all time, thanks to its immersive dystopian future setting, RPG-style character development, and a story that begins with a New York terror attack (before 9/11 happened), a genetically-designed disease outbreak (before CRISPR), and real conspiracy theories like global internet surveillance (before Snowden).
Fixing the XPS 13 9350
A follow-up to my previous post about the Dell XPS 13 9350. Thermal performance, dynamic brightness control, and a failed BIOS update.
Dell XPS 13 Review
The Matrix Trilogy: A Man-Machine Interface Perspective
This essay was written by SFAM, founder of the defunct website cyberpunkreview.com on February 4, 2006. See the original at the Internet Archive.
Overview: Since online debate around the Matrix Trilogy has been beaten to death, I’m guessing by now you’ve already long ago made up your mind on whether you liked or hated The Matrix and its subsequent sequels. Truly, whatever you decided is fine with me. As it turns out, I love them and generally think they’re great. And NO, I’m not really interested in having a Matrix Sucks/No You just don’t get it discussion. Please start a new thread in the Meatspace if you’re still interested in such banter. This essay is for something else – it’s about viewing the trilogy, specifically Neo, from a man-machine interface, or cybernetics perspective.
Continue reading The Matrix Trilogy: A Man-Machine Interface Perspective
Testing a Titan
We recently acquired a Nvidia GTX Titan graphical processing unit (GPU) for statistical computing at work, specifically double-precision floating point operations on the CUDA API. Before I lock it away in the server room I would like to see how it compares to my primary GPU at home – a Nvidia GTX 680, and my older GPUs – a pair of AMD Radeon HD 5770. This act of comparison is called benchmarking – running a number of standard tests and trials in order to assess the relative performance of a piece of hardware or software.