Matt Brandenburg

Building a new PC gaming system for BF3? Yup, me too. :)

Matt Brandenburg — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:47:04 +0000

I recently started playing Battlefield 3 (BF3) for PC like every other FPS gamer in the world and realized it’s absolutely amazing but it takes some major video card (GPU) power to push the graphics out at native resolution on any modern monitor (IE: 1080P 20INCH LCD) and it’s much much tougher (it could take as much as 1000% more GPU power) to push the graphic quality over any modern large high resoltion monitor (such as a 27″ iMac or 30″ Dell/Apple Cinema display which would run native resolition at 2560 x 1600 ish ranges) to combat this since my last gaming system is a year old I had to design and build a new gaming specific system for my 2560 x 1600 native resolution apple cinema display – extremely long story short after a day of research and digging into it I found the most extreme system I could build (without going unnecessary overboard IE: GTX590 nvidias in SLI) would cost me $2,300and it would run BF3 in Ultra settings at 60 ish frames per minute (FPS) the human eye can only see 30 FPS’s ish so to hit 60 or a steady low of even 45FPS would make it so the human eye could see a smooth graphic you never want the system dropping under 30 FPS or for $1,400 you could build a system that would easily run BF3 at 2560×1600 on Medium > High settings (which is still extremely good IE: you may lose some distance on the foliage at a long distance when zoomed in on a 12 x sniper riffle) but you wouldn’t lose anything relevant such as viewing distance etc just textile quality and foliage viewing range/quality – Below are the system build specs I used in case anyone is in the market for a new gaming system build – Enjoy!

———————————————————————————————-

$2,300 BUILD SPECIFICATIONS: (Including liquid cooling CPU for overclocking)

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
Item #:N82E16832116986
$99.99

Patriot Signature 4GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)
Item #:N82E16820220099
$6.99

OCZ RevoDrive 3 series RVD3-FHPX4-120G PCI-E MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Item #:N82E16820227745
$399.99

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Item #:N82E16819115070
$319.99

ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
Item #:N82E16813131753
$244.99

PLEXTOR 24X Internal DVD Super Multi Drive Black SATA Model PX-L890SA LightScribe Support
Item #:N82E16827249066
$33.99

LIAN LI Lancool First Knight Series PC-K9WX Black Computer Case With Side Panel Window
Item #:N82E16811112337
$119.99

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Item #:N82E16835100007
$12.98

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820145347
$97.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 (Fermi) Classified 03G-P3-1596-AR Video Card
Item #:N82E16814130693
$749.99

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817139009
$134.99

CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler
Item #:N82E16835181010
$70.67

———————————————————————————————-

$1,400 SYSTEM BUILD:

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Item #:N82E16819115070
$319.99

Codemasters Operation Flashpoint: Red River PC Game – Gift
Item #:N82E16800999280
$39.99

LIAN LI Lancool First Knight Series PC-K9WX Black Computer Case With Side Panel Window
Item #:N82E16811112337
$129.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
Item #:N82E16832116986
$99.99

PLEXTOR 24X Internal DVD Super Multi Drive Black SATA Model PX-L890SA LightScribe Support
Item #:N82E16827249066
$33.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) HD 012-P3-1571-AR Video Card
Item #:N82E16814130621
$339.99

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820145347
$89.99

Open Box: ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
Item #:N82E16813131753R
$189.99

COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M700 RS-700-AMBA-D3 700W Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817171037
$104.99

Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #:N82E16822136770
$94.99

Jailbroken iPhone 4 Users Having An Issue With The New Facebook App Not Working? Let’s Fix It!

Matt Brandenburg — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 01:38:00 +0000

After installing the much anticipated latest update to Facebook’s iPhone app I realized that uhm well it no longer worked, At all, In fact I couldn’t even log into Facebook using the Facebook iPhone App and I read about many users having an issue logging in or simply getting “Error try again later” every time they tried to view their news feed etc etera

Do you have an iPhone 4?
Is your iPhone Jailbroken?
Do you have BiteSMS installed on your iPhone?
Is your new Facebook App not working?

If you answered yes to all of the above then let’s fix this issue

You can either uninstall BiteSMS and respring your phone (or restart it if you don’t know how to respring) -OR- you can follow the directions below.

Open SBSettings
Click Mobile Substrate Settings
Disable biteSMSsb
Respring your phone (or restart it if you don’t know how to respring)

Poof! Facebook AND biteSMS are both now fully functional!

Any questions don’t hesitate to ask as usual, Thanks!

T-Mobile G2 Spotted In The Wild

Matt Brandenburg — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:45:42 +0000

Today some shots of the T-Mobile G1 predecessor the G2 have been leaked we don’t have much on the specs of T-Mobiles next big smartphone other than it appears to be an americanized version of the upcoming HTC Vision it looks like you can expect a 3.7 inch display and a sliding QWERTY keyboard but we don’t have any specifics on its internals yet, As always we’ll keep you posted.

Nokia’s New Cell Phone Leaked And It Looks Oddly Familiar, See Apple :)

Matt Brandenburg — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:59:19 +0000

Nokia’s new sliding QWERTY loaded smartphone running the MeeGo OS leaked today and it looks oddly familiar, MacBook Pro anyone? As soon as all the information is available we’ll update and repost but for now here are a few photos and basic information to hold you over.

Nokia N9
4″ screen
8MP camera
New MeeGo OS

Microsoft’s New Mouse Input Device Revealed, Their Take On Apple’s Magic Mouse, The Arc Touch.

Matt Brandenburg — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:37:13 +0000

Microsoft has a new input device coming to market in the USA in the near future and they call it the Microsoft Arc Touch from the limited data available it basically looks to be Microsoft’s more ergonomic take on Apple’s Magic Mouse from the look of the device they just might have a winner on their hands but that is yet to be seen, We’ll certainly be first in line to review it on release day so we’ll keep you posted on this promising new device as details become available.

Reported Mouse Features To Date:
Touch Scrolling
Battery Indicator
Track on almost any surface
2.4ghz nano transceiver
$69.95 rumored price point

Apple Magic Trackpad – My Final Thoughts

Matt Brandenburg — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:06:58 +0000

It’s been a few weeks since I picked up my shiny new Apple Magic Trackpad a product that I had been dreaming about since my first MacBook pro that came with the Glass Multi-Touch Trackpad, As soon as I got my hands on the gesture enabled MacBook Pro Trackpad I knew it was only a matter of time before they released a version of it for our desktop PC’s and just two years later my dreams came true in theory the Apple Magic Trackpad is exactly what I wanted it was a larger version of the MacBook Pro Trackpad with clickable feedback legs and a nice angle for use on the desktop and of course it was built amazingly well as all Apple devices are in my opinion but as soon as I started using my new Apple toy I thought it was perfect, Exactly what I had been waiting for It had Jitouch compatibility out of the box adding a plethora of new functionality in gestures and its size was perfect not to mention it looked amazing sitting next to my shiny Apple Wireless Keyboard and it matched it perfectly as if the two were destined to sit side by side and they are however fast forward just 2 weeks and as I look down at my desk I realize something my shiny new Apple Magic Trackpad is now laying almost out of reach entirely underneath my 30 inch Apple Cinema Display and its been replaced by my beloved Logitech Performance Mouse MX at first I thought nothing of it as I had only put my old Logitech mouse in that position to do some gaming as I had always known that no mater how amazing the Magic Trackpad was it would never be able to stand up to a gaming mouse when it came to gaming so I replace the Logitech mouse with my new Apple Magic Trackpad and then something happened I realized after using it for about 2 hours that the reason I hadn’t switched back to the Magic Trackpad after gaming was because my Logitech mouse is comfortable enough to use for 24 hours straight on those long endless nights programming (and playing games in between of course) however the Apple Magic Trackpad starts to hurt your wrist just a little and it begins to generally annoy you just enough to make you go back to your old trusty mouse after a few hours of use and all of the super cool gestures and shortcuts in the world can’t make an uncomfortable device comfortable so this being said I feel that the Apple Magic Trackpad does have its place especially when it comes to graphics editing and short term use for browsing and such but it will never be a true mouse replacement especially not when compared to a mouse as amazingly responsive, customizable and comfortable as the Logitech Performance Mouse MX.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Apple Magic Trackpad is as perfect as a trackpad input device can be in my opinion and while it certainly has its place in the input device market it’s not for everyone and I believe that even the people it’s geared towards will find that even while they love their new Magic Trackpad most users will find themselves using their beloved mouse more than they do their new Magic Trackpad after a short period of time.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Speak up!

Logitech Performance Mouse MX [$99.99]
Apple Magic Trackpad [$69.00]
Apple Wireless Keyboard [$69.99]
Jitouch [$5.99]

Toshiba’s New Dual Touchscreen “Laptop” (Foldable Touchpad) Windows 7 System

Matt Brandenburg — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:12:43 +0000

The new Toshiba Liberetto W100 is a cool new take on an iPad style touchpad device with its two 7 inch folding touchscreen displays, 1.2ghz U5400 Pentium processor, 2GB Ram and a 64GB SSD with Windows 7 Home Premium loaded on it they just might have a winner -if- they lower the price, As it stands this new niche system prices itself within the range of much more powerful portable systems however should the price become more comparable to that of the iPad and like products then Toshiba really might have a future winner here. Photos and videos below.

Windows Users Can Finally Make Their System Look And Feel Like Mac OS X :)

Matt Brandenburg — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:20:28 +0000

This software is perfect for those who just like to play with theming their Windows look or users who run multiple OS and prefer them to feel and look more uniform, Finally a nice Mac in Windows theming solution.

Snow Transformation Pack will change the appearance of your whole system, including the login screen, icons, wallpapers, sounds, dock, dialog boxes, and other UI elements. You’ll need to disable User Account Control to install it, so you may have to run the installer twice, once to disable UAC and then again (after restarting) to install the package. On installing, you’ll get a few choices as to whether you want to install a few extra background apps that add extra graphics, which is nice if your computer isn’t necessarily a powerhouse (so you can turn them off to keep performance up).

Download Here

Hackintosh i7 Desktop Vs MacBook Pro i7 Benchmark Results

Matt Brandenburg — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 06:10:07 +0000

I recently built a 2.8GHZ i7 intel Hackintosh and I wanted to benchmark it versus my 2.66GHZ i7 MacBook Pro, Lets see what the results look like but first some basic information on the two machines.

System 1: “Hackintosh i7″
2.8GHz Intel i7-860
4GB Ram DDR3 1333MHz
Complete Specs and Build Guide And Parts List Here [TUTORIAL]

System 2: “MacBook Pro i7″
2.8GHz Intel i7-860
4GB Ram DDR3 1333MHz
Complete System Specs And Reviews Can Be Found Here [CNET]

GeekBench Benchmark Results:

System 1: “Hackintosh i7″

System 2: “MacBook Pro i7″

XBench Benchmark Results:

System 1: “Hackintosh i7″

System 2: “MacBook Pro i7″

The New Verizon iPhone Codename N92 Nears Production – It’s Official!

Matt Brandenburg — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:42:55 +0000

Apple’s long rumored and long awaited Verizon compatible iPhone (CDMA Network iPhone) codenamed the N92 is in its last phase of testing before production known as the EVT (Engineer Validation Test) stage, Once this is completed it will go directly into production we presume for its long rumored January 2011 release date then again with it moving forward at this pace maybe we can expect a 2010 release date in the not so distant future? Regardless this is great news for those who love the iPhone 4 but despise AT&T or who simply prefer Verizon (everybody? yes thought so.) we’ll keep our ears to the ground and keep you posted on the Verizon iPhone and no people it will not be called N92 on release date that’s simply its in house codename at it’s testing facility.