System upgrade
As my last post may have hinted, I've made a few changes to my system lately. Just before a very busy weekend, with impeccable timing, the hard disk in my desktop gave out. I've been eyeing an upgrade for it for a while, and was hoping to hold out until the wider range of new-gen Intel CPUs comes out later this year, but this was too good a sign to ignore. So, I went out and spent a bit of money:
Asus P8P67 Deluxe motherboard G.SKILL Ripjaws-X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL x2 = 16GB RAM Intel Core i7 2600K CPU Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD Noctua NH-U12P SE2 heatsink/fan
I originally got a Corsair Force 3 SSD, but there's an ongoing issue with SandForce 2200-based SSDs with recent firmware and Intel P58 motherboards that made it unusable (don't buy the Corsair or OCZ third-gen SSDs for a new P58-based system!), so I went to the Crucial. Crucial actually has a C400 line as well, but they seem to have lower random read speeds than the C300 series, which I didn't like.
The graphics card is still a Geforce 9600 (there's no real need to change this, since I don't play any games on it) and the case and PSU are also unchanged, they're both Antecs, Sonata III and EarthWatts 500W. There's a 500GB hard disk in there in case I need it, and a DVD+-RW drive. Keyboard and mice are my old standbys, a 1990-vintage IBM Model M and a Logitech MX510 respectively.
Today, I replaced my mismatched Acer 20" 1680x1050 displays with two Dell U2211H 22" 1920x1080 IPS displays. I'm running the CPU overclocked to around 4.4GHz via the automatic OC tool in the Asus BIOS. Very very happy with the upgraded system: it's ridiculously fast (boots in 8 seconds and does a complete kernel RPM build in 29 minutes), and the new monitors are fantastic. I still wish someone made desktop displays with a higher pixel density, but no-one really does (there's some very niche ones from years ago, but they're practically impossible to buy). These are the best option you can really get at present.
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