The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition
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ddp
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13. September 2010 @ 13:44 |
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The previous "Official PC building thread - 3rd Edition" dates back to 16 Jul 2008 and is a fair old few pages long now - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/683586 so it's a good a time as any to start afresh. The old thread is now closed/unstickied but as it's linked here in the first post of the new thread it won't be forgotten and can still be referenced.
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AfterDawn Addict
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13. September 2010 @ 13:50 |
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no new page bugs so far :p
MGR (Micro Gaming Rig) .|. Intel Q6600 @ 3.45GHz .|. Asus P35 P5K-E/WiFi .|. 4GB 1066MHz Geil Black Dragon RAM .|. Samsung F60 SSD .|. Corsair H50-1 Cooler .|. Sapphire 4870 512MB .|. Lian Li PC-A70B .|. Be Queit P7 Dark Power Pro 850W PSU .|. 24" 1920x1200 DGM (MVA Panel) .|. 24" 1920x1080 Dell (TN Panel) .|.
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 14:00 |
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Shouldn't your last post have directed us here DDP? :p
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 14:02 |
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Wow, 4th edition, this thread's seen plenty of action!
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AfterDawn Addict
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13. September 2010 @ 17:48 |
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I know the AMD Building thread was messed up too, but they fixed it a few days ago. The Nero scan thread seems OK. I'll have to check the overclocking thread! That AMD Price thread where I told that Troll off, hangs back at page 1, but it doesn't have 2 full pages yet!
@Shaff! Please take note that the Troll hasn't been heard from since! ROFLMSOAO!!
Russ
GigaByte 990FXA-UD5 - AMD FX-8320 @4.0GHz @1.312v - Corsair H-60 liquid CPU Cooler - 4x4 GB GSkill RipJaws DDR3/1866 Cas8, 8-9-9-24 - Corsair 400-R Case - OCZ FATAL1TY 550 watt Modular PSU - Intel 330 120GB SATA III SSD - WD Black 500GB SATA III - WD black 1 TB Sata III - WD Black 500GB SATA II - 2 Asus DRW-24B1ST DVD-Burner - Sony 420W 5.1 PL-II Suround Sound - GigaByte GTX550/1GB 970 Mhz Video - Asus VE247H 23.6" HDMI 1080p Monitor
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 18:16 |
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Yah, it looks like you scared him off russ LOL!
I wonder what ever happened to Rawstyles. He was a funny guy ;) LOL!!!
I may not be building a complete new system for a while. My case is nearly timeless(HAF932), My PSU is dependable *knocking on wood*, my board shows no signs of degradation. Other than an 8Gb - 16Gb ram upgrade, and a possible 6, 8, or 12 core next year, I'm happier than a fly in $h!t LOL! Perhaps a GPU upgrade though too. Depends on what kind of games release. Although maybe my buddy will have me build his system come tax time. He's got a friggin 1999 system. The poor thing is running XP, and has a P3 chip. I think its a mere 800Mhz. Makes my mothers old computer look like a super computer.
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 18:18 |
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With both the Q9550 and i5 to play with, it'll be a long while before I buy another CPU upgrade, even if Bulldozer is a complete domination.
Graphics needs to come relatively soon, I'm likely to be buying a pair of HD6970s in the not too distant future. However, first and foremost, now the SSD is done, will be redundant storage for my server, an eventual 8GB RAM upgrade, and little stuff like fan controllers and cables.
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 18:34 |
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Sounds about like my boat ;) 2 Phenom II processors really is enough horse power for me currently. Sure would like quicker BD encoding though. I can see myself tinkering in less than a year :p
Would really like at least 1 SSD.
And of course my GTX 260 is becoming yesteryears news LOL! While it can play most games at a fair rate (To me), future games will require an upgrade. And I would like a more fluid experience ;) If I have to spend 400+ dollars...so be it :D
And I can think of ways of using 16Gb of ram. I'll likely be contemplating that much ram before I purchase it. 8Gb definitely, 16...not so sure yet.
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question!
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 18:51 |
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Yeah 16GB's still a bit pricey really, I think I'll get away with 8 for a while first :P
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AfterDawn Addict
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13. September 2010 @ 20:29 |
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Quote: (omegaman7)Yah, it looks like you scared him off russ LOL!
Oman7,
Only problem was I almost got a ticket from the SPCA, for Neutering without a license! :)
Russ
GigaByte 990FXA-UD5 - AMD FX-8320 @4.0GHz @1.312v - Corsair H-60 liquid CPU Cooler - 4x4 GB GSkill RipJaws DDR3/1866 Cas8, 8-9-9-24 - Corsair 400-R Case - OCZ FATAL1TY 550 watt Modular PSU - Intel 330 120GB SATA III SSD - WD Black 500GB SATA III - WD black 1 TB Sata III - WD Black 500GB SATA II - 2 Asus DRW-24B1ST DVD-Burner - Sony 420W 5.1 PL-II Suround Sound - GigaByte GTX550/1GB 970 Mhz Video - Asus VE247H 23.6" HDMI 1080p Monitor
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AfterDawn Addict
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13. September 2010 @ 21:49 |
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you say this omega, but the upgrade bug qill hit you, then you will be itching, and there is only one cure!
MGR (Micro Gaming Rig) .|. Intel Q6600 @ 3.45GHz .|. Asus P35 P5K-E/WiFi .|. 4GB 1066MHz Geil Black Dragon RAM .|. Samsung F60 SSD .|. Corsair H50-1 Cooler .|. Sapphire 4870 512MB .|. Lian Li PC-A70B .|. Be Queit P7 Dark Power Pro 850W PSU .|. 24" 1920x1200 DGM (MVA Panel) .|. 24" 1920x1080 Dell (TN Panel) .|.
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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13. September 2010 @ 21:56 |
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Ahh yes. I know the upgrade bug well. He's caused me many itches! ROFL!!! I have a feeling no matter what, bulldozer is gonna be the biggest itch of all ;)
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question!
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Red_Maw
Senior Member
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14. September 2010 @ 02:06 |
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Originally posted by shaffaaf: you say this omega, but the upgrade bug qill hit you, then you will be itching, and there is only one cure!
My wallet suffers from that about every 2 years :(
Even though I have an i7 I'll have a nasty itch once bulldozer and SB are out lol.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 14. September 2010 @ 02:06
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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14. September 2010 @ 06:53 |
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I have no upgrade itch for CPU whatsoever at the moment, even with impending Bulldozer, but I am still expecting great things of the architecture. At the moment I'm effectively expecting AMD to take the lead, and anything less than that will surprise me :P
I'm very itchy for the HD6 series though, and am routinely tempted by people selling HD5 series cards cheap until I realise still just how poor value they are. FPS per £, the best I've come up with so far is 55% improvement (two 5970s) for £790, which is 46% more than I paid for my pair of X2s, so an improvement in FPS per £ of a very poor 6%. That's after 2 years and a month, and using ebay!
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AfterDawn Addict
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14. September 2010 @ 07:02 |
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honestly i did say from day one i didn't like the 5 series, but there's only one thing to blame that on and its nvidia. Lack of comeptition. Tbh im not looking forward to the 6 series as much as the 28nm series.
MGR (Micro Gaming Rig) .|. Intel Q6600 @ 3.45GHz .|. Asus P35 P5K-E/WiFi .|. 4GB 1066MHz Geil Black Dragon RAM .|. Samsung F60 SSD .|. Corsair H50-1 Cooler .|. Sapphire 4870 512MB .|. Lian Li PC-A70B .|. Be Queit P7 Dark Power Pro 850W PSU .|. 24" 1920x1200 DGM (MVA Panel) .|. 24" 1920x1080 Dell (TN Panel) .|.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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14. September 2010 @ 07:39 |
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You can't really blame the HD5 series for being the trendset for a new generation. Unfortunately, lack of competition from nvidia for such a long time gave the accepted price for the new cards to be on a 1:1 with those for the previous generation. More than, in fact, since the original HD5 series pair were faster than anything that had come before.
nVidia have had their ups and downs with the 4 series. the 470 definitely a down, the 480 a down but still a card that can take the single GPU lead at all costs, something they're famous for. The 460 definitely an up, but the 450, hmm, more of a down for me.
Agreed on the 28nm series. The HD6 is just a refresh of the HD5 to gleam all the performance possible out of 40nm. The beauty we have here is that nvidia's architecture has already used all of the TDP you can get away with on 40nm, so to improve performance any further, all they can really do is restore the GTX480 to its original 512 shader specification, and go over the 300W mark and make it an ultra-high end GPU.
ATI are well below spec for maximum power drain on their single GPUs, with the HD5870 at only 188W of the allowable 300, so the HD6 series will be AMD expanding Evergreen into a Monster GPU die like the GTX480, but since the HD5870 isn't very far behind with its current small die, it should overtake the GTX480 clearly...in theory.
That of course doesn't allow for any dual GPU configs, and what the HD6990 is likely to be is two HD6 series GPUs that equate to HD5870 level performance, so effectively we'll be getting a reference version of the Asus Ares or 4GB 5970. Hopefully better priced.
This therefore means that it's definitely going to be the best option to go with two single GPUs unless you can afford two duals but only have two slots, as the HD6 series will allow the TDP to near maxed out using one GPU, thus maximising performance without relying on crossfire before multiple slots are used.
The HD6770 is going to be the exact same as the HD5770, and why not? It's not like Southern Islands is a completely different design for a GPU, with no process refresh, may as well extend the range downwards.
The HD6870 however, supposedly isn't going to be the same as the HD6870. I'd be interested to see how that compares. I'm willing to bet it'll probably be a slightly reduced TDP affair with the same shader power but reduced spec in other areas. Sort of like an HD5850 but at HD5870 clocks, instead of the reverse. Maybe. Pure speculation here on my part.
The HD6970 will be a flagship behemoth likely to draw 250W or so, but have a performance output, from what I've seen from prelim benchmarks, being a clear 25% above the GTX480 in a bias-free scenario like Crysis.
How much ATI are likely to charge for it given the GTX480 is still a meaty £360, who knows. I'm hoping they keep it £400 or below, so a pair of 6970s becomes a possible buy.
Northern Islands, I'm not sure exactly what they're planning for it, but I suspect the giants of the HD6 series will have the refresh applied and form mid-highs for the HD7 series. Then maybe, they'll work on a 28nm giant, or perhaps, just use the scaled down HD6970 as a basis for a dual card, the HD7970 maybe? Anything's possible I suppose.
Largely thanks to TSMC's blunders though, 40nm, which is now approaching 3 years old, is still hampering progress, and I don't think we'll see a single GPU approach 3.0x the HD4870's capability until 28nm. At least with HD6 we'll see 2.0x, maybe 2.5.
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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14. September 2010 @ 19:00 |
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Truly unfortunate. I forgot to purchase the damned WD20EARS. Well, hopefully it's not damned LOL! But I'll have to go 2nd day air to get it here by friday now...
Probably worth it though. It sees less hands when it flys directly to portland. Plus just having the priority label, promotes care. I certainly treat such packages with the utmost care ;)
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question!
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bigwill68
Suspended permanently
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14. September 2010 @ 19:48 |
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I don't if.I'm late on this but did ya'll Boys know that CoolIt Eco came out with a new radiator style for top end cooling customer was complaining about side panel fan touching the rear radiator mounted on the back and they decided hook it up to a top side one...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/coolit-c240-alc-eco-review/
Done out of Here!
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AfterDawn Addict
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15. September 2010 @ 07:03 |
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Originally posted by bigwill68: I don't if.I'm late on this but did ya'll Boys know that CoolIt Eco came out with a new radiator style for top end cooling customer was complaining about side panel fan touching the rear radiator mounted on the back and they decided hook it up to a top side one...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/coolit-c240-alc-eco-review/
Will,
I saw it but it was too case limited. You almost have to have a Bottom PSU case, with the right spacing for the fans and radiator on top, otherwise you will have to drill holes, something you do not want to do with the motherboard installed! I would also prefer to have a rad that big, mounted on the back of the case! It also has to be one loud mother, with 4 fans! Dang! Those 1366 i7s do get hot, don't they!
9500GT came today from MSI. Hopefully the third one will be the charm. I'll have to wait until my motherboard gets here from GigaByte first though.
Best Regards,
Russ
GigaByte 990FXA-UD5 - AMD FX-8320 @4.0GHz @1.312v - Corsair H-60 liquid CPU Cooler - 4x4 GB GSkill RipJaws DDR3/1866 Cas8, 8-9-9-24 - Corsair 400-R Case - OCZ FATAL1TY 550 watt Modular PSU - Intel 330 120GB SATA III SSD - WD Black 500GB SATA III - WD black 1 TB Sata III - WD Black 500GB SATA II - 2 Asus DRW-24B1ST DVD-Burner - Sony 420W 5.1 PL-II Suround Sound - GigaByte GTX550/1GB 970 Mhz Video - Asus VE247H 23.6" HDMI 1080p Monitor
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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15. September 2010 @ 09:54 |
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Ooh, subtle dig there Russ :P
To be frank, even a good 120mm tower cooler can handle even 130W CPUs when overclocked quite considerably, let alone something like an H70 or CoolIT Eco, let alone a big rad like that. Realistically those are the sort of things you only need if you're cooling a chipset and graphics card(s) as well.
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bigwill68
Suspended permanently
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15. September 2010 @ 10:23 |
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Quote: Russ wrote:
Will,
I saw it but it was too case limited. You almost have to have a Bottom PSU case, with the right spacing for the fans and radiator on top, otherwise you will have to drill holes, something you do not want to do with the motherboard installed! I would also prefer to have a rad that big, mounted on the back of the case! It also has to be one loud mother, with 4 fans! Dang! Those 1366 i7s do get hot, don't they!
9500GT came today from MSI. Hopefully the third one will be the charm. I'll have to wait until my motherboard gets here from GigaByte first though.
Best Regards,
Russ
Well it would work in my cases the 590 & my 690II cooler masters for the sound it would'en be no louder than what we got hooked up now to are single Rad with the push & pull with scythe pulling and factory pushing and there not loud together at all...Good Luck with that Third Charm from my luck with my AMD Board Back to Gigabyte it goes My LAN went out completely. I can't connect to the internet at all. I installed both systems Win7 & XP nothing happen my eyes veering towards another board and whole new setup and case for the AMD system...I'm back on The UD3P and The Q9550 Rig for now so the 690 II is tore down and the board is packed ready to head back to Cali again:(
Done out of Here!
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 15. September 2010 @ 10:24
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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15. September 2010 @ 10:26 |
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Definitely the network port then is it, and not something on your network? The board is certainly not the first thing I'd blame if I had no internet.
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Moderator
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15. September 2010 @ 10:47 |
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Just bought a Hitachi 2TB hard drive, only £83. (was going to go down the WD20EARS route but can't be doing with the different formatting that those drives need, lazy i know but a change is as good as a rest). We use the Hitachi's at work, they seem like very good/fast drives, can't vouch for their noise though as they're in a very noissy server room.
So i've finally got around to starting my replacement of the (6) 500GB drives in my Antec 900. Have to do it piecemeal though, maybe one or two drives a month as i will need a backup 2TB drive for each internal one. Going to buy an Akasa DuoDock also, for easy mounting of the external drives as and when i make changes. I read that the Hitachi's can be noisy, which might well be annoying after 3 years of 13 silent WD5000AAKB & AAKS drives, but if the drives are too noisy i read that there's an acoustic utility that can be run to silence them.
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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15. September 2010 @ 10:55 |
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I think you can still get the WD20EADS which uses the old formatting system, but ah well. One of my friends' servers (who I bought four of my EACS drives off) has been fitted with 2TB Hitachis and so far so good I think.
In my experience AAM tends only to mildly quieten drives, if you need it at all, you still aren't likely to be satisfied in the end, but not everyone cares that much about noise. Just when you use a dozen drives, you want them to be quiet :P
Either that, or just use a nice silencing case like I do.
The 750GB Seagate 7200.10 I have is hideous but from the outside it really doesn't seem that bad in the NZXT Whisper case thanks to the dampening foam, and me having fitted it in one of the rear slots in the bowels of the case.
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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15. September 2010 @ 12:55 |
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I imagine that coolit will fit in the HAF932 :p
LOL! A dozen hard drives chirping away could get a little irritating ;) I imagine I'll understand that perfectly one day...
I'll be buying the WD20EARS today. Looks like they updated their firmware though. I wonder if that addresses their supposed longevity issue.
I also will be purchasing a glorious 15 foot USB printer cable. (A male to B male). Can't do without it anymore LOL! I work on peoples printers...
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question!
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 15. September 2010 @ 13:02
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