Time for a computer update!

So, over the past year, the computer has gone through some changes and I thought it might be time to note them.

Cooler master Hyper 212+
Asus PCIE TV Tuner card
OCZ Agility 2 SSD
XFX 6850

I did not add all the parts at once. I have been slowly installing them as needed. The CPU fan was added first. My old 4890 blew hot air out the back but the new GPU blows inside the case. I did not intentionally plan to pull hot air upward. Yes, my CPU temps did go up some but a few degrees is nothing to worry over.

Currently the CPU is clocked between 3.5ghz and 3.6ghz
basically it runs them same load as a stock phenom II 945 while only using 3 cores.

It's hard to see, but there is a tiny Asus TV tuner card right under the XFX 6850. The tuner card has been great for me but many other people have had issues with theirs. Maybe Asus should do a little more R&D in this field.

OCZ Agility 2 SSD is used as my windows boot drive. I still have some other drives inside as well for storage and videos. Honestly, people claim an SSD is amazing but it was not any sort of life changer for me. I bought the SSD to run windows and Final Fantasy XIV. The prices are great right now so if you can afford one it's fine to get one. But if you are on a budget, it's definitely not any sort of deal breaker.

I bought the XFX 6850 to give me a little FPS boost in FFXIV. sadly, that game is so horribly coded I still can't run with ambient occlusion and depth of field on with MSAAx2 at a high resolution and get a respectable frame rate. I overclocked the card a bit but it still falls way too short.

in my opinion FFXIV is the new Crysis. need to test a GPU? Throw FFXIV at it and you are guaranteed to get bad frame rates regardless of how nice your setup is.

I settled for the 6850 instead of the 6870 I wanted because I decided it might be best to save a little money now and be able to upgrade again next year in the late spring. Right after making my purchase I took the extra 100$ and bought me some anime toys which I will post about at a later time.

To Heart2 Ilfa on sale 50% off!

www.amiami.jp
has Ilfa among other items on sale at great prices.
I recently picked her up already though

This figure is produced by Alter, one of my favorite makers. They also do not re-release stuff, so once she is gone, that is it.

Rin and Saber

Uh-oh! Now you're in trouble! Rin told Saber and when you get home, boy, are you going to get it! Tohsaka Rin is my favorite figma but Saber is not far behind. I really prefer the casual clothes version over the battle suits. Of course, they are both great to have. Some new Nanoha figures coming out and I am definitely looking forward to the Sakuya figure as well.

Let's make some Gunpla!

It's been about 10 years since I last built any gundam kits. I honestly do not really like anything super robot anymore. But after watching three hundred and thirteen episodes of Keroro Gunsou I now have the urge to build something great!

Of course, if I am going to place an order to Japan I might as well pick up a few other odds and ends that I can't get anywhere else. The Hayate no Gotoku! Nagi figure was priced very reasonably and looks like a great pose as well. Sadly the quality is quite low as it is one of those sega prize toys like the ones you see in UFO catchers and such. But still, great for Hayate fans to have.

I plan to build the Keroro kits over the next few months and airbrush them. I have some real high expectations that something great is going to happen. In the mean time, I'll have a few fun pics of new figures I have been getting in and maybe a review or two.

Completed my AMD gaming build

This past year has been a really great year to build your own computer. Well, the economy might not agree, however, computer tech has reached one of it's best price versus performance stages in a long while.
You can build a gaming rig now for under 500$ that would have cost you close to a thousand two years ago.

How is this possible you ask?! Because AMD has come back fighting hard. Yes, we were all worried just the other year about the state of affairs. The first edition quad cores by AMD were really bad, I do not deny this. But things have changed now. Not only that, but ATI is finally reclaiming the ground it lost over the last five or six years. The new HD 4000 series cards are all the rage.

I started building this computer over the past couple of months and I have been slowly adding parts and reached what I think is close to completion.

Parts list:
Gigabyte motherboard MA790GP-UD4H
AMD Phenom II X3 720 Processor
Kingston 1066 DDR2 memory
XFX radeon HD 4890 graphics card
HT Omega Striker sound card
LG Bluray/DVD drive
Corsair TX750w power supply
a total of three hard drives



Remember, if you are on a budget you do not have to purchase everything at once, you can always add things on later as well. So I bet you want to ask, "Potato, why did you add a Bluray drive to your computer?" Because someday... Off in the distant future... Perhaps... Anime will be released on Bluray... that does not suck... in North America...
I am gunning for my friends at Bandai. If there is any company in this world that just lives for the thrill of milking a franchise it is Bandai! And now that Haruhi was remastered into HD I have a feeling our friends are already hard at work drawing up some plans for the future!

Rozen Maiden? Suigintou parts!

Kleid of the Zuerst Maiden!

Could we have here the start of a spin-off series Rozen Maiden Traumanfang? Probably not! But the dress is nice to have. You can get your own dress at Toys Logic for about 10$.

I thought the actual doll was going to be soft, but is rather hard and not very poseable. It's Ok, because she makes great parts!

To Heart 2 adplus OVA due at end of April

The newest To Heart 2 Ova should be out around April 24.

There will be a Special edition as usual which includes a short audio drama in a box set, but there will also be an excellent edition which will include a huggable pillow cover, I believe.

This episode should focus on Milfa and Silfa. Of course, I prefer Silfa since I like being abused by my maids.
Official Homepage