i cant log in. it wont accept what i thought was my username and password. is it working? can u email me my password (georgeatherton@hotmail.co.uk if u havnt got it)

cheers george (Final look)

The site is quite humorous and speaks volume about the internet and the speed of responce to news such as this. That is why I felt I should post this.

View: www.thisiswaiting.com

7.1 is not common at the minute in films as most current ones are 5.1 so i was only able to test it with a 5.1 dvd. There are some great features with my motherboard realtek software/hardware as there are features that allow me to have all the speakers playing songs and videos from itunes etc. when they are not 7.1 (however each speaker is playing the same thing) it gives a very rich and great quality experience.

I look forward to buying some new games and trying them out!

Gengaming is going well. Next google Page Rank update we are predicted to get a 4/10 and visitor numbers are up. The new focus is to provide the best gaming news relay site and ofcourse keep writting our own articles. The news will be written in an informal, jokative manner and be summarised in a few paragraphs at most so you can quickly get the gist of the story.

Next version..

• Easier on the eye
• Better top menu
• More features on the homepage including
• List more headlines at the end of the homepage
• CSS image rollover of our main features
• More rss feed options
• Improved article listings

A priority is to improve the menu at the top and also enlarge the width of the site to fit more content. After research using googles impressive Google Analytics and other statistics software and knowing that gamers usually know a little something about their computer we have decided that a design that will comfortably fit into a 1024 x 768 display computer. A lot of people have google toolbar and things like that installed so we will be taking this into account when designing the new updates.
We are working on lots of new little features and will be releasing them as they are ready. Looking forward to it!

P.s. woman in image is from: marcus on deviantart

My new computer has arrived – in several large boxes! It took me about 2 hours to fit the dvd-rom and dvd-writer, hard drive and graphics card (i was taking my time). The instillation of the drives was very easy as the case comes with runners that click into the screw holes on the drives and then you just push them into the slot behind the front door – completely tool-less. The hard drive is just as easy as all you have to do is pull out a cage inside and then use the thumb screws provided to secure it in place however it has an added bonus in that there are already rubber washers in place to reduce vibration. The nVidea 7600gt simply fitted into the pci express slot and then the clip built into the case secured it into place.

The installation of windows was pretty easy – the longest part was the full format of the 200gb hd!

The screen looks great with the 7600gt and there do not appear to be any dead pixels which is good. Sadly i have been unable to make the tv card work so i have been forced to send it back however i will be looking to purchase a new one soon.

I have ordered my speakers now and am waiting for them to arrive (at the minuet i am using the speakers that are built into the monitor however theses are not very good and are only really suitable for use with the windows sounds. I have also ordered another gb of ram to match the one already installed.

Next week i will be running prime95 on the system for at least 6 hours to check that all the hardware is working properly. If anyone else knows any good tests i can run on my computer let me know and i will be more than happy to try them and compare the results to the ones you get! This system is very fast and has handled everything i have thrown at it with ease i have installed -

AVG

Ewido

Zone alarm

Ad-aware

and these do not seem to slow it down at all!

My plans from here are to maybe purchase some new 12cm silent fans (as i think the fans are maybe slightly louder than i like and other people who have bought this case have suggested them)

also i may buy a zalman GPU fan to replace the stock cooler.

Part 3 | Part 2 | Part 1

I have made my order today (I thought I would order today to try and speed up delivery) however unfortunately I was forced to change a couple of the components due to my first choices being out of stock - so as opposed to the DVD-ROM previously described I have gone for one be Novatech (at a slightly higher price however it offers a faster CD read speed so it is even better) I also had to purchase a different screen - it is still 19inch and has the same specs as well as being slightly cheaper the only other component I had to change was the TV card which is now a dabs own brand analogue tuner so I will have to wait and see how they perform. Sadly I was not able to order my speakers today but they are due in stock in 2-3 days so I will order them soon as I am not prepared to compromise on them. The total cost of everything (bar the speakers) is £858.69.
My only concerns at this stage is the Ram as the barebone system comes with dual channel 512mb sticks giving me 1GB of ram however the ram only runs at 667Mhz when the motherboard can handle ram that runs at 800Mhz so I will have to wait and see how fast the finished computer runs, if I want to get different ram I will have to replace the ram completely (as it is not a good idea to mix different makes and types of ram) however I need to find out if and how I can change the voltage my motherboard supplies to the ram or if it is automatic (if anyone knows I would be grateful if you could drop me a message over Gengaming) as the 800Mhz ram I looked at uses 2.0V as opposed to the 1.8V it will be running when I get it.

Another component I have been looking at and considered getting is the AGEIA PhysX Processor this is a very new piece of hardware that you may not of heard of it is basically a processing card designed to deal with the Physics of a game (which is usually done by the CPU) allowing far more realistic game play. It comes in the form of a PCI card that you plug into your computer and is similar to a graphics card however it has connectors at the back. This piece of hardware is very cutting edge and completes the gaming power triangle between the CPU, GPU and now the PPU. They cost about £140. If you are interested I urge you to look at aegias’s website as there is lots of information and some very interesting demonstration videos and pictures of the technology. There are a number of games on the market that already support the PPU and many more in development (see the web site) however the one that appeals to me is the New unreal tournament which comes out next year.

If you have any questions about anything I have mentioned don’t hesitate to send me a question over Gengaming and I will attempt to answer it (or point you in the right direction if I don’t have a faint clue!)

I will report again when I receive my deliveries and include some Pictures soon.

Part 3 | Part 2 | Part 1

I wanted a computer that used the latest technology and would be able to play all the current and future games on the market, however, after looking at various products I either couldn’t get what I wanted or it was far too expensive, so I decided to begin building my own.

Before even starting to look for components I had to set myself a price limit. Otherwise I feared spinning out of control and ending up with a 10k water cooled computer that had 7 graphics cards and 20gb of ram! So I set myself a target of between £900 to £1000 including a screen, peripherals and speakers.

Next I had to decide what I actually wanted the finished computer to do –

1. Start up quickly (I don’t want to be sitting around waiting)
2. Play the latest games properly (I want it to play doom 3 and battlefield 2 at maximum resolution as if it was solitaire)
3. Play and record TV. (So that I could put it on my PSP)
4. Be future proof (I’m thinking Windows Vista)

There are two main components that make up a computer (the processor and the motherboard) it is essential that these work efficiently together. These processor will be doing the bulk of the work no matter what you are doing on your computer so you want the best processor you can afford. Recently the new and frankly breathtaking Intel core 2’s came out so I was keen to see if I could get one of these for my system. There are basically 6 different versions of the processor ranging from the E4200 which had a clock speed of 1.6 with 2mb of L2 cache up to the X6800 which has a clock speed of 2.93 with 4mb of L2 cache. After looking up the price of the latter it became clear I wouldn’t be having that one (just under £700) so I looked at the 6 processors and saw that there was a big difference between the first and the second 3 in that the first only had 2MB L2 and the second 3 had 4MB so I decided to see how much it was for the E6600.

£234. Seemed an ok price for me so I decided on the E6600. I now had to find a suitable motherboard for it. I looked around the internet at various websites and after comparing prices I discovered Novatech which had great prices and I also discovered that they sold motherboard bundles where they have chosen a compatible motherboard, processor and ram and fitted it all together (including the processors heatsink and fan) as well as tested it to make sure it all worked. Very appealing. Although I had experience with fitting processors into motherboards that had only been with cheaper models and the thought that one badly placed fingerprint on the processor costing me £200 was not a very nice one!

I had a look at the bundles they offered and to my delight they offered the exact processor I wanted, it was in a bundle with 1GB of ram for £410 this sounded very reasonable for me especially as the motherboard was equipped with 7.1 audio which would go very nicely with some speakers.

Next for a case and power supply. I quite liked the look of a black case with a hinged door to cover the drives and a 550watt PSU the total of them both coming to about £70. However, while looking around the website I accidentally clicked a tab in the menu which brought up the barebone systems and so intrigued I decided to see if they had what I was already buying and how much I was saving fitting the motherboard and stuff into the case, but to my astonishment I found it only cost £10 more for almost the exact same set up (the only difference been a slightly smaller 400w PSU). So I thought “hang on a minute! I can pay £10 more for a barebone system that has exactly what I want and is tested so I know it is going to work and all the parts are going to work well with each other”. It was destiny!

Lets take a few step back, so far I have spent £493 leaving me with around £450 to buy everything else.

Next up, the hard drive, again faced with 100’s of different hard drives I had a tough choice to make. That choice was to be the Maxtor with 7200ron - perfect for keeping my system fast all for £46.
No matter how good the computer is its going to be pretty difficult to play any games without a disk drive. I definatly wanted a dvd-rw as it would allow me to burn my recorded TV to DVD so I looked for a dvd-rw that would be reliable and fast. I noticed that HP make one. (No really, they only make one, check the website!) I looked at the specs, it did everything I expected + - rw etc. The spec that sold it to me was the fact that it had lightscibe (direct disk labelling) all for £29.

I also wanted a separate DVD-ROM drive to use to play the games as it had a quicker disk access time and found and inexpensive one for £13.

Now to the two parts which will make a big difference to how my games look (a screen and a graphics card) I definatly wanted a 19inch screen however I saw prices range from £130 to over £200 however looking at the various models they all seemed to have the same specs so I decided to look at what other people who had bought them wrote about them in the review section to my surprise the cheapest ones (made by Novatech) had some of the best reviews however I could not decide between the two different ones they offered (a normal one and a widescreen one) £130 and £140 respectively so I have decided to wait until I order everything (after the bank holiday) and see what is in stock and what I think will suit me best. And so now onto the graphics card I needed a PCI express card and I defiantly wanted nVidea however they offered 54 cards ranging from £27 to £550 so I decided to look at the nVidea website to see what the best ones were for gaming and found that the GeForce 7 Series was highly regarded so I looked at prices and decided I could afford up to £100. As a result I decided to get a mid range 7600GT for £93.

Not much left now a keyboard – just a £18ish MS jobby.

However I still needed some speakers (7.1’s to go with the motherboard) now this is where Novatech let me down as I found the same speakers for £10ish less on DABS.com. So I decided I would get some Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speakers (creative in my opinion being a very respectable make).

All that is left is an analogue TV PCI card for about £40

Which brings the exact total to £1034 £916 (never was very good at maths!) - Perfect!

I now look forward to Tuesday when I will be placing my orders!

This is part 1 of 3!: Part 3 | Part 2 | Part 1