So, to have a chance with the girls, what you're saying is that I should lie and tell 'em it's bigger? 

Yeah, well I reckon I could do that until I can afford a 300mm graphics card.

Yep. Sounds legit, Mark.

Of course it is.  Like, it's not like the girls would notice the difference., is it? 

I'm somewhat proficient with mine... and if I turn the lights off nobody 'll know that it's 35mm shorter than Jafo's.

Right on!

And what's more, nobody's going to see how short mine is while the viewing window is obscured when the case is in its cubby hole....

... and to keep my secret I'll only pull it out when nobody else is around.

Well this is the cooler I decided on... the Thermaltake Frio OCK:

The reason I went with this one is that the Coolermaster V8 won't be in stock for about 2 -3 weeks. Alex told me they're as scarce as hens teeth currently and that there's already more pre-orders than there are units coming in. The thing is, he says they are much of a muchness and quite similar in price and performance, so what the heck... better than an indefinite wait.

Since you brought up the question of size, and since I don't know where else to ask...

I hope you don't mind me saying, but I've always wondered this. If artists put circles around gal's what-nots, then why don't they put circles around men's uh-hems. If the circles are to make it easier to see them, then men must have bad eyesight. Uh-hems are a lot harder to see than what-nots and women need all the help they can get to see them.

(inspired by the lady on the wall paper on the Tron theme)

You've got me, Liz, I don't have the faintest idea why mens uh-hems are not circled like womens what-nots.  It may have something to do with poor eyesight... it may have something do do with highlighting the womens what-nots for self-gratification.

So why don't they circle mens uh-hems? Because they don't want to highlight small, embarrassing packages that appear somewhat inadequate?

BOT [back on topic]

I forgot to mention this earlier......

Reason: it wasn't in stock at the time and I don't get it 'til Friday week.... gods and couriers willing.

It's the Thermaltake Trupower Grand 1200w 80+ Gold Certified PSU.

I currently have a AcBel 800w @ 80+ Gold Certified, but I figured a machine that's drawing more power will need to be upgraded with a more powerful PSU.

So why was I prepared to wait on the PSU and not the CPU cooler?  Because the Thermaltake was the only 1200 watter I could get for under $300... $289.00 delivered.  Not that it will cost me that... the recent sale of some old PC parts pretty much pays for it.

thermaltake fanboi! LOL

i'm glad you're happy with your new stuff, starkers. more power to ya, buddy.

Watt? Speak up! 

With his setup, he's gonna need it. 

Nah, not really.  I've liked what I've used so far, and the new case was chosen for features I couldn't find all together in other brands, but the main reason was price... and I am a penny pincher, forever seeking out the best price and value.  While the case was chosen for its features, it still represented better value against similar units. Most full towers with similar features [though not all of them] were $170 +.

The CPU cooler was chosen over the V8 because there were none in stock and I need something sooner rather than later... and again, price played a part as other brand with similar features were more expensive. The liquid cooling turned out to be a more expensive proposition than the budget would allow, hence the air cooling option. As for the PSU, the nearest priced 1200w rater at 80 Plus Gold was $305, so naturally the Thermaltake was the obvious choice.

Well there you go!  While I was typing the phone rang.  It was Alex telling me that the TT PSU won't be arriving as first advised [something to do with some items being hard to get due to international supply/shipping issues] and that he can do me a [now in stock] 1200w Silverstone with the same rating for $256.00... meaning I'd get a $33.00 refund.  Seems fair enough to me.

Thanks, mate, I appreciate that.  There are those who will run down certain brands and criticise your choices, but you never do and have always been happy for the relevant person... in this case, me.

Aw, I dunno, there are some bragging bigger and better systems than I... with higher specs and faster speeds than this beasty can pump out.  I would have liked to have ventured into the more powerful, high end Intels, but the higher prices [easily $300+ and more] ruled that option out.  Oh well, I've been happy with the AMD's I've used and I can't complain.

Well it's official, AMD's Bulldozers are definitely faster/better performed in Win 8 [Release Candidate] than Win 7....

I haven't done any benchmarks or anything, but Win 8 is visibly faster on the same machine... by about 15 - 20%.

Yeah, I know, I was never going to use Win 8 after the disappointment of the Consumer Candidate... Metro, but I just had to try it out again after reading that AMD had made specific design decisions with WIN 8 and increased performance in mind.  Well it's true!

Another thing that convinced me to reinstall Win 8 is Stardock's Start8 button and not having to deal with that fugly tile UI at startup... though the resulting menu is as butt ugly as the Metro interface.  Yeah, the only thing that makes 8 usable for me is Winstep Xtreme, with NextStart and WorkShelf providing access to all areas that I require... and for 40 bucks per upgrade I can't see why not.  When in the desktop it's not much different to using Win 7... and all that lovely speed, performance and speed.... oooooh.

A couple of things I don't like about Win 8 is in the setup.  For one; it wouldn't let me use my preferred email address, though it said I could: and two; it kept saying my phone number [for the password recovery section] was invalid for my area.  Like WTF!!!  I ought to know my own phone number... I give it out and people call me on it, fer fech sake.  In the end I just left it blank... ornery basterds.

However, and even more frustrating, was the email address part.  It said "Use Your Favorite Email Address To Login".  Orright, so I tried using the Hotmail address I created for the previous release as the primary, and my ISP email address for the secondary in case of lost passwords, etc. Well it was no go, no matter which way I did it.... NO f**ken GO.   Grrrr, I was getting thoroughly pissed by that stage, so I tried another option... creating a new Hotmail account within the setup, which to log in with.  Well bugger me if it didn't accept it.  I only changed one number, that's all, just one solitary number in the address, and it was accepted.  Now what the f**k was wrong with the first [one number different] one?

BTW, I do NOT use Hotmail for personal emails at all... too many issues with hackers and other crap.

It's visibly faster in my machine as well, and I have a Core i7.  No more stuttering in games like Arkham City, whatever that was caused by (I assume PhysX or the sound engine, I really don't know.)

Never benchmarked it and had too many game issues to keep at it...but as soon as AMD has a newer vid driver I'm right back at it.

In my case, Win 8 and Win 7 are on the same machine using the same hardware, and Win 8 wins hands down in the speed stakes, and not just by a little. Now I dual booted 7 and 8 when I was running the AMD Phenom II x6 1100T and the speed difference between them was nowhere near as noticeable, so I'm putting the performance increase down to AMD's assertion that Win 8 would utilise the multi-core Bulldozers more efficiently than previous OSes.

Well my new CPU cooler has arrived, but not the PSU. Oh well, not to worry, I'll change over the cooler today and do the PSU when it arrives, most likely tomorrow now.  Neither job is that big a deal so I don't mind pulling the case out twice to do them.

Thing is, the cooler doesn't look like the one in the pic I got, though apparently that's not unusual.  It's the same unit as before but it's a newer model with some design/cosmetic changes, not that I'm bothered.