Which Graphic Card Best to Buy in 2009 Holiday? (For Your Budget)

In this article i will give a brief comparison of graphic cards now available in the market, and which one to choose, to optimize your budget. Still there are only two vendor out there, nVidia and ATi. Which one better is not really the matter, since both have their own benefit and weaknesses. Oh BTW, you won’t see any graphic card below my recommended card (don’t even think about onboard graphics) because any graphic card below just won’t give a fine result for todays game such ANNO 1404, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.. even Crysis which has been released for two years until now. So i classified the graphic cards lineup into four class:

1. Low End : Give a decent performance for $80 budget and without the need of PCIe external power. Standard Pure Power 400W PSU should be able to handle this card (~$40). The game will play fair in standard resolution, up to 1,3MP display (720p, 1280x1024, 1366x768) . It’s wise to buy the 1GB version.
2. Mainstream: Give a good performance around 120$-$200 budget with requirements of one 6-pin PCIe external power. Needs about 500W Pure Power PSU (~$60). plays good at 1050p resolution.
3. Gamer: Give a better performance for $250-$400 budget. require two 6-pin PCIe external power. Needs about 600W Pure Power PSU (~$100). plays fine in 1080p (1920x1080) and 1600p (2560x1600).
4. High End: Give the best today’s performance and quality available on earth, load your pocket because it’s about $700 graphic card. require one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCIe external power. Best to buy at least 800W Pure Power for such beast (~$150). plays any games flawlessly in 1600p and able to handle multiple display (3 actually) setup.. even fine to play such 7680x1600 resolution!!

Microsoft Office 2010

Awalnya saya iseng2 aja mencoba software ini, secara software ini masih TP (Technical Preview), malah belom Public Beta. Saya sih udah tau cukup lama mengenai software ini, tapi awalnya saya agak males ketika ada yang review kalo ga ada perubahan.. tapi setelah saya coba saya jamin 100% orang itu salah banget!! hehe.. Awalnya saya download versi x64 nya, secara office 2007 belum ada versi 64-bit nya. so far so good. pernah sih ada crash, tapi saya cukup puas pakai versi baru ini.

yang paling buat saya menyukai office 2010 ini adalah software Visio nya. secara GUI visio 2007 ga ada perubahan dari 2003, makanya saya agak menyayangkan. tapi kali ini kerasa deh.. mana fiturnya lebih lengkap seperti buat siteplan hingga design process.

meski file format nya seperti office 2007 (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx dll) tapi ternyata tetap beda lho.. kalo kita buka file yang di save dengan format 2007, office 2010 jalan dengan compatibility mode, sama kaya kita buka file office 2003 di 2007. jadi memang ada sejumlah fitur tambahan di office yang baru ini.

Sebenernya agak banyak sih perubahan2 lain, agak aneh sih GUI barunya dengan adanya tab file di depan.. hehe.. but it’s okay, nge print udah langsung ada preview nya malah.. oke segitu aja sih, ga banyak2, buat yang pengen coba saya recommended banget, tapi kalo yang malu2 atau cari aman silakan tunggu aja versi final nya.. ;)

Our Trip to Far North of Jakarta: Pramuka Island

DAY 1

A day before عيد الفطر we started our trip to Pramuka Island from Muara Angke. It’s a team of six, me, acing, mike, dagor, defan, and the last but not least, our newcomer, bayu... took 30 grands for each of us to reach Pramuka Island using a boat. The boat sail every 7 AM and 1 PM everyday from Muara Angke, and we took the 1 PM boat. The boat using diesel engine in the middle, with upper and lower deck for passanger seat. it’s very windy even in the lower boat, and took more than two hours until we docked over at pramuka port.

so we arrived at Pramuka Island, and took a lunch at nearby canteen. for me the food seems plain, so i took none and prefer having some meatballs nearby. We continue to the inn which acing have booked before. the thing is, the inn has no vacant room (though we’ve booked before), so we’ve been directed to a somewhat native guest house. hmm.. a bed room with air conditioned and 4 simple foam bed in line. a living room with a tv, fan, hot dispenser, and complimentary playstation 2 from the house owner. :) hmm the squat toilet.. dislike it though.. ;)

after we put our backpack in our room, we took a walk around the island. we circled the island counter clockwised, since our house located northwest of the island. the seawater surely clear blue, we can even see what beneath it.. the coral, fishes.. we even see fishes jumping by the sea.

we even met some AJU students, acing and dagor friends.. (though acing don’t really know who is ;)) after took a walk we took a bath. for dinner we had meatballs (again, i did..) though not at the same place. it does taste better.. hmm maybe meatballs from Pasar Senen.

at night we hangout at the seaport. dagor even try to catch some fish with pot luck and had two strikes!! funny thing is, acing sliced some fishes in the bricked garden near the port, it does smell fishy odor.. but what comes next is, not long after we finished our fishing. there came some chicks and they sat on that brick which acing had tainted with that dead fishy fish.. just hoping those chicks don’t smell their pants later on when they sleep.. Taste like chicken, smell like fish.. tee-hee.. :)

We go back to our house, me and defan already exhausted and slept in the bed room shortly. Meanwhile dagor,acing, bayu and mike both are PES lover, so they played the game along the night before they sleep later on.

DAY 2

Later

DAY3

Later on

DAY 4

Later later on

Tomorrow

Con Air @ Global TV 7 PM..

How Do I Live – Trisha Yearwood..

Trying Pop’s ISP: Mobile-8 Mobi

Saya tes modem pop, pantech px-500 yang support CDMA EVDO 2001-X REV. A. Technically speednya bisa ampe 3,1 Mbps, tapi karena di rumah sinyalnya ga gitu bagus, jadi saya pasang yang pake 1 Mbps aja biar ga rugi juga, padahal sih yang 3,1 Mbps cuma 150rb juga. Secara laptopnya pop rusak, jadi saya pake eksperimen deh coz modemnya kan PCMCIA, dan cuma bisa dipake di laptop lama saya.

sebelumnya hari ini saya bawa modem nya ke mobile-8 kebon sirih buat diubah jadi unlimited. dengan modal 100rb sebulan untuk internet dengan kecepatan 1Mbps.. kita coba real-life aja deh, ga pake speedtest2 an. saya lagi donlot autocad 64-bit dengan IDM (45% nya udah saya donlot selama 5 hari ini dengan Indosat) :p. Oke pas sore sih agak ga stabil speednya, anyway, setidaknya saya ga merasa terbohongi dengan menggunakan paket ini, it does reach the max speed somehow, though @ the midnight. Soalnya selama ini pake Indosat yang 256 kbps, dengan harga 110rb, buat donlot dengan speed maksimum 256/8*90/100 ~ 29 kBps aja jarang2 banget, paling cuma 21an, mau pagi mau malem, mau puasa mau nggak :).

Easter’s PC Guide, Part IB: Processor

Prosessor: atau CPU (Central Processing Unit) berpengaruh pada kecepatan berpikir komputer. Kecepatan berpikir ini pada dasarnya dipengaruhi oleh kecepatan frekuensi CPU, tapi ga Cuma itu aja, masih banyak sih yang mempengaruhi. Saat ini umumnya CPU sudah memiliki dua inti (dual core), hal ini sebenernya buat bikin prosessor bekerja lebih efisien. Dulu Intel sempet eksperimen bikin prosessor diatas 10GHz, tapi ya gitu, ga efisien, lagipula seperti Moore’s Law, bahwa transistor density of integrated circuits doubles every 2 years. Jadi daripada gedein clock mendingan gabungin sejumlah core ke dalam satu CPU. Awalnya sih sempet ga efisien juga, tapi sekarang udah bagus kok.

Selain core, ada juga yang namanya thread. Duh saya sih kurang bisa jelasin, tapi kalo di Intel ada yang namanya HT (Hyper-Threading). Kalo HT di Intel Atom itu cem dual core aja jadinya, meskipun sebenernya Cuma single core. Ciri utama buat tau HT nya jalan adalah dengan liat di Task manager di Tab Performance, kalo grafik cpu usage history nya ada dua, itu artinya HT nya jalan.

Easter’s PC Guide, Part IA: Motherboard

Motherboard: disebut juga mainboard atau mobo. ini komponen yang paling penting dan paling berpengaruh versi VE. Mobo memberikan opsi pilihan spesifikasi bagi komputer anda, untuk itu maka penting memilih mobo yang sesuai dengan rencana kapasitas komputer yang akan dibangun nantinya (i prefer to say that way than “dibuat”).

Spesifikasi mobo yang perlu diperhitungkan: