Well, Guild Wars 2 is almost here and I’ll be in the beta this coming weekend. I’ll really into PvP, so that is what I’ll be focusing my videos on. I probably won’t even do any commentary, as I’ll just try to be as useful to my team as possible. I actually just bought a new gaming mouse specifically for this game. It has 17 buttons! This will allow me to bind absolutely every skill to the mouse, it’s going to be interesting.

I plan on playing as a Necromancer and then maybe trying out the Mesmer and Thief class. The Necro looks great because of all of the survivability, and I also think I’ve figured out a pretty decent build for the necro. Anyway, you’ll see if you watch the videos. I’ll try to have some up by Wednesday of next week.

There is no release date for the game yet, so what I plan on doing is to get as much footage of the game as possible. What I want to do is make a name for myself on Youtube and focus heavily on making Guild Wars 2 videos. We’ll see how this goes. I’m generally not a huge fan of PvE, but I will probably do some “let’s play” stuff, as well. Stay tuned.

So, choosing the best computer case is an important part of the build process. It’s something that you’ll have to live with for hopefully quite a long time, because if you pick a good one it will last through many many builds. Things that I look for in a case are as follows – plenty of space, good cooling, a nice lighting scheme, and overall good construction. Over the years I’ve grown to love a few different cases, I’ll list them here and briefly talk a a little bit about each one. First, I’ll go over mid-tower cases.

If any of you don’t know, there are two major sizes of PC cases, mid and full-tower. Full-tower cases are just bigger cases; I happen to prefer them because they are easier to work inside of, it’s really personal preference.

The Best Mid-Tower Computer Cases

The Antec 900 Black Steel Case (above) is right there at the top of my list of favorite cases to use and work with. It’s also pretty cheap for what you get. It’s a great case for gaming because it is designed to keep things cool. It has a 200 mm fan on top, 2 front 120′s and another rear 120. The side of the case is transparent, which is always fun. It has 9 drive bays and 2 USB ports on top, by the power button. There are audio in and out ports up there, too. It’s also pretty spacious for a mid-tower case. It supports ATX and micro-ATX motherboards.

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The above Rosewill Challenger case is also one of my favorites. It’s about half the price of the Antec 900 and it’s built just as well. It does have a little less cooling, but that can be overlooked at this price. It has one 140mm fan and two 120mm fans. There are two more spots for optional 120mm fans, though. This case also has 2 USB ports on top and 1 e-SATA port. It supports ATX and miro-ATX motherboard. I wouldn’t hesitate at all on this case if you’re looking for one under $60.

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The Cooler Master HAF 922 is another great case that I’ve used on a lot of builds. Again, this is a case with supperior cooling with two 200mm fans and one 120mm fan. It’s a pretty rugged looking and feeling case, which is a good thing. This thing is also set up pretty nice for managing cables, which helps with cooling. This is a heavier mid-tower case at 19 pounds (the Rosewill case is 12 pounds), but the extra weight is worth it, it’s not like you’ll be moving it around much.

The Best Full-Tower Computer Cases

Well, this is basically the 922′s big brother. I would easily say that it’s my favorite full-tower case, at least when taking cost into consideration. If you plan on doing something like quad-SLI, then you should get this case. It is a cooling beast. It comes with three 230mm fans and one 140mm fan. It is also liquid cooling ready, which just means there are spots to install a liquid cooling system.

It has 6 USB ports, 1 eSATA port, 1 mic and 1 audio port. It’s heavy at 29 pounds, but who cares, get a laptop. The cable management in this thing is also a breeze, with one reason for that being is that it is such a big case.

Anyway, like I said, this is my favorite full-tower case, but it’s actually my favorite case, period.

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Again, this is just the next step up in the Cooler Master line. If you have a higher budget I would not hesitate to buy this case. It has all of the specs of the previous case, but is just more robust and has a few extra features such as supports for video cards, giving them better stability. It’s also a very nice looking case.

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The Antec DF-85 is one hell of a case. It’s priced very decently for what you get. It comes with 7 fans, five 120′s and two top-mounted 140′s. The three 120mm fans on the front of the case have speed control knobs, which is nice. It has 4 USB ports on the front and an audio in and out.

The case looks beastly and has a great lighting scheme. It also has a transparent side door.

Other Thoughts On Computer Cases and Building a PC

If you guys are reading about these cases then you’re obviously thinking about building a computer, in which case you might need to learn how to build a computer. If you do, just head to the homepage through that link. You might also need help deciding on a configuration of parts for your new build. This is something that I like to think I specialize in, I even have a page dedicated to build ideas on this site, it’s right here, if you’re interested.

If any of you haven’t heard about the upcoming MMORPG, Guild Wars 2, I would recommend checking that out right now, because it is looking quite spectacular. It’s revolutionizing the PVE game and also keeping a strong focus on competitive PvP, just like the original Guild Wars. I don’t really want to get into too many details in this post, but I ‘ll say that the game is in the late stages of beta (finally) and will probably be released around July of this year (we hope). I’ve pre-purchased the game which will allow me to get into the beta weekend events, so hopefully I’ll have some footage of the game up soon.

To start off, Guild Wars 2 actually has fairly low system requirements, but as we know just because a PC can run something, doesn’t mean that is should run something. This is just me throwing out some educated guesses, but I think that to play the game smoothly you’ll need at least something as powerful as an Nvidia GTX 460 (or something higher than that on this list). This is now an older card, as we are already at the 680 level, but it is still a good card that I believe will handle GW2 fairly easily.

If you’re just thinking about building a new computer I would say that spending somewhere around the $800 range (on the whole build) will get you in the ballpark of playing the game at max settings. You would at the very least want to throw in an i3 CPU, probably an i5 2500k. What I plan on using are two 560′s running in SLI. I’ll be using FRAPS though when playing, so I need something a little more powerful than a single card.

In a few days the new Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs will be released. Personally, I am planning on waiting for the release of those to build my new gaming computer. Any of these will obviously be enough to handle Guild Wars 2. Some of them will be more gaming focused, so just be aware of that if you plan on buying one. Hopefully I’ll have some more information about these new processors up on this site for all of you, soon.

Anyway, I would say that if any of you who are reading this are worried about not being able to handle the games, but have bought or build a PC within the last 5 years, all you will probably need is a video card upgrade.

I’ve been noticing that nearly everyone is buying at least one SSD for their new build. If you’re reading this and you’re not sure why that is, well, it’s because SSDs decrease load times dramatically. What many people are doing is buying a single SSD with between 60-120GB of storage. This is enough space to install Windows and a few other programs and games. The idea is that your PC will then boot up extremely fast, and so will anything else you install to the SSD. Imagine loading Windows (turning the PC on) in less than 10 seconds. BAM! Everything is ready to go that fast. Load Photoshop in less than 2 seconds, load games in just a couple seconds. This is what SSDs are good for. Of course, you’ll still need an HDD, unless you’re willing to spend big bucks on a large SSD (or a couple SSDs).

The best setup, then, is to use a small SSD and still use a larger HDD for the rest of your programs. Very soon I’ll be ordering parts for a build that I’m going to turn into video tutorials for this site and I’m going to use at least one SSD in the build. I’ve never personally used an SSD for one of my own builds, so I’m pretty excited about this. I’ll probably use just a small 60GB, but I am considering using a 120GB, just for faster load times in a few games I play.

I plan to list the top 5 Nvidia card and the top 5 ATI/AMD cards here, coming soon. The video card is the most important part of a gaming build, and many people are asking about which card to choose, so I thought I would do an article on that. I should have the list ready within a couple of days.

A Few Thoughts on Laptops For Kids

When you have young kids at home, you are always looking for ways to keep them occupied and engaged. You don’t want bored and restless kids on hand but you don’t want them to be mesmerized in front of the TV or playing video games either. Studies have shown that children can handle technology at a very early age and getting them started with laptops can go a long way in helping them in the future. With the world around us changing rapidly and the need for technologically savvy citizens’ ever growing, getting laptops for kids seems like a smart investment for parents today.

If you are a parent who wants to initiate your child in the world of technology, there’s no better way of doing it than by buying a laptop. These laptops are specially designed for children and it won’t be long before they find their way around it. For all parents looking for fun and educational toys for their kids, these laptops are an ideal alternative. These laptops will keep your kids engaged as they learn things about the world around them, and also fire their imagination.

Today some of the biggest brands in the market have realized the importance of having their own range of laptops for kids. That’s why you will be able to get good quality laptops for your children, which are specially designed to suit their needs. These laptops are not high spec and are not equipped with advanced technology like other laptops are, but they do the job of initiating your kids into the world of technology just fine. Moreover, your kids will be able to perform basic tasks using these laptops without any difficulty and they will find the experience extremely exciting.

Most of the educational toys for kids tend to get boring and children often get fed up with them. That’s a dampener on your desire to imbibe meaningful lessons into your children. But Laptops For Kids are created with the main purpose of making things interesting for your kids. Hence they often come with games that involve language skills, Math or Geography lessons. It’s a fun way of getting children interested in learning while they indulge in their playtime activity. There are several other games that are often preloaded in these computers and they will keep your child engaged for hours.

While laptops for grownups can look dark and dull, Laptops For Kids come in funky colors and styles that will go down well with your kids. You can get these laptops in themes like Barbie or Star Wars, which are always a hit with young ones. You also get them in funky colors so that children will take to them almost instantly. These laptops also have larger keyboards and screens for the convenience of your children and they will just not have enough of them, once they get started. Your children will surprise you with how good they can be with technology and this learning will hold them in good stead at school and for the life ahead.

If you want to support your child’s learning, you might want to buy these laptops for your child. Here are some tips to help you make the right decision when buying them:

• Simple design: You don’t need high spec computers for children because they don’t have to perform multiple tasks. In fact, if the laptop design is too complicated and technologically intricate then children might not be interested in them. Hence, when you are looking for Laptops For Kids, it’s a good idea to buy one that’s simple and easy to use for children.
• Limited Connectivity can do the trick: Laptops For Kids don’t have to have complete media connectivity; in fact it’s advisable that it doesn’t. However, there’s a whole world of knowledge and learning out there on the Internet and your kids can benefit from their laptops having some amount of connectivity in the form of a LAN card, USB or WiFi for that matter.
• Lightweight model: Since the laptop will be used by children, it has to be lightweight. Carrying heavy laptops can be quite cumbersome for kids. Luckily, today many known brands are making Laptops For Kids that are light and easily portable. Moreover, it’s a good idea to buy laptops that have larger screens and keyboards for the convenience of your kids.
• Entertainment features: Yes, you want your kids to be engaged and entertained but you also want them to learn and grow. This is a fine balance you need to maintain and laptops for your children don’t need to have all the entertainment features they can find. However, they can have the option of playing videos and music on their laptops.
• Operating System: Most of the laptops for children come with integrated operating systems, which make your task easier. Often you can choose the system based on your needs and have them tuned to the processor and memory capacity to great effect.
• Battery life: When you buy Laptops For Kids you can’t expect the battery to last through the day like some other laptops. You can buy laptops for children with batteries that last for a couple of hours. Since the size of these laptops is small, the number of battery cells is quite restricted as well. But that works just fine for your kids’ laptops.

Remember, today these laptops are available at reasonable prices; hence, you don’t have to compromise on the quality of laptops you buy for your children. You won’t have to spend a fortune to get your children started with technology, which has become the name of the game today. Specially designed Laptops For Kids are what they need to get their foothold into the world of tomorrow that they will be living in the near future. Moreover, these laptops will offer them the perfect learning experience and fuel their young, creative minds to a great extent.

Interest in building computers? Go to the homepage.

I’m Going to Build a PC and Possibly Give it Away

I’m about to order some PC parts for some upcoming videos. These are going to be very in-depth videos that cover everything from how to choose parts and how to put all of them together to get a nice working build. My plan is to put the videos up using YouTube, so I might give the computer away at the end of the videos – or if I reach a certain subscriber account. I will also completely revamp and update the current picture guide to be longer and more helpful.

The PC that I’m going to build will probably be just a budget i3 gaming build. It will be able to play some of the newer games on max settings, but depending on the video card I put in it, it won’t be able to play all of them like that. I’ll probably go with a mid-range Nvidia GTX for the card and it is probably where I’ll spend most of my money on the build. I’m actually pretty excited to build this as it has been a while since I’ve built a computer for my own personal use (if I don’t give it away).

I’m thinking of trying to liquid cool the PC and then overclock the hell out of everything, as I’ve never really tried this before. I would also make videos showing how to do all of that then, as well. If anyone actually reads this perhaps you could let me know what you would like to see in the videos.

It’s pretty simple and maybe many of you who have already bought PC parts and other electronics have used Amazon, but it seems like many people don’t realize that many other companies are now having a hard time competing with Amazon’s prices and usually free shipping. So, that’s that.

Click here to go directly to Amazon’s computer parts section and browse around.

Most of my build’s use parts from Amazon and are organized in little Amazon boxes; you’ll see if you visit the “computer builds” section.

SSD vs HDD, if you’re upgrading, building or buying a new PC or laptop, you’re probably trying to decide what’s better, SSDs or HDDs.

First, let’s define both of them to get a better understanding of what we’re dealing with. SSD stands for solid-state drive and HDD stands for hard disk drive. Up until the last few years SSDs did not exist for the average computer user, but now they are becoming more and more available.

Hard disk drives or HDDs work almost like DVD drives because they have a disk inside of them that spins and gets information written onto it. Sometimes, you can hear your HDD spinning, this is often the loudest part of a computer. Inside these drives are a lot of moving parts, which is why sometimes these will fail if impacted.

Solid-state drives or SSDs have zero moving parts inside of them and are therefore completely silent. Also, because of their lack of moving parts they are very durable against impact.

SSD vs HDD, The Pros and Cons

SSD pros-

They’re durable against impact.

They weigh less.

They last a long time because they do not use any moving parts. Something without moving parts will obviously break down a lot less than something with moving parts.

They’re extremely fast. One will experience very fast boot up times and loading programs will be extremely fast.

They’re very quiet, in fact, they’re silent.

SSD cons-

Well, there really is only one con, they are very expensive. There’s no doubt that these are the wave of the future and will eventually replace hard disk drives, but that might be a while because per gigabyte they’re very expensive compared to HDDs.

HDD pros-

They are very cheap compared to SSD’s.

Because of their low price per gigabyte you can easily store pretty much anything you can possibly imagine on one fairly inexpensive hard disk drive.

Two or more of them can be hooked together and run in RAID mode for very fast setup.

HDD cons-

Some of them can be very noisy; the clicking noise that you hear while running your desktop or laptop is your hard drive spinning to retrieve or record information.

They’re not nearly as fast as solid-state drives.

They’re not nearly as durable as solid-state drives and are very susceptible to damage from impact.

SSD VS HDD – What Is the Conclusion?

SSD vs HDD, Which one Wins?

The only thing that should stop you from buying and SSD vs HDD is the price because solid-state drives are superior in nearly every way. If money is not an issue for you then simply buy and SSD. If money is an issue then consider your options carefully. For instance, if you’re planning on buying a laptop that you will be carrying around constantly all day long then you might want to consider putting an SSD in it because they are very durable against impact. This can save you from losing all of the information on your drive.

I should note that solid-state drives have been around since the 50s and have been used heavily by the military since the 1990s. So, the technology is quite old. This goes to show that it might be a while before solid-state drives come down in price.

Eventually we’ll all be using SSDs, but until that day many of us will still have to suffer with the good old-fashioned hard drives.

So, who wins the SSD VS HDD debate? It’s almost like asking who wins the DVD versus Blu-ray debate, the answer is in the eye of the money holder.

SSD VS HDD Price Comparisons in 2011

Just so you can get a feel of the price differences between solid-state drives and hard disk drives I will do some comparisons from Newegg.com.

The first SSD I’ll look at is from ocz – It has 200 GB of storage and is priced at $340. That seems expensive, right? 200 GB of storage is not a heck of a lot these days.

Now, just to get extreme, I’ll review another SSD from OCZ that is 960 GB. Currently, there are only two available, one is priced at $2420 the other is priced at $3200, wow!

Just for comparison, and to get extreme, let’s look at some 3 TB hard disk drives. Keep in mind that these have three times the amount of storage as the previous two solid-state drives. The first one I’m looking at is from Hitachi and is priced at $250. In fact let me just go down the list on the page and ramble off some prices of these 3 TB hard drives: $209, $184, $399, $169, and $194. So, even the best and fastest 3 TB hard drives available are nearly one 10th of the price of the solid-state drives that have three times less storage. Do you see what I mean when I say HDDs are a lot less expensive?

SSD vs HDD, or Maybe Not?

I should also note that some companies are making hybrid drives that include an SSD and HDD in one unit. The idea behind these drives is that the SSD part of it handles frequently used tasks and HDD is simply used for storage. These are still much more expensive than HDDs, but a lot less expensive than a dedicated SSD. My guess is that these will go mainstream long before SSDs do, so this might be something that you’ll eventually want to try.

In the end the SSD vs HDD debate will go on until the prices of SSDs settle down, at which point we can wave goodbye to our old friend, the HDD.

Update: April, 2012 – My favorite choices for gaming laptops (at great prices) start right below this sentence -

ASUS N53SV-XE1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Silver Aluminum)

Toshiba Qosmio X775-Q7384 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop – Fusion X2 Finish in Red Horizon

ASUS A53U-ES21 15.6-Inch Laptop (Mocha)

ASUS G53SX-DH71 Full HD 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop – Republic of Gamers (Black)

Good gaming laptops can range anywhere from $1200-$2000 so if you’re on a budget you’re probably looking to spend anywhere from $500-$1000. Honestly, at this price range you’re probably not going to be able to play the newest games at the highest graphical settings, that is, if you plan on buying a brand-new laptop. With that being said, you might be able to find a great deal on a refurbished or used budget gaming laptop that is powerful enough to play the latest games at the highest settings.

If all you’re interested in is mid range affordable gaming laptops that can play, say, World of Warcraft, then you can probably buy a five or $600 laptop that is brand-new. One situation you don’t want to find yourself in is having bought a very cheap laptop and end up not being able to play anything that you imagined that you might be able to play.

If you’re looking for a budget gaming laptop in the $300 range then you will definitely have to look for a refurbished or used laptop. This is simply the hard truth because a new laptop at this range will simply not have the CPU or video card power to play any graphically demanding game.

So, Where Can You Find a Good Budget Gaming Laptop

The first places I would go to look are: Newegg, Tiger Direct, and Amazon. Newegg and TigerDirect are the superstores of computer parts, refurbished computers, new computers and laptops. They also have other various electronics. I probably don’t need to explain what Amazon is, but in case you haven’t heard of it is the biggest online marketplace with just about anything you can imagine.

Simply go to any of these places by clicking on their links on this page and search for laptops and then sort by price. This obviously isn’t enough to simply find a budget gaming laptop, because you’re going to need to know what to look for in a gaming laptop. This brings us to the next section.

What Should You Look for in a Gaming Laptop

Dell's Alienware Laptop, Though, it is not quite a Budget Laptop

I’m going to list the features that you should look for in no particular order, just keep in mind that things like screen size and hard drive space can be left up to your preference, but read the sections anyway as you might find the information valuable.

Let’s start with screen size and resolution. I’m going to explain to you what resolution is, if you already know what it is and how it affects every game that you play then skip this part, if you don’t then read on. If you’re a gamer you’ve probably went into the video settings of many games that you’ve played and have seen an option to change the game’s resolution. This is often the most overlooked yet most important video setting that any gamer could change. You want to play all of your games at your monitor’s maximum resolution. For instance, my monitors maximum resolution is 1900 x 1200; therefore, I want to play every game at that resolution. If I don’t play games at that resolution they will not look nearly as good as they should. So, where am I going with this? Well, the higher your monitor’s maximum resolution is the harder your laptop’s video card will have to work to play a game. This is because there are more pixels for the video card to render. One could play the game at 800×600 and allow the video card to render less pixels but the graphics would simply look like crap compared to running it at the maximum resolution. So, my point is that you might have a better gaming experience on a computer with a 15.6″ screen then you would on a laptop with a 17 inch screen. This is because laptops with bigger screens often do not have a better video card to make up for the increased screen size and maximum resolution. However, it should be noted that just because a laptop has a bigger screen size does not mean it will have a higher maximum resolution, although this is often the case, so just watch for that.

Next, let’s take a look at the CPU. You will want to find a CPU with the highest gigahertz possible and the most cores possible. I would recommend at least getting a laptop with a dual core processor and it would be nice if you could find one with a quad core processor. Keep in mind that a quad core processor with lower gigahertz than a dual core processor will probably be faster than the dual core. As far as AMD or Intel goes, it’s probably not going to matter much when looking at a budget gaming laptop. Although, if you do end up spending quite a lot of laptop then keep in mind that currently, Intel CPUs do perform better.

The RAM, or random access memory, is another very important feature to look for in a budget gaming laptop. Try to find a laptop with at least 4 GB of RAM, eight would be even better. Simply keep in mind that higher is better. The best gaming laptops always have a decent amount of RAM.

Hard disk space is obviously up to user preference, just keep in mind what you want to use your laptop for and that games are currently getting bigger and bigger with some of the newer games taking up up to 30 GB of space. I would talk about solid-state drives, but our budget gaming laptop you’re probably never going to run into one.

The Most Important Thing to Look for in a Budget Gaming Laptop

All right, what is the most important thing to look for in a budget gaming laptop? If you answered “the video card” then you would be spot on. Subsequently, this will also end up being the most difficult feature to find in a budget gaming laptop. So, my recommendation is to look for this first and then the rest of the features later. What is nice about this is that laptops with a gaming video card tend to have all of these other features. This is because if they have a gaming video card it would be pointless to not have the rest on a gaming laptop.

So, What Are My Recommendations?

Honestly, I am not going to recommend anything specific, this is because you’ll probably end up buying a used or refurbished laptop and anything I recommend might be gone by the time you get to the webpage that I’ve recommended. However, as I said before I do recommend checking out either Tiger Direct, Newegg and Amazon, or all three. Go to their sites, search for laptops and then simply sort the list by price. Then look for the features I’ve mentioned above, starting with the video card.

If you can’t find a good new or refurbished budget gaming laptop at these places then might be worth checking out Dell and Dell’s gaming computers. If you’ve been a gamer for any length of time you’ve probably heard of Alienware computers, Alienware is now a part of Dell, so check them out as well.

A note about refurbished laptops- Keep in mind that refurbished laptops are often of the same quality as brand-new laptops. This is especially true when buying from places like Newegg and TigerDirect, because they are very reputable places to buy from and him actually refurbished the laptops into great quality pieces.

If you have any questions about buying a budget gaming laptop then I encourage you to leave a comment below, thanks for reading this.