Woe unto thee...

Its really starting to hit me now. I've got a true badass gaming rig. After years of hitting the trenches of CoD and Quake with substandard graphics, ramped down to minimal textures just to avoid the inevitable slideshow. I've now become the proud owner of an Alienware X58 Desktop. I'm truly stunned at how fast and responsive it is. No longer do I wait minutes for any low level apps to run. I'm now spoiled by the instant gratification of immediate application startups. What a difference the i7 CPU and 6GB of RAM make!

It wasn't so smooth to begin with. First, the CPU power supply didn't have an 8 pin power connector for my NVIDIA GTX 295. (This card is an absolute monster. I freakin LOVE it! The only thing it could use is MORE VRAM but more on that topic later.) Alienware support was awesome and advised me that I could pick one of the connectors up at Radio Shack for few dollars but also sent me one free just in case as I had expressed that I already had a GTX 295 that I'd be putting in. Lucky thing they did because after a 3 hour search of Midtown NYC, I came home empty handed. Apparently these 6 to 8 pin power converter connectors are either extremely rare or popular.

Finally I got the connector and was now beginning to see the difference between the GeForce 9800 and the GTX 295 but I was experiencing a ton of crashes and not understanding why. It was seemingly random until I locked myself down and went into troubleshooting mode. One of the most annoying things to happen while embroiled in a hot multiplayer FPS is having the machine suddenly reboot. I can't express the rage unless you're also a person with anger management issues. Suffice to say I've destroyed more than I've created in this life when I've lost my cool. So after rigorous testing with USB devices which draw power and even getting on the phone with Alienware to rule out the power supply, I've located the issue as being with my dearly beloved XFX Force GTX 295.

I've never been one to overclock as I was fine gaming on a PIII 1Ghz with 1gb ram but the solution came in the form of the RivaTuner overclocking software. Using the Vista Gadget and in effect "underclocking" my GPU I was able to finally run my system without crashes and I've ramped up the settings on all games to the highest textures with the exception of GTAIV.

So now I am gaming with impunity and its only going to get better. I'm sure there are people with better rigs than mine out there but I'm just not geek enough for liquid cooling... yet. Woe unto thee I say, if you've ever "pwned" me in whatever arena we've met as this time will be very different. Woe unto XFX Force if they cannot find a solution for my card so it can run at its normal clocking speed. The beast is hungry and its looking to feed. Time for more CoD! Later I'll get into the Matrox TripleHead2Go and itsn ups and downs.