How about Dell laptops with other nVidia series cards?
My company bought 3 Inspiron 9400s, identical to one another. Each one has a GeForce Go 7900 GS.

One of those three shipped with the video card already defective. It started off with minor polygon/3d-model distortion in 3d applications (games mostly). Then the distortion got worse as time went on. Then eventually we started seeing other aspects of the video rending start to go corrupt, such as stretched/distored 2d graphics, bits of the screen missing. So we had Dell ship us a replacement video card. It’s been fine since then.

Then recently another laptop (mine) started showing the same symptoms as the first one. So we called Dell again and they sent us another replacement video card. Only this time the video corruption was still there and worse. So next, I tried swapping RAM with the last “no problems” laptop. Still didn’t work. We even tried swapping the CPUs. Still didn’t work. So we called Dell back and they send us a replacement motherboard. We installed it. Still no change.
So finally we swapped the video cards on my laptop and the “no problems” laptop. And it finally worked again.

So apparently the video card Dell sent us was defective out of the box. Which brings us to a total of 3 defective videos cards we’ve received from them (the first laptop, mine, then the replacement for mine).

We’ve called in again that we need another video card, and they basically told us that they don’t believe us and will be sending a technician to us to check it out him or herself, which has left me very angry with them as this means I’m without my laptop for even longer. It’s been about a month now since mine has become unusable. And to make matters worse, I live in a remote region that DHL doesn’t ship to, and Dell always insists on shipping through them even after we tell them we can’t receive DHL. And I’m sure it’ll take them another month to send a technician down from wherever just to look at it, tell us it needs a new video card, then leave us waiting for Dell to send another one, that could be defective out of the box.

Sorry for the lousy quality of the screenshots, but my capture device only captures at 720×480 and 640×480.

[Show as slideshow]

The list is long and still missing a lot of games that were featured. The ones I didn’t list are ones I just have absolutely no interest in or haven’t looked at.

The list after the jump:

Can’t Wait

These are the games I’ll most likely purchase right away (except for PS3 games since I don’t have a PS3 yet).

• God of War III: Loved the first 3 (I, II, and Chains of Olympus). Too bad all they had to show was a cinematic trailer of Kratos standing around.
• Final Fantasy XIII: The announcement of it coming tot he 360 wasn’t a huge surprise to me, but a pleasant one. One less reason to have to buy a PS3.
• Fable II: Loved the first one to bits. I’ve become a huge fan of W-RPGs with dynamic plots,  characters, and worlds. Offers lots of replay value. And the new co-op system looks interesting. <3 Online co-op games.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic (working title): Not much was said about this new MMO, but as mentioned with Fable, I love W-RPGs and Bioware makes the best ones. This will definately be better than that POS Sony calls a Star Wars MMO.
• Dragon Age: Origins: The name screams “generic fantasy rpg”. But then again, it’s Bioware. It can’t go wrong
• Spore: I had no interest in this before E3. Mainly because I didn’t take the time to look in to it. But now I think I’ll definately be getting it for PC. Already have the Creature Creator and been messing around with it.
• Soul Calibur IV: Still haven’t played III, but I loved the first two. And the inclusion of Yoda, Vader, and Starkiller (still hate that name though) makes me want it more. The improved character creator looks great too. I want to be able to make some custom Jedi with it. God… I’ve become a Star Wars nerd thanks to all these games.
  
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: More Star Wars, and this one looks fantastic. Not much I can say about it that hasn’t already been said by others.
• Guitar Hero World Tour & Rock Band 2: As much as I suck at playing these I still love them.
• Lego Batman: <3 Lego & <3 Batman. And <3 the Lego Star Wars games.
• Prince of Persia: Not much to say about it other than it looks good and I loved Sands of Time and Two Thrones.
• Too Human: The demo is up on XBL right now. I’ve played it twice and loved it both times. There are a few small annoyances, but the developer still has time to fix them before the release I hope.
• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: Loved all the Castlevanias on the GBA and the DS. This is a no-brainer.
• Naruto: The Broken Bond: Finally! A Naruto game that doesn’t cover the beginning of the series for the 20th time. This is the sequel to Rise of a Ninja, which I liked for it’s mostly-open world gameplay.
• Chrono Trigger DS: Chrono Trigger is an absolute classic, and this port has some nice new tweaks just for the DS and an improved translation of the script.
• Mass Effect 2 (working title): More pure win from Bioware. I’m playing the first one again right now.
• LocoRoco 2: Loved the first one.
• Puzzle Quest: Galactrix: Stilling playing the first one on XBLA and loving it.

We Shall See…

These are ones that I’ll wait for other’s opinions or rent myself to see if I like them.

• Final Fantasy IV: Out now actually, I think. I’ve played the original a few times, and may play this if I find myself needing a good portable game to occupy me.
• Street Fighter IV: I used to love Street Fighter I & II back on the SNES, but when I tried to play them in the recent years, I found that I didn’t enjoy them as much. But the same goes for Mortal Combat and other fighting games. The only ones I still like are the Soul Calibur and Super Smash Bros franchises.
• Resident Evil 5: I tried playing RE4 on the Wii and couldn’t quite get the hang of it. Maybe I’ll like this one with typical 360’s shooter controls, plus online co-op.
• Fallout 3: I still have not played the first two. And I didn’t like any of the Elder Scrolls games. But watching Todd Howard demo the game on X-Play was pretty interesting.
• Halo Wars: Not a big fan of the Halo franchise. The I think shooters are good, but not that good. But still, I like some RTS games, and this one looks like they maybe have come up with a good RTS control scheme for the the 360.
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja STORM: I liked Ultimate Ninja 2 on the PS2. And this one looks great visually. But I’m fucking sick of playing Naruto games that start off from the beginning of the series.
• Valkyria Chronicles: Haven’t looked in to it much, but like Naruto UNS, the visuals look great.
• Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels: More Star Wars again. Will wait for reviews to see how this turns out. The fact that it’s based on the upcoming animated movie is what puts me off (movie-based game).
• Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe: See Street Fighter IV above.
• LittleBigPlanet: Supposedly creativity is supposed to play a big part of this game. However, I don’t find myself being very creative in games lately.
• Mirror’s Edge: First person Prince of Persia? I don’t know about this one. Looks like it might get boring after a while.
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames: I never had any interest in the first one, but I saw one of the creators demo it on X-Play and it looked like a lot of fun.
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars: Announced but no details given. If it’s a top-down GTA, I will probably skip it. If it’s 3D, I’ll wait and see what others think of it.
• Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant: Various Squenix RPGs for the 360 that aren’t Final Fantasy. Might be good, might not. Will have to wait and see.
• MAG: Mixed feelings about this one. It’s another military shooter, but with 256 people playing at once? That’s pretty cool.
• Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood: Ugh! Another Sonic game. Oh wait, it’s developed by Bioware. Could be good then.
• This is Vegas: Looks GTA-ish, but focused on Vegas with various Vegas-related activities.
• Left 4 Dead: I loved most Valve games, but another zombie shooter? Not sure about this one.
• Sonic Unleashed: Ugh! Another 3D Sonic game. Sega promises it will be better than the more recent crap they’ve put out, but there’s already info and screenshots of Sonic turning into a werewolf-type creature and holding a sword. Sounds like Twilight Princess.
• inFAMOUS: Not much to say about it. Just looks interesting.
• Deadly Creatures: Odd game for the Wii. You play as a tarantula and a scorpion.
• Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts: I loved the original game. Never finished the 2nd. This one has the potential to be good. But Rare hasn’t done much good aside from Viva Pinata in the last several years. At least XBL is getting the original game.

Meh.

I only mention these because other people seem hyped out them.

• Far Cry 2: Didn’t like the first one. The open world mechanic of this one might make it more appealing to me. But it’s still a rambo-jungle shooter to me.
• Gears of War 2: I bought the first one because it was $20 and people wouldn’t shut up about it. I found I didn’t like it much. And after watching the demo for GoW2, I don’t think I’ll like it either.
• Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop: Watered down Dead Rising. Will stick to 360 version.
• Animal Crossing: City Folk: Got tried of the DS version really quick and didn’t see a point to these games.
• Killzone 2: I got sick of military shooters a long time ago. I don’t care how good it looks.
• Resistance 2: Resistance is this: Gears of War for the PS3, but in first-person view.
• SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation: See Killzone 2 above.
• Resistance: Retribution:  See Resistance 2 above.
• Castlevania Judgment: I love the recent Castlevania games, but this… is just weird. Saw the live demo during Konami conference and it reminded me of the Bleach fighting game on the Wii.
• The Sims 3: Lost interest in the Sims early into Sims 2.
• Wii Sports Resort: Requires another new addon for the Wiimote. And is pretty much just a bunch of new minigames.
• Dead Space: Reminds me of Doom 3.
• Wii Music: Just…No.
• Rock Revolution: I was hoping maybe this would join the ranks of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. But Konami’s presentation was just plain awful. Seriously go look it up for some awkward laughs.
• Patapon 2: I liked the first one for a while, but got too tired of it to finish it.

Odd glitch in Mass Effect that sometimes equips you with a non-existant gun while on the Normandy. Can’t do much with it except run around aiming at stuff. Can’t shoot, can’t change to a real gun, and it goes away when you talk to someone.

Before building this computer, I only had 2 computers. One is an old 1.8 Ghz AMD Duron box running Kubuntu. Over the years it had become a server, used for file storage, testing website stuff locally, and running an irc bot and bnc. The other is my 1 and a half-year old laptop that used to be one of the best for mobile gaming and now can’t even run Bioshock on the lowest settings without having framerate problems. Plus the laptop is owned by the school district I work for, so it’s not technically mine. But I do have a lot of freedom with it, such as installing games, music, etc. I could even run linux on it if I wanted to. As long as I can do my work on it.

I’ve gutted old computers and put together working ones from the parts, but this was my first experience putting together a brand new one from the ground up. Everything was bought from Newegg.

The parts list after the jump:

• Case: APEX TU-163 ATX Full Tower
  Not much to say about it. It says “Full” tower, but everyone else says its only Mid. I honestly don’t know the difference, but everything fits in it nicely and doesn’t feel crammed in, so I like it.
• Motherboard: MSI P6N Diamond ATX, nForce 680i SLI Chipset
  I almost got a more basic motherboard until I decided to go with SLI.
  Only problem I have with it is that it refuses to play audio out to my basic vanilla speakers through its read audio-out port. Audio-out on the front of the case works fine though. I’m guessing this has something to do with it being HD audio, which I have zero experience with.
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Allendale 2.4GHz
  I chose this early on because it was cheap and had a combo deal to get $25 off the Rosewill cooler. I know there’s Core 2 Extremes or whatever, but I haven’t seen a big enough difference on benchmarking websites to warrant the extra cash for one.
• CPU Heatsink/Fan: Rosewill RCX-Z2-EX 92mm 2 Ball PWM CPU Cooler
  The CPU did come with its own heatsink and fan, but I’ve learned that those aren’t always the best ones to use.  Also, this was a major pain in the ass to attach to the motherboard. I was afraid that I was gonna end up breaking the motherboard trying to get it on. It also doesn’t help that to push 2 of the pegs in, you have to stick your finger between heat pipes. My finger barely fit, and I don’t have fat fingers, but I could only push them down with the tips of my fingers, which was virtually imposible. I had to use the round end of a long screwdriver bit to push them down.
  But the cooler does atleast do it’s job… I think. The ATX case has a little tunnel/vent thing on the side panel just for the cooler’s air to vent out, and everytime I stick my hand in front of it, it’s always blowing out cool air. I’m not sure if that means it’s not doing its job, or if it’s just that the rest of the fans in the case are keep it cool enough.
• RAM: A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800
  Simple, effective, and cheap (in price, not quality). I use A-DATA ram on my linux box as well and it works great. I know I could have upped it to 4GB or eve 8GB, but I’m running Win XP Pro, and according to everything I’ve read, XP will only use up to 3.5 GB or something like that. And everyone says 2GB is plenty.
• Graphics Cards: PNY GeForce 8800GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x2)
  I did originally buy 2 8600GTs because they were cheap, but I immediately sent them back and ordered these instead after I saw the benchmarking chart on Tom’s Hardware.
  SLI is completely new territory for me, but so far I love it. It’s expensive, but atleast I won’t be replacing the cards for a very long time.
  I had to get the single-slotters becuse the 2nd PCI-E slot is at the very bottom of the motherboard/case, and thus a two-slotter will not fit.
  I’m also a bit peeved that I can’t do dual screen mode while SLI mode is enabled. So I have 4 DVI ports and can only use one. But atleast that means I only have to have one monitor taking up space on my desk instead of two.
• Power Supply: Rosewill 950W, SLI Compatible
  I’m told you need high wattage to run 2 GeFoce 8800s, so I went for one of the best I could find. Rosewill has proven to be a reliable brand. Comes with a ton of extra cables that I don’t need though. I though about going with a modular PSU (removable cables), but I read that they don’t work as well. I ended up with room in the empty 5in bays to stuff the extra cables anyway. Includes the 2 cables needed to provide the 8800s with extra power.
• DVD Burner: Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner IDE
  Basic DVD burner. I have no need of a blueray burner.
• Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
  For $100 more, I could have gotten a 1TB, but I don’t see the need for it yet. I still have plenty of room on the linux box to store the games and movies that are not in use. And I still have room to add more drives in the future anyway.
• Card Reader: Rosewill 52-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader
  This was a no brainer purchase since I have a PSP (uses MS Pro Duo), a Cyclo DS Evo (uses MicroSD), a digital camera (uses standard SD), and a Wii (can use standard SD). Plus it was cheap. Also fits into 3in floppy drive bay, which is nice.
  Only problem with it is that even if there’s no cards in it, the drives show up in My Computer all the time. That’s a minor annoyance though.
  Also, when I installed Windows, it took over drives C, D, E, F, and the DVD drive took G, so Windows ended up installing on H:. I ended up reinstalling Windows anyway, so I left the card reader unplugged during that time.
• Keyboard & Mouse: Microsoft Wireless Optical USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard & Mouse
  I had no USB keyboard and only one decent USB optical mouse, and I wanted to go wireless, so I got this. The mouse works great. However, the keyboard only seems to work fine with the receiver is directly next to it. When I had it about a foot away, on top of the same desk, it wouldn’t respond to some keypresses. So being wireless is almost pointless. On the plus side, it’s nice that I can easily pick it up and set it aside to set my laptop, a plate of food, or something else on the desk. It’s also comfortable and seems to have a good battery life so far.
• Gamepad: Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows
  I already have a few 360 controllers, which I like, so I figured this should work well. And it does. Only problem is that when I sync the controller with the receiver, it turns on my 360 because you have to hold down the home button after hitting the sync buttons.
• Monitor: Acer 20″ Widescreen LCD Monitor
  I didn’t want to spend more than $200 on the monitor, and this was the best I could find for about $200.
• Video Capture Card: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 1062 MCE Kit Tuner Card w/MCE Remote
  I had been wanting to do video capture for a long time. And this was one of the first things I wanted to look for when I decided to build a new computer (even during the media center plan). So far the card does what I need it to do. My 360 connects to the TV using component connections and the same cable also has the composite cable, which goes unused. So I have that cable extended to the capture card along with the audio (split from the RCA using normal Y splitters) so that I can record the 360. I can also record from the PS2 or Wii, but I’d have to swap the component cables for the composite, or buy more converters.
  The software that comes with it looks like it was designed with Windows 95 in mind, but it does it’s job. The quality isn’t high def, but I don’t need HD for uploading stuff to YouTube. The files it outputs are huge. Like over 1GB for 15 mins of footage. It comes with video editing software, which is also old, so I don’t use it.
  Windows Movie Maker will detect the card as a valid capture device, but won’t recognize the RCA audio inputs as an audio device, so you have to redirect the audio to a standard microphone or line-in port if you want to capture directly with Movie Maker. I gave up on using Movie Maker to edit anyway because it kept having graphical problems while I was trying to edit.
  At the moment, I’m using Ulead VideoStudio, which is working good so far. It has a capture feature too, but it always says my capture device is “offline” or something. So I just record with the software that came with the card and then use VideoStudio to edit.
  I haven’t tried using the remote so I have no comment on it yet.
  You can see some of the stuff I’ve already recorded with this on my YouTube profile. Or check out some of my earlier blog posts.
• Operating System: Windows XP Professional
  At first I was going to go with Kubuntu, for the media center plan, but then decided to go with Windows since I was going to go the gaming way. I considered Vista due to being able to use more RAM, but then remembered the bad experience I had with it at work. So I’m sticking with what I know best. Besides, I already had a license from when I had XP on my old computer (now linux box).

So far I’m very happy with the result and hope I won’t be spending so much money on a computer again anytime soon.

<@SpikeyNDS> you should make a blog post with the vid, Samutz

I'm the blue elite, lagman is the arbiter, and Spikey is Master Chief, but inside a Hornet most of the time.
Unfortunately, YouTube's processing fucks up the the bits at the end when it speeds up the video.

Today, I’m introducing a new tool that allows you to convert your bookmarks from common web browsers to the format used by Safari on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Click the link below for all the details and instructions.

Convert Your Bookmarks to Safari for the iPhone/iPod Touch

Edit: Yes, iTunes lets you sync bookmarks from Internet Explorer. But not everyone uses iTunes AND Internet Explorer AND Windows.