Huzzah!

Wow I think I just hit the jackpot:

The difference is enough that the longer 9600 GSO card requires a single 6-pin PCIe power plug, while the very short Radeon HD 4670 doesn't require any external power. This may be a critical factor—much of the market for sub-$100 graphics cards are users buying cards at retail to boost up Dell/HP/whatever systems with integrated graphics or an old low-end card, and they often don't have a power supply with a PCIe power adaptor on it. Nobody wants to buy a new power supply to run a sub-$100 graphics card...

... This is a great upgrade card for those with older or slower computers and smaller 19" monitors. (I do have a 19 inch monitor for my old Dell)

--From an article on ExtremeTech.com

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29 April update: I've been doing some research on viable upgrades for the graphics card on my old computer. Assuming that the Nvidia 6800 doesn't require a 6 pin PCIe connector, I have dug up 4 video cards that extracts their power directly from the PCIe bus (i.e. not requiring any power connector). Note that I have only considered ATI's cards only as I don't think I wanna get Nvidia's.

1. HD 4670
2. HD 4650
3. HD 4550
4. HD 4350

These cards are ideal since they have a small form-factor and have a really miniscule power draw. Most importantly, they are most probably within reach of my budget. The HD 4350 is likely not gonna be chosen since it offers really sub-par performance. It's hardly an upgrade from my 6800. I'm currently leaning towards the model on the top of the list (also the most expensive of the bunch, heh).

The ATI Radeon HD 4670: my fav pick at the moment

(image from http://www.extremetech.com/image_popup/0,,iid=216877&aID=231871&sID=1017,00.asp)

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Yeah! Fall term exams are over; hello 4 month long vacation, here I come! Man, this is by far the longest holiday I will and possibly, ever experience. Gosh, I've got approximately 2 weeks left to enjoy the Canadian summer till I vacate the premises :D

I better start packing, and soon. But till then, I've still got to extract my 2 lower wisdom teeth, ouch. And it's happening this Friday at 10:45 hours local time.

I've been playing lots of Left 4 Dead recently (in fact, I was already playing before the exams ended. Well, at least moderately). It really is quite addictive. Once a match is over, I keep telling myself, "OK, one last game." And not surprisingly, I'll do the same once that game is over.

Anyway, I've been looking over some Left 4 Dead videos on YouTube and I came across this parody. Dam, it's the funniest thing I've seen in months! Have a look yourself, though you will only find to amusing if you've played the game.



I've also been pondering on upgrading my white Dell Dimension desktop in Singapore. For starters, I will be upgrading the RAM. 1GB of 533 MHz DDR2 memory (in a 2x512MB configuration) sure isn't sufficient as far as current standards are concerned. Though I'm not sure whether I should install 2 additional 512MB sticks, 2 additional 1GB sticks, or remove the old ones completely and install 2 fresh 2GB sticks. Also, I've been thinking on upgrading the graphics on that machine. But the problem is that I'm skeptical on whether the power supply is beefy enough for today's video cards. I'm guessing that it doesn't even have a 6 pin PCIe connector, which is rudimentary for video cards nowadays. And of course, if I really upgrade the graphics, I can't ignore the fact that the new graphics card will be severely bottlenecked by the aging Pentium D processor. Well, I'll see to that once I get back to S'pore.

Man, a 4 month holiday really is long, ain't it?
T'ang