Back up and running… in Oz with a new computer!

I haven’t posted any updates for a few weeks – reason being is that I’ve relocated to Australia (from Canada, Korea, China, Japan, Philippines) and plan on staying put here for a few years!

As part of the move, I’ve gotten myself a new computer workstation to replace the heavily overworked laptop that I used over the previous three years… a much overdue upgrade. Here are the machine’s stats (previous ones here).

  • Intel Core i703930K (12 threads @ 3.2GHZ vs 8 @ 1.6GHZ previously)
  • 32GB Ram (vs 6 before)
  • Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Full Tower with Corsair H80 high performance liquid CPU cooler
  • 27″ screen (vs 17 before)
  • Inno3D 2GB GTX670 graphics card

While I was at it, I also upgraded a few software packages too… one thing I didn’t count on is that I got this new computer with 2x 3TB drives but once I installed the Windows 7 Pro, it erased the ability to see the extra 1TB so I’m back to essentially 2x 2TB (vs 2x 500GB before) although I paid for the 3TB drives.

As with all moves, it took about two weeks to re-establish a stable internet, place to live and find myself around… will be doing this all over again in about six months but still within Oz… in a place far warmer than Adelaide!

Horsepower needs!

I have a backlog a mile long at this point across both CNC router and laser cutting projects so I did a quick rendering test and the new computer renders at 3x the speed of my previous laptop – should be plenty to fire through my backlog… lots of new stuff shortly! I also want to get into stereoscopic animations for those of you with 3D monitors and/or glasses… would be neat! I figure this computer will hold me over for at least a year or two before I get a real industrial workstation like a Z820 or something with dual Xeon processors. Until then… I’ll be rendering away!