HP printers are pretty unreliable, as are Epson. Canon are quite good, but Samsung are my preferred brand.

I'm still feeling just fine! Just like always. Some things never change.

After fiddling for a while, I find 1800 DPI with moderate acceleration to be perfect for most purposes. Guess I'm one of these people that can't give up mouse acceleration. Without it, things just feel wrong, and my track pad is also affected. >.<

As I've tested... 800 DPI is very slow and is best suited for precision work. 1800 DPI is general purpose, works for almost everything. 2400 DPI if I want something slightly faster. 3200, 5000, and 6400... I'd rather not use them. (By the way, 800 DPI was my last mouse's fixed DPI.)

Running things in Bluetooth mode does mean that I get stuck with 125 Hz, but I don't care about it a bit because I'm so used to it. And I still get extra buttons and adjustments. Good thing I can always plug it in, and it's microUSB-to-USB. The included 0.9m cable works very well with a laptop.

And not having a cable is very nice on a laptop. Same thing for having all three USB ports usable.

What do you think of Canon printers, by the way? After over 500 sheets of A4 paper, and about 30 4R-size photos, I'm very satisfied with what I have. It's been just over nine months... I've never had a paper jam. I can shake my fists on a HP, though.

You don't want to use sens that's too high for you. Feel free to turn the DPI down to whatever feels comfortable. Honestly anything beyond 2000 DPI is totally unnecessary. The DPIs are just going up because companies think they need a numerical measurement of accuracy.

I have a friend that uses 3000 DPI, but he plays like 6 hours of CS a day. As for 8200 DPI or whatever they're up to now, it's counterproductive. In order to make things usable (at default sens, dust particles on a hard surface mousepad would make the cursor jump around), you're scaling it back to a point where the OS starts reducing a large number of tiny movements to a single pixel movement on the screen and you're actually losing information.

At the end of the day, the best way to go about it is to set the DPI to whatever makes it feel natural for you. For me on my current mouse, that's 900-1000. For some people, it's 2500. Some pro-gamers use 400. Don't feel pressured to use something that's uncomfortable unless you feel lower is holding you back.

Also, 5 months since we last spoke. How are you?

Mousing around the desktop using the Razer Orochi... who knew that smaller can be more comfortable? I think it's all in the shape. The shorter cable also helps a lot in reducing clutter - the Microsoft mice was designed for desktops, and hence have a cable length too long for laptop use.

Now to figure out how to "fix" the laptop's Bluetooth to recognize the Razer Orochi 2013 properly. (I also got a new mouse mat to go along with it.)

Also...

I need to get used to high DPI settings without any acceleration in CS:GO fast. At least it's tied to applications, so on the desktop, I can still use it comfortably with the exact same precision and acceleration.

For some reason acceleration settings in Razer Synapse 2.0 also affects the laptop's trackpad.

It's been forever since the last time I downloaded NVIDIA graphics drivers.

Well...

Since I can't find HTPC cases here, I guess I'll have to settle for a laptop.

But, hey, full-size laptops are awesome for the bang for your buck. Core i7s + a dedicated card = OMG

It really depends on what you need. If being able to take it places is really important , just get a laptop. If you're wanting to build it yourself, there are some pretty small ITX cases from Silverstone and CoolerMaster, just get one with a standard PSU and make sure your future GPU will fit.

Also, I'd keep the 500 GB WD drive as a storage drive and grab a 120GB SSD for the OS and Apps. That's the wonderful thing about desktops - you can have multiple drives. I personally have a SSD and 3 1TB HDDs. Granted, my case is huge, lol. I have a Corsair 650D.

Funny thing.

Seems like I'm going to go for a recent Core i5 that's not ULV, then.

This is gonna get interesting - a laptop can be easily carried as carry-on luggage, while a mini desktop or HTPC might be stretching it. Individual components, though, should be a sure-fire as long as there's not too much of them.

*wonders about salvaging the 500 GB WD in his dead desktop*

Eh, even then, you're much better off quickly reading up on what beats what. You should make the decision on what specs you want before you go looking in stores. Also, it's not a linear score. Something might need to be twice as fast as something else to get .2 higher. In other cases, not. It's too unreliable.

Re OpenGL, AMD is usually much better, but it all depends on optimisation. For certain OpenGL programs (and OpenCL Programs) the vendor has worked with Nvidia to make it better, but from what I've noticed, when Nvidia is better, it's by a small margin. When AMD is better, it's by a massive lead. I couldn't tell you for Intel, but I don't believe it's too bad for openGL. Have a look at some benchmarks of programs you intend to use.

Time to head out and looks for deals in person again.

I still think that WEI can be a bit handy when you can't access the usual methods of testing... or when you're using a showroom computer.

When it comes to OpenGL performance, has AMD always had the advantage over NVIDIA, and especially over Intel?