Month: May 2015

I got LASIK this Saturday. It was $3000 per eye but I paid half of that because of insurance and a discount. They gave me an equivalent to Xanax which took the edge off but the process was still moderately scary. First they put a ring on my eye. They used Intralase to cut a flap. The doctor lifted up the flap with a metal tool, moved me to another machine, and the other machine removed about 10% of my retinal tissue over 20 seconds. The doctor then put the flap back down and smoothed it. I did not feel pain exactly, but I had discomfort until the painkiller took effect the same as if you touched your own eye.

The actual operation took maybe 10 minutes. But the whole procedure was 2 hours with the waiting and paperwork.

The doctor told me I had a scratch on my right eye, so the first day my right eye had a moderate amount of pain. I could see right away but things were blurry, for example I couldn’t completely read my phone to text my ride. A lot of the blur was from my eyes watering. I went to sleep right away and after waking up 50% of the pain was gone.

The next day I had no pain. I had and still have a halo effect. It’s pretty much like what you would see in a game if they wanted light to halo around a bright window. The brighter the light and the darker the surrounding area the more noticeable the halo is.

I’m going to an eye doctor tonight for a followup. But just from looking around my vision is good enough I don’t need glasses, but still not as good as when I wore glasses. My near vision is also not as good as it used to be. Where I could easily see fine details of fingerprints now I have to struggle to do so. Over the next week my vision is supposed to improve so I’ll know the final result then.

I am buying gaming PC with an Intel Core i7 5930, a Titan X video card, 32 GB of RAM, Windows 7, noise reduction, and a 512 GB SSD harddrive. I priced out this system from 4 different builders to find the best deal that matched the configuration I wanted.

I ended up buying from iBUYPOWER for $3783. Not only were they the cheapest, they offered the fastest build time. The runner-up was AVA Direct, and while I bought from them before I didn’t feel confident with their system builder because there was not enough information on each part. I felt like I could easily make a system that did not work, or did not work well. Alienware and Velocity Micro were both about $1000 more expensive, neither offered noise reduction, and both had long build times.

http://www.ibuypower.com/: Gamer Intel X99 Special – $3783

• Case 1 x NZXT Phantom 240 Gaming Case – White
• iBUYPOWER Labs – Noise Reduction 1 x Advanced – iBUYPOWER Harmony SRS Sound Reduction System – Improved Airflow Silent Fans
• Processor 1 x Intel® Core™ i7 5930K Processor (6x 3.50GHz/15MB L3 Cache) – Intel Core™ i7 5930K
• Processor Cooling 1 x AVC K7127N Liquid CPU Cooling System (Copper plate for best cooling performance) – ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)
• Memory 1 x 32 GB [8 GB x4] DDR4-2400 Memory Module – Corsair or Major Brand
• Video Card 1 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X – 12GB – FREE Upgrade to GTX Titan X EVGA Superclocked – Single Card
• Free Stuff 1 x [FREE Game Bundle] – CSGO, Final Fantasy XIV, GRID, World of Tanks, and LEGO Minifigures Online
• Free Stuff 1 x [FREE] – iBUYPOWER High Performance Gaming Mouse Pad – FREE with any System ($29 Value)
• Free Stuff 1 x [FREE] – Tt eSPORTS Cronos Gaming Headset
• Free Stuff 1 x [FREE] – 802.11AC Wireless Dual Band Module
• Free Stuff 1 x [FREE Game Download] – Witcher 3 – free w/ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, 970, 980 or 970M and above notebook
• Motherboard 1 x MSI X99S MPOWER — 4x PCIe x16, 8x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0
• Power Supply 1 x 1200 Watt – Corsair AX1200i – 80 PLUS Platinum Full Modular
• Primary Hard Drive 1 x 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD — Read: 540MB/s, Write: 520MB/s – Single Drive
• Optical Drive 1 x LG 16x Blu-ray Re-Writer, DVD±R/±RW Burner Combo Drive – Black
• Sound Card 1 x 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
• Network Card 1 x Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
• Operating System 1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) – 64-bit
• Additional Software 1 x NZXT CAM – Hardware Monitor Software – Preinstalled on your PC
• Keyboard 1 x iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Keyboard
• Advanced Build Options 1 x Tuniq TX-2 High Performance Thermal Compound – The best interface between your CPU and the heatsinks
• Warranty 1 x 3 Year Standard Warranty Service

Build time: 12 days, however for $109 I can pay for next-business day rush shipping, which would reduce it to 3 days.
(Update) Their next-business day rush shipping is misleading. It only applies after they gather the parts, which itself takes one or more days. In my case they were out of the CPU, so after a week I changed the CPU to get the order started.

http://www.velocitymicro.com/: Raptor™ Signature Edition – $4754

• OPC Black – Velocity Micro Ultra Performance Aluminum Chassis
• 1000 Watt EVGA SuperNOVA Power Supply
• Gigabyte X99-Gaming 5 Intel X99 Chipset, ATX Motherboard
• Intel Core i7 5930 Processor
• Velocity Micro LiquiCool 6 Fluid Cooling System
• IC Diamond Thermal Interface Material
• 32 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400
• 12GB EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X
• 500GB Crucial MX200 SSD 555 MBps Read/500MBps Write

Noise reduction not available.
Build time: 20 days from when I specced the system.

http://www.alienware.com/: Alienware Area-51 – $4820

• Intel® Core™ i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked up to 3.9 GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
• Windows® 7 Professional, 64Bit, English
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ TITAN X with 12GB GDDR5
• 32GB Quad Channel DDR4 at 2133MHz (No option for 2400MHz)
• 512GB SSD 6Gb/s Main + 4TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s Storage (No option for SSD only)
• Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc™ Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
• Alienware™ 1500 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply (Lower power not available)

Noise reduction not available
Build time: 1 month.

http://www.avadirect.com/: Core™ i7 Extreme X99-chipset 2-way SLI® / CrossFireX™ Custom Gaming Desktop – $3830.65

• Phantom 630 White Full Tower Case w/ Window, EATX/XL-ATX, 9 slots, No PSU, Steel/Plastic
• X99S SLI Krait Edition LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 10 x SATA 6Gb/s ports (2x ports reserved for SATA Express port)* – SATA1~6 support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 – SATA7~10 ports only support IDE
• Core™ i7-5930K Six-Core, 3.5 – 4.0 GHz TB, LGA2011-3, 15MB L3 Cache, DDR4-2133, EM64T EIST HT VT-x XD, 22nm, 140W, Retail
• AX1200i Digital ATX 1200W Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 80 PLUS® Platinum, 24-pin ATX12V v2.31 2x EPS12V 2.92, Multi-GPU Ready
• 32GB (4 x 8GB) HyperX Fury Black PC4-19200 DDR4 2400MHz CL15 1.2V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
• Nepton 240M Liquid Cooling System, Socket 2011-3 / 2011 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 775 / FM2+ / FM2 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2, Retail
• PH-TC12DX Red CPU Cooler, 2x 120mm Fans, Socket 2011 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 775 / FM2 / FM1 / FM1 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM3+ / AM2, 157mm Height, Copper/Aluminum/Nickel Plated
• Formula 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Compound
• 500GB 850 EVO SSD, Samsung MGX, 3D V-NAND, 540/520 MB/s, SATA 6 Gb/s, 2.5-Inch 7mm, Retail
• 2TB Barracuda®, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache
• WH14NS40 Black 14x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner, M-Disc, SATA, OEM
• GeForce® GTX TITAN X 1000-1075MHz, 12GB GDDR5 7010MHz Graphics Card
• Universal Acoustic Foam
• Standard Wiring with Precision Cable Routing and Tie-Down
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM w/ Media
• Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty & LIFETIME Technical Support)

Note: This is less accurate because AVA Direct only provides terse text descriptions for each part as opposed to full-detail specifications.
Build time: “Orders that require assembly: 7 to 14 business days for regular systems, 2-4 weeks for systems with special customization options.”