After a Gizmodo reader sent us a photo of his amazing Star Wars-meet-CTU-meet-Firefly computer setup at the end of his LEGO Collectors Millennium Falcon unboxing images, we thought it could be a good idea to do a mini-contest to know what kind of cool rigs do you have.

Reader Participation: Giz Readers’ Best Computer Rigs Contest – Gizmodo

Check out the last page for the performance marks, such as the PC Mark 05 scores (overall 1869).

Read

 As a gaming keyboard, the Reclusa comes up a bit short compared with gaming keyboards that preceded it. There’s no rearrangement of keys to cater to certain types of games, as there is on the Timber Wolf and Ideazon MERC keyboards. And if we’re just talking about macros, there seems to be a short supply compared with the G11 and G15. The Reclusa has ten macro keys and two jog dials to play with, which seems like a lot, but macro junkies might demand more. You can surrender one or more keys to switch profiles on-the-fly, but that can get messy and take up too much time.

Not sure if I will bite on this one…

Intel has created the monster of CPU’s for the desktop. It is the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad-Core CPU. That’s right, it’s the first true quad core cpu!

The CPU is basically two Core 2 Duo CPU’s merged as one.

The Core 2 Extreme QX6700 runs at 2.66GHz on a 1066MHz front-side bus, so its clock speed matches that of the second fastest Core 2 Duo, the E6700. (The Core 2 Extreme X6800 is the fastest at 2.93GHz.) Intel probably chose not to push any harder on clock speed in order to keep the QX6700 inside of a reasonable power envelope. The E6700’s thermal rating, or TDP, is 65W, while the X6800’s is 75W. Fittingly, the QX6700’s TDP is exactly twice that of the E6700 at 130W. That’s quite enough heat production for a desktop processor, and Intel has already established a 130W thermal envelope for Pentium Extreme Edition CPUs that use this same LGA775 infrastructure.

This is the first CPU (I even held out from getting a Core 2 Duo so far…) that I really want since AMD introduced the Athlon XP’s.

Check out the full review here.

Sony has made their Vaio line of laptops even lighter. Their newest “type G” Vaio is now a mere 898 grams, and includes a 12.1-inch LCD screen.

Sony said it expects a basic model of its new “type G” computer, which runs for about 12.5 hours on a battery and is not equipped with an optical drive, to sell for about 220,000 yen ($1,881).

It has no plan at the moment to offer the “type G” models overseas.

The company did not disclose its sales target for the new models, but said it aims to raise the ratio of its personal computer revenue from corporate clients to 30 percent of its PC revenue in Japan by the business year ending March 2010, from the current level of less than 10 percent.

With the exploding battery, rootkit, and DRM fiasco’s related to Sony; it’s safe to say I won’t be getting one of these laptops.

Full Story.

It’s about time Dell! Dell Inc., has begun offering laptops using the AMD Sempron, and the dual-core Turion 64 X2 CPU’s.

The prices will start at $549 with the Sempron processor.

All of Dell’s AMD-based laptop models had a preliminary ship date of Nov. 30.

A Dell spokesman on Wednesday confirmed the availability of the AMD notebooks but declined further comment. A spokesman for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD referred comment to Dell.

Dell shares fell 31 cents, or 1.27 percent, to close Wednesday at $24.02 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Click for the full story.

According to MarketWatch Dell Inc. has announced that it will offer AMD’s Athlon chip in its Dimension computer line starting next month. This ends a long, and exclusive partnership with Intel.

This is an impressive move from Dell. It means that it is less reliant on Intel, and may include some cost savings for Dell.

Another benefit may be a reduced cost for it’s graphics chips now that AMD has purchased ATI. I wonder what Nvidia is thinking of this; they can’t be very comfortable with the relationship that has been created here.

Read

I would love to get my hand on one of these, although it’s probably not going to be for quite a long time.

It appears that scientists at the University of Rochester have come up with the design. They have it estimated to operate at 3,000 gigaherts (3 terahertz for those that were wondering). That is so incredibly fast. It’s only about 1,000 times faster than my current AMD chip.

It still doesn’t solve the problem of the slowest part of your computer will be the fastest you can get it to go.

Here is the full story

The old IBM PC has turned twenty five years old today. It is the day I became a geek. The IBM PC came with a floppy disk drive and MS-DOS. It was the first computer that was not considered a toy. It was a business machine.

From the Article:

A floppy disk is a thin, plastic disk that was coated with a magnetic substance used to store data. Earliest disks were 8 inches wide, more efficient disks shrunk to 5 1/4 inches, then 3 1/2 inches. Unlike a CDs or DVDs of today, the disks were floppy, or flexible.

IBM, the 800 pound gorilla of the business world at the time, flooded trade papers and television with promises that this new device would provide “smoother scheduling, better planning, and greater productivity.”

Computers were so simple 25 years ago too! It has gotten so much more complicated (think Enterprise J2EE architecture).

IBM PC turns 25

The Overclockers of Australia have reviewed the X-Micro Mini DiscGo 20GB portable disc drive. The little drive is quite spendy at about $199 suggested retail, but it makes up for it in it’s appeal, and size.

Let’s just jump to their conclusion:

This is a very cool little gadget. I can tell it’s cool, not only because of the testing we’ve seen today, but also because my wife has already started thinking up excuses for why I should give it to her. This of course has me thinking up important reasons why I should keep it, even though neither of us actually use portable storage all that much.

But not only does it ooze geek appeal, it’s actually extremely usable. It boasts performance well above flash drives, with a lot more space, and without sacrificing their convenience. What’s not to like?

Full Review