unreal25

I wanted to install an older version of the Mac OSX since I thought the new one was doing something to reduce the battery life (I eventually figured it had something to do with new OSX memory management that I disabled). The problem was finding the proper older version that's not cracked/modded/whatever as I ended up downloading it from torrents. Eventually I just made backups of both old and new images so now I can restore this using a little USB hard drive I have connected to my network router.

FYI, you don't need recovery media for a Mac. If you screw up or delete the main Macintosh partition (guess how I know that ) it will boot into the recovery mode with WiFi drivers enabled (yeah) and you can just download the latest OSX from their website from there. Unlike some other Win8 laptops where you're pretty much screwed without recovery media (HP Envy crap for example). Also the OS install on their PCI-e SSD is very fast and there is simply just one update to install to have the latest OS. EDIT: I think also nando is correct regarding Thunderbolt. You seem to need a hub to use eSATA drivers on the Thunderbolt, like this one here: http://store.apple.com/us/product/H8875ZM/A/lacie-esata-hub-thunderbolt-series in the ~$200 range (even if less than $320 its still pricey).

Thunderbolt port is supposed to be fast. Maybe thunderbolt enclosure (if such thing exists) or Thunderbolt -> eSATA.

Wouldn't it be much slower using an OS from an external drive? Btw, grats on the Mac! RIP Alienware.

You don't "enable Windows" on a Macs. You install them like on any other computer (you do need your own copy), it's just that they can't be installed on the same partition as OSX (so you make an NTFS partition). So the hard drive needs to be partitioned and you lose some disk space in the process. The obvious disadvantage is rebooting to Windows every time you want to play a game (it's really not that convenient even with PCI-e SSD). On top of that Apple's Windows drivers for some components like touchpad aren't that good, so it doesn't behave equally smooth and great as it does in OSX. The game performance in terms of FPS is quite better, tho.

Yeah. As long as they make the Mac OSX look like that. (I'm looking at you Microsoft!!)

Yeah, Fallout 2 was one of the best games I ever played. Games like Skyrim seem like a bad joke in comparison. But it is one of the better RPGs that came out lately (sadly). Even though Fallout 3 and New Vegas were somewhat simplified in comparison I loved them and played through most of the DLCs.

I used HP Envy DV6 and I had temps in ~90 C range if I remember correctly. This has to be, by far, the worst laptop I've ever used. I had dual core CPU (slower version) with GT 650M graphics. Obviously HP is not always like that (and neither is Dell, Lenovo, etc.) since each company makes a bunch of different laptops, each of which uses a different design and different components. Imprinting the company logo on the laptop doesn't make the temps go to 90+ C. (As hard as it is for some people to accept that. ) On the other hand, selecting a cheapest consumer-class laptop from any company will correlate highly with it having some of the worst components made in the history of mankind (here I am mainly refering to the screen on DV6T). Also, DV6t is not really ENVY envy. It's the relabelled Pavillion line, which is like Dell Inspiron. Like my friend who also bought DV6t, you also fell for HP's marketing trick into thinking you're actually buying something from their original ENVY line. Sorry! In short, it is this particular model (or rather a line which is HP Pavillion) that is complete garbage I'd say even compared to Lenovo IdeaPads which are not nearly as shitty. Also in case you were wondering, I disassembled that laptop completely (it took me 3 hours) and almost broke the keyboard in half because it was literally glued to the frame (I was installing mSATA SSD). In the end I decided not to make a review for this laptop, because it would be me literally bickering all the time.

I thought Far Cry 3 was pretty good, then again I don't play FPSes for the story (but I thought it was OK). I dislike both Metro Last Light and Bioshock Infinite. Metro felt super-linear (almost like playing Battlefield 3 campaign; extremely shallow game) and the Bioshock had the crappiest gameplay I've seen in an FPS in a while -- I couldn't be bothered with it, even if it had outstanding storyline. Other than Star Wars The Old Republic MMO, it's been a while since I played something new that wasn't an RPG that had a good story (last thing I remember was Fallout New Vegas). I liked the old school point and click adventures much more in that respect: Monkey Island series, The Big Red Adventure, and well everything that was made by Lucas Arts was at least great (Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones, etc.). Lots of other old RPG games have substantially better storylines than most of the new stuff. Then again if you don't like Deus Ex graphics (it looks fine IMHO) I doubt you'll play that stuff. But yeah, the graphics from something that was made in 90ies does look pretty bad compared to anything made last few years. In short, I loved adventure games mostly for their story and the last one I played was Walking dead (not bad). I think the partial reason for this dumbing-down of video games was the big "console-isation" that occured ever since the first PlayStation and XBox came out (GTA V may finally be the good exception), and there is very little creativity (apart from new DRM schemes) with games coming out of big publishers.

Good story? Anything made by Bioware. Did you try Deus Ex Human Revolution? I just started it, and it looks pretty good to me.

I never had dropped connections and actually no issues at all I've used Intel cards a lot (mostly some standard card with 3x3 antenna on Thinkpad X200T). I bought a decent router.

Thanks a lot for your review! I missed this post. I'm wondering if there is some kind of software that can bench WiFi cards in a way that does not depend on your network, router, computer etc. so we could compare them. If I understood correctly, NetStress benches the whole network, rather than the WiFi card alone? I use a different router (Netgear WNDR3700v2) and connect @ 5 GHz band so I don't think the results would be meaningful to compare. I also have the new Macbook with 802.11ac WiFi but have no router that supports this mode to test it on! I think perhaps ping in online games would be a nice thing to see. Actually I think there was already a thread here some time ago showing that you even got some (not too big) ping increase with KillerN card in WoW or something.

Sounds like the second the would only be a distraction for you.

I'm still waiting for a good game to come out first. (e.g. Star Citizen)