Author Archives: William George
Overclocking Done Right
One of the services we offer here at Puget Systems, aimed at high-end gamers and enthusiasts, is overclocking. It is a practice that has been around for quite some time which involves pushing the processor in a computer beyond its … Continue reading
Gaming Performance with Dual Monitors
Many of the computers we sell here at Puget Systems will be used for playing games, and we also get a lot of folks wanting to run two (or more) monitors. Sometimes those goals intersect, and in those situations I have … Continue reading
PCI-Express Performance and nVidia’s New Warning
Puget Systems has been in the business of building computers for 11 years now, and we know what we are doing when it comes to assembling top-notch custom computers. It is a bit insulting, then, when a parts manufacturer puts … Continue reading
H67, P67, and Z68 – Which one is right for you?
Intel’s Sandy Bridge processor architecture is turning 6 months old in July, and has been a major seller in the PC market in these few short months. There was a slight hiccup a month after it was released, when it … Continue reading
Custom vs. Closed Loop Liquid Cooling
As a custom computer manufacturer, we’ve sold liquid-cooled systems from well before I joined the company. A water-based coolant is able to transfer heat away from hot components like the processor (CPU) and video card (GPU) more quickly than air … Continue reading
Windows 7 64-bit: Running 32-bit Applications
Windows 7 has taken root in the PC community over the last year, a great improvement from the little-liked Windows Vista, and we’ve made the 64-bit version the de facto standard on the computers we sell – to the point … Continue reading
Home Theater PC – William’s Approach
I’ve always been a proponent of using computers and technology to make our lives easier and more enjoyable, and one place I’ve focused on implementing that idea has been in relation to entertainment. I remember watching DVDs and listening to music on my computer as early as the mid 90s, and by the late 90s I had a TV tuner in my computer. I’ve owned several brands and models of tuners since then, but I didn’t make that type of functionality the focus of a dedicated computer until I got married. Continue reading
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 – Mercury Playback Engine
Traditionally, over at least the past 15 years, the main role of a video card in a computer has been to accelerate 3D graphics. That is a large part of what has made modern computer games possible, and it has … Continue reading
Puget Picks: Antec CP-850w Power Supply
For most of the last decade we’ve carried Seasonic and Corsair power supplies as our the bulk of our lineup.  We’ve been extremely happy with both, but we’ve also slowly branched out and have been testing some other highly rated models.  Over the … Continue reading
Core i3/i5/i7 Processors – Making Sense of Intel’s New CPU Line
When Intel first debuted the Core i7 processor line, code-named Nehalem, in late 2008 it made perfect sense. Â This line of quad-cores brought several new technologies: Turbo Mode, integrated memory controllers, triple-channel RAM, and Hyperthreading (making a comeback from the … Continue reading

