Why the Apple $1000 Monitor Stand is fine by me

     Over-engineered aluminum stand: $1000. Let's not forget the optional $200 VESA mount of you want to connect to something else.. you do have a choice, let's not forget about that.

     It's connected to a $6000 monitor. Yes you heard that right; Apple's professional monitor offering cost's more than a used car. It's 6k(ish), HDR compatible, and some of the most accurate colors and blacks you will see in a monitor.. but $6000.

     The customer for both of the products above is not the same customer that buys a mid range to low end Macbook pro. This customer is not going to buy the new Mac Pro cheese grater without the dual video card option and 128 GB of ram, they are going all the way, because they have the money to spend, and why the the fuck not. This is not marketed towards college kids trying to make music or basic graphic design.. no way. Is Apple going to piss off some people with a $1000 mount? Sure. But they were never trying to be attractive to that particular consumer anyways. 

Video Card Upgrade Progression - When to upgrade

     When is it time to upgrade? What exactly do you need, how much to spend, how much ram... the list goes on. I was reading a post on r/nvidia subreddit, and I saw a small trend: people posting pictures of their video card purchases through progression. A few posts it seemed like 5 or more years went by, but the majority, only 1 or 2 years max. One picture in question:

   Two cards from the same release generation, and another card, the RTX 2080TI being the new hotness. Back to the original question.. when is it time to upgrade? I put together a small list of questions I ask myself around what I think would be upgrade time.

1) Do you play games? 
2) Can you not play the game you want to play in the resolution and/or frame rate that you would like?
3) Can your monitor support various functions of an upgraded video card?
4) Can your current hardware handle a new video card without bottleneck issues?
5) How much money would you like to spend?

     At right about question 4, I think you would tell yourself you are due for an upgrade. Do you play games? Not that playing games is required for needing a video card, you could use enhanced graphical capabilities for a number of work related reasons, alas, the majority of people buying these cards are using them for gaming. Sometimes you buy a game, a good recent game that needs a little more horsepower. Your current card seems to groan under the pressure and frame rate suffers, rendering it all buy unplayable. The quick and easy solution is to buy a new video card. Questions 3 & 4 seem to be very related, so lets keep them in the same bucket. If your existing hardware is not compatible, upgrading is off the table. An old crusty CPU that is 5+ years old may hold you back in the gaming department, and using that same 1080-60hz monitor may not be the best choice to take advantage of your new buttery smooth frames.

     My suggestion? Buy something a little better than you need that has solid cooling and reviews. My video cards typically outlast my computer setup in most cases. There is no reason why a computer/video card can't last 5+ years in today's market playing triple-A titles how they were meant to be played. In the market for $500, trust me, just save a little bit more and get the next step up. You may not see the difference right away, but you just saved yourself an upgrade down the line.

Elder Scrolls Online Disk Space Issues

     I'm downloading this game, after not having played it since closed beta. My wife saw an advertisement for the new expansion and wanted to try it. While waiting for it to download, I googled random things about the install process as I typically do when downloading something new. 85 GB needed for new install? Not too bad for a modern game, on par with what I have seen. Clicking links and reading on the forums, people complained of it needing, much, much more. So I cancelled the download, and monitored it closely this time around. Note: I have ultra fast fiber optic internet so the download is quick, so it was not too big of a deal. What did I find out?

- ESO says it requires 85 for install.

- The above fact is final install after cleanup and patches. I found this to be accurate within 10 gigs. Not bad.

- The core game is 58.5 GB, the main patch is 56.8 GB, and the final patch was right around 16 GB. That's 131 GB. 

-When the last patch is applied, a clean up process happens in the background, leaving the install back at a modest 87GB.

- If you have a 120GB solid state drive that you have and you want to install this game on it, well, don't. You wont have the space for the game to work with. Install it on the main drive and copy the Zenimax folder over when its done and you should have no issues. 

Hope this helps.