New PC Purchase – Barebones

By | Published 08/10/2012

I bought my last PC in 2007. This was when I was at university and very skint. So I got myself a bog standard PC, then as I’ve been using it I’ve been upgrading the pieces bit by bit. Graphics card, new ram, extra HD. So now the next thing to replace was the motherboard.

When I looked into replacing my motherboard, I realised it was old! Looking forwards I would have wanted to replace the PCU next. I was stuck. If I replaced the mobo with one that fitted my current PCU I wouldn’t be able to upgrade to a decent one in the future. However if I bought a future proof mobo I couldn’t use my current PCU. Ok fine I’ll just buy a PCU as well … nope. Same scenario with my RAM, current RAM IS DDR2 and I would need DDR3 for current motherboards. This was getting too expensive.

I was planning on spending about £90 on a new motherboard. ( I like spending around £100 per component), but as I’ve just said I’d need RAM a PCU and then probably a PSU! Well I found an lternative, a barebones PC, these come as a motherboard, ram, PCU, PSU WIN! I just have to plug my current harddrives in, my graphics card, my dvd drive and away we go!

I went for the “Primo PLUS 500i” Intel H61 DDR3 Ready Barebones (Socket 1155). It is ACE. £125 what a bargain, granted I would have got a lethal mobo for £125 but I like the compromise for upgradeability.

Here’s the innards:

And the front on view:

System Specification

– Case: OcUK IMP microATX case – Black
– Motherboard: Asus P8H61-MX Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
– Power Supply: OcUK Value 500W PSU
– CPU: Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz (Socket 1155) CPU
– Memory: OcUK Value 4GB 1333MHZ C9

Now it’s not the most top end PC, but it’s good. Now I can start my cycle again of upgrading each piece one at a time and hopefully this PC will last me another 5 years!

Installation was easy by the way. Simple if you’ve ever been inside a PC and straight forward if you haven’t. HD sata cables connected, graphics card into the PCIE, turn it on, done!

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Eating Challenge – The Olympic Burger

By | Published 04/10/2012
Man vs Food - Olympic Burger

Man vs Food – Olympic Burger

Just been to try the ‘Olympic Burger‘ Oh MY God, it’s be biggest burger I’ve ever seen! For this Man vs Food challenge you get 24 minutes to eat 24 ounces of burger and it’ll cost you £24 unless you eat it all of course then it is free! We where told that only 2 people have finished it and these where two 16 year old lads, EASY THEN I should devour it … not.

The Olympic Burger is served at ‘What’s Cooking‘ restaurant in the Albert Dock, Liverpool, North West England. You can book a table online (which we did, a table for 8) and in the notes section I wrote we would like 7 Olympic Burgers, not sure if this is necessary but we didn’t want to turn up and be disappointed.

Olympic Burger - Menu Description

Olympic Burger – Menu Description

As you can see from the menu, you get 2 12 ounce burgers, 1 cos lettuce, two tomatoes, six rashers of bacon, six slices of cheese, gherkins an jalapenos, all served on a 16 ounce 3 layer burger bun. Oh and don’t forget the two side plates of chips topped with chilli and cheese sauce.

This was tough. I struggled on multiple fronts, the three layer bread is just a killer, the chips add to the carb load and that is a lot of burger! I managed to eat the middle layer of bread and most of the lid, the lid had a really thick crust on it making it tough to chew so I washed it down with a lot of water. I managed to finished one plate of chips, when I got down to the second layer I ate the bacon and cheese got to the burger and hit the wall.. there was no going back.

Man vs Food - Olympic Burger - Food Wins

Man vs Food – Olympic Burger – Food Wins

I didn’t really notice the gherkins, jalapenos or lettuce they went down easy, it was all the carbs that done me in, better look next time. Perhaps next time I’d leave the chips and see if I could get through the burger first, I think getting the meat in first is important as you get given a big jug of water so you can always wash down the burger bun.

I recommend giving it a go, take a few mates along it’s a good laugh! Final bit of advice, don’t try and pick it up and take a bite unless you have a mouth the size of Godzilla’s 🙂

For the rest of my photo’s from the trip and how my 6 mates got on see here: Olympic Burger Challenge Photo Album

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Eating Challenge – Flaming Challenge

By | Published 02/10/2012

Just done the ‘Flaming Challenge’ at The Bay Horse in Ashton, UK. Although it is available in any pub under the chain “Flaming Grill” in the UK. It is 2 12oz burgers, 2 chicken breasts, spicy chilli beef, cheese, bacon, onion rings and a lot of chips. It comes out at 1KG of food.

If you complete it you’ll get your photo taken and put on the “wall of flame”. Make sure you mention this when you are ordering your food so they can keep an eye on you for cheating. Not that you ever would!

Wow it’s a lot of food, the burgers are layered with cheese and fried onions, the chilli is then spread all over the top and the chicken breast on top of that. The whole burger is topped with the onions rings. It looked amazing, tasted great … and yet I failed! It was toooo much, but I’m glad I tried because at £9.99 that is cheap!

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