Who needs a desktop PC any more? That question replayed in my head more than a dozen times in recent weeks when I was thinking of rebuilding a new PC.

After all, with the exception of gaming – and I am playing fewer games these days – there really isn’t much that a cheap, fast and pretty ultrabook cannot do. Even if I wanted to build a new PC, I could buy a really small case, stuff it with all the excellent gear and be really happy with it.

But one look at the classic Silverstone TJ07 case I’ve been using for more than five years, and it’s clear I’m keeping that amazing piece of gear. Despite its rather dated interior layout and being better suited for a watercooling setup, its aluminium unibody design is still stunning to look at and puts a smile on many PC builders.

And so I built a new PC with it in the past few days. Here’s a brief work log of sorts of my new PC based on an Intel Ivybridge CPU. …

The news is official today. The first Thunderbolt-enabled motherboards will be shipping soon, starting with vendors such as Asus, and users can look to hook up external drives much faster than with current USB 3.0 ports.

The first boards from Asus unveiled today include the new top-line model from its Intel Z77-based lineup, the P8Z77-V Premium, as well as a version of the existing P8Z77-V Pro which will come with a Thunderbolt connector included.

Apple’s Mac laptops and desktops have been the first machines to feature Intel’s new technology, which promises to be twice as fast as USB 3.0. Now, PC builders can also hook up a number of drives from the likes of Promise, Elgato and Lacie.  …

If you had asked just six months ago if you should buy a solid state drive (SSD) for your PC, I’d have said “only if you are using it for a laptop.”

Besides the pure speed of an SSD, the low power consumption, light weight and durability mean that SSDs are a perfect fit in portable machine. So much of our data is stored on the cloud now, be it e-mail or music, that we don’t need all that space onboard after all. There’s always an external hard disk you can call on if you need storage.

So, what about desktops then? Well, I used to think they can do with a hard disk.

But having used SSDs in all the laptops at home now, I have to say, once you get used to the speed of SSDs, it’s hard to go back to hard disks. And that’s what I did this past weekend – I finally relented and bought a Corsair Force GT for my desktop PC.

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