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... SMALL! Ok. So I'm now officially an old guy even though I think and feel like I'm still 25. But I have to admit I've been around the block more than a few times. I got started on computers doing research at university back in the 70s. Back then, the computer took up two floors of the engineering building and took a team of technicians to run your data and print out boxes of results. Then in 1988 I got my first desktop - a screaming 8MHz 80286 pc running MS DOS! With a math coprocessor it had more computing power than the university computer had 10 years earlier. That's progress! Except that it was incredibly frustrating to use those things. So the 80s saw me move from secretaries to doing most of my work myself on the pcs. And they were big. But the monitors were bigger. Real boat anchors. Then as I got newer generations of desktops, got the first laptop - a Toshiba 1000 - and moved on to pen computers for professional work, the desktops became towers that sat on the floor because they were so big. Then 9 years ago I got a Core2Quad 2.6 pc and put in a GTX660 ti and 8GBs of RAM and later a 500GB SSD to keep the thing humming properly which it did. But then last year I retired and was dying to get into more gaming, photo processing and video collecting. To my dismay, my trusty old Core2Quad and GTX660 could not handle the newer games coming out! I found comfort in playing my old games and flight simulators and got a 4K monitor for my photo and video editing which is truly spectacular. But, alas, I could not play the newer games I was dying to try out. Oh, well, I'll think about doing some technical writing so I can get a new pc... Then in November 2017 I started looking and to my horror, saw that the prices of both cpus and gpus had skyrocketed! What the heck is this!? What the heck is BITCOIN Mining?! Why are those guys buying every GTX1070 on the frigging planet? Sheesh! So I went into hibernation contenting myself with woodworking for my wife, fixing up a variety of things around the place, practicing on my violin and trumpet again and planning some new projects. Then this Christmas I got a most unexpected visit from Mrs. Santa Claus who told me I'd been a very good boy and could buy myself a new pc. Do I believe in Santa Claus again? You bet! So I started looking around half heartedly at first but then I saw some really good deals and found the MSI Trident 3 Arctic getting rave reviews. Must be out of my budget I mused... but then I found a special online deal and called them to double check if this real. It was. I bought. What have I done? Then yesterday, I saw the Purolator truck drive up and the man came up the the door with a rather small box. Not my MSI pc, I thought. Must be something my better half had ordered. But no! It was the MSI Trident 3. I signed for it and took the box and wondered if this was just the keyboard and mouse they include in the package? So I went on line to see other unboxing videos and sure enough. The Trident 3 Arctic seemed smaller than any desktop I had ever used so I unboxed mine. Wow! Is that thing ever petite for a desktop or a tower! It's got a very solid feeling to it and came with all the parts including the power supply and electric cable, the HDMI cable, the stand, the documentation, the keyboard and the mouse. Very impressive packaging of boxes within boxes yet very compact.
So here it stands in all its glory waiting for tomorrow when I will connect it to the power and my router and my BenQ monitor and go for its maiden run. Good luck to all my fellow MSIers. May these great machines keep us up and running for many years to come.
... SMALL! Ok. So I'm now officially an old guy even though I think and feel like I'm still 25. But I have to admit I've been around the block more than a few times. I got started on computers doing research at university back in the 70s. Back then, the computer took up two floors of the engineering building and took a team of technicians to run your data and print out boxes of results. Then in 1988 I got my first desktop - a screaming 8MHz 80286 pc running MS DOS! With a math coprocessor it had more computing power than the university computer had 10 years earlier. That's progress! Except that it was incredibly frustrating to use those things. So the 80s saw me move from secretaries to doing most of my work myself on the pcs. And they were big. But the monitors were bigger. Real boat anchors. Then as I got newer generations of desktops, got the first laptop - a Toshiba 1000 - and moved on to pen computers for professional work, the desktops became towers that sat on the floor because they were so big. Then 9 years ago I got a Core2Quad 2.6 pc and put in a GTX660 ti and 8GBs of RAM and later a 500GB SSD to keep the thing humming properly which it did. But then last year I retired and was dying to get into more gaming, photo processing and video collecting. To my dismay, my trusty old Core2Quad and GTX660 could not handle the newer games coming out! I found comfort in playing my old games and flight simulators and got a 4K monitor for my photo and video editing which is truly spectacular. But, alas, I could not play the newer games I was dying to try out. Oh, well, I'll think about doing some technical writing so I can get a new pc... Then in November 2017 I started looking and to my horror, saw that the prices of both cpus and gpus had skyrocketed! What the heck is this!? What the heck is BITCOIN Mining?! Why are those guys buying every GTX1070 on the frigging planet? Sheesh! So I went into hibernation contenting myself with woodworking for my wife, fixing up a variety of things around the place, practicing on my violin and trumpet again and planning some new projects. Then this Christmas I got a most unexpected visit from Mrs. Santa Claus who told me I'd been a very good boy and could buy myself a new pc. Do I believe in Santa Claus again? You bet! So I started looking around half heartedly at first but then I saw some really good deals and found the MSI Trident 3 Arctic getting rave reviews. Must be out of my budget I mused... but then I found a special online deal and called them to double check if this real. It was. I bought. What have I done? Then yesterday, I saw the Purolator truck drive up and the man came up the the door with a rather small box. Not my MSI pc, I thought. Must be something my better half had ordered. But no! It was the MSI Trident 3. I signed for it and took the box and wondered if this was just the keyboard and mouse they include in the package? So I went on line to see other unboxing videos and sure enough. The Trident 3 Arctic seemed smaller than any desktop I had ever used so I unboxed mine. Wow! Is that thing ever petite for a desktop or a tower! It's got a very solid feeling to it and came with all the parts including the power supply and electric cable, the HDMI cable, the stand, the documentation, the keyboard and the mouse. Very impressive packaging of boxes within boxes yet very compact.
So here it stands in all its glory waiting for tomorrow when I will connect it to the power and my router and my BenQ monitor and go for its maiden run. Good luck to all my fellow MSIers. May these great machines keep us up and running for many years to come.
