PenStar Hardware Workshop and UW PC Gamers’ LanFEST 2.1

30 Hours of Gaming Mayhem

By Josh Walrath

The Hardware Workshop

            Since this was my first workshop ever, things were not as well organized as they could have been.  We still talked for over an hour though, and the topics covered were: heat and power, memory potential and performance, current and future graphics trends, CPU technology and the differences between Intel and AMD at this time, future CPU products and technologies, and a whole mess of other topics covered in the extensive Q&A session following the speech.

Attendees start to gather for the beginning of the workshop.  In the background (which is very hard to see) is the X-Box/Halo 2 Tournament which was wrapping up at that time.

            The gamers seemed awfully happy with the workshop, and I have many ideas of things to do at the next LAN/Workshop.  Of course the most popular part were the hardware giveaways.  Both the motherboard and the DIMMS had the attendees perched on the edges of their chairs, and there was an audible groan from many of them when their name was not chosen out of the hat.

It's amazing how happy a new heatsink and fan can make an individual.  His name is Michael Psycho (if you hadn't already guessed).  He was certainly dressed to kill.

The Next Edition

            Sometime in October or November of this year we will all get together again for the next edition of LanFEST and the PenStarSys.com Hardware Workshop.  We are both looking to expand our sponsors, and offer even more gaming/tournaments/prizes to the attendees.  The next hardware workshop will be a lot more organized, and I will hopefully be showing products such as water cooling, SLI graphics, and the latest CPU and motherboard technologies (and not to mention memory and power, two very important keys to a successful overclock).

The lucky winner of the grand prize (the Corsair TwinX1024 XMS 3200 XL Pro DIMMS) was far more interested in his prize than in me (which really is only natural).

            So if you are anywhere close to the Laramie, WY area, we invite you to participate in what is turning out to be a very exciting LAN in the Rocky Mountain Region.  The combination of great enthusiasm from the organizers, solid sponsorship from manufacturers, and what is looking to be a very fun and informative hardware workshop should attract a wide variety of gamers.  So if you are interested, keep reading to find out details on when the next LanFEST will be held!

            A big thanks goes out to Anna Kunkel and Joe James at Corsair, John Nguyen at Tyan, and Brian Burke and Philip Scholz from NVIDIA.  Thanks for your sponsorship!

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