Well, we have a nice idea which might actually be fun if you get the right things to prep it first, I present to you a Slushie maker, not any old cheap stuff, a £60 one. Yes, this was on the cards for a while and a feel of how to make slushies yourself, But be prepared for a pretty complicated tutorial.
The video is below:
The Packaging:
The Box:
Its a simple colour scheme which fits the slush puppie brand nicely with the Blue, Red and White. the box is quite tall and not much small print on it either. A good look to say the least, its not that heavy either..
The front of the Box
Both sides of the Box
The top of the Box
The back of the box.
Inside the box.
Well actually this has a bit of a twist to it, since there is no syrup included but the box does hint at one. The manuals are quite small but actually they are clear and easy to read as well. The cups are really nostalgic as well.
The machine and cups
The cups, straw and manual.
The machine has the button for the power on the side, the top has 2 holes, and the lid can come off as well. Which i didn't notice, but it has a warning inside to make sure you read the instructions carefully. But also it is not heavy so carrying it isn't a hard thing.
The front of the machine
The power button on the side
The lid and the top of the container
The manual is nicely made, with a good accurate reading and also giving a link to a video as a help on how to do it, that is impressive I must admit.
The first 2 pages
The Simple yet detailed manual
The final 2 pages
Setting it up:
So, placing the container on the base, then it was a case of following the instructions. It turns out you will need.
3 lids of salt (i meant that lid that comes at the top when measuring.
up to 1 litre of syrup and or drink
at least 3 trays of ice cubes. (buying a bag of ice might be easier)
80 ml of water
plenty of time to spare.
Now watch the video that the makers have put about it
But I hardly had enough Ice and didn't pour enough juice inside of it. But the peaks were there and the timing was quite rightish.
Setting it up
That churning ice
A small mix
The Mix later on
Time to get a slurp:
Well after waiting 15 minutes, it was time for me to taste it since i saw the peaks. But since i didn't use much of the ice as I was told to, then it was actually not going to be a nice as I thought, but this was NO FAULT of the PRODUCT. So I drank it and I tasted it and there was strong orange squash and a salty taste as well. But switching the mode to dispense was quite good too, that is a handy thing, no problems with it being dispensed in that regard.
The slush in the cup dispenser
The Slush-ish in the Cup
The taste was not as nice as I was expecting but that was again not the product but the ingredients I used, aka lack of Ice. But if I did get told that I would need a bag of ice, that would of been more helpful and a higher rating for the machine.With this in Mind.
omracer's Rating: 7/10
The Good Points:
Actually licensed by Slush Puppie
Nice Cups
Detailed Guide
Brilliant Packaging
A nice amount to make if needed of slush
The Bad Points:
Slightly Higher than what it could of been priced
No syrups included
The manual forgets to tell you that you need a BAG of ICE
If your not patient, this is not for you.
And there you have it, a review of a Slush Puppie Machine, I never thought I would end up doing something like this and well, Its done now and eventually I can have cold slushes after a long day at work or if we have a heatwave in 2018. But for now, I will see what i can do for reviews.
Now, the real fun begins, okay not really but its been a while since I had made an upgrade to this thing. Since for the most paret it runs well, but especially with the video editing getting more intense and more streams planned, i think it was time to get a quad core for the PC. Costing me £150 from work, where as Amazon is about £145 at the time I purchased this, But enjoy some of the tests below in the video:
The Core i5:
In the sleek blue and green speed blur front, things looks nice and fast, which does indicate what the CPU is almost supposed to do. But the top is where the CPU is shown and the back doesn't really have a say in much except the small print, the sides show off the barcodes as well as the main features of this Intel Processor. Its not as heavy as it seems but the weight is mostly in the heatsink that is in the box.
The front of the Core i5
The side of the box with the features
The back of the box
The side of the box which has the serials and barcodes etc.
When you look inside, it is the same layout with the manual, the CPU in the plastic tray and the heatsink with the thermal paste underneath. But for this, we do not use it since the one from the 6100 works actually fine.
Inside the box for the Core i5
Flip the manual and the sticker is shown
The fitting:
Now since the decoration of the lounge was happening, it was a little bit easier to get things fitted with more room. So taking my PC into the lounge, i took it apart and got the i5 fitted. It was almost a pnaic moment when i got the i3 out but i didn't damage the pins this time.
just before fitting
The i5 was fitted.
The only problem twas that the Heatsink was getting hard to pop back in, one of the plastic bits was starting to bend out. So i managed to get it pushed into the hole and it was securely fitted to the H110n.
Well it posted, and it was working nicely, The temperature was actually lower than the i3 was and it was working nicely. Mac OS Sierra was working nicely after making the ig-platform ID relevant to the HD 630 and Windows was also coping nicely with it.
So ,it was then left to start testing things out, with games on the iGPU,
The Testing:
Gaming - Intel HD 630:
Note, the videos were recording with GameDVR and 60FPS setting.
PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2:
Actually this managed to run about 4FPS, the menu did actually run slower than the HD 530 but if the resolution was lowered, you could run this at 60FPS.
The Course Selection Screen
in game
Rocket League:
Actually this went slightly better than expected, and you can easily tune it to get 720 or even 1080 at 60FPS while recording via OBS,
The settings
In game
Fortnite:
This one was slightly more tricky to get right but it can be barely playable, but lasting pretty high up when online was reare, i meant its not like i just hid.....actually yes just hide on the outskirts of the maps before the storm comes helps me but the quality is odd with having 3D resolution and screen resolution but it makes things easier for couch players really.
Getting the settings right can help, but this was using both the 3D rs and screen Res as the Same
Thew view from the tower
Gaming - GTX 1050:
Well with the hype of miners sucking up the GPU market dry, I might be selling this toi help pay for the i5, but I did test it with a few things. Actually the same games, but hey, a test is a test. Lets dive in.. Oh also, this was recorded using GameDVR
Rocket League:
This was much better and i was going to get over 1080p 60FPS easily, even with HQ settings and recording as well .
The settings for the 1050
Nice Quality
Fortnite:
This was still as work in progress, since when the settings were turned, I could get about 108p 60FPS on medium or High. Epic will slow things alot down.
The settings that will get you a low FPS
Getting a chest
Stormy views
Rollercoaster Tycoon World:
This was actually more demanding than I guessed, but that might be since more VRAM was needed than what 2GB will offer me. But none the less, i did get 60 FPS when zoomed out of the par.
Better FPS when zoomed out
Adding things to the park
The settings used.
Streaming - OBS Studio:
With the help of the HD72A and a PS4, i can finally stream 720 60FPS with the Steambox. The settings can cause lag on the FAST preset as well as recording at the same time using a low CPU preset. But the bitrate is pretty good for what my connection, since it was wifi the bitrate had to be lower than i wanted it to be.
The settings that makes it just right
Video Editing:
FCP X:
This was a nice suprise, the times didn't feel different when using it for editing compared to the i3, okay the rendering when editing but it was slightly quicker, You could tell the boost when you added 3D text in.
Rendering a 1080p 60FPS video on H.264 Fast Encode took 8m24. That was for the Muxy Tutorial.
Movie Studio Platinum 12:
This was a bit easier for editing, but the playback was getting laggy when on Preview FULL. But once that was ready to render, it was taking 24m 30s to get this rendered before uploading to YT..
The rendering time for 1080p 60fps
Benchmarking.
So we come to the benchmarks, now this was actually surprising how the i5 performed. On both counts really. But it was still a higher mark than what it could of been. User benchmark was used.
Without the GTX 1050.
This was going to be shocking due to the HD 630 coming into play.
PArt 1
Part 2
Part 3
With the GTX 1050:
Now this was a shock with showing how much of a small improvement the 1050 gave this. But there was good results for the tests, but still a bit weaker than people would expect it to be.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The Conclusion:
In all honest, there was a major improvement when you notice it, but for day to day, use, there is some extras added and it did help me edit in 1080p 60fps. Was it worth the £150, it probably will be but only when streaming is when the performance really shines out for me.
Well thats the video done, a new part for the Steambox and things will be easier for editing soon, but for now, i can catch up on things to get done and the usual life, there are more reviews coming up soon too.
