I downloaded AdBlocker extension for Opera, and set Sketchucation as an "allow ads" url and seems to work now...

nope, no ads. I see ads on every other website, have all my browsers set to allow ads and popups, javascript cookies and all that.

I have installed 4 different browsers on my Mac. Opera, FireFox, Safari, Chrome

I have gone through each of the settings to make sure I have no ad blocking, but I still get the notice on this forum that I need to stop using ad blocking extensions even If I do not have one installed and have my browser wide open.

What gives?

Mars

I've been spec'ing a new PC also, just read through this interesting thread.

I like the i7 3930(k) sandy bridge with the extra 2 cores, really curious how it stacks up to the Ivy Bridge i7 3770(k) ... in real world testing sketchup, autocad, solidworks, adobe cs suite for photoshop, illustrator, premier pro etc.

Benchmarks are nice for baseline, but more interested in real world performance use cases.

3930 has the extra 2 cores
3770 newer 22nm architecture with almost 1/2 the wattage req. 77 vs 130
The Xeon E3-1275 V2 (ivy bridge with IG) is another very tempting processor

I am also wondering about the new nVidia 6xx cards esp. 660 to 680 vs. the older 560 to 580.

Seems a lot of "render" pro-amateurs point to the 5xx series for the superior floating point processing over the 6xx. Apparently the 570 was getting such good render/viewing in professional software as to tempt professionals from the Quadro/Fire series cards, so nVidia hamstrung the 6xx architecture to only focus on Frames/second.

I'd love to see the difference between a 570 vs 670 (with same ram, or highest available ram in both 2.5gb?)

Although I am seriously thinking of getting a Quadro 4000 for 3D work.
I am painfully familiar with 3D render errors/glitches and CAD parts issues occurring with consumer grade graphic cards. It is fine if you have the time to re-render a scene once, thrice or painfully more or fix and fidget a CAD part to re-appear correctly. The Quadro drivers are pretty tight and can be targeted towards a specific piece of software. (i think sketchUp has it's own specialized drivers, although not 100% sure on that)

ECC ram (error correcting code ram) can make for huge savings in time if an error ever corrupts a file (or simply a single part in a CAD project, try hunting that down!)

Building a system with these parts should be do-able in the $1400 to $1800 range for good (silent cooling) gear.

Any opinions? I'm starting to lean towards a full ECC system, something that gamers of course will not appreciate.

Love to hear how your system works for you TomDC!