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Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

NecroJoe said:
I absolutely 100% have to depend on wi-fi.

For a future new computer, should I definitely be looking only at motherboards with built-in wi-fi, or should I assume an add-on device?

I've never had built-in wi-fi, but I've historically had really buggy experiences with PCI and USB wi-fi devices, even with "brand name" (MSI and Gigabyte) units.
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Built-in should generally be fine these days. I don't see it as much different from laptops these days (though I suppose a lot of those do have a small add-on card, technically speaking). Most have good external antennae or at least provision to add them on. Chipset may matter. I've usually had decent success with Intel chipsets. At very least you can usually find helpful support when Windows fucks something up with an update.

I've also had some experience with PCI and PCI-E wi-fi cards and the ones I've had were extremely reliable. I only ever bought cards made by companies that specialize in networking, however, so maybe that's the difference. Of the typical PC "brand names," ASUS is the only one I've found to be good with network devices.
 
I have two desktops at home with wifi add-in cards (Both Gigabyte GC-WBAX variants, one 200 one 1200) and one with wifi onboard (MSI B650 Tomahawk) and the performance on them is comparable, although the antennae on the Gigabyte cards are far superior to the simple bendy entennae I got with the motherboard (solved by getting a Gigabyte antenna for the onboard wifi as well), and there were some issues with the onboard wifi crapping out due to BIOS issues (I guess the downsides of using a very new platform, this was fixed some time in May)
 
I'd argue the "form factor" as such isn't as important as the actual hardware that's being put in. my current board has built in wifi and that was basically unusable because it was a 1x1 setup. i swapped the actual m2 extension card for an intel ax200 back in the day, which cost me less than 10€ and without changing anything else (same antennae and everything) I suddenly had perfect wifi.
also, since all wireless is black magic (that is one of my most important learnings from 3.5 years of building out a large network for a job), positioning of the antenna may will play a major role. I've had USB wifi sticks in the past that massively improved in performance when I both moved them away from the PC and sometimes even more if I used the USB extension to move them about a little. in very sketchy situations, sometimes I'd go from 1 bar indicated in windows (whatever that means) to 4 bars, just by moving the damn thing over by 50 cm.
... i just realized that last point sort of is a disadvantage for built in wifi setups, since they oftentimes have the antenna poking out the rear without any possibility of actually moving them.
 
Putting "The usual bullshit goosechase" as a commit comment was probably not advisable, but alas.
 
We've all been there. 🤣
 
Redliner said:
Putting "The usual bullshit goosechase" as a commit comment was probably not advisable, but alas.
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I have done commit messages "I am an idiot", "Comma Comma Comma chameleon", "Maybe this will work", " I am about to start punching kittens" and others that I can no longer remember.
 
So that's what I've been doing wrong all these years? 🤣
 
I am glad to learn I am not alone :geek:
 
I'm thinking about upgrading my desktop with a mix of new and used parts so I'm able to play some more recent games on it. I do have a mid range gaming laptop (Ryzen 5800H+ Radeon RX 6600M), but I'm not really a fan of gaming on a laptop and if I use all my desktop peripherals my wife can't use any of the two while I'm gaming. So if I upgrade my desktop I could use whichever is available.

I just don't know how far I should go, 'cause at a certain point it wouldn't really make sense to upgrade instead of buying a new computer.
My current system consists of:
- Ryzen 4650G
- 16Gb RAM
- 1TB Samsung 970 Evo M.2 SSD
- a 550W Corsair PSU

Even without upgrading the rest I'm in need of a second and/or bigger SSD anyway (been postponing this for over a year now). It's mostly the CPU and GPU I'm not sure about. CPU wise I'm looking at the 5600, 5600x and 5800x and GPU's probably a new rx 6700xt or used rx 6800, RTX 4060ti or RTX3070 since they seem to go for similar prices.

The price difference between a 5600x and a 5800x (both used and new) really isn't that big and the same goes for most of the mentioned GPU's. But the 550W PSU is definitely going to be a limiting factor. And the more parts I upgrade/replace, the less sense upgrading instead of replacing seems to make.
 
For the minor difference in price vs the massive difference in gaming performance, I would recommend looking at Ryzen 7 5800X3D instead of regular 5800X. As for GPUs, nvidia has the edge in performance, but gets STOMPED in terms of value for money by AMD cards.
 
Adunaphel said:
For the minor difference in price vs the massive difference in gaming performance, I would recommend looking at Ryzen 7 5800X3D instead of regular 5800X
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Made this exact switch: 4650g to 5800x3d. It’s nice. Yeeees.
Admittedly, if going best bang for the buck then probably Overkill.
kalf said:
But the 550W PSU is definitely going to be a limiting factor.
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Because of reasons, I ran the above 5800x3d with a 3060ti on a 450W psu without issue for about 3 months. So may be worth sticking with the 550W for the time being if no issues arise and it’s not cheap Chinesium.

Regarding gpus I rather like this bang for the buck chart by computerbase. Yes it’s average and simplistic but can be a good starting point.
IMG_1900.jpeg
 
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Adunaphel said:
For the minor difference in price vs the massive difference in gaming performance, I would recommend looking at Ryzen 7 5800X3D instead of regular 5800X. As for GPUs, nvidia has the edge in performance, but gets STOMPED in terms of value for money by AMD cards.
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Looked at it, but I personally don't consider 185euro for the 5800X vs 320euro for the 5800X3D a minor difference in price (the 150euro 5600X vs 185euro 5800X I do consider a minor price difference).
I'm aiming more for bang for the buck instead of top performance and especially since I'm not going top of the line GPU either I don't know if the 5800X3D would make much sense in that case.
 
Throw everything into pcpartpicker.com, double the wattage or 1.7x the amount said, you’ll never have a problem, and you’re not overbuying on power supply.
 
Soooo... my half year old scrollwheel just crapped out on me and refuses to scroll down. Doing all the stuff that I could find online doesn't help... so yeah, I'm gonna need a new mouse. With a cable. With a few buttons. Also the (now dead, rip) scroll wheel on my G502 annoyed me, since it required me to actually press a button to go into infinite scroll - rather than the electromagnetic whatever clutch thing that my old MX master used to have, where you could just flick it and it'd go.
Recommendations? :dunno:
 
I would suggest the G903 Lightspeed as it's a brilliant mouse and a huge improvement over the original G903, but that has the same button to switch between scroll modes. I really like it and was never a fan of the way the MX master worked. :p

MX Master 3S? That supports SmartShift, it's basically the only new mouse that does.
 
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