Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

I'd be happy for my ASUS 1080Ti to be worth a decent amount, I'd like to upgrade to a 3080Ti if/when that becomes available.
 
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Still hoping supply issues are alleviated somewhat with 3060 / 6700 cards coming onto the market... but not really believing in that either.

I also love how Nvidia is actively restricting mining power on the 3060 through a combination of driver, bios and other shenanigans - I’m sure it’ll get hacked straight away, but at least they’re trying!
 
Seen 3600Ti's listed but no 6700's
 
Still hoping supply issues are alleviated somewhat with 3060 / 6700 cards coming onto the market... but not really believing in that either.

I also love how Nvidia is actively restricting mining power on the 3060 through a combination of driver, bios and other shenanigans - I’m sure it’ll get hacked straight away, but at least they’re trying!
Keep dreaming, Nvidia is now making crypto mining cards out of “silicone that isn’t good enough to become a gaming card.”
 
Keep dreaming, Nvidia is now making crypto mining cards out of “silicone that isn’t good enough to become a gaming card.”
Yeah as I said, I don’t believe it either :D
However there is such a thing as shitty chips that won’t run the clocks required for a proper card - question is where do they draw the line and if they indeed do have such a large amount of reject chips as to warrant a low-clock mining card, then they have a big issue with production. Or they should’ve just made those chips into a 3050 at lower clocks or whatever.

anyway, it’s all crap for the foreseeable future...

Seen 3600Ti's listed but no 6700's
Current rumor: Presentation March 18th
 
 
Why are “tech reviewers” testing Wi-Fi gear using tools that use the internet connection?
 
I've had my full AMD (3600/5600XT) build running as my main computer for about 2 months now. In that time I have experienced more display driver crashes than in 15+ years of Intel/nVidia machines. It's quite interesting.

Fortunately they are soft crashes so I haven't had a reboot, at most I have to close a tab or reboot a videogame.
 
I hope they get their shit together for you.

A couple of work colleagues just built new systems, one went AMD and the other went with an i7-10700K. I think I would still go for the latter, I'm still not convinced that AMD is the right way to go. It's over 3 years since I built this i7-8700K/1080Ti machine and I've hardly ever see any crashes, probably haven't see a blue screen of death for more than 6 months.
 
I’ve not had that yet with my AMD 3700 and RX580 set up. It’s been stable.
 
I haven't built a PC since the Clinton administration, but it feels like AMD always was the hobbyist choice even back then. Sometimes they performed better but it was always accompanied by shoddy drivers and instability.
 
I would also like to say my previous APU, AMD 5800K was stable until I ran out of proper cooling, then it crashed. I found out that you can’t run GTA V on it.
 
The Athlon X2s were rock solid, that was my last experience with AMD. Until recently we still had a couple kicking around at work, just about hanging on until we got rid of Windows 7.
 
FWIW, my 3700X runs like a champ since late 2019, no issues to report whatsoever. Haven't actually seen a bluescreen in years, even before the upgrade from the old i7-860, despite this Windows install being rather very old at this point.
 
Just newly installed windows 10 on mah new machine... and it kept asking for media drivers before it would continue with the install. solution? plug the usb stick into a usb2 port, not a usb3 port. good god...

anyway: no issues yet (knock on wood) with this AMD 4650G.
 
I have a bit of a dilemma. I currently have my Dell Precision T3610 workstation that I've written about in this thread (and the New Toys thread), that I upgraded with a GTX 1080 and a Samsung 860 EVO SSD. The machine has been serving me more than fine, and I can't complain about it.

What I'm thinking about is whether to upgrade it further or not. It currently has a Xeon E5-1620 v2, which is just fine, but not much more than that. From some online research I did, I could get a Xeon E5-2667 v2 for anywhere between €100 and €140 (depending on whether I'm willing to wait for Chinese shipping or not), and although it isn't officially supported by Dell for that particular machine, it should work. Here's a comparison of the two processors.

I don't expect gaming performance to increase drastically, however, basics of video editing is in my uni course's curriculum, and that's something I was curious about anyway. Besides that, there will be some more 3D modelling, this time in Blender, and a lot of programs to do with graphic design, so I would like to have a smooth experience.

While I'm at it, I'd also bump up the RAM to at least 32GB (it uses 14900R, so it's a bit harder to get, but there's eBay and AliExpress to the rescue) and swap the HDD to a 3TB drive (I guess a Toshiba P300 should suffice, if not, Seagate Barracuda it is). Those I'd probably do anyway, but the processor is something I'm on a verge about.

So would this CPU upgrade be a reasonable thing to do or would it be a waste of money?
 
That seems incredible for what appears by the model number to be an insignificant jump. Upgrading computers is about moving the bottleneck around and it depends what you're doing with it. If you're gaming then you're probably limited by the GPU already, if you're using Photoshop you'll be limited by RAM, for example. What is it that you feel needs more oomph?

I'd recommend against buying processors from China no matter what, I guess these are used and that's a double nope in my book. You're almost asking for a paperweight that you can't return easily.

A RAM boost is worth it if you're actually using it but don't throw money at it otherwise and an HDD is an HDD, I stick by my recommendation to avoid Seagate though. If their drives stopped dying in our work machines I'd stop telling people not to buy them. :LOL:
 
If I could get a bit smoother gaming experience, that'd be awesome, but will the extra cores and threads help in most games? Otherwise, I thought about giving it more headroom for stuff like DaVinci Resolve, and whatever free alternatives to Photoshop and Illustrator we end up using the next semester. (I'm willing to bet GIMP and Inkscape.)

About RAM, I heard that now might be a good time to upgrade if I had planned, considering the price curve of RAM and the laws of supply and demand. Actually, for gaming, I don't think more than 16GB will be necessary for a while, but for video editing and GIMP/Inkscape/whatever we end up using, as well as future-proofing, would it be a good idea?
 
So, I got my AmpliFi Alien Wi-Fi 6 router. It's a seriously nice piece of hardware with a very well made management app, but it would be nice if it delivered the speeds too. LAN speeds are good but internet speeds over wi-fi are utter shit and I can't figure out why.

Using SpeedTest (which I've complained about Youtube tech reviewers using :p) my iPhone 12 just now managed 96.3 down and 14.8 up, while my Mac Mini on wired gigabit achieved 235 down and 18.4 up using the same speedtest server. 235/18 is about what I can expect from my 250/20 connection during prime streaming hours.

Switching the Mini to Wi-Fi produces shit results too btw so it's not just my phone. And both my Mac and phone support Wi-Fi 6 and reception on both is in the ballpark of 90-95% according to the Amplifi app. It's free line of sight, in the same room.

The AmpliFI app has its own speedtest that runs on the router itself, and it has constantly achieved 240-250 down and 20 up all evening. I'm not sure what speedtest service it's using.

And it's just internet speeds that are shitty btw. I can comfortably pull over half a gigabit over wi-fi from my NAS.

So far, this €400 router is not very convincing.
 
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About RAM, I heard that now might be a good time to upgrade if I had planned, considering the price curve of RAM and the laws of supply and demand. Actually, for gaming, I don't think more than 16GB will be necessary for a while, but for video editing and GIMP/Inkscape/whatever we end up using, as well as future-proofing, would it be a good idea?
Upping the RAM to 32 is definitely reasonable at the moment, imho. I have 32 in both my private rig and work laptop at the moment, and the next work laptop due some time this year will definitely get 64. Private rig is also sitting at 2x 16GB with two spare slots for a future upgrade - don't feel like it's needed any time soon, but eventually it will be.
 
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