The "New Toys" Thread

as in better than expected or worse than expected? for spotify, single digits should be perfectly fine, no?
I just didn’t expect single digits on the yard 10 meters from the satellite when I get 250 Mbit/s in the room the satellite is in.
 
I just didn’t expect single digits on the yard 10 meters from the satellite when I get 250 Mbit/s in the room the satellite is in.

at least you don't live in a passive energy house with the windows that don't allowe wireless signals past them. D:
 
I bought a couple of new toys.

To replace my tablet that is about 7 years old, a Lenovo Tab P11 with 4GB video ram, and 128 GB of storage. So far, I really like this. One thing that I don't, is that it doesn't have a headphone jack, so I will need to buy an adapter, or (eww!) wireless headphones.


To bypass a wonky wi-fi* and add a sound bar to the TV, a Roku Streambar Pro. This is a nice step up in sound quality over the TV speakers, and I might even add the rear channel speakers at some point. It did take some effort to set up, but this was due to the wi-fi problem with the TV, and the damn HDMI placement on the TV.

* The TV is a Roku smart TV and the wi-fi module will randomly drop connection which requires a reset of the router and modem. This seems to be a problem with the cheaper ones after a few years. This was also the only device that was having this problem. The Streambar tries to get the connection info from the TV when setting it up, and it was boot looping until I reset everything and setup the smart TV again. When tech goes wrong! ?
 
A Ryzen 5 5600G. Lately my PC randomly had black screens with the fans on the graphics card (Gigabyte Radeon 5500 XT) spinning up. I didn't have a CPU with integrated GPU or a spare graphics card so I could either buy a new graphics card to bridge the time it takes to repair/replace the graphics card or a CPU with integrated GPU. Now, when I went looking for graphics cards I got the shock of my life: you could either get a really old card (something like Geforce GT 710) or a card for 400+ Euros, there is nothing available in between. Well, my mainboard supports the 5600G which was available locally so I went there to buy it, now the PC is stable again and I can RMA the graphics card...
 
I really am rather disappointed by the fact that there is still a Vega igpu in there… I’m in much the same boat with my 4650G - so I’d still say solid choice right there ?
 
Well, I have 2x8 GB DDR4-3200 and a WUXGA display (1920x1200) so nothing too fancy, but the most demanding game I'm playing is Wreckfest which runs smooth enough without being too ugly so that's good enough for me. Of course I had to lower the graphics settings coming from the 5500 XT, but it's not as if it's NFS Porsche territory or something, there is still a decent amount of details, dust and so on.
 
Yeah, to be honest I was also pleasantly surprised by the performance, I was expecting worse. But still, the underlying architecture is now 4+ years old.
I am actually annoyed by my misreading of the GPU market - i was hoping prices would come crashing down sooner rather than later (or whatever this current bullshit is), as I really dearly would like to play Anno1800 and FlightSim2020 again. Both of those are really rather a stretch on the igpu (although Anno I could possibly make work with a combination of FSR and low details). Now hoping for a friend of mine who works at nvidia and maybe has access at not-ridiculous-prices...
 
I had a €5 voucher from a cell carrier burning a hole in my wallet so I popped into one of their stores to see if there was anything worthwhile I could use. Found this USB charger with a built in 5000mAh power bank. It lists for €59,90 at the usual places online, but they had it for €29 minus another €5 so I thought why not. I always carry a power bank and a wall charger in my backpack anyway so why not combine the two.



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I may have ordered the wrong size...
 
When tools are all cutesy wootsy!
 
I accidentally an RTX 3080 now that a UK supplier had stock of the V2 ASUS ROG version. Due to be delivered next week.

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Will leave me a bit broke for a while but the ASUS ROG GTX 1080Ti I have is selling for £450 to £500 used based on completed auctions. I expect the value of this will drop faster than the price of a 3080 so made the jump now. A new Ryzen build will come later.
 
Alriiiight time to post this piece of crap finally lol...
Ages ago I already got myself this little machine based on an AMD 4650G - because GPU prices were crazy as all hell. I stuffed it into a fractal era itx case because why not (and why not put a massive 240 AIO in there!?), only to find out later that, e.g. that GPU posted above, would never fit. So, as luck would have it, I managed to snag a 3060ti FE (nice and small) through "channels" that also made it very cheap (basically msrp). Lots of cursing later and everything is somehow in the bloody case and running well. Finally, back to FSMS, Anno 1800 and whatever else I couldn't play...
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Oh, while I was in there I also replaced the anemic wifi card that came with the mobo with an ax200 - so at least i now have not-shitty-wifi (which is still wifi, so shit) :|
 
I may have caved and retired my ancient 9 year old HD7950 OC since I couldn't edit a video without having the software crash with a gpu error or gpu memory full error... Picked up a mildly used (2mo) RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition for 850 Euro.

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And shortly after, just the other day, I went to a local store to buy Doom Eternal for a 10er since that was cheaper than buying a digital version online, and I like it enough to buy it... I did buy it, but I also walked out the store with an LG UltraGear 27GN950-B, 27" 4k 144Hz monitor that by most reviews was/is the best of its kind as of a year or so ago.. I paid 679 for a demo unit with a full like new warranty, retail was 850-1000 depending on the shop, if even available, which it commonly wasn't or isn't.. Oops? :D

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All in all, a very expensive week.
 
This isn't a toy, it's a tool. I'm spending a lot more time in front of the computer than I used to and a lot of the time I'm hammering out parts numbers on the numeric keyboard. My cheap Logitech wireless didn't cut it anymore.

Enter the Varmilo VA109M Charcoal, which would have arrived today if I had pulled the trigger early enough in the morning but alas I have to wait until monday after work. It looks very basic and is apparently backlit. I don't care since it isn't going to be used in a dimly lit mancave. The important thing is it has Cherry switches and the basic PC layout I need for the software we use.

I actually paid for it myself because I just got a new job (or rather: the job was changed under me, our company was sold) and I don't want to approach the new boss asking for a €140 keyboard after two weeks on the new job.

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Begun, the Enter Key wars have. ;)

That Enter key configuration always bugged me and I can't type for crap on them.
 
That's what an Enter key looks like around these parts, so I don't really know anything else.

I used to have an old PC laptop with a horizontal Enter key. I guess you could blame Compaq beancounters because it's obviously cheaper to print new keycaps and shuffle stuff around rather than to redesign the hardware properly for overseas markets. I did learn to type on it fairly quickly but I was in my early 20's and I would probably have more issues readjusting to a horizontal enter now.
 
This made me realize I don’t actually know what my enter key looks like… but I’m also too lazy to go and check ?

Btt: caved and ordered iPhone 13 pro. Current 4yo X is still running fine and dandy, so it’s 100% want rather than need ?
 
The ISO British layout enter key is endemic of a morally bankrupt society. :p
 
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