Bah, I should have bought that NZXT system when I had the chance. They haven’t had a 3070 available since. And now that I have seen their $100 assembly fee it’s too hard to stomach the $300-400 markup from the other vendors.
What about the 3060Ti? Or should I just hold out for the 3070 to get in stock if it’s not about budget?
The 3060 Ti is going to be hard to get as well I would imagine.
If you want a 3070, they are one of the easier GPU's to snatch right now with some diligence. Enter the Newegg shuffles when they come up. I just got a 5900X from the Shuffle yesterday and they had a ton of 3070's listed when I signed up. Follow Falcodrin on YouTube, he has a 3070/3080/3090 stock scaper stream setup that will make a noise when there are stock drops. If you want to take it farther you can grab and run the scraper he uses, it's called StreetMerchant. You can set it up to specifically look for 3070's, below a certain price, and have it email and send a text to your phone when there is a drop. It only requires basic comfort with a command line and installing some development tools to setup and run. No actual programming knowledge required.
Thanks. I should have said, I was asking about the 3060Ti because it’s available at the moment on NZXT. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can just choose some cheap card and swap later.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
This 10900K definitely "crunched" when I latched the socket down. It's the LGA pins pushing in to the CPU pads.
PCIe slots: Makes a satisfying "click" when you put it in correctly
AMD AM4 slots: Zero resistance, zero force, zero worries, first time go
Intel LGA slot: THREE WORDS: RUNNING. OVER. BONES.
A quick heads up ya'll that the last Best Buy GPU/CPU drop was two weeks ago this Friday, so tomorrow or Friday are pretty great bets for another drop. Be watching their store pages at/around 10am Central; F5 until you see the yellow button, click it, then don't F5 anymore.
Heyyyyyyyy I just realized this didn't happen yet. Which makes this, I'm pretty sure, the first time two weeks have elapsed since the last BB drop that there wasn't another BB drop. Since the launch of the 3070, when I started keeping track.
So I figure it might happen... Monday? Tuesday? Keep your eyes peeled, I guess.
A quick heads up ya'll that the last Best Buy GPU/CPU drop was two weeks ago this Friday, so tomorrow or Friday are pretty great bets for another drop. Be watching their store pages at/around 10am Central; F5 until you see the yellow button, click it, then don't F5 anymore.
Heyyyyyyyy I just realized this didn't happen yet. Which makes this, I'm pretty sure, the first time two weeks have elapsed since the last BB drop that there wasn't another BB drop. Since the launch of the 3070, when I started keeping track.
So I figure it might happen... Monday? Tuesday? Keep your eyes peeled, I guess.
Thanks. I should have said, I was asking about the 3060Ti because it’s available at the moment on NZXT. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can just choose some cheap card and swap later.
Oh I forgot the 3060 Ti was actually out, I was thinking the 12 GB 3060 which comes later this month. The 3060 Ti isn't a terrible card, but it's not a 3070 either...so if you're dead set on a 3070 I would wait unless you absolutely need a machine right now. In which case the 3060 Ti would probably get you by.
Ear3nd1lEärendil the Mariner, father of ElrondRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
Are the Ryzen chips decent in laptops? I know they are awesome desktop chips, but I might need to replace my daughter's laptop and I've started researching options.
EDIT: What are decent brands these days? I've typically bought Dell and Lenovo laptops in the past, but it's been about 5 years since I got the last one.
I managed to snag a 5900X from a sold by Amazon drop last night. But to be honest both it and the 5950X were up and buyable for so long that it seems too good to be true -- and while Amazon has successfully shipped me a 5800X, I think this feels a bit too much like the Walmart 5950X I ordered in December only for them to cancel it 7 weeks later.
you and I seem to be buying the same things. Yeah, got burned once already so its hard not to be skeptical.
Thanks. I should have said, I was asking about the 3060Ti because it’s available at the moment on NZXT. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can just choose some cheap card and swap later.
Oh I forgot the 3060 Ti was actually out, I was thinking the 12 GB 3060 which comes later this month. The 3060 Ti isn't a terrible card, but it's not a 3070 either...so if you're dead set on a 3070 I would wait unless you absolutely need a machine right now. In which case the 3060 Ti would probably get you by.
Ok, it’s no big rush so I’ll probably just wait. Getting a bit tempted just to build my own now.
Maybe a dumb question, but is there any idea when stuff will be regularly in stock again?
Pemulis on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Thanks. I should have said, I was asking about the 3060Ti because it’s available at the moment on NZXT. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can just choose some cheap card and swap later.
Oh I forgot the 3060 Ti was actually out, I was thinking the 12 GB 3060 which comes later this month. The 3060 Ti isn't a terrible card, but it's not a 3070 either...so if you're dead set on a 3070 I would wait unless you absolutely need a machine right now. In which case the 3060 Ti would probably get you by.
Ok, it’s no big rush so I’ll probably just wait. Getting a bit tempted just to build my own now.
Maybe a dumb question, but is there any idea when stuff will be regularly in stock again?
Nothing but random guesses. Summer maybe? It's really hard to say. The companies in question aren't being forthcoming with their own estimates. Probably for the better because people would freak out if they didn't meet them.
This 10900K definitely "crunched" when I latched the socket down. It's the LGA pins pushing in to the CPU pads.
PCIe slots: Makes a satisfying "click" when you put it in correctly
AMD AMD4 slots: Zero resistance, zero force, zero worries, first time go
Intel LGA slot: THREE WORDS: RUNNING. OVER. BONES.
AMD chips can still get ripped out of their socket if you're not careful with the heatsink.
Thanks. I should have said, I was asking about the 3060Ti because it’s available at the moment on NZXT. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can just choose some cheap card and swap later.
Oh I forgot the 3060 Ti was actually out, I was thinking the 12 GB 3060 which comes later this month. The 3060 Ti isn't a terrible card, but it's not a 3070 either...so if you're dead set on a 3070 I would wait unless you absolutely need a machine right now. In which case the 3060 Ti would probably get you by.
Ok, it’s no big rush so I’ll probably just wait. Getting a bit tempted just to build my own now.
Maybe a dumb question, but is there any idea when stuff will be regularly in stock again?
Nothing but random guesses. Summer maybe? It's really hard to say. The companies in question aren't being forthcoming with their own estimates. Probably for the better because people would freak out if they didn't meet them.
I keep seeing May at best but possibly even late summer to be able to just buy a 3070 / 3080 at MSRP...which is tariff price so $100 more than the original prices.
But a lot depends on how much the scalpers stay their own self perpetuating cycle and what bullshit happens with mining.
Are the Ryzen chips decent in laptops? I know they are awesome desktop chips, but I might need to replace my daughter's laptop and I've started researching options.
EDIT: What are decent brands these days? I've typically bought Dell and Lenovo laptops in the past, but it's been about 5 years since I got the last one.
Yes. They blow intel's current lineup out of the water in terms of performance per watt.
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Ear3nd1lEärendil the Mariner, father of ElrondRegistered Userregular
Are the Ryzen chips decent in laptops? I know they are awesome desktop chips, but I might need to replace my daughter's laptop and I've started researching options.
EDIT: What are decent brands these days? I've typically bought Dell and Lenovo laptops in the past, but it's been about 5 years since I got the last one.
Yes. They blow intel's current lineup out of the water in terms of performance per watt.
Thanks. What about brands? How are Asus laptops? I know they used to be decent.
Are the Ryzen chips decent in laptops? I know they are awesome desktop chips, but I might need to replace my daughter's laptop and I've started researching options.
EDIT: What are decent brands these days? I've typically bought Dell and Lenovo laptops in the past, but it's been about 5 years since I got the last one.
Yes. They blow intel's current lineup out of the water in terms of performance per watt.
Thanks. What about brands? How are Asus laptops? I know they used to be decent.
I have one and I like it. As far as other brands, I don't have much recent experience with them, so I can't really say.
Thanks. I should have said, I was asking about the 3060Ti because it’s available at the moment on NZXT. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can just choose some cheap card and swap later.
Oh I forgot the 3060 Ti was actually out, I was thinking the 12 GB 3060 which comes later this month. The 3060 Ti isn't a terrible card, but it's not a 3070 either...so if you're dead set on a 3070 I would wait unless you absolutely need a machine right now. In which case the 3060 Ti would probably get you by.
Ok, it’s no big rush so I’ll probably just wait. Getting a bit tempted just to build my own now.
Maybe a dumb question, but is there any idea when stuff will be regularly in stock again?
Nothing but random guesses. Summer maybe? It's really hard to say. The companies in question aren't being forthcoming with their own estimates. Probably for the better because people would freak out if they didn't meet them.
Next month or so is going to be especially bad with everything shutting down for the Lunar New Year.
Then this morning it flat out wouldn't POST. Nothing had changed. I unhooked and reseat RAM and the NVME drive because the BOOT debug LED is lit. No POST. Different RAM combos. No POST. The Debug LED built into the board kept giving me different readouts too. Finally try reloading the latest BIOS via flashback. It fully boots! Yay!
Then because I wanted to play Sea of Thieves with my friends tonight, I just didn't do anything with it all day until after we played. Performed just fine. Did notice earlier that coming out of the BOINC screensaver it would just cycle back and forth and to actually kill the screensaver and get back to the desktop I had to pull up the task manager. Didn't actually have to kill a process, just the act of pulling the window up pulled it out of the loop. Checked drivers, ran a check in Windows on the main drive, all good.
After rebooting a couple times without incident, I do a full shutdown and turn it back on. No POST. Don't even see the BIOS splash.
Some forum somewhere suggested it might be a problem with the DP firmware on my 1070? Okay, try disconnecting the GPU and plugging it back in. Boots into Windows. Run the nVidia firmware updater and it updates the firmware and reboots. I take this opportunity to jump into BIOS though and see if anything is wonky in there. Nothing jumps out. Run a BIOS diagnostic on the NVME drive just because. No issues found. Boots into Windows just fine. Do a couple reboots and all good.
Guess I'll try a shutdown and startup again. Fingers crossed?
edit: Well it did fine that time. But it also did fine a few times earlier in the week. Guess we'll see.
So last year was meant to be the year I built a new PC. Delayed due to 2020 being, well, 2020.
Am hoping to do a build later in the year. Have a selection of chosen parts, which are liable to change based on availability and prices at the time I finally do pull the trigger. But to start with, cases! Unlikely to change much this year. Have narrowed down my choices to the Fractal Meshify 2, or the Phanteks Eclipse P600S.
Anybody have any experiences or knowledge of either case?
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
So last year was meant to be the year I built a new PC. Delayed due to 2020 being, well, 2020.
Am hoping to do a build later in the year. Have a selection of chosen parts, which are liable to change based on availability and prices at the time I finally do pull the trigger. But to start with, cases! Unlikely to change much this year. Have narrowed down my choices to the Fractal Meshify 2, or the Phanteks Eclipse P600S.
Anybody have any experiences or knowledge of either case?
I have an Evolv X which has the same internal design as the P600S, and it was great to build into. The only thing I wasn't entirely happy was the sliding panels that hide the cables going into the motherboard. They work fine I'm just not a fan of the look compared to holes with grommets.
My previous computer was built in a Fractal Define R6 and it was also great. No complaints at all and up until the Evolv X the nicest case I'd built into. The Meshify S2 looks to have a refinement of the R6 internal design
They're both great cases and it really comes down to what you like to looks of best (and what's in stock). I'd also consider the Be quiet! Silent Base 802 which is the game price range.
So last year was meant to be the year I built a new PC. Delayed due to 2020 being, well, 2020.
Am hoping to do a build later in the year. Have a selection of chosen parts, which are liable to change based on availability and prices at the time I finally do pull the trigger. But to start with, cases! Unlikely to change much this year. Have narrowed down my choices to the Fractal Meshify 2, or the Phanteks Eclipse P600S.
Anybody have any experiences or knowledge of either case?
I have an Evolv X which has the same internal design as the P600S, and it was great to build into. The only thing I wasn't entirely happy was the sliding panels that hide the cables going into the motherboard. They work fine I'm just not a fan of the look compared to holes with grommets.
My previous computer was built in a Fractal Define R6 and it was also great. No complaints at all and up until the Evolv X the nicest case I'd built into. The Meshify S2 looks to have a refinement of the R6 internal design
They're both great cases and it really comes down to what you like to looks of best (and what's in stock). I'd also consider the Be quiet! Silent Base 802 which is the game price range.
Ahh, to be clear; the Meshify S2 and the Meshify 2 are to distinctly different, but confusingly named cases. Meshify 2 is new and based off the Define 7
The P600S does seem very nice, I'm mainly concerned about the new fabric filters they're using. Unproven I guess?
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Are the Ryzen chips decent in laptops? I know they are awesome desktop chips, but I might need to replace my daughter's laptop and I've started researching options.
EDIT: What are decent brands these days? I've typically bought Dell and Lenovo laptops in the past, but it's been about 5 years since I got the last one.
This is very general, but based on my experience:
Dell
Lenovo
Asus
MSI
Razer (tend to be expensive)
Acer seems to get good reviews but I was never a fan of their older laptops. The Predator line seems to have reinvigorated their gaming offerings.
I'm personally not a fan of HP. They tend to have more proprietary connectors and built-in software is super horrible. Others had good experiences but I've always had issues with them. Caveat: my work laptop (provided by work) is a HP and it seems to be rugged enough but it's very much a work class offering; and none of the bullshit software is there.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Also worth mentioning Microsoft's offerings, as the surface line has been very popular for lots of folks, and they are making true laptops now with really nice Ryzen parts and apple-like build quality.
That said, a refresh is all but inevitable in the near future so you might want to wait on that.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
We do have a Laptop thread but it generally moves in fits and starts.
You may have luck with Aorus (Gigabyte) laptops as well. They had build issues in the past but that may have been fixed with more recent offerings. I haven't looked into them but the general Aorus line has done well (see: Predator line above)
Case:
If you're really worried about noise, my suggestion would be going with basically any mesh case (Phanteks P600s - my personal recommendation, MeshifyC, etc) and load up with 140mm PWM fans. You can get 5 packs of perfectly fine fans from Arctic on amazon for around $35. Or if you want to go overboard, go with Noctuas/BeQuiet fans.
Getting a P600s based on this recommendation. Seems like it has better cooling performance over the Meshify cases, with the option to panel it up for some silence!
1- Have you run a Windows update lately that maybe didn't update right or is there an update you have to incorporate?
c- The motherboard battery could be dying and causing the BIOS errors but the battery isn't dead enough to cause consistent issues.
Also you kinda noted that there were GPU concerns and I know the most recent Nvidia drivers were causing issues for people when they first came out.
1- Possibly. It wasn't until recently that I remembered to switch the update settings to manual so I would avoid being on the receiving end of one of Microsofts "Whoops, our latest update wiped all your files by accident" incidents. So at least one update cycle went through.
c- Ah! That makes a lot of sense. I'll pickup a brand new battery just in case. Not like it'll hurt anything.
I wanted to ask about CPUMark scores... are they something I should pay attention to or not? I was looking at definitely getting an AMD CPU, probably Ryzen 5 3600, but after Intel had a bit of a price drop I'm now comparing it with a similarly priced Intel CPU and they look almost identical except for clock speed... and the AMD card apparently performs better despite lower clock speed:
How does that even work? How can a CPU with the same number of cores and threads but a slower clock speed perform better?
I wanted to ask about CPUMark scores... are they something I should pay attention to or not? I was looking at definitely getting an AMD CPU, probably Ryzen 5 3600, but after Intel had a bit of a price drop I'm now comparing it with a similarly priced Intel CPU and they look almost identical except for clock speed... and the AMD card apparently performs better despite lower clock speed:
How does that even work? How can a CPU with the same number of cores and threads but a slower clock speed perform better?
Clock speed is only loosely correlated to performance when looking at different architectures. What matters is "how much work can you do per interval?" A faster clock means you get more clock ticks (literally, that's all a clock is, it's a pulse running at a particular rate that sets the timing for the functional units inside the CPU). There are other ways of eking out performance though: if you can do more work per tick, then you can get the same performance at a lower clock rate.
This is particularly noticeable when looking at the Ryzen line with equivalent core counts at equivalent speeds. Going from Zen 2 to Zen 3 gave a ~20% increase in IPC, so at equivalent clock rates it could be as much as 20% faster (depends on workload obviously).
So ultimately it's not useful to compare clock speed across architectures like Ryzen vs. Intel. Instead you want to look at benchmarks for the applications/games you're interested in.
It can be useful to compare clockspeed to the same architecture (e.g. Intel Comet Lake vs. Intel Comet Lake). But across architectures (say Skylake to Comet Lake) Intel has eked out some IPC gains so it's not apples-to-apples anymore.
Edit: to add a bit more detail, a few other ways you can increase speeds without influencing clock speed or core count could be changing memory access architecture, caching strategies and quantity, branch prediction improvements, more functional units to enable greater instruction-level parallelism for particular workloads, bigger register files, dedicated hardware accelerators for certain workloads, etc. etc. etc. There's a million knobs to tweak and I'm not an expert in CPU architecture so I can't go into greater detail than that.
Okay, so is CPUMark a benchmark worth paying attention to, given that I'm mainly interested in gaming performance? Or is there a more specific one I should be looking at instead?
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Okay, so is CPUMark a benchmark worth paying attention to, given that I'm mainly interested in gaming performance? Or is there a more specific one I should be looking at instead?
The benchmark worth paying attention to is the game(s) you're interested in playing. Synthetic benchmarks like CPUMark are useful for comparing performance of their workloads across different architectures while focusing solely on the CPU/cache/memory of the system. edit: if the CPUMark workload is similar to what you want to run, great! Chances are it isn't though.
If you want to play Cyberpunk, seek out the benchmarks that have Cyberpunk at settings you're interested in.
Orca on
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
It's also worth realizing that AMD's CPUs for the first time roundly spank Intel's in both single and multi-threaded performance. There's a reason they're so hard to get ahold of these days and that their prices have come up commensurately. At this point, the only reason I would go Intel if I was building a computer for myself was because I couldn't get my hands on an AMD CPU at the performance mark I wanted.
Orca on
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Because I was curious:
* The Ryzen 3 1600x is on the Zen architecture.
* The Ryzen 3 3600x is on the Zen 2 architecture, with a claimed 15% increase in IPC over Zen
* The Ryzen 3 5600x is on the Zen 3 architecture, with a claimed 19% increase in IPC over Zen 2
If you were upgrading from a Ryzen 3 1600x to a Ryzen 3 5600x you could see a theoretical increase in IPC of ~37%.
Now, in real world workloads you're probably not going to see that kind of performance boost clock for clock. But it shows just how much the current set of AMD CPUs has improved compared to the ones from a few years back.
Posts
This alone is why AMD has the superior mounting system.
The 3060 Ti is going to be hard to get as well I would imagine.
If you want a 3070, they are one of the easier GPU's to snatch right now with some diligence. Enter the Newegg shuffles when they come up. I just got a 5900X from the Shuffle yesterday and they had a ton of 3070's listed when I signed up. Follow Falcodrin on YouTube, he has a 3070/3080/3090 stock scaper stream setup that will make a noise when there are stock drops. If you want to take it farther you can grab and run the scraper he uses, it's called StreetMerchant. You can set it up to specifically look for 3070's, below a certain price, and have it email and send a text to your phone when there is a drop. It only requires basic comfort with a command line and installing some development tools to setup and run. No actual programming knowledge required.
PCIe slots: Makes a satisfying "click" when you put it in correctly
AMD AM4 slots: Zero resistance, zero force, zero worries, first time go
Intel LGA slot: THREE WORDS: RUNNING. OVER. BONES.
Heyyyyyyyy I just realized this didn't happen yet. Which makes this, I'm pretty sure, the first time two weeks have elapsed since the last BB drop that there wasn't another BB drop. Since the launch of the 3070, when I started keeping track.
So I figure it might happen... Monday? Tuesday? Keep your eyes peeled, I guess.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Why not a weekend drop?
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Oh I forgot the 3060 Ti was actually out, I was thinking the 12 GB 3060 which comes later this month. The 3060 Ti isn't a terrible card, but it's not a 3070 either...so if you're dead set on a 3070 I would wait unless you absolutely need a machine right now. In which case the 3060 Ti would probably get you by.
EDIT: What are decent brands these days? I've typically bought Dell and Lenovo laptops in the past, but it's been about 5 years since I got the last one.
you and I seem to be buying the same things. Yeah, got burned once already so its hard not to be skeptical.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
Ok, it’s no big rush so I’ll probably just wait. Getting a bit tempted just to build my own now.
Maybe a dumb question, but is there any idea when stuff will be regularly in stock again?
Nothing but random guesses. Summer maybe? It's really hard to say. The companies in question aren't being forthcoming with their own estimates. Probably for the better because people would freak out if they didn't meet them.
AMD chips can still get ripped out of their socket if you're not careful with the heatsink.
I keep seeing May at best but possibly even late summer to be able to just buy a 3070 / 3080 at MSRP...which is tariff price so $100 more than the original prices.
But a lot depends on how much the scalpers stay their own self perpetuating cycle and what bullshit happens with mining.
Yes. They blow intel's current lineup out of the water in terms of performance per watt.
Thanks. What about brands? How are Asus laptops? I know they used to be decent.
I have one and I like it. As far as other brands, I don't have much recent experience with them, so I can't really say.
Next month or so is going to be especially bad with everything shutting down for the Lunar New Year.
I'm officially out of the market, spent 1100$ on a new gun. So maybe next year lol.
― John Quincy Adams
Falcodrin hasn't let me down when hunting. I just run their stream in the background while I wfh.
Then this morning it flat out wouldn't POST. Nothing had changed. I unhooked and reseat RAM and the NVME drive because the BOOT debug LED is lit. No POST. Different RAM combos. No POST. The Debug LED built into the board kept giving me different readouts too. Finally try reloading the latest BIOS via flashback. It fully boots! Yay!
Then because I wanted to play Sea of Thieves with my friends tonight, I just didn't do anything with it all day until after we played. Performed just fine. Did notice earlier that coming out of the BOINC screensaver it would just cycle back and forth and to actually kill the screensaver and get back to the desktop I had to pull up the task manager. Didn't actually have to kill a process, just the act of pulling the window up pulled it out of the loop. Checked drivers, ran a check in Windows on the main drive, all good.
After rebooting a couple times without incident, I do a full shutdown and turn it back on. No POST. Don't even see the BIOS splash.
Some forum somewhere suggested it might be a problem with the DP firmware on my 1070? Okay, try disconnecting the GPU and plugging it back in. Boots into Windows. Run the nVidia firmware updater and it updates the firmware and reboots. I take this opportunity to jump into BIOS though and see if anything is wonky in there. Nothing jumps out. Run a BIOS diagnostic on the NVME drive just because. No issues found. Boots into Windows just fine. Do a couple reboots and all good.
Guess I'll try a shutdown and startup again. Fingers crossed?
edit: Well it did fine that time. But it also did fine a few times earlier in the week. Guess we'll see.
Am hoping to do a build later in the year. Have a selection of chosen parts, which are liable to change based on availability and prices at the time I finally do pull the trigger. But to start with, cases! Unlikely to change much this year. Have narrowed down my choices to the Fractal Meshify 2, or the Phanteks Eclipse P600S.
Anybody have any experiences or knowledge of either case?
I have an Evolv X which has the same internal design as the P600S, and it was great to build into. The only thing I wasn't entirely happy was the sliding panels that hide the cables going into the motherboard. They work fine I'm just not a fan of the look compared to holes with grommets.
My previous computer was built in a Fractal Define R6 and it was also great. No complaints at all and up until the Evolv X the nicest case I'd built into. The Meshify S2 looks to have a refinement of the R6 internal design
They're both great cases and it really comes down to what you like to looks of best (and what's in stock). I'd also consider the Be quiet! Silent Base 802 which is the game price range.
The P600S does seem very nice, I'm mainly concerned about the new fabric filters they're using. Unproven I guess?
1- Have you run a Windows update lately that maybe didn't update right or is there an update you have to incorporate?
c- The motherboard battery could be dying and causing the BIOS errors but the battery isn't dead enough to cause consistent issues.
Also you kinda noted that there were GPU concerns and I know the most recent Nvidia drivers were causing issues for people when they first came out.
This is very general, but based on my experience:
Dell
Lenovo
Asus
MSI
Razer (tend to be expensive)
Acer seems to get good reviews but I was never a fan of their older laptops. The Predator line seems to have reinvigorated their gaming offerings.
I'm personally not a fan of HP. They tend to have more proprietary connectors and built-in software is super horrible. Others had good experiences but I've always had issues with them. Caveat: my work laptop (provided by work) is a HP and it seems to be rugged enough but it's very much a work class offering; and none of the bullshit software is there.
That said, a refresh is all but inevitable in the near future so you might want to wait on that.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
You may have luck with Aorus (Gigabyte) laptops as well. They had build issues in the past but that may have been fixed with more recent offerings. I haven't looked into them but the general Aorus line has done well (see: Predator line above)
Getting a P600s based on this recommendation. Seems like it has better cooling performance over the Meshify cases, with the option to panel it up for some silence!
1- Possibly. It wasn't until recently that I remembered to switch the update settings to manual so I would avoid being on the receiving end of one of Microsofts "Whoops, our latest update wiped all your files by accident" incidents. So at least one update cycle went through.
c- Ah! That makes a lot of sense. I'll pickup a brand new battery just in case. Not like it'll hurt anything.
I am running the latest game ready nVidia drivers, so I could maybe roll back. But the firmware I was referencing specifically was this: NVIDIA Graphics Firmware Update Tool for DisplayPort 1.3 and 1.4 Displays
This mornings boot went without a hitch.
How does that even work? How can a CPU with the same number of cores and threads but a slower clock speed perform better?
Clock speed is only loosely correlated to performance when looking at different architectures. What matters is "how much work can you do per interval?" A faster clock means you get more clock ticks (literally, that's all a clock is, it's a pulse running at a particular rate that sets the timing for the functional units inside the CPU). There are other ways of eking out performance though: if you can do more work per tick, then you can get the same performance at a lower clock rate.
This is particularly noticeable when looking at the Ryzen line with equivalent core counts at equivalent speeds. Going from Zen 2 to Zen 3 gave a ~20% increase in IPC, so at equivalent clock rates it could be as much as 20% faster (depends on workload obviously).
So ultimately it's not useful to compare clock speed across architectures like Ryzen vs. Intel. Instead you want to look at benchmarks for the applications/games you're interested in.
It can be useful to compare clockspeed to the same architecture (e.g. Intel Comet Lake vs. Intel Comet Lake). But across architectures (say Skylake to Comet Lake) Intel has eked out some IPC gains so it's not apples-to-apples anymore.
Edit: to add a bit more detail, a few other ways you can increase speeds without influencing clock speed or core count could be changing memory access architecture, caching strategies and quantity, branch prediction improvements, more functional units to enable greater instruction-level parallelism for particular workloads, bigger register files, dedicated hardware accelerators for certain workloads, etc. etc. etc. There's a million knobs to tweak and I'm not an expert in CPU architecture so I can't go into greater detail than that.
The benchmark worth paying attention to is the game(s) you're interested in playing. Synthetic benchmarks like CPUMark are useful for comparing performance of their workloads across different architectures while focusing solely on the CPU/cache/memory of the system. edit: if the CPUMark workload is similar to what you want to run, great! Chances are it isn't though.
If you want to play Cyberpunk, seek out the benchmarks that have Cyberpunk at settings you're interested in.
* The Ryzen 3 1600x is on the Zen architecture.
* The Ryzen 3 3600x is on the Zen 2 architecture, with a claimed 15% increase in IPC over Zen
* The Ryzen 3 5600x is on the Zen 3 architecture, with a claimed 19% increase in IPC over Zen 2
If you were upgrading from a Ryzen 3 1600x to a Ryzen 3 5600x you could see a theoretical increase in IPC of ~37%.
Now, in real world workloads you're probably not going to see that kind of performance boost clock for clock. But it shows just how much the current set of AMD CPUs has improved compared to the ones from a few years back.