3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Looks like you have the B450 Tomahawk in there - you need the B550 if you want to get the most use out of your NVMe drive. The B450 doesn't have PCIe 4.0, which M.2 drives need to get up to their full speeds.
Oh! The other thing I forgot to mention - if you're running any active installs of Windows 7 or 10 right now you don't need to buy a new key, you can just use your existing key. I used an 11 year old Windows 7 key that had gone through multiple PCs before to activate Windows 10 2 months ago and it worked.
My current PC is running Win7. I still prefer Win7, but it doesn't support the latest DirectX drivers, which are starting to become required for some newer games. Example: I bought Gears Tactics during the Steam summer sale, only to rudely find out that I can't run it on my current machine, not because I don't meet the hardware specs for it, but because I don't meet the software specs for it.
I don't own a Windows 10 key, so I've gotta get one. As much as I hate to upgrade to it, it's time.
Opinions on Realtek versus Intel LAN connections? The board I ordered (ASUS TUF x570) uses Realtek. If I'm that concerned about it being an issue, I should be able to get an Intel Lan Adapter, and correct it easily right?
I was looking at that Gigabyte board as an alternative, but it doesn't have enough fan connections for my case.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
My current PC is running Win7. I still prefer Win7, but it doesn't support the latest DirectX drivers, which are starting to become required for some newer games. Example: I bought Gears Tactics during the Steam summer sale, only to rudely find out that I can't run it on my current machine, not because I don't meet the hardware specs for it, but because I don't meet the software specs for it.
I don't own a Windows 10 key, so I've gotta get one. As much as I hate to upgrade to it, it's time.
No, this is my point, you absolutely do not. Your Windows 7 key will work to activate Windows 10. I did this 2 months ago with an eleven year old 7 key.
My current PC is running Win7. I still prefer Win7, but it doesn't support the latest DirectX drivers, which are starting to become required for some newer games. Example: I bought Gears Tactics during the Steam summer sale, only to rudely find out that I can't run it on my current machine, not because I don't meet the hardware specs for it, but because I don't meet the software specs for it.
I don't own a Windows 10 key, so I've gotta get one. As much as I hate to upgrade to it, it's time.
No, this is my point, you absolutely do not. Your Windows 7 key will work to activate Windows 10. I did this 2 months ago with an eleven year old 7 key.
Oh shit, really? Would you mind providing a bit of instruction on how to make that work?
I thought MS cut off the free Win7 upgrades a while ago. Like after some sort of specified grace period.
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
They initially had done a cutoff, you're right, but then eventually threw up their hands and made all 7 keys work forever in an effort to get people to finally move off the no longer supported OS.
You pretty much do a normal Windows 10 install, and then you give it your 7 key when it asks for it (just make sure your 7 PC is off and never connected to the internet again when you do this [there is a key de-registration thing you can do if you want to be extra safe]).
You can use this page on Microsoft's site to create install media for Windows 10 of your choice. I went with a thumb drive myself. Do note that it will format the thumb drive and delete everything else on it as part of the process so don't use one you have info you need on.
Do they allow the keys to be used on multiple systems? Like could I upgrade my current PC now and then just use the same key in 3-4 weeks when I have my new PC assembled?
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Should work. It only gets mad if you have multiple PCs active using the same key simultaneously.
Do they allow the keys to be used on multiple systems? Like could I upgrade my current PC now and then just use the same key in 3-4 weeks when I have my new PC assembled?
Yes, and if you upgrade to Windows 10 and bind the license to a Microsoft account you don't even need the key when you build the new machince; you just deactivate the old pc and apply it to the new one I believe.
When you install using the Windows 10 installer on usb the you've created with Microsoft media creation tool before the installation step you can enter ANY Windows 7 key and it'll generate you a new Windows 10 key. At that point of the installer you aren't connected to the internet and I've verified that the Windows 10 keys it generates are different than the the original Windows 7 key that was inputted originally. I'm not even sure if they can tell if you use the same Windows 7 key multiple times on different Windows 10 installs but your mileage may vary there.
Incindium on
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
There is also always the "just call Microsoft" fallback if nothing else is working. I don't think I've ever heard of MS customer support not activating a key if all the automatic stuff fails.
SmasherStarting to get dizzyRegistered Userregular
I put my system together in late 2013 and it's served me well, but I've been dabbling in Blender and figure it's time to do the OCing I never got around to. I'm looking for good guides for a first timer as well as any general advice you guys have on the subject. Unless there's some reason not to I'm planning to OC all of my cpu/gpu/ram.
What is your timeline for building? It may be worth holding out a month for the graphics card, Nvidias proposed launch was September for the 3000 series cards.
Even if it just means reduced prices on whatever 2000 series are left over.
Looks like you have the B450 Tomahawk in there - you need the B550 if you want to get the most use out of your NVMe drive. The B450 doesn't have PCIe 4.0, which M.2 drives need to get up to their full speeds.
Oh! The other thing I forgot to mention - if you're running any active installs of Windows 7 or 10 right now you don't need to buy a new key, you can just use your existing key. I used an 11 year old Windows 7 key that had gone through multiple PCs before to activate Windows 10 2 months ago and it worked.
I've heard iffy things cheap MSI boards. I'd just spend 60 extra bucks an get a b550 Tomahawk.
I mean those concerns were all about crappy VRM heat performance (they use one of the shitty MSI x570 boards in this test) and that board has better results than the x570 ones.
I put my system together in late 2013 and it's served me well, but I've been dabbling in Blender and figure it's time to do the OCing I never got around to. I'm looking for good guides for a first timer as well as any general advice you guys have on the subject. Unless there's some reason not to I'm planning to OC all of my cpu/gpu/ram.
Biggest thing I would recommend is upgrading your video card. I have the same CPU and RAM totals, but I went from an older 4GB radeon 470 to a new 8GB Radeon and it about doubled my performance without having to do anything else. An upgrade to an 8gb 2060 super would be a big performance boost.
Do they allow the keys to be used on multiple systems? Like could I upgrade my current PC now and then just use the same key in 3-4 weeks when I have my new PC assembled?
If it is a an OEM key, technically no. the OEM license is only for one pc at a time.
In practicality, Microsoft doesn't care that much. They just want you on Windows 10. Windows 7 was a great OS in 2009, but it is not 2009 anymore.
I figure I'll ask again: Realtek versus Intel LAN connections. Should I worry about having Realtek? Should I get an Intel LAN card?
I have never had a concern with Realtek, I have a mobo with dual ethernet and have seen no difference in the past. Currently using it and no issues.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
The only thing that really matters with LAN ports is the speed, and even then it only matters if you have a router that supports > 1 gigabit connections. Most people do not, so 2.5 or 10 gig LAN is meaningless for most people. If you happen to have your house wired with 10 gig switches or something, good on you!
Ok, I recently got a new computer for the first time in 10 years. Acer n-50-600 UR1I
I had a local place transfer my old hard drive to the new computer because it has all my podcast editing stuff on it a few weeks ago. Last night I'm trying to do editing and it keeps grinding to a halt and becoming non responsive. Today I try again and this time it tells me the drive is unreadable/corrupted. Right now the plan is to just get a new M2 1TB SSD to move everything over to since I don't want to rely on an old hard drive to hang in there. How do I know which is an appropriate M2 SSD? While browing the selection, I'm seeing some with two notches cut out and others with 1 notch cut out, and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.
Ok, I recently got a new computer for the first time in 10 years. Acer n-50-600 UR1I
I had a local place transfer my old hard drive to the new computer because it has all my podcast editing stuff on it a few weeks ago. Last night I'm trying to do editing and it keeps grinding to a halt and becoming non responsive. Today I try again and this time it tells me the drive is unreadable/corrupted. Right now the plan is to just get a new M2 1TB SSD to move everything over to since I don't want to rely on an old hard drive to hang in there. How do I know which is an appropriate M2 SSD? While browing the selection, I'm seeing some with two notches cut out and others with 1 notch cut out, and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.
Can your computer accept an M.2 drive? I see no reference to M.2 on the product page or in the manual.
Were you using your old hard drive as a secondary drive? Did the machine come with a boot drive?
Ok, I recently got a new computer for the first time in 10 years. Acer n-50-600 UR1I
I had a local place transfer my old hard drive to the new computer because it has all my podcast editing stuff on it a few weeks ago. Last night I'm trying to do editing and it keeps grinding to a halt and becoming non responsive. Today I try again and this time it tells me the drive is unreadable/corrupted. Right now the plan is to just get a new M2 1TB SSD to move everything over to since I don't want to rely on an old hard drive to hang in there. How do I know which is an appropriate M2 SSD? While browing the selection, I'm seeing some with two notches cut out and others with 1 notch cut out, and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.
Can your computer accept an M.2 drive? I see no reference to M.2 on the product page or in the manual.
Were you using your old hard drive as a secondary drive? Did the machine come with a boot drive?
It has 2 M2 slots, came with a 500gb SSD boot drive, just using the old one for storage and because it already had all the stuff I needed on it
Ok, I recently got a new computer for the first time in 10 years. Acer n-50-600 UR1I
I had a local place transfer my old hard drive to the new computer because it has all my podcast editing stuff on it a few weeks ago. Last night I'm trying to do editing and it keeps grinding to a halt and becoming non responsive. Today I try again and this time it tells me the drive is unreadable/corrupted. Right now the plan is to just get a new M2 1TB SSD to move everything over to since I don't want to rely on an old hard drive to hang in there. How do I know which is an appropriate M2 SSD? While browing the selection, I'm seeing some with two notches cut out and others with 1 notch cut out, and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.
Can your computer accept an M.2 drive? I see no reference to M.2 on the product page or in the manual.
Were you using your old hard drive as a secondary drive? Did the machine come with a boot drive?
It has 2 M2 slots, came with a 500gb SSD boot drive, just using the old one for storage and because it already had all the stuff I needed on it
Where did you find that information? Or can you take a picture of the motherboard? That might help. There are two "keyings" of M.2 drives, M key (one notch) and M&B key (two notches) and you likely want the M key type since they are faster.
Ok, I recently got a new computer for the first time in 10 years. Acer n-50-600 UR1I
I had a local place transfer my old hard drive to the new computer because it has all my podcast editing stuff on it a few weeks ago. Last night I'm trying to do editing and it keeps grinding to a halt and becoming non responsive. Today I try again and this time it tells me the drive is unreadable/corrupted. Right now the plan is to just get a new M2 1TB SSD to move everything over to since I don't want to rely on an old hard drive to hang in there. How do I know which is an appropriate M2 SSD? While browing the selection, I'm seeing some with two notches cut out and others with 1 notch cut out, and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.
Can your computer accept an M.2 drive? I see no reference to M.2 on the product page or in the manual.
Were you using your old hard drive as a secondary drive? Did the machine come with a boot drive?
It has 2 M2 slots, came with a 500gb SSD boot drive, just using the old one for storage and because it already had all the stuff I needed on it
What is the old drive? Brand and model could help us determine a good replacement
There is also always the "just call Microsoft" fallback if nothing else is working. I don't think I've ever heard of MS customer support not activating a key if all the automatic stuff fails.
They didn't reauthorize my education version of Win 10.
Commercial ones though, they don't seem to give a shit about.
My wife keeps asking me what I want for my birthday so I'm tempted to mention a monitor upgrade. Right now I have 3 of these Dell U2312HM monitors. I was thinking it might be nice to upgrade to a 27" 1440p 120+Hz G-sync monitor.
Does it make sense to go 1440p at this point or should I be looking for 4K?
Are there any monitors in the <CDN$500 range that I should point her to?
And is HDR something I should want in a monitor?
My current PC is an i5-4690K, 16GB RAM and a GeForce 1060 6GB card. I'm hoping to upgrade the GPU to a 3070 whenever that comes out and then maybe the rest of the PC a year later.
My wife keeps asking me what I want for my birthday so I'm tempted to mention a monitor upgrade. Right now I have 3 of these Dell U2312HM monitors. I was thinking it might be nice to upgrade to a 27" 1440p 120+Hz G-sync monitor.
Does it make sense to go 1440p at this point or should I be looking for 4K?
Are there any monitors in the <CDN$500 range that I should point her to?
And is HDR something I should want in a monitor?
My current PC is an i5-4690K, 16GB RAM and a GeForce 1060 6GB card. I'm hoping to upgrade the GPU to a 3070 whenever that comes out and then maybe the rest of the PC a year later.
My wife keeps asking me what I want for my birthday so I'm tempted to mention a monitor upgrade. Right now I have 3 of these Dell U2312HM monitors. I was thinking it might be nice to upgrade to a 27" 1440p 120+Hz G-sync monitor.
Does it make sense to go 1440p at this point or should I be looking for 4K?
Are there any monitors in the <CDN$500 range that I should point her to?
And is HDR something I should want in a monitor?
My current PC is an i5-4690K, 16GB RAM and a GeForce 1060 6GB card. I'm hoping to upgrade the GPU to a 3070 whenever that comes out and then maybe the rest of the PC a year later.
How sharp are your eyes?
The optometrist says they are better than 20/20 with my glasses or contacts but when I'm watching The Mandalorian on the TV, the only way I can tell when it's 4K and not 1080p is because it says 2160p at the top of the info screen.
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
For a 27", in real world "looking at shit" terms, 2k and 4k are both noticeable from 1080p, but without them side by side I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.
2k nets far better performance because its half the pixels being rendered from 4k.
4k is awesome for TVs but for general use and gaming on a PC its overkill.
Get 2k 120hz HDR with either adaptive sync and never look back.
4k is amazing for productivity, but for gamming, 1440p at a higher refresh rate is definitely better. 1. GPUs still aren't quite good enough to push 4k at super high frame rates, and 2. 4k panels with high refresh rates are still like $1k+, and only have limited HDR support
I recently got a 1440p 27 inch 144hz and it’s superb. 4K is for larger monitors and you also then need to get more expensive with all your components to pump out that much power.
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Oh! The other thing I forgot to mention - if you're running any active installs of Windows 7 or 10 right now you don't need to buy a new key, you can just use your existing key. I used an 11 year old Windows 7 key that had gone through multiple PCs before to activate Windows 10 2 months ago and it worked.
The 4xx series boards are completely fine for Zen 2 chips (as long as you can update the BIOS), the drive is the much bigger concern.
I don't own a Windows 10 key, so I've gotta get one. As much as I hate to upgrade to it, it's time.
I was looking at that Gigabyte board as an alternative, but it doesn't have enough fan connections for my case.
No, this is my point, you absolutely do not. Your Windows 7 key will work to activate Windows 10. I did this 2 months ago with an eleven year old 7 key.
Oh shit, really? Would you mind providing a bit of instruction on how to make that work?
I thought MS cut off the free Win7 upgrades a while ago. Like after some sort of specified grace period.
You pretty much do a normal Windows 10 install, and then you give it your 7 key when it asks for it (just make sure your 7 PC is off and never connected to the internet again when you do this [there is a key de-registration thing you can do if you want to be extra safe]).
You can use this page on Microsoft's site to create install media for Windows 10 of your choice. I went with a thumb drive myself. Do note that it will format the thumb drive and delete everything else on it as part of the process so don't use one you have info you need on.
Yes, and if you upgrade to Windows 10 and bind the license to a Microsoft account you don't even need the key when you build the new machince; you just deactivate the old pc and apply it to the new one I believe.
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
cpu: i5-4670k @ 3.4ghz
gpu: gtx 770 4gb vram
ram: 16gb (4x4) ddr3
psu: seasonic m12II 620 bronze
motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z87
os: Windows 10 home
resolution: 1080p
Even if it just means reduced prices on whatever 2000 series are left over.
Some VRM tests here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf0-JoQLeJo
@Lucascraft you may want to check out this board (https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7gxbt6/msi-b550-a-pro-atx-am4-motherboard-b550-a-pro) if you can find it in stock at a reasonable price when you go to build.
I mean those concerns were all about crappy VRM heat performance (they use one of the shitty MSI x570 boards in this test) and that board has better results than the x570 ones.
Biggest thing I would recommend is upgrading your video card. I have the same CPU and RAM totals, but I went from an older 4GB radeon 470 to a new 8GB Radeon and it about doubled my performance without having to do anything else. An upgrade to an 8gb 2060 super would be a big performance boost.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
If it is a an OEM key, technically no. the OEM license is only for one pc at a time.
In practicality, Microsoft doesn't care that much. They just want you on Windows 10. Windows 7 was a great OS in 2009, but it is not 2009 anymore.
I have never had a concern with Realtek, I have a mobo with dual ethernet and have seen no difference in the past. Currently using it and no issues.
I had a local place transfer my old hard drive to the new computer because it has all my podcast editing stuff on it a few weeks ago. Last night I'm trying to do editing and it keeps grinding to a halt and becoming non responsive. Today I try again and this time it tells me the drive is unreadable/corrupted. Right now the plan is to just get a new M2 1TB SSD to move everything over to since I don't want to rely on an old hard drive to hang in there. How do I know which is an appropriate M2 SSD? While browing the selection, I'm seeing some with two notches cut out and others with 1 notch cut out, and I don't want to buy the wrong thing.
Can your computer accept an M.2 drive? I see no reference to M.2 on the product page or in the manual.
Were you using your old hard drive as a secondary drive? Did the machine come with a boot drive?
It has 2 M2 slots, came with a 500gb SSD boot drive, just using the old one for storage and because it already had all the stuff I needed on it
Where did you find that information? Or can you take a picture of the motherboard? That might help. There are two "keyings" of M.2 drives, M key (one notch) and M&B key (two notches) and you likely want the M key type since they are faster.
https://computers.woot.com/offers/logitech-g910-orion-spectrum-keyboard
What is the old drive? Brand and model could help us determine a good replacement
They didn't reauthorize my education version of Win 10.
Commercial ones though, they don't seem to give a shit about.
- Does it make sense to go 1440p at this point or should I be looking for 4K?
- Are there any monitors in the <CDN$500 range that I should point her to?
- And is HDR something I should want in a monitor?
My current PC is an i5-4690K, 16GB RAM and a GeForce 1060 6GB card. I'm hoping to upgrade the GPU to a 3070 whenever that comes out and then maybe the rest of the PC a year later.SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
How sharp are your eyes?
The optometrist says they are better than 20/20 with my glasses or contacts but when I'm watching The Mandalorian on the TV, the only way I can tell when it's 4K and not 1080p is because it says 2160p at the top of the info screen.
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
2k nets far better performance because its half the pixels being rendered from 4k.
4k is awesome for TVs but for general use and gaming on a PC its overkill.
Get 2k 120hz HDR with either adaptive sync and never look back.