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Soylent Pudding posted:Is there a point to building a home theater PC in tyool 2020? Right now we just plug one of our laptops in via HDMI Not sure you're going to get much more functionality that you would from a laptop...if you're not gaming I would probably just stick with those? Refurbished PS4s are also half that price range, come with a bluray player, and offer the same functionality?
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 04:10 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:31 |
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Soylent Pudding posted:Is there a point to building a home theater PC in tyool 2020? Right now we just plug one of our laptops in via HDMI I think a Chromecast (for streaming media) + your laptop (for video calls) would be a lot cheaper than building a crappy home theater PC unless there is some usecase that the Chromecast doesn't fulfill for you.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 04:11 |
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Subjunctive posted:I’m told it’s not necessarily accurate today for low-volume stuff like ITX boards, anyway. Yeah, the thread title specifically burned a friend of mine and now he's going through the "BIOS Update Kit" rigamarole where AMD ships you an Athlon.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 04:15 |
Soylent Pudding posted:Is there a point to building a home theater PC in tyool 2020? Right now we just plug one of our laptops in via HDMI The rule from the HTPC thread in IYG is do never buy. At your budget an Nvidia Shield Pro is the best bang for your buck. It can do all the things an HTPC can do but without having to fix it every ten days.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 05:13 |
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The ram arrived today. Just waiting on the motherboard now, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 05:51 |
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Thanks for the replies. I'll look into Chromecast and probably stick with just plugging a laptop into the TV when we want to zoom from the couch.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 15:21 |
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If you decide the budget option’s not cutting it, Zoom will trade 600 of your Earth dollars for a giant tablet that does nothing but run Zoom.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 16:50 |
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Man I need a new video card but I can't pull the trigger on principle. No way I'm gonna pay more now than what they cost years ago. Might as well wait for the new ones since they're only going to increase in price anyway.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 16:51 |
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Manager Hoyden posted:Man I need a new video card but I can't pull the trigger on principle. No way I'm gonna pay more now than what they cost years ago. Might as well wait for the new ones since they're only going to increase in price anyway. Yeah video card prices are insane. I remember when 900 CAD was like the MAXIMUM you could pay for a factory overclocked maxed out card. Now a card can go for as much as a fully built system did 5-10 years ago. It gets even more insane for me when I look at how much consoles cost to deliver similar performance. I almost wonder if building a rig to compete with the PS5 is a worse decision than simply getting a PS5 and rolling with it. Is all of this attributable to cryptocurrency mining? Or do these GPUs have some special unobtainium in them that require companies like google to basically build 10 football field sized data centres for distributed AI computing or something?
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 17:43 |
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What's the best sweet spot RAM to get right now in a 2x16GB configuration? Price is not really an object but I don't want to spend money for no reason either. I'm trying to select components for a Zen 3/ Ampere build. I was going to wait but with a second stimulus check coming, I am worried parts are going to be gobbled up. I looked through and can see some of the options that people are proposing on Part Picker but that doesn't really mean they're the best. So I wanted to ask specifically. Thanks Kraftwerk posted:Yeah video card prices are insane. I remember when 900 CAD was like the MAXIMUM you could pay for a factory overclocked maxed out card. Now a card can go for as much as a fully built system did 5-10 years ago. It gets even more insane for me when I look at how much consoles cost to deliver similar performance. Sony is going to lose money on the PS5, it will be the value play for gaming for a good while, along with the Microsoft variants. There's really no such thing as competing with the PS5 right now on a pure cost basis. That will, as always, change over time as the consoles age and PC tech continues to move forward. IMO it's not really worth wondering why GPUs are a given price. Ultimately it's just supply and demand. Plenty of people find them worth the price, so they are that price. If it's not worth the price to you, well congrats, you have other options. And it's a super good time to NOT get into the PC game right now. Taima fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jul 28, 2020 |
# ? Jul 28, 2020 17:44 |
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Taima posted:What's the best sweet spot RAM to get right now in a 2x16GB configuration? Price is not really an object but I don't want to spend money for no reason either. I have repeatedly gone down this rabbit hole and done a shitload of research on this. You want this: Crucial Ballistix 3600 MHz DDR4 DRAM Desktop Gaming Memory Kit 16GB (8GBx2) CL16 Part #BL2K8G36C16U4B https://pcpartpicker.com/product/2TFKHx/crucial-ballistix-16-gb-2-x-8-gb-ddr4-3600-memory-bl2k8g36c16u4b You can save even more money by getting a 3200mhz version of this and overclocking it to 3600. This is the absolute SWEET SPOT for Ryzen and the best ram for your money. Micron Dies are very high quality and this ram was built for pairing with Ryzen CPUs. Just plug them in, turn on XMP/DOCP and set your infinity fabric clock to 1800MHZ (If you're running 3600MHZ ram). You will have the maximum performance from your ram this way. You can of course go faster but you are paying exponentially more money for less stability, 1-2 FPS gains and potentially an inverse relationship between price and performance.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 17:50 |
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Oh sweet thanks!! That is super helpful. As an aside, is there a chance that the "best ram" will change once we know more about Zen 3? I know nothing about this poo poo. I did read that Zen 2 has some limitations or spec differences that make certain RAM better, so I'm kinda, sorta worried that will change again with Zen 3. However it seems like it won't matter that much in terms of real performance, it's still DDR4 and such, right... e: sorry one more thing, Amazon only has the 8GB sticks. I get 5% off from there with the store card, so I prefer that, but Newegg has the 2x16GB... is there any downside to just getting 4 total sticks of RAM for 32GB total? Or should I stick with 2 overall sticks via Newegg? Taima fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jul 28, 2020 |
# ? Jul 28, 2020 17:53 |
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As long as you're in AM4, DDR4 I do not think you will need to worry about this. They might be a small chance you may be able to work with faster RAM on Zen 3, but even if that is the case you can just overclock it a little bit since the ram I suggested has headroom to work with. There are problems with the Ryzen Infinity Fabric once you exceed 1800mhz, it starts reducing your base clock (or boost clock I don't remember which) by 100 mhz for every 100mhz you add to try and line up with RAM. You actually end up losing performance since CPU clocks matter far more than RAM or infinity. The main exercise here is to optimize the latency between RAM and the CPU via infinity fabric. Everything else is if you're more interested in overclocking as a hobby and seeing how far you can push your hardware. EDIT: I called Micron and they said they're replenishing stock for 16x2 GB sticks August 7th. Just place your order with Amazon and wait for the backorder to refill. Alternatively if you don't wanna risk it, just go for newegg. You never want 4x8gb sticks. It'll offset your performance. In 2020 unless you plan on playing the new Flight Simulator game or working on prosumer applications, 32 GB is a luxury purchase. You're better off with 3600mhz CL 16 at 8gbx2 than you are at 32gb 8gbx4. Either stick with 16gb or get 2 sticks of 16 at 32 and wait. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Jul 28, 2020 |
# ? Jul 28, 2020 17:56 |
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Oh nice ok. Well unfortunately it just says "unavailable" and doesn't let you back order. I would totally do that if I could. You've been super helpful and I appreciate it!! It's completely nuts how complex RAM still is in 2020. e: I grabbed the backordered 32GB from Newegg. Maybe a bit overkill but the new consoles are so powerful, I'm kinda worried about keeping up. Also I do plan to at least dabble in Flight Simulator... but I'm definitely not one of the hardcore sim people. Taima fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jul 28, 2020 |
# ? Jul 28, 2020 18:02 |
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Can't go wrong with 3600mhz. All the reading I've done recently suggests consensus is that CAS timings are worth a fraction of an FPS at best and not worth worrying about. e: I'm also speccing out a build with 32GB because it might be overkill today but bigger RAM modules are a comparatively very cheap upgrade for something that suddenly becomes very limiting if you don't have enough, and I bet in a couple of years we'll see AAA games starting to push into that space. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jul 28, 2020 |
# ? Jul 28, 2020 21:01 |
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Alright, my best friend wants to replace her barely functional laptop to play whatever the latest Sims game is. And possibly try out PC gaming in general. I'm really not good at building value PCs so I'm definitely going to need some help What country are you in? USA What are you using the system for? Gaming What's your budget? $500, willing to go higher If you're gaming, what is your monitor resolution / refresh rate? How fancy do you want your graphics, from “it runs” to “Ultra preset as fast as possible”? 1080p, I don't think she's an fps-snob I tried and came up with this, the only things I can think to skimp on are saving $20 by going to 8gb RAM, $25 by dropping the SSD down to 256GB, and $40 by going for a 5yr Thermaltake PSU PCPartPicker Part List CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($154.99 @ Amazon) Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($59.99 @ Amazon) Storage: Inland Premium 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($67.98 @ Amazon) Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card ($169.99 @ B&H) Case: Lian Li LANCOOL 205M MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99) Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Best Buy) Total: $672.92 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-28 16:26 EDT-0400
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 21:29 |
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Alright, my best friend wants to replace her barely functional laptop to play whatever the latest Sims game is. And possibly try out PC gaming in general. I'm really not good at building value PCs so I'm definitely going to need some help With that budget you can squeeze a bit: Drop the CPU to a Ryzen 3300x ($120) For hard drive get a 1TB disk drive (drops that part to $45. Yes SSD's are great, when there's more money that's an easy upgrade though). That saves you around $60.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 21:50 |
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Alright, my best friend wants to replace her barely functional laptop to play whatever the latest Sims game is. And possibly try out PC gaming in general. I'm really not good at building value PCs so I'm definitely going to need some help Keep the SSD. A 5 yr PSU is probably fine for a non-enthusiast build. Grab a used 470/570 for $100 or less, or new for like $120.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 21:56 |
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Definitely do not go with a system HDD, you're just asking for a miserable experience! You can save $8 by going with a WD sn550. It's DRAMless, but it's still a good model and for your purposes the difference won't be noticeable. I also wouldn't skimp on RAM or SSD size if your friend is serious about trying gaming. It's a bad time to be building budget, but you'd be seriously cutting performance potential for very little in the way of savings. If $500 isn't a hard limit, I'd just pay the small amount extra to not have to deal with the potential hassle. If you want to save a bit more on the CPU and are willing to deal with the potential hassle of buying used, Ryzen 2600s regularly go for ~$80 on ebay. Ebay's return policies are heavily tilted towards the buyer, so if it doesn't work it's easy to just send it back. You'd still need a cooler, which means either buying a used cooler like a stock Stealth Wraith or something new (the cheapest I'd recommend is a Gammaxx 400, unfortunately). If you really must trim, the Thermaltake would be fine. E: Soom Goon's used gpu suggestion is spot on. If she decides she wants higher performance out of AAA games, new mid-range GPUs should be coming out in 6 months to a year.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 22:04 |
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Alchenar posted:With that budget you can squeeze a bit: Are 3300Xs around? I assumed they were all sold out or else that was my first choice. 100% not going to a hard drive. An SSD will be like lightspeed to her. Some Goon posted:Keep the SSD. A 5 yr PSU is probably fine for a non-enthusiast build. Grab a used 470/570 for $100 or less, or new for like $120. After I'd posted that I'd actually start looking at used 580s and 570s. Found a 580 for $128 and a 570 for $95. I might try one of those
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 22:08 |
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Are 3300Xs around? I assumed they were all sold out or else that was my first choice. 100% not going to a hard drive. An SSD will be like lightspeed to her. Actually a quick search shows me Linus did a $500 build a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dEfc9LL9bQ&t=11s. If your budget is hard then I doubt you'll do better than that, if it's stretchy then you can think about where you want to stretch.
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 22:13 |
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Alchenar posted:Actually a quick search shows me Linus did a $500 build a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dEfc9LL9bQ&t=11s. If your budget is hard then I doubt you'll do better than that, if it's stretchy then you can think about where you want to stretch. Oh shoot, I forgot the 3100 was a thing. I might do that
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# ? Jul 28, 2020 22:20 |
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Bondematt posted:Looking at building a new PC and I'm stuck between the 3700X and the 10700K. I'm leaning towards 10700K as it's only a $150 difference and seems to OC better. Also if you have a microcenter nearby they've taken $200 off the 10700 as of yesterday if you do need the build now and closes the office gap with AMD a little.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 02:44 |
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Looking for a new vidya card, currently have an HD 6950 (lol) Looking to spend $150-200 max, I just don’t have a clue what’s current and good. I don’t play games heavily much but I’d like to be able to make the Witcher 3 look pretty. Spring Heeled Jack fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jul 29, 2020 |
# ? Jul 29, 2020 02:52 |
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:Looking to spend $150-200 max, I just don’t have a clue what’s current and good. I don’t play games heavily much but I’d like to be able to make the Witcher 3 look pretty. Probably either an RX580 (or 590 aka literally the same card) or a 1660ti if you can get a deal.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 02:58 |
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Probably either an RX580 (or 590 aka literally the same card) or a 1660ti if you can get a deal. This or a 1660Super, which is basically a cheaper 1660ti. They go $220-230 but it's a substantial step up over a 580.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 03:14 |
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Is there much a difference between the RX580 and the RX5550? I figure $45 isn't that much better for a hundred or so more compute engines.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 03:33 |
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so i discovered something interesting. my desktop has 16 GB of RAM and all this time i thought it was two sticks of 8 GB, but it turns out it's actually 4 slots of 4 gigs. i've not had any performance problems, but i am curious, is this a better or worse configuration than the dual 8 GB would have been?
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 04:05 |
Regarding budget builds, why not just go with the iGPU in an i5? That seems like huge savings and probably capable enough for 1080p/30hz gaming with most stuff, right? Maybe drop it to 720p?
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 04:22 |
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Mr Interweb posted:so i discovered something interesting. my desktop has 16 GB of RAM and all this time i thought it was two sticks of 8 GB, but it turns out it's actually 4 slots of 4 gigs. i've not had any performance problems, but i am curious, is this a better or worse configuration than the dual 8 GB would have been? It can be finickier, but if its working fine I don't think there's any downsides, besides not having room to upgrade further. tuyop posted:Regarding budget builds, why not just go with the iGPU in an i5? That seems like huge savings and probably capable enough for 1080p/30hz gaming with most stuff, right? Maybe drop it to 720p? To the best of my knowledge, they're really not there yet. Even the 3400g with its notable graphics cores struggles for 1080p30 lowest settings in newer games. It does better in 720p but if you haven't seen it lately 720p is rough. If you can content yourself with 2d games, and there are enough good-rear end 2d games that you could if you wanted to, you could get by on an iGPU.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 04:32 |
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tuyop posted:Regarding budget builds, why not just go with the iGPU in an i5? That seems like huge savings and probably capable enough for 1080p/30hz gaming with most stuff, right? Maybe drop it to 720p? I typically define the minimum gaming threshold at 1080p @ 60 fps average. APUs can hit these targets in mass-market freemium games like Fortnite or World of Tanks style games with low or medium settings. I personally would never recommend any less than that because I feel that you should just buy a console at that price range.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 05:01 |
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Holy poo poo, I beat the bots on the EVGA midweek madness B-stock drop and managed to snag a 1660 Ti for $154.25 shipped. My SFF build components are all now ordered and/or en route. Finally. [edit] This card is a short, chonky boi https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-1261-KR [edit 2] I just realized this card won't fit in the SG13 I bought 2 months ago, lmao. Guess I have to get the CM NR200 now. teagone fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Jul 29, 2020 |
# ? Jul 29, 2020 09:03 |
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How does this look for a deal? There’s a $15 coupon code as well: https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-1457-KR Seems to be fairly new, can’t find much info or benchmarks. EDIT: Oh man I didn't realize EVGA did scratch-and-ding sales. Browsing that selection now. Spring Heeled Jack fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Jul 29, 2020 |
# ? Jul 29, 2020 11:25 |
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Problem: the receiving connectors on my argb fans have no grip to them, so they just fall off of the argb splitter cable pretty much constantly before I get the case closed. What is the best not permanent way to get them to stick together? I don't know how to solder, and maybe the electrical tape I have isn't good enough because they tend to still fall off inside the tape.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 13:05 |
Rick posted:Problem: the receiving connectors on my argb fans have no grip to them, so they just fall off of the argb splitter cable pretty much constantly before I get the case closed. What is the best not permanent way to get them to stick together? Hot glue
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 13:26 |
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:What are you using the system for? Gaming I had the exact same mission as you a week ago. Bumping the processor down to a Ryzen 3 3100 saves $55 and saving the $50 or so on the power supply will get you much closer to her preferred budget. Check my posts in this thread for more details.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 13:47 |
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Is there some particular importance of memory for Ryzen 3000 processors compared to similar Intel ones? When comparing the two I see a lot of talk of Ryzen performance being highly dependent on system RAM, and a lot of people recommending memory tuning with AMD CPUs. Ideally I'd just like to buy and install and have it work without significant loss of performance; is memory tuning more just for overclockers chasing the max performance out of their systems?
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 18:18 |
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PageMaster posted:Is there some particular importance of memory for Ryzen 3000 processors compared to similar Intel ones? When comparing the two I see a lot of talk of Ryzen performance being highly dependent on system RAM, and a lot of people recommending memory tuning with AMD CPUs. Ideally I'd just like to buy and install and have it work without significant loss of performance; is memory tuning more just for overclockers chasing the max performance out of their systems? For normal users it doesn't matter. Just buy some RAM off the QVL for your motherboard and you'll be fine. 3200 CL16 is OK, 3600 CL16 is really only worth it if you can buy it at near 3200 prices IMO. Anything over 3600 is a waste for almost anybody..
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 18:22 |
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tuyop posted:Hot glue I seem to have lost my hot glue gun but what the heck, they're cheap enough, and after spending a literal hour trying to get 3 stupid 3 prong cables to stick together without one falling off as soon as I got the other one going, I will try anything.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 19:24 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:31 |
Rick posted:I seem to have lost my hot glue gun but what the heck, they're cheap enough, and after spending a literal hour trying to get 3 stupid 3 prong cables to stick together without one falling off as soon as I got the other one going, I will try anything. Just like, be careful not to get it on the pins. A little dab on the corner of the connector should do! Or maybe zip ties depending on how the plugs interface.
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# ? Jul 29, 2020 19:40 |