PC Building Megathread: As long as she doesn't demand ray tracing

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > PC Building Megathread: As long as she doesn't demand ray tracing

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Compared to the better air cooler setups possible in the A4 the 92mm AIO is not really an improvement but your L9i heatsink is very tiny (compared to the L9a eg.), I bet the AIO will do better there.

Without the side panels you shouldn't expect an improvement with a fan duct because that is about making the fan pull fresh air from the outside instead of reusing the trapped hot air inside the case. When the panel is open the hot air won't stay inside the case / around the CPU cooler as much so a duct wouldn't really help anyway.

Also note that your Intel mainboard might not use the same (default?) fan curve as the one for your Ryzen.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2021 19:28

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 18:37

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Yeep posted:

I think the L9i was considered the best option for air on Intel in an A4 when I last built. What�s new? Should I be looking for an Alpenfohn Black Ridge?

Edit: A couple of hours of Civ VI and it's held steady at 75 degrees. I'll see how it goes with the case back together but I can probably live with that.

75�C while playing games is alright with that hardware IMO (will be higher with closed sidepanels I guess) so at least the eco mode/TDP limit is keeping temps in check in the long term. Did you check the fan curve? Because you can probably lower the idle temps a bit if you let the fan spin faster earlier, if the CPU idling at 50�C or so bothers you.

Even for Intel systems the L9i is not stellar, it works but it was just about good enough for running delidded generation 6/7 core i7s since I remember the case existing. Besides using the Asetek AIO, people did stuff like using the slightly better heatsinks from coolers like the Thermolab/Cooltek LP53 or the Cryorig C7 with the Noctua fan (with 3d-printed fan adapters), or putting 92 mm x 25 mm fans on the L9i/a (with the risk of making the fan louder because it sits closer to the sidepanel). The Black Ridge is only an improvement over the L9a if used with very low profile RAM to make room for a 120 mm x 15 mm fan underneath, with a 92 mm x 15 mm fan it will probably slightly beat the L9i but I really wouldn't spend the money just for that. The Black Ridge also has compatibility issues with a bunch of mainboards so I generally don't like to recommend it.

Personally I'd experiment with different fan curves and then the LC545 since you already have that. Or just keep it as it is because yeah the Ryzen 5000s are somewhat hot (mostly a heat density problem with their 7nm chiplets) and you're still far from throttling or otherwise dangerous temps.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2021 22:54

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

The idea is you use more/stronger fans with a dust filter to get clean, fresh air into the case, and because there's less airflow going out through fans the air will also be pushed out of all the vents and openings that aren't covered by dust filters. With negative pressure setups those gaps also allow air with dust to be sucked in, instead of through the dust filters.

Even with equal amounts of the same fans you can't easily guarantee the case is pressure positive, if intake airflow (eg. because of dust filters) is slightly lower than what largely unobstructed exhaust fans are pushing out.

orcane fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Oct 10, 2021

# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 16:00

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

A while ago someone posted a video of a DYI project to cool a PC with a regular household AC in one of the SHSC threads I follow. There are plenty of videos I can see, but I can't find this specific one: It was by a dad-son team who does other PC or DYI videos together, I think.

Does anyone happen to know them or the specific video?

# ¿ Apr 12, 2022 12:57

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

eviltastic posted:

Sounds like Tech Ingredients. I haven't watched it, but this may be the video you're thinking of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Jg0Qa6mts

That was it, thank you!

# ¿ Apr 12, 2022 18:54

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Lt. Cock posted:

Any advice on how to install windows without access to a PC that has administrator access? Both work and the library won�t let me run and or download the creation tool exe.

You can download the official ISO by going to the Media Creation Tool website with an unsupported OS ie. fake it by using Chrome dev tools (F12 I think?) and switch to a mobile OS. Reload the page and click through the options until you get a direct link. Not sure how you can get it onto your target machine afterwards, though.

E: like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/mwlvlo/how_to_get_the_full_windows_10_iso_from_the/

orcane fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Aug 22, 2023

# ¿ Aug 22, 2023 18:47

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Shipon posted:

This is why I didn't even consider AMD until they announced AM5 was going to be LGA

That sort of failure isn't related to the socket though?

LionArcher posted:

Thanks for this. I’m a mac guy, so I was just throwing stuff into pc parts picker and seeing what worked. I liked the case but I’m not stuck on small form factor. I know I have to have intel for AI and a 12 gig at least of v ram on the graphics card. Honestly other than those things and trying to keep it under $2000 I’m pretty open. (And I don’t like the idea of water cooled in case of leaks).

Don't worry, the setup is not that bad for the start of a SFF project and you could theoretically make it work by power limiting the CPU and picking a better low profile cooler but then you pay a lot for performance you won't fully use.

Small sandwich layout cases will require this sort of compromise so yeah if the case/size is not mandatory you can definitely do better in performance or dollars (or both).

# ¿ Nov 4, 2023 14:51

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Fabulousity posted:

Following Christmas I'm going to have a spare Ryzen 3600 laying around and I want to put it into a small form factor build. This PC will be used for web browsing, streaming, and light gaming at 1080p.

I'm mostly concerned with where to start looking for a small case. Something with a handle would be neat since this PC might get periodically moved around the house. Any suggestions? The Lian Li PC-O11D looks pretty good but has no handle. That's not a deal breaker but I'm just curious if ya'll have other suggestions.

There's a thread on SFF computers here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3776587

In addition to the above suggestions, Cooler Master makes the NR200 which is big for SFF but fairly cheap and has good compatibility with GPUs and CPU coolers, which the really small SFF cases often haven't. No handle, though.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2023 00:29

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Although I'm going to question the wisdom of running OC on a "server in a closet".

# ¿ Dec 27, 2023 12:30

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

I considered moving some old machines into newer cases, the main issue is they're still on ATX mainboards and ATX + "compact" doesn't really go together so it's just a vanity project :v:

E: Oh ha, one of my old PCs that would "move" like that is actually in an Antec P182 right now.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2023 22:24

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Did you set any OC/UV for that CPU, or what do the BIOS settings look like?

# ¿ Dec 28, 2023 12:31

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

3200 is indeed the highest MT JEDEC DDR4. Those kits often don't have XMP profiles and the 1.2V default profile will run much higher latency/timings than 3200 "gaming" memory.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2024 14:02

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Eregos posted:

I'd rather spend up to $300 on hunting for upgrades than consume the time to build 3 new PCs when I truly need one. That's about the point where the money difference is worth my time. I was hoping for a little help hunting for upgrades that might be reasonably decent and in stock someplace. I guess I'll pay a slight premium for an inferior upgrade over building a new PC if it saves me time.

Upgrading the RAM of the i7-6700k is a waste because you'd get more performance out of manual RAM OC than putting in faster RAM that might not even run without manual adjustments in the first place, and the remaining upgrade path (CPU to 7700k) is also pointless because the performance uplift is going to be superficial at best.

The P67 board can take an i7-3770k which is going to be like 10-20% faster than your i5. It has SMT for 8 threads instead of the i5's 4, but I don't think GTA5 will care. They're on Ebay for like 60 bux :shrug:

I honestly think it's a waste of time and money to upgrade those two computers - just use them as is (repaste, clean, reinstall etc.) because you're not going to get big, noticeable performance boosts out of that hardware. Or just build a new one with all the cores so it can run GTAO in virtual machines.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2024 21:18

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

if you don't have a CPU supported by the existing BIOS you need a board with USB BIOS flashback but Asrock boards of that generation don't have this feature.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2024 04:37

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

The 5800X3D has a fairly high heat density due to the 3D cache which will make tiny coolers rev up their fans a lot. I used the same CPU in a SFF box with the even weaker NH-L9a cooler and it absolutely runs but it won't be very quiet under load, and that was with an additional TDP limit. Nowadays you can also use curve optimizer to undervolt the CPU a bit, but I'd expect it to still quickly clock down to base clocks with fully multithreaded loads.

The 20-30 bucks (in the US at least?) for a bigger budget cooler like the Peerless Assassin / Phantom Spirit 120 or the AK620 would be well worth it IMO.

orcane fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Feb 2, 2024

# ¿ Feb 2, 2024 15:58

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Yeah it's userbenchmark that's the completely unhinged dude with a grudge against everything AMD, not related to PassMark / CPUbenchmark.

No idea how the PassMark "performance test" is getting these results but in the end it's a synthetic benchmark with all its caveats. Real world results will differ by application/test suites and Intel's hybrid CPUs will do better in highly multithreaded productivity/application benchmarks because they have more threads at that level than the 7800X3D, or whenever code doesn't fit into the Ryzen's 3D cache.

E:

Llamadeus posted:

Yeah, the reason cpubenchmark doesn't show efficiency in AMD's favour is because they don't have power measurements, it's just based on the nominal TDP (aka a lie)

Oh that's hilarious, I missed this.

Yeah in the 14x00k reviews on ComputerBase the Ryzen 7800X3D was pulling an average of 48 W where the 14600k was pulling 89 W and the 13700k was pulling 104 W in games, and even completely unlimited the Ryzen can't use more than 155 W while you can get the Intel CPUs to burn up to 350-400 W with AVX2 loads. But sure, 65 W TDP is better than 120 :v:

orcane fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Feb 10, 2024

# ¿ Feb 10, 2024 22:52

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Unsane posted:

Would it be a waste to upgrade my GPU on an old 3750k system? It's honestly fast enough I just need to support a newer direct x. Was thinking about getting a rx6600xt or rx6650xt. I'm only running @ 1080 anyway. I just don't game enough to justify a whole new system.

Current setup: 3750k, 16 gig ram, Samsung 850 SATA SSD, 660ti

Not really a "waste", you'll be CPU limited earlier than modern CPUs but a modern GPU will still be a significant performance (and feature) boost compared to the 660 Ti which is really old, and no longer receives (Windows) driver updates.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 20:06

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Is that realistic, unless there's serious background usage going on?

sebmojo posted:

Random query, I'm on 5600x, 16 GB, 4070ti and I'm finding graphically demanding games (Alan wake 2, nu dead space, cyberpunk) have a habit of glitching down to 1fps for five or so seconds, every few minutes. Is there an obvious bottleneck there? 1440p, on max, otherwise glassy smooth.

Can you run some monitoring tool to see what the CPU and GPU are doing in these seconds (frequencies, temperatures, possible idle states)? Do the slowdowns disappear if you run at minimum details?

orcane fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Feb 14, 2024

# ¿ Feb 14, 2024 15:22

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Beachcomber posted:

What makes this the case? Is it outdated already?

It's not a bad card, just vastly overpriced. You're either paying too much for performance that should have more than 8 GB of VRAM (with the risk of having to replace it too soon for its price), or you're paying even more for "future proofing" with 16 GB of VRAM but then the price/performance is even worse.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 16:09

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

hooah posted:

It's not showing up in the BIOS . I have a Gigabyte Gaming X AX V2 motherboard and the M.2 drive is a Corsair MX500.

If you mean Crucial (not Corsair), that's a SATA M.2 drive so you would need to use M.2 ports that support SATA drives. From the spec sheet and manual, your mainboard only supports NVMe (PCI-e) M.2 drives.

At that point your options are a) buy a new (NVMe M.2) disk and/or b) get an external enclosure supporting M.2-SATA disks and use the MX500 as an external drive.

orcane fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Feb 16, 2024

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 15:05

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

I think that refers to the actual SATA connectors. The manual has a line that says "This motherboard only supports M.2 PCIe SSDs" on page 24.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 17:12

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Twerk from Home posted:

What happened to https://www.jonnyguru.com/ ? I was going to dig up an old review that shows they've been building great PSUs for ages but it's dead now?

Who else tests power supplies like they did? That hot box caught out so many mediocre units.

I think Aris is good:
https://hwbusters.com/psus/

# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 11:40

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

anything that reads SMART/drive data, Crystal Disk Info is good for this (ignore the anime)

# ¿ Feb 26, 2024 16:15

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

How long does it stay at 70�C at 10-15% utilization? If it's just a brief spike (e.g. until the fan curve ramps up), that's not a problem and would be adjustable by messing with the fan curve. There might be an issue if your fans are already running at high RPM and you still sit at 70�C after a while at 15% or less, though.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2024 14:42

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

That's the monitor's max. preset resolution for HDMI according to the manual, using a HDMI cable wouldn't help.

I'm seeing reddit posts where people had to make custom resolutions to run 3440x1440 165 Hz with 10-bit HDR (8-bit should work out of the box, what's yours set to?).

orcane fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Mar 9, 2024

# ¿ Mar 9, 2024 10:57

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Butterfly Valley posted:

OCing RAM beyond just buying a decent kit to begin with and setting XMP is purely for the realm of masochists.

Just get a CL16 or 18 3600 kit and be done with it IMO.

Since DDR4 is "done" it's also kind of annoying to specifically get the good memory chips that make OCing it easier. And for workloads that mostly fit into the CPU's 3D cache you don't even get much performance out of RAM OC.

I know people in PC enthusiast circles act like everyone should OC their memory for a free x% performance but in reality you're looking at hours and days of messing with timings and repeatedly stress-testing them, only for a BIOS update to mess with your settings, or you will forget about it and after a few months you get random crashes or corrupted data which is clearly the fault of ["garbage" software/game or new hardware].

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 14:46

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Kevin Bacon posted:

Ok thanks, that makes sense. I saw someone discussing sick fps gainz by just using a list of someone else's timings, but I think that was with DDR5 so I suppose that is something different altogether then. That makes things a lot easier for me then.

It's not entirely different, I think you can find similar timing guides for DDR4, but you still need to do your own stability testing and it might be harder finding the correct memory chips/sticks now because DDR4 is not a priority of memory manufacturers, and some product lines previously popular for OCing don't exist anymore.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 16:16

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Did they actually shut down the B-die production lines as reported at some point? I guess even if they still existed the chips live mostly in the few DDR4-4000+ kits that still exist?

Micron E-die would probably count (on a slightly lower level), but it showed up even later and for an even shorter time before the Crucial Ballistix DDR4 line was abandoned in favour of DDR5 memory production.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 16:33

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

MarcusSA posted:

The odds that an MSDN key gets revoked are incredibly small vs using some random piracy script found on the internet.

Also there are YouTube tech guys with 1-2 million subs schilling sites like

https://m.vip-urcdkey.com/software/p202110081347357709.html?urd=Eta11

So if MS was going to shut down the loophole they probably would have. I could definitely see them taking action against a piracy script or whatever though.

By the same logic it would be incredibly easy for MS to shut down the "piracy scripts" because all they do is ask MS servers to activate the correct version of Windows IIRC, so far they have not and the scripts have been up for years and are hosted on a dev platform owned by Microsoft. :shrug:

# ¿ Apr 13, 2024 18:20

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

lines posted:

Thanks. I'll go find the SFF thread. (Unless someone wants to try and convince me that actually a chunky case is what I want! But I just think for my needs anything I might try and fit in it is overkill, even if I'm not paying the SFF premium.

If you can fit what you want and don't mind the limits of SFF it's totally fine - there are also plenty of "big" SFF cases which let you fit almost anything you might want to put into a big tower. The biggest downside at that point is the slightly higher cost for the SFF-specific parts like ITX mainboards and SFX PSUs.

The SFF thread is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3776587

# ¿ Apr 15, 2024 19:34

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

SFF 2012 Edition

# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 18:26

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Yeah start with the GPU and work your way to the biggest 5x00X3D you can afford if the GPU alone doesn't cut it.

It should be a massive improvement though, the GTX 1080 is fairly old now and Pascal cards got gradually worse in newer titles for the last few years.

orcane fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Apr 30, 2024

# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 23:14

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 18:37

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

The RTX 3080 transients can hit well over 400 W I think? Yeah that's going to be a challenge. Have you ever tried to power-limit the card with the problematic games?

If you want to keep the cables (and Corsair also sells a 12VHPWR cable you attach directly to the PSU if you upgrade the GPU) the SF750 is still good and can handle transients over 900 W. For months now there have been rumours Corsair is going to release a successor to the SFX series, but they haven'tt materialized and their SFX-L models are not that good.

E: Oops, not RTX 3080 Ti

orcane fucked around with this message at 20:59 on May 12, 2024

# ¿ May 12, 2024 20:57

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