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datiswous

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Not that I'd want to worry anyone, but, I've had a bit of a mess with fans in my latest computers... in my current desktop PC, I now had to replace the chassis fans, because the pre-installed ones which came with the case produced a really nasty (although pretty quiet) sine wave like noise which drove me insane. Thankfully the fans I ordered and installed now are as silent as it gets. My graphics card is currently in a warranty repair/replacement case with the shop I ordered the PC from as well, as the left fan is making ticking noise around a specific speed (~1.900 RPM). 

I recently bought a laptop as well, which I had to send in to repair the main fan, because that one was broken as well. I really don't know what they do with those fans that they mess up so often.

Again, don't want to worry you @datiswous. I'm sure you'll be fine with the parts you order. Just saying that I had some really bad luck recently with the fans in my computers.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I know I'm late to the party but have you upgraded the PC yet? How did it go? My only advice and take this with a pinch of salt would be to get yourself a CRT monitor. Something like a Sony Trinitron. You wouldn't believe the difference it makes. Granted it is best at night in a pitch black room but you couldn't imagine how atmospheric it makes everything. I was using mine with a cheap amazon basics hdmi to vga converter with a 1050ti until I got a 980ti with analogue output but I don't notice any difference to be fair.

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45 minutes ago, datiswous said:

Interesting advise, but I won't do that. I'm fine with my AMVA screen and the crt screens are too bulky and give eye strain.

I didn't upgrade my pc yet. I might wait a bit for AM5 mobo prices to go down.

My existing 5700G and 6600T PCs could keep me satisfied for a long time. I'm interested in what Zen 5/6 and Strix Point and later APUs bring to the table, but I could probably hold out and never touch the AM5 socket because the 5700G system is more than I need. It helps that I barely care about gaming anymore, but I might look into higher-VRAM GPUs simply for messing around with AI.

Eventually, advanced 3D packaging will bring big performance and efficiency improvements (at least 10x) that can't be ignored by anyone, but I assume this would happen with AM6/AM7 somewhere between 2026-2035.

A widely anticipated black swan event in Taiwan could screw up the personal computing market much worse than the 2020 global chip shortage, so if you feel the need for more computers, have plenty of cash, and see a good deal, just buy. Grab an extra refurbished PC/laptop like I did for light duties.

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22 hours ago, datiswous said:

Interesting advise, but I won't do that. I'm fine with my AMVA screen and the crt screens are too bulky and give eye strain.

I didn't upgrade my pc yet. I might wait a bit for AM5 mobo prices to go down.

That's ok, they're not for everyone. I guess I'm lucky never to have eyestrain from them and I could be hours at a time staring at it. The bulkiness I can relate to though for sure:) I suppose it's a trade off. I got a extra deep desk recently and it still hogs it.

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Well I bit the bullet and ordered a Radeon 7900 XTX (https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/Radeon-RX-7900-XTX-GAMING-TRIO-CLASSIC-24G/Specification).

I really wanted to switch back to Nvidia because of the various AMD driver bugs that caused me Darkmod grief, but then I realized @stgatilov wouldn't have a computer to remotely debug anymore. :P

And of course Nvidia's ridiculous pricing is just stupid.

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I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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1 hour ago, AluminumHaste said:

Radeon 7900 XTX

Pfft, only PCI Express 4 😜

 

On 3/15/2023 at 5:36 PM, evildiesel said:

My only advice and take this with a pinch of salt would be to get yourself a CRT monitor. Something like a Sony Trinitron. You wouldn't believe the difference it makes.

What is it that makes them good? I used to have a Trinitron crt when I bought my first pc. It was 17" and I played Thief 2 on 1600x1200, so everything looked super sharp. But I didn't see a huge degradation when I moved to tft.

Edited by datiswous
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I think for me it adds to the atmosphere with how dark it can get. Especially in games where darkness is a big thing. I played a modded Morrowind playthrough and it was just sublime. I literally couldn't see anything walking around at night. I had to use a spell to see. Same in the Dark Mod. I finished Blackgrove Manor just now and the immersion was something else. I do have a decent 1440p monitor too and when I play with that it doesn't feel the same, I can see everything even with the brightness down. I suppose you just have to try and see for yourself. Mind you, this is in a pitch black room at night so...

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Well I do use a VA type screen, so good black level because of high contrast. Might be different when using ips. But I can't say how it compares to crt.

Quote

In short, if you're often using your computer in a dark room, a VA panel is the way to go, as it's the only LCD panel type that can produce deep blacks in a dark room.

Source

Edited by datiswous
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I suppose to compare the two you have to do it yourself. I think it is fantastic but that is just personal taste. You can find CRTs lying around for free these days so if you did want to check you could for not much money. Here is an unfair comparison. I actually still have one of them Sony 17" that you had in the attic!

 

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There's nothing wrong with your monitor! You don't need to get an OLED. If you had a chance to try out a CRT again, see how you like it. There's a certain something and it could be nostalgia talking too, but it feels good playing these types of games on a good CRT. Not just the blacks either but everything together. You'll have to just try it and see:) If you don't no harm either. Not many people use them, maybe for a good reason!

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11 hours ago, datiswous said:

Hm yeah I see it now. Well thanks, maybe I can buy a crt somewhere to see if this could be worth it..

Or otherwise maybe opt for oled..

Note that, when you take a picture, the brightness of IPS or TN panels are always exaggerated. Their background lighting isn't as bright as in the picture. And, an IPS screen is perfectly alright for playing dark games like TDM, as long as you opt for an IPS with a good contrast ratio, like my AOC 24G2U. It has a contrast ratio of about 1.300:0, which is exceptional for an IPS.

If you want a panel tech which is best suited for dark games, there is VA. BUT, they have issues with the black/white reaction time, especially when you have dark screen content. It leads to the typical VA smearing of brighter screen content in dark screen content. Supposedly, the Samsung G7 monitors have the best reaction times of the VA panels, but they are curved displays, which isn't my cup of tea.

Difficult topic, choosing a monitor for TDM. As I mentioned, I can recommend the AOC 24G2U. IMO, it's the best compromise. You get a colour accurate IPS panel, and an exceptional contrast ratio, which is very unlike the usual IPS panels. It's also quite cheap. I got mine for 169 €.

What I wouldn't do is get a CRT... most of them aren't widescreen, they have old, even mostly analog connectors, which worsen the picture. And, they're also not as colour accurate as IPS screens. Not to mention that you have such a big device sitting on your table, and not to mention the convex curved display either. I really wouldn't bother with such obsolete tech.

Edited by chakkman
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  • 2 weeks later...

had to build my own replacements as well due to prices being silly atm coupled with the fact that im disabled old and near my retirement days anyway so i probably wont be out there anymore jobbing to get income for the latest and greatest in PC components 😅. You can get pretty far with some second hand materials though and im quite happy with how my current gaming PC has turned out ->.

for mainboard i used the old but still gold asrock z97 extreme6, it was one of the first boards to support nvme (albeit with a few pitfalls like disabling one of the x16 pcie slots). It has thunderbolt 2 support (via addin card) and you can even add a wifi/bluetooth adapter via a mini pcie port (laptop models).

the cpu is the devils canyon 4970k (refresh of the 4770k with higher clock speed), ram is kingstons 2400 mhz ddr3. For a gfx card i went with a gigabyte 1080 ti OC which was one of the less pricey models (it is white... the cooler felt like a piece of cardboard and it has no backplate) it runs quite fine though except it got pretty hot in demanding games so i outfitted it with the rajintek morpheus 2 core edition cooler and oh boy is that cooler something... downside it fills 4 pcie spaces and weighs a ton 🤣 upside i can run anything at ultra in 4k at a playable framerate without turning it into a furnace (newer gets above 62 "). DLSS is a nogo though, you can enable it but the performance hit is rather drastic so dont!. AMD's fidelity fx can also be used and it runs a bit better with that but still raytracing was before this card so not recommended to enable. without this gripe it is actually a solid 4K card.

the case i used is the lian li lancool 3, this one is a bit odd but also has some interresting stuff. The glass sidepanels are opened by pulling the alu front bars yep dont forget it or else :P the bottom mesh sidepanels are magnetically locked in place which is cool except when you figure out that 3 of the ssd mounting rackets are located on the right sidepanel so you have to use really thin and flexible wiring because else it would pop the panel open constantly (the magnets cant hold a lot). Also if you plan to use a big hunking PSU like my old corsair 1000W you loose two mounts for older 3.5 " harddrives (yep it is that big) so i went with a smaller 750W corsair cause i still have a few of the 3.5 " drives in use for storage.

cpu cooler is the renowned artic freezer II 360 AIO top mounted ( do not mount AIO's on the bottom like some idiots do you break the cooler that way cause the fluid would newer hit the pump, if you have to mount it otherwise use the front intake and the hoses should be at the bottom of the case not the top! sadly many AIO's use pretty short hoses so that is not allways an option in that case go for a good air cooler instead like the noctua NH-D14 or the dark rock from be silent ).

This little thingy puts up quite nicely with todays tasks :) win11 is also in reach since it does support TPM 2 (still have to get the add in card though) the cpu is not supported officially but it runs quite fine with it (yep i tested it, dont like win11's mac alike interface though so for now i stay on win10) need a small tweak to get the installer to accept it (registry key) but other than that no problem.

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DLSS is supposed to increase performance! It's not supported on pre-RTX 20-series cards though. I don't remember which technology Nvidia lied about requiring tensor cores, I guess not that one.

My idiotic idea to put 64 GB in my i5-6600T system was foiled because it supposedly doesn't support it. So I'll settle for 32 GB. Hopefully that kit will get here by Monday.

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not a lie as such the tensor cores are specially built computational cores for the heavy calculation tasks in DLSS, you can run it without them but the performance hit is rather steep then. AMD kinda went the opposite way by avoiding specialized hardware support instead the calculations are done in software via directx. downside to that is that it will probably newer reach the the performance of the rtx cards unless they come up with a truely monstrous GPU the upside is any recent card can use it not only AMD :) but as said ray tracing was not taken into consideration with the 1080 ti so it does not really have the nessesary horsepower to run it.

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