Tech minor victory thread
- Thread starter DarkAudit
- Start date
It should be. It's the MSI Core Frozr L. It did a great job when I OC'd the 2600, never really getting close to 80C in regular use. Granted, that is a 65W TDP part compared to 105W for the 5800X. But I have plenty of other fans and good ventilation.
Finally bought an upgraded GPU (an ASROCK 6950 XT) for my new system to replace the ol' faithful RX 580 that I've been using for so long now. With the new monitor, that means my system upgrade is finally complete. Only took about 15mo to achieve it, and came in ~US$1250 over budget, pretty much entirely due to the GPU stupidity. It's no screamer, but it should be solid. If it were a car, it would be something like a 2015 Volvo XC70 diesel.
I know that, in another thread, I said that the only two GPUs worth getting right now were the RTX 4080 and the 7900 XTX, and I still stand by that recommendation. But I just can't justify throwing US$1200+ (or, to put it another way, 50% of the cost of the entire rest of the computer) at anybody's GPU right now, so instead I jumped on a top model from last generation's tech whose price has come down about a third since launch. As my overall goal for this system is good performance but prioritizing long-term stability, I will probably be underclocking it anyway (to reduce heat and strain) to the point where its performance will be closer to that of a 6900 XT.
Still gotta find the time to install the new GPU and monitor, though. Hopefully later tonight.
--Patrick
I know that, in another thread, I said that the only two GPUs worth getting right now were the RTX 4080 and the 7900 XTX, and I still stand by that recommendation. But I just can't justify throwing US$1200+ (or, to put it another way, 50% of the cost of the entire rest of the computer) at anybody's GPU right now, so instead I jumped on a top model from last generation's tech whose price has come down about a third since launch. As my overall goal for this system is good performance but prioritizing long-term stability, I will probably be underclocking it anyway (to reduce heat and strain) to the point where its performance will be closer to that of a 6900 XT.
Still gotta find the time to install the new GPU and monitor, though. Hopefully later tonight.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
It got pushed back to a day to be determined due to construction delays in the splicing! Boooo
Hehehehehe, splicing delays.
Just installed a RAM upgrade for my laptop - went from 8 GB to 32 GB (maxed out what the MoBo supports).. Sitting with basics open went from 75-80% RAM to 20-25%. Will have to see how performance is when gaming and doing my Discord D&D/Roll20 gaming where I was hitting 95%-100% RAM, but should be better since there is more and won't have to rely on the Windows Cache as much.
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Not to mention you won't have to swap to disk as much, too.
Don't be surprised if you still see a lot of RAM in use even after your upgrade. Windows will try to cache files in RAM rather than having to touch the disk as often, so it's entirely possible you'll see your RAM still be pretty full, it'll just be full of cache rather than your programs.
--Patrick
Don't be surprised if you still see a lot of RAM in use even after your upgrade. Windows will try to cache files in RAM rather than having to touch the disk as often, so it's entirely possible you'll see your RAM still be pretty full, it'll just be full of cache rather than your programs.
--Patrick
Yeah - I'm not going to be surprised about that - it's expected behavior. I work with in the Virtual Desktop/End User Compute world (Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops/VMWare Horizon) and see that type of thing a lot. We have to statically set the Windows Cache size for 'gold image-booted' VMs - if you let Windows manage it, it eventually just fills the separate cache drive (that is also there for event logs/etc to remain after reboots), freezing and/or BSOD-ing the VM.
Other fun things from my IT world: recently worked on a ticket in to put some test machines to 3x production RAM for a voice app (not Teams) when audio compression is enabled in the app - their voice apps vendor's solution was "throw more RAM at it - it should work better" - not going to happen, but we have to prove that to the other vendor.
I recently helped a user migrate from an older machine with a 256GB drive to a new one with a 1TB drive. It kept complaining the migration couldn't be completed due to lack of space on the destination drive, and when I finally convinced the source to tally up how much data was being moved, it reported the source had 3.35PB of content (yes, I said PB). Turned out there was a Sims folder in the prefs that said it contained 120MB of files taking up 3.3PB on disk so we deleted that sucker and everything was fine. Also he says he has never played the Sims, so there was that mystery as well but whatever.
--Patrick
I was able to play a PC game finally with the upgraded RAM and what an improvement. The game itself was able to use more RAM than I previously had installed (non-optimized game - 7 Days to Die) and while playing, I maxed out at 50% of installed RAM, without having to shut down anything else for the first time.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, it's a qualified success. I didn't realize until too late that this carrier uses CGNAT, which means if I want port forwarding I have to get a static IP. Port forwarding is very important for me, it's what lets things like the game servers I host and my plex server work outside my home network.
I put in a ticket to get one late last week, but apparently it takes 3-5 days to process. So I am back on the cable modem for a little while longer until that is ready to transition.
I put in a ticket to get one late last week, but apparently it takes 3-5 days to process. So I am back on the cable modem for a little while longer until that is ready to transition.
GasBandit
Staff member
20 gig sounds amazing... but to be honest, nothing I want to connect to right NOW can even do 1 gig. Even ftp from my seedbox gets me, at best, 45 mbit.
I think 1 gig up and down is plenty for me for a while.
Also, apparently this company found it cheaper to run fiber alllllll the way back to chicago instead of find a local backbone connection to buy space in. My cable modem typically gets 10 ms ping times to google, the fiber connection seems to get about 27. Which is acceptable.
GasBandit
Staff member
I already do. DNS resolution has nothing to do with it. The problem is CGNAT. This ISP does not put any of its DHCP customers on real, public IPs. They're all behind a router sharing one IP, even before it gets to their fiber modem.
If I want a real public IP, I have to pony up the extra 10 bucks a month to get a static IP, which I think is fair, really. The cost of this gig connection is stupid cheap.
GasBandit
Staff member
Oh yeah, I guess I should update this - I have my static IP in place, and port forwarding is now working, and my transition to fiber has been otherwise seamless. Now I get to have the fun experience of trying to cancel my cable modem - a process they make notoriously unpleasant.
They've been installing fiber here for a couple of years. No telling when they'll get to my neighborhood.
Dave
Staff member
They had to burn away some of the trees blocking their path first, apparently.
GasBandit
Staff member
RAM finally got cheap enough again for me to decide to go ahead and keep this ol' gaming PC (originally built in December of 2013!!) limping along. For the low, low price of only 35 bucks, I now have 32 gigs of ram. Wasn't long ago that would have been like $150. Guess the supply crunch really IS coming to a close.
Granted, it's only DDR3, but I've yet to really find that a problem.
It would have been less, but I had to replace 4 4's with 4 8's. In the lifetime of this machine, it has gone from 8 to 16 and now 32 gigs of ram. It started off with a Radeon R9 270X and now I'm running (admittedly, an outdated) GTX 1060. It started out with an i5-4670 and now it's got an i7-4770k. About the only thing I haven't replaced is the system SSD, the power supply, and the motherboard. But that last one now has everything else at its limit. To upgrade further, I'd have to ditch the ol' Asus Z87-K. Which would mean new everything else. And given the state of Windows, I still think the right move is my next gaming PC will just be my Steam Deck on a dock.
Granted, it's only DDR3, but I've yet to really find that a problem.
It would have been less, but I had to replace 4 4's with 4 8's. In the lifetime of this machine, it has gone from 8 to 16 and now 32 gigs of ram. It started off with a Radeon R9 270X and now I'm running (admittedly, an outdated) GTX 1060. It started out with an i5-4670 and now it's got an i7-4770k. About the only thing I haven't replaced is the system SSD, the power supply, and the motherboard. But that last one now has everything else at its limit. To upgrade further, I'd have to ditch the ol' Asus Z87-K. Which would mean new everything else. And given the state of Windows, I still think the right move is my next gaming PC will just be my Steam Deck on a dock.
GasBandit
Staff member
I picked up a refurbished GTX 1080 TI for $350, which is what my 1060 3 gig cost new, and half the TI's initial MSRP.
It just snapped right in and booted right up and everything worked the first time and oh man does it look nice and I am scared to think how much techno-karma I just cashed in not having to struggle getting this to work all night.
It just snapped right in and booted right up and everything worked the first time and oh man does it look nice and I am scared to think how much techno-karma I just cashed in not having to struggle getting this to work all night.
GasBandit
Staff member
There were lots of potential stumbling blocks along the way.
It was a refurbished 1080ti, so it could have been DOA. But it wasn't.
It was twice the length of the 1060, so I could have had case space issues. But I didn't.
It needed both an 8 pin and 6 pin PCI-E power hookup, the 1060 only needed a 6 pin. I could have been missing those power connectors. But I had them available.
One of my monitors had been using a DVI cable to the 1060. The 1080ti doesn't have DVI, just HDMI and DP. Luckily the monitor in question has an HDMI port too (the 1060 only had one HDMI port, the 1080 ti has 2). So I got lucky on monitor plug and cable config (had a spare HDMI lying around because of work)
Found out my CMOS battery is dead. So that was a slight inconvenience booting back up, having to re-enter my clocking and boot order settings. But I was able to remember them the first try.
Let me put it this way - when I went from 16gb to 32gb of ram - which didn't mean I had to change any drivers either - the damn thing wouldn't even POST for 5 attempts until I found the magic peripheral to unplug to get it to power up. This thing is officially 10 years old.
SO much could have gone wrong.
(I really have no room to talk, my previous machine that I replaced last year was from 2011)
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
I've noticed since the latest patch, my Plex server has had to do a lot less transcoding. Apparently HEVC support is much better done now! So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
Transcoding was the only thing I was really worried about on that server. It's very CPU intensive. I've got 48 gigs of RAM and a gigabit of upstream bandwidth, but the ol' Xeon x5675 that came out 12 years ago would start to show the strain if 3 or 4 people were transcoding something at the same time. Now it's a non-issue!
So yeah, if anybody wants GasBanditFlix, send me a PM.
Transcoding was the only thing I was really worried about on that server. It's very CPU intensive. I've got 48 gigs of RAM and a gigabit of upstream bandwidth, but the ol' Xeon x5675 that came out 12 years ago would start to show the strain if 3 or 4 people were transcoding something at the same time. Now it's a non-issue!
So yeah, if anybody wants GasBanditFlix, send me a PM.