Gaming PC Parts discussion thread.

[Sniping]

Unless intel's laptop iterations are much cheaper than AMD, Tp4 can't think of a single good reason to buy any intel mobile chips.

The iGPU on AMD works so much better.

Not sure what your laptop use case is, but Macbook is an awesome product right now if you ask me. You can find an M1 Macbook Pro or M2, M3 or M4 Macbook air for around $600 or so used, and a tad more new. Fanless design is awesome for me and laptop never gets warm for normal use. I like that they hold value well too, chassis build quality and microphone quality is great.

[noisyturtle]

Took a chance and sprung for some used RAM sticks from Shenzhen, CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 4 x 8GB DDR3 1866
The Sabertooth Z77 is notoriously picky with the ram it likes, and 16gb is just not cutting it sadly even being oc'd to 2133

Why is DDR3 still so damn expensive though? $120 for 32gb of used ram, and that is on the cheaper side

[tp4tissue]

Not gonna lie NT, you're being stupid, LOL.  You clearly don't even understand what you're playing with and how it's affecting the system.

It's not sabertooth, all 77 and 97 barely did 4 sticks at 1600 with loose timings.   If you wanted 4 at any decent speeds, it had to be manually tuned. The auto-training would fail pretty much across all boards.

Even if you get it to post, it's probably not bench stable,  stable enough to run counterstrike, but it's randomly corrupting data.


Buying more parts to fix something  "in the wrong way"  to ultimately achieve  "Lower performance" is what your current trajectory is.

[Leslieann]

Quad sticks haven't been good for overclock for a while and the last few years haven't really been stable even at stock speeds.

[tp4tissue]

It's because of the memory traces topology of the mobo. They're daisy chained, so the signal strength gets split, hence lower sustained frequency. It wouldn't be a problem if they went quad channel.

Well, problem is cost.

It might make sense just to solder ram at this point. I have trouble seeing the benefit to more than 64gb of ram.

Solder can hit 8000 easily, whereas socketed will take much longer to hit that consistently.

By the time, someone decides they need that much, they might as well buy a new platform.



The reasoning now probably is, most applications are not memory bandwidth bottlenecked, so the expense in the area of ram isn't worth it.   



It's cheaper to put more  HBM on the cpu, than to make all new ram sockets, new topology. Soldered makes sense, but I guess they're afraid the market won't accept it.

[tp4tissue]

You guys remember how you could sit on PC cases,  Tp4 remembers.

Not today though, they're all so flimsy.  Wouldn't handle a drop from no table.

[noisyturtle]

I always heard quad lanes distribute the workload more evenly? Is that not true? How can bottlenecking the hardware to half the slot access possibly be faster?

[noisyturtle]

some copper plates for my 870 EVO's 

[tp4tissue]

Unless you take the drive apart to get a bigger piece of silicone pad on the controller on the inside, Chances are the dollop they used internally is already dried out.

Tp4 has taken several sata ssds apart.

They also usually don't even silicone the flash, only the controller to cut cost.

Check the video, samsung on the 870 evo literally don't even put silicone on it at all.  You have to take it apart and put in your own.

Without silicone, more heatsinks are worthless, it's probably worse, and runs hotter.

[tp4tissue]

In theory, you can run a whole city off 1 computer.

If there were no other computers, or any network, you don't need security/ encryption.

If it just came down to coding to the metal of a modern cpu,  without all the fluff, you can get ALOT of database throughput.

[tp4tissue]

A bit confused, 

If they're going to sell strix halo in $2000 laptops. Why would anyone buy that, when 3070ti laptops are $1000, and almost twice the gpu mem bandwidth as it doesn't share system ram.


Is it just for LLM people buying those 128gb boxes?

[tp4tissue]

Headsup, ok,  DO NOT buy uxcell bearings on dat Amazon.  They're pretty darn bad. Feels like sand.

[tp4tissue]

People sayyy they want APUs for desktop, but don't think there are that many actual buyers.

Because the used discreet cards aren't that expensive, a very shiny new APU would cost more and probably have less performance.

The box is limited by board size, so it's going to come out about the same with or without APU, and if you want a Niche small box that ONLY fits an apu build,  that is yet another cutoff which increases cost.


APU really should just remain laptop oriented. It doesn't make sense for desktop whatsoever outside of corporate endpoints.


A basic cpu + 3 year old discreet gpu will almost always outperform any $500-600 apu box and come out, at least $100 cheaper.

[tp4tissue]

X220 prices are still inflated because of it's UNREASONABLE, h4x0r status.

It's a great laptop, but I mean, $200 for base, and you still might need new IPS + battery + ram + PTM7950. 

It'll come out to $400 when you're done, $400 new would just about buy an 8core state of the art Zen5 mobile .


-not to mention, the x220's Achilles heel,  you have to take apart the whole mobo to fully clean the fan.

It was designed by the japanese lab, horrible laptop designers, almost as bad as germans.

[tp4tissue]

Ok, seriously,  Home PCs are no place for electric screw drivers.

Even the ones with electric braking, they're not fast / responsive enough to not strip small screws.

[tp4tissue]

Tp4 has coooled on the ryzen 350, very variable depending on dissipation configuration.   /Not Recommended.

[noisyturtle]

Amazon has really been getting bad lately for computer parts. First I get a used ssd with sensitive info on it, now I got a case fan someone swapped out for a different brand, returned and got a replacement, only for it to arrive coated in dust and scratches clearly used.

Whatever horrible policy they have where they ship out defective and used returns as new items has got to stop. Obviously a $$$ policy so they can get away w/ selling used **** for new.

[tp4tissue]

Laptop decisions.

Tp4's head is bout to explodz.

Toooooooo many laptops.   we should just have,  laptop 1, laptop 2, laptop 3.

WHY do we need laptop #39,938

[tp4tissue]

Oled on laptops,  Thoghsts ??

[fohat.digs]

we should just have,  laptop 1

My decade-old Thinkpad T440p is so good I got a backup.

[tp4tissue]

Wurd on the dark web is, all the new gear is full of corpo hardware backdoors, and the real Hax0rz stick to trad gear.

[tp4tissue]

Gaming laptops are huge money makers, because they give you all the junk salvage parts that wouldn't make it as a desktop chip.

Then they're woefully under-cooled, so they burn out, and you'll have to buy a new one in a couple years.


It's a SCAM.

[tp4tissue]

Ok, this is kind of a weird design choice.

The laptop will intiate fast charging,  but then below 40% battery, it will throttle the cpu+gpu and deliver as much charge to battery as possible.

WHY do this?  If you're going to do this, LET ME CHOOSE whether I want that.

For example,  If I have 20% or even 10% battery, and it's plugged in, there are more circumstances where I would want more performance over faster battery charging..

/Raises eyebrow

[tp4tissue]

Headsup, so the asm2464pd DOES in fact pass through 4x pcie on USB 4.0 port or Thunderbolt4 x4 ports.

But on lower ports, it can't.

Ooof, just realized this laptop came with disgusting QLC ssd. sigh... disgusted.

[tp4tissue]

Just got Anker's new model GAN 70w 4 port charger from costco, (Zolo) branded series.

Testing it out running a flat 60w load. Let's see how long it can go before shutting off.

Taking all bets.

26C ambient.

-11min, 42C skin temp, holding 60.
-17min, 48C, holding
-21min, 50C, holding
-26min, 53C, holding, seems to flicker to 58w-60w now, may be the beginning of ramp
-31min, 56C, holding
-37min, 57C, holding
-44min, 60C, holding
-55min, 61C, holding
-63min, 62C, holding
-73min, 63C, holding, 57-58.5w now. May be giving in.
-84min, 64C, holding, between 57-59, guess it's holding.
-98min, 63.5C, holding, 57-58.
-113, 64C, holding 57-59

Seems this is steady state, and it will hold 60w.

Testing 2 device charge, it will negotiate for lower peak, 54w

This is a good charger overall. Probably get a 100w charger if you need to charge laptop + cellphone at the same time.

But this is a great deal for the 70w unit + 30w unit + 2x 240w capable cables (48v5amp)

For $30, can't get better than that. Prolly hit $25 by holiday.

[noisyturtle]

CF toilet seat 
Your poops will be so lightweight and durable!
https://carbonfibergear.com/products/carbon-fiber-toilet-seat?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Unique%20Products%20%28KUM7tk%29&triplesource=klaviyo

[noisyturtle]

So my RAM woes turn out to be due to having the 3rd and 4th slots on my mobo being burned out. Dual stick setups only. 

[tp4tissue]

If you use a laptop in the center of a square room, and the fan's goin fast,  you can hear power saw noises because of the reflections. It sounds like there are table saws going off into the distance.

[tp4tissue]

Ohmygerd. Actually another function that can use the NPU, AI noise canceling voice recording. It activates through Intel's integration thingie, You have to record part of your voice through the realtek console.

LOL. the NPU goes up to 11% utilization when you turn on the function.

It cuts out fan noise decent. Althoughhhhh, sometimes it cuts your voice out too. LOL.

So... not really that much better than regular noise canceling.

[fohat.digs]

CF toilet seat

Carbon fiber is so beautiful. And I can imagine that a cool lightweight material would be a plus. Too bad it is so expensive.

[tp4tissue]

45% and 60% SRGB laptop screens.

Seriously, WHY even make them, those fractions of pennies aren't worth it. 


The losses on cost of returns on people buying online goods that don't match photos far exceeds the savings.

This is atrocious.

[tp4tissue]

We really shouldn't be making Laptops with USBC only charging.

This is not a good move. They're not physically as durable as barrel plugs, and electrically, you have a complicated PID controller with mosfets that can fail.

It would be easier, if we just standardized a Barrel plug across all manufacturers.

Trivial to design, Size will be uniform and quite small, considering 99% of laptops will not top 200w requiring exotically large ports.

[tp4tissue]

Figured out the weird instability on the zen 7000 and 9000 cpus

So, what happens is,  if the CPU is hot vs cold,  that can impact the ram training.

Hot training can skew the numbers enough to cause instability.


For example, you run a 24hr stress test, and it's stable,  but you reboot immediately while hot, and suddenly it won't boot or crash after windows.

But you let it cool off for 20 minutes, then using the same settings, you can run another 24hr stress test and it's still stable.


AMD reallllly needs to get rid of this memory controller, it's just too touchy.

[tp4tissue]

PS6.

Honestly, having 9070xt/7900xtx lvl raster is not enough if they're planning 2027 release.

Also, Tp4 is not so sure it can even reach that at 160watt in 3nm, they'll probably need 250watt at the very least.

The speculated 5090 lvl path-tracing performance,  this is easily possible if there's special die space with dedicated hardware to do it.   But only getting that much in 2027.   

Well.  If they hit $500-600 for the whole machine,  it's not bad,  but meh....    4K 120 should be the benchmark. 60hz target is unacceptable..

[tp4tissue]

Sigh.

Dramless SSDs,  invented to torture poor people such as the Tp4.

[tp4tissue]

Honestly,  PSU and GPU makers need to STOP doing 0-rpm.

0-RPM is unnecessary, you can not hear 200-300 rpm, and yet 300 rpm will get you a 20 Degrees difference on ICs at idle wattages. 

The ICs don't care, but the components AROUND the ICs care immensely.


0-rpm is just asking to die in the middle of the bathtub curve.

[phinix]

Sigh.

Dramless SSDs,  invented to torture poor people such as the Tp4.

(Attachment Link)

Yeah, I hate that too. Hate when SSD is trothling down. I was shifting large amount of movies recently and my ssd kept dropping down significantly and istead of "fast" USB-C drive speeds, I had miediocre speeds dropping from 800MB/s to around 90MB half of the time...

[tp4tissue]

They're ok for game drives and general usage, but I feel like the saving of that single ram chip is kinda unnecessary.