Posts by Eric Ross72

Timothy Kim60 said:Hey, you actually made a solid call there—that 10400f is basically the king of value right now.

We only kept bringing up the Intel Core 11th Gen because you kept pitching them as this "futureproof" beast for your next upgrade path.

I mean, yeah, fair enough, but I ended up dropping way too much cash on a high-end motherboard thinking I was setting myself up for the long haul (is Alder Lake on a new socket or what?) 😵

The dream is to overclock my RAM to 4400MHz... I've never actually messed with it before, but surely it's not rocket science, right? A few YouTube tutorials and I should be golden.!?

MSI MPG Z490

Man, what a joke. Where have you guys even been hiding? I just went ahead and grabbed the 10400f

wiredotter14 said:Prices are just so ridiculous right now—whether you're looking at them with sales tax included or not, there's basically no way to make it worth it.
Have you tried doing a totally clean driver install using the DDU removal tool? That usually fixes most of those issues people have with Intel drivers.

Oh, I've definitely tried that... more times than I care to admit. It works great for a little while, and then boom—back to square one. It’s just a never-ending loop.

wiredotter14 said:for the motherboard—not too much, maybe $267—but for the GPU, you could get a decent chunk of change. If you’re thinking about selling, honestly, just take advantage of the current shortages to flip it while the market is hot.

Wait, you still have 4.5 years of warranty left??

That's what I was thinking.

My RX 5700 XT came with a 3-year warranty, but I actually extended it to 5. And man, I’m seriously considering pulling the trigger now—maybe grab an RTX 3070 through my company to dodge the sales tax 👍 (the 5700 XT technically does the job, but I am absolutely losing my mind dealing with these constant driver crashes)

Hey there!

What kind of cash do you think I could pull for these parts here in Chicago?

Intel I5 6402 p MSI B150M Pro-VDH
MSI B150M Pro-VDH
kingston fury hyperx 2133MHz 8Gb X2

The gear is about 4 years old now

Also, I'm lowkey thinking about offloading my RX5700xt red devil—it’s still got about 4.5 years of warranty left on it.

Hey everyone!

I'm looking to pick up a CPU, a motherboard, and if I can swing it, some RAM.
Here’s what I’ve put together in my shopping cart so far:
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series $133

RAM: Crucial 16 GB 3200MHz DDR4 DRAM G.Skill Trident Z $209

Motherboard: MSI MAG Z490, DDR4, SATA3, USB3.2Gen2, DP, AM4 ATX $367

Processor: Intel Core i5 10600K BOX, s. 1200, 4.1GHz, 12MB cache, Octa Core 3000
$667

=around $1400

An R3600 would probably do the job too, but this i5 is actually on sale—plus, it's a newer gen (considering the LGA 1151 dead end), so does this board have any real legs for a future upgrade?!
Right now, I'm running 16GB of DDR4 at 2133MHz, and honestly, I'm not thrilled about buying more RAM, but it's probably smarter to just sell my old mobo/CPU/RAM combo as a bundle since I'll definitely need to swap out the memory down the road anyway.

I'm wondering if I could build something similar for the same price using an R 5600x paired with a decent budget-friendly motherboard. I don't even need a cooler for that CPU, but I did hear whispers that the newer Ryzen chips can be a bit picky about slower RAM speeds.

wiredotter14 said:Is this for gaming or something else?

Look, I'm rocking that 31.5" AOC right now and honestly? I'm loving it—both for gaming sessions and especially when I'm grinding through work.

But let's be real, that other one is a curved 144Hz beast, so you can't really compare them side-by-side like they're the same thing.
What kind of GPU are you running?

Btw, pairing a VA panel with 144Hz isn't exactly the "golden combo" since VA is inherently a bit "slower" than IPS—though you do get that better contrast. My IPS setup feels great, but hey, 75Hz isn't exactly asking for much from a monitor.

For me, I mostly need it for gaming, though I’m not really into those sweaty FPS or multiplayer titles—so I rarely even see more than 60fps, especially at 1440p. I've got an RX 5700 XT Red Devil.

Hey everyone!

I’m looking to pick up a new monitor and could really use some pointers—honestly, I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to all this tech stuff.
I’m aiming for at least a 2560x1440 resolution, and if I can find a curved one, that would be awesome!?
Size-wise, I need at least 27", and I'm guessing a 75Hz refresh rate should be plenty enough for what I need!?
I was thinking maybe an IPS panel might be better, but again, I don't know enough about this and haven't actually sat in front of an IPS versus a VN setup to see if there's even a noticeable difference in person.

Here’s what I’ve been eyeing so far:

I’m leaning towards grabbing the Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT, though I might eventually hunt down a Red Devil since they tend to run a bit cooler.
I’ve got another question for you guys, too. I’m looking at picking this up from Micro Center and I noticed they’re offering an extended warranty through "Partum"... Since I'm dropping serious cash on a high-end card like this, I definitely want to bump that warranty up to 5 years. Does anyone know if this is actually legit? I don't want to deal with some shady scam and end up throwing my $67 right out the
!

Yeah, that’s definitely the headache right there...
Honestly, I was really banking on hitting 1440p. Have you noticed in other games how changing the resolution doesn't actually change much!? Usually, that's a CPU bottleneck, but in this case, I'm thinking it might just be terrible optimization in Far Cry? I was checking out some benchmarks online (for Far Cry New Dawn) using the exact same setup and they show pretty much the same results... Do you regret not grabbing an RTX 2070 instead?

Which RTX 2070 would you guys suggest for me? From what I can see, the price is basically the same as the Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT, so I don't have much of a choice.

Hey everyone!
My old graphics card (Sapphire RX 480, 8GB) finally kicked the bucket—just two months after the warranty expired, of course, because why wouldn't it? 🤦...
I’m looking at picking up the Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT
I've heard some chatter about driver issues, but honestly, I feel like half the people complaining just don't know how to install drivers properly!?

Anyway, I wanted to check if my current power supply can actually handle it. I'm thinking it should be fine, but what do you guys think?
Here's the rest of my build:
MSI B150M Pro
i5-6402P 2.8 GHz 2 x Kingston 8 GB DDR4 HyperX Fury ANTEC VPF550
2x Kingston 8 GB DDR4 HyperX Fury
ANTEC VPF550, 550W, 80+ Bronze
250GB SSD
500GB HDD
DVD-ROM
2x fans (120mm/90mm)

I realize the 5700 XT is total overkill for my CPU, but I'm planning to swap out the CPU, motherboard, and RAM as soon as I scrape enough cash together.
If anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know. Also, if I'm remembering right, AMD should be dropping a new card pretty soon, so maybe it makes more sense to just hold off?

No SSD, no burners, just a rig with a 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD

1 x Intel Core i5-4460 (3.2GHz, 6MB, LGA1150) box
$433

1 x Asrock Intel 1150 Socket B85M Pro3 M-ATX MB
$153

1 x Zalman Z3, USB3.0 black, 3x120mm
$110

1 x HDD SEAGATE Barracuda (3.5",2TB,64MB,SATA III)
$209

1 x Fortron Raider S PSU 650W, 80+ SILVER
$200

1 x Sapphire R9 390 NITRO, Tri-X OC, 8GB GDDR5
$962

=$2067

Honestly, even if someone threw $6,500 at me, it probably wouldn't have been enough—not even close, if you ask me 😢

Timothy Kim60 said:You'd basically be buying an entirely new build from scratch at that point.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking—just building the whole thing from the ground up instead of trying to scavenge an old motherboard for my i3, especially if the prices for 1150 and 1155 boards are pretty much neck and neck anyway.

Nvidia is a hard pass for me :P

Timothy Kim60 said:GPU length goes up to 295mm, so this one would fit—though honestly, I’m not sure if I’d even bother putting it in a budget case like that (given the high TDP). You absolutely have to sort out the airflow; you’ve already got the 92mm one in the back, maybe slap a 12cm fan in the front.

Realistically, there’s zero difference between an i5 3xxx and a 4xxx in actual use—you wouldn't feel a thing. Anyway, regarding that whole situation with your brother, what kind of specs is he running?

Pre-installed fan:
Rear:1* 9cm fan
Front:1* 12cm Blue led fan

👍

Basically nothing, except for some cheap plastic trim XD

Timothy Kim60 said:That price is straight-up highway robbery for used gear—honestly, for $333 you should be looking at

http://www.google.com/search?q=i5+3330

In your shoes, I’d probably just grab one from Best Buy—I mean, CPUs almost never die (it's insanely rare), so any sketchy vibes about their return policy don't really matter here, assuming they even have them in stock.

Or just wait until you find a decent deal on the used market.

The power supply is fine, but for that kind of cash, you could snag a Sapphire Nitro with a way better cooler (it's pretty beefy) or maybe a Gigabyte if you want that 3-year warranty (though those tend to be short). Just gotta know—what kind of case are you running?

http://www.dell.com/en-us/dt/support/product-specs/optiplex-series/

So, I decided to scrape together a little more cash first...

Basically, I went with crimsonstag84's build as a base but added a few extra bits—so if you guys could take a look and tell me if this actually holds up or if there's a better way to go, I'd appreciate it.

XFX AMD Radeon ™ R9 390 8GB DD
$950

550W PSU, ANTEC True Power Classic TP-550C, ATX, 120mm vent.
$215
Will this be enough juice?

Intel I5 3550 3,3 GHz 1155 (Found it on eBay—honestly don't have much of a choice since they're basically nonexistent in local stores...)
$467

Samsung 120GB 850 EVO Basic SSD
$189

Toshiba 2TB, 7200rpm, 64MB HDD
$209

Since almost everything here is fresh, and I'm planning on handing my old rig over to my brother, I was thinking about just grabbing a new motherboard, a different CPU, and a new case too.
I'm torn on whether it even makes sense for him to get a motherboard for my old setup when I can just buy myself a whole new platform right now and let him have all my old parts.
That way, he'd only need to hunt down some RAM instead of having to buy a board for that old 1155 socket...
Also, what's the actual real-world difference between Intel's 3rd gen and 4th gen CPUs?

So, what’s the actual lifespan of an i5 processor—do they just die on you out of nowhere? I’ve been rocking my own i3 for two years now and honestly, I haven't noticed any extra heat or anything slowing it down, but still...
I'm just not sure if it's even worth hunting through Craigslist for parts, especially when there's zero warranty involved.
If I remember right, a brand new one goes for about $533? Personally, I’d rather just drop the cash on a fresh unit than blow 1,000 bucks on some random used part from God knows where, don't you think?

Hey there,

I think it’s finally time for me to pull the trigger on an upgrade—honestly, trying to run anything released lately is becoming a total nightmare on this rig.
Anyway, here’s what I’m currently rocking:

GIGABYTE H77M-D3H Motherboard, LGA 1155, DDR3, SATA3, USB3, Gigabit LAN
Intel Core i3-2120 (3.30GHz, 3MB, 65W, LGA 1155) box
8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3 PC12800/1600 MHz - Kingston HyperX
500 GB SATA II Hard Drive, 64MB, 3.5", Western Digital Caviar Green
ATI Radeon HD 7770 1 GB, GDDR5, 128 bit, HDMI, DVI, DP
LG DVD+/- RW SATA, 24x
550W Spire SP-ATX-550W-PFC Power Supply, passive PFC, 12cm fan

It would be absolutely ideal if I could avoid swapping out the motherboard... just to save myself the headache.
I’ve got about $1333-$1500 ready to go in cold hard cash.
If you guys have any solid advice or suggestions on what parts I should grab and where to shop, please let me know! 👍