Posts by wiredotter14

A few questions:

1) What kind of laptop are we talking about here? I need to know the specs to make sure the resolution works and plays nice with a docking station.

2) Budget? Are we looking at $200 per monitor, or more?

3) Does it need VESA mounts for a monitor arm?

4) Size preference? 24", 28", or something bigger?

Hard to say anything meaningful without seeing the price tag or the total budget

You're better off starting a new thread in this subforum

Larry Ortiz5 said:rtx 4070? Where did you get the idea to look at an rx 6800? That card is two and a half years old. It can't touch a card that's only been out for a few months (rtx 4070)

Age doesn't equal performance. Period. An RX6700XT is going to crush an RX7600 regardless of when they hit the shelves.



At Wide 1440 p, the RTX 4070 is maybe 10% faster than the RX 6800, and the price gap is right around that same 10% mark.

The 4070 has better features, sure, but the RX 6800 has 4GB more VRAM, so it's not a straight comparison.

Either way, the RX 6800 can hold its own against the RTX 4070, and the RX 6800XT sits right in that sweet spot for price and power.



If you're playing on 1440p ultrawide, I wouldn't touch the 4070. 12GB of VRAM is going to bottleneck you eventually at that resolution. You'll end up dropping texture quality and saying goodbye to Raytracing.

For standard 1440p or 1080p? It's fine.

Which specific PSU model are you running?

goldenranger6 said:What's the point of 60 compared to 250 bucks?

The guy literally said his budget is $500, maybe more. That extra $60 doesn't even matter anymore.

You could grab an i7 for about $65-$75 that supports hyperthreading—a decent step up from your current i5—but let's be real, it's still an ancient quad-core chip.

For example, check this out:

Honestly, for $500, you can pick up a new motherboard, RAM, CPU, and GPU. That setup will run circles around any upgrade you try to squeeze out of that old rig.

Plus, you might get maybe $100 if you sell the old junk.

Here’s a quick breakdown, say, from UziShop:

1 x G.Skill Aegis 16GB (2x8) DDR4 3000MHz $43.50
1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5500 Box $112.00
1 x GIGABYTE Main Board Desktop A520M DS3H $88.00
1 x AMD Radeon RX 6600 Challenger D $275.00

Total: ~$518.50

Just let me know what kind of power supply you're running right now. This new gear won't pull more juice than the old stuff, but if your current PSU is total garbage, you should probably swap it.

Regarding the swap/install—personally, I think it's easier and safer to just install fresh hardware with a warranty and ditch the old parts rather than messing around with used components.

Alexander Moore67 said:Saying an i5 4460 can handle either an RX 580 or a GTX 960 is just wrong. There's a massive bottleneck with the GTX 960, and if you go with a new RX 6600, that CPU is going to choke it completely. For $250, you get a modern GPU with GDDR6 on a 7nm process that’s nearly twice as fast as a 580 while pulling less power. Everything else is just nonsense.

Depends on the game. If the title absolutely hammers the CPU (4c/4t), then a modern card is basically wasted money.

And we don't even know what this guy's budget is. Maybe he's $250 over his limit already.

Alexander Moore67 said:The best bang for your buck is an RX 6600 for about $270. Your CPU should hold up fine with that setup.

Choosing a new GPU? Sure. But I'm skeptical if that processor can actually handle Warzone.

Both your CPU and GPU are basically sitting right at the minimum specs listed on Steam.

Personally, I'd rather grab a used card for $110 and sell my old one for $55 if you're looking to upgrade... this build doesn't have much room to grow. It's pretty much maxed out as it is.

What's the budget?

Ethan Fisher2 said:Hey everyone,
I've got a MacBook Air with a 512GB NVMe SSD, and I'm looking to upgrade to a 1TB. Does any random NVMe drive work, or are there specific requirements I need to hit? Right now, I'm looking at this on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.de/Samsung-Intern...3634170&sr=8-5.

Will this actually work? Is it a decent swap?

Thanks in advance, standalone!

You have to check the M.2 format and length—2280, 2260, etc. Those last two digits are the length in mm.

A bigger one won't fit in a smaller slot.
The one you linked is a 2280.

goldendrifter38 said:Doesn't matter at all

The Razer BlackWidow is a decent enough mechanical keyboard—no fancy RGB fluff, but solid for the price.

https://www.amazon.com/keyboards...m_medium=click

Grab a wrist rest separately.
You might get more bells and whistles if you go with some off-brand, but cheap mechanical boards can be garbage. My buddy had one... after two years, the keys were basically mush.

Does it have to be an HR layout, or is a US one okay?

Jeffrey Cook82 said:i3 8th gen
asus h310 m-k
8gb ddr4

Basically, I had some issues a few months ago, so I'm installing a new GPU and a power supply. Since I'm upgrading anyway, I'm planning to grab another 8 GB of RAM and install an SSD.
I don't really game much, just the occasional title for fun, but I want to tidy up my PC, so I'm looking at getting all four of those things for $350.

That thing doesn't have PCIe 4.0, only 3.0. That makes the 6500XT crippled since it only uses 4 PCIe lanes instead of 16—plus, it’s a mediocre card to begin with.

For $250, you buy a GPU—honestly, the only real choice among new cards is the RX6600.

Grab a power supply and the rest for a stick of RAM for about $70-80.

Anything less than an RX6600 is just throwing money away.

Of course, used hardware is an option too, which opens up way more choices.
If you don't need massive performance, you can snag an RX580 for $100; it performs similarly to the 6500XT and beats the GTX1650.

P.S.

Just realized an SSD fits into that budget too.

Damn, in that case, try going with used hardware—it's best to get the GPU used.

Either grab a cheap 250GB SSD and an RX6600 (around $280).
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=250gb+ssd+sata
Get used RAM or the cheapest stuff available, and you can find a power supply for $60.

Just watch out—I think that motherboard doesn't even have an M.2 slot for an SSD, so you'll have to use a standard SATA connection.

Good luck finding anything high-quality for under $80

Anyway, I’d recommend this keyboard. Beyond being solid overall, the wrist rest is unbeatable

https://www.amazon.com/keyboards/st...-usb-136816961

Jeffrey Cook82 said:I'm looking for a GPU in the $200-$225 range.

Recommendations are welcome.

Right now, it’s tough to suggest anything worse than an RX6600 for $270 because anything cheaper just has a pathetic price-to-performance ratio.

What kind of PC build are we talking about here?

Jeffrey Cook82 said:Which one would you pick if you had to choose?

https://www.newegg.com/vga-as-tuf-r...10525/product/

https://www.amazon.com/msi-video-card...+OCV1/product/

If you're plugging this into a rig without PCIe 4.0, they're both equally bad. If you actually have PCIe 4.0, then the 6500XT has a slight edge.

Honestly, try to stretch your budget to an RX6600. It’s significantly better—like twice the performance—and has double the VRAM of either of those options. Or just grab something used.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=rx6600

What GPU are we looking at?

Try grabbing the wireless driver directly from the manufacturer's site.

Download it on another PC and move it over via USB, or just plug the laptop straight into the router for an Internet connection.

Edward Peterson70 said:I need to hook up a new MacBook Air—it’s got two USB-C ports—to an older iMac. If I remember right, the iMac video input only takes Thunderbolt. The goal is to use the iMac as a monitor for the Air.

USB-C hubs usually have an HDMI output, but then I'd just need another HDMI to DP or Thunderbolt adapter. That feels messy, and there's a good chance it won't even work.

What's the best way to do this?

All MacBooks use Thunderbolt, especially the newer ones. Remember, Thunderbolt is a transfer standard, not just a physical plug.

Newer MacBooks have USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt, which carries the DisplayPort signal. Older models have MiniDP connectors that carry that same DisplayPort signal.

So, theoretically, if you grab a passive adapter (or a dock) with a USB-C male to MiniDP female connector, and then run a MiniDP-miniDP cable to the target iMac, it should work.

Or just get a single cable that's USB-C on one end and MiniDP on the other.

Personally, I just use a USB-C to full-size DisplayPort cable. Works flawlessly whether I'm using a Thunderbolt dock or just plugging directly into a laptop's USB-C port that supports DP.

Bottom line: forget about HDMI. Don't even bring it into the conversation. Trying to go through HDMI will likely just kill your DisplayPort compatibility.

Anyway, MiniDP and DP should be 100% compatible (both ways), so if you pick up an adapter like this for the iMac, you could use a standard DP cable to link the iMac to a dock with a DP output, or just use a USB-C to DP cable straight to the MacBook.

So these two items might solve the problem (but don't quote me on that 😁)

https://www.amazon.com/example-link-1

https://www.bestbuy.com/example-link-2

Alexander Moore67 said:We're talking maybe $150 here. A 3060 plus a 12400f makes this upgrade worth it.

I didn't say it wasn't worth it. I just said upgrading to a 12400F isn't anything special.

The upgrade is fine. Say $50 for the CPU and $100 for the GPU... then yeah, it pays off.

Alexander Moore67 said:You’re just guessing at this point. Multi-core performance is about 60% better on the 12400F.
41.6 GB/s vs 76.8 GB/s Max Memory Bandwidth
14nm vs 10 nm and so on...

The 12400F hits roughly 11500 in CB23, while the 10400F sits around 8000.
That’s a 40% jump. More than I expected, but still doesn't feel like a massive leap.

Max bandwidth—and general performance, really—is going to depend on what that H610 board actually supports and whatever software you're running.

For instance, if you're using 3200MHz RAM on a board that caps out at 3200MHz anyway, your max bandwidth is 25.6 GB/s. Or double that if you're in dual channel (assuming you actually get 2x8GB instead of a single 1x16GB stick, which is more likely).

Not sure how you landed on 76.8; that's probably just the theoretical max the CPU can handle with high-end RAM.

The 14nm vs 10nm thing is irrelevant. The 12400F pulls more power than the 10400F regardless.