Posts by wiredotter14

Samuel Castillo49 said:There’s no way it pulls 100W during gaming unless you’ve heavily undervolted it. Didn't you just say it averages 220W under load? Mine, running at 1410MHz/2200MHz/1.11V, hits about 170-180W under load, yet I'm stuck on just x4 2.0 lanes. Probably losing maybe 5-8% performance because of that.

We're talking about overclocking for mining here.

At 0.925V and 1150MHz, it stays under 100W, whether gaming or mining.

Otherwise, at 1.2V and 1400MHz, it draws around 200W.
Lower voltages get unstable on me. Dammit. Either it's a Powercolor issue, or I just got unlucky with the silicon lottery.

Zachary Nguyen2 said:Under, over—that's just how you tweak it.

🙏

Sure, but underclocking (and more importantly—undervolting) actually takes the pressure off the card compared to stock settings.

My GTX 1060 pulls about 100W instead of the 200W or so it hits at full load on factory OC settings. It keeps the VRMs and everything else from stressing out so much.

On the flip side, the fan is spinning constantly and the thermal paste eventually degrades, but those aren't dealbreakers. Warranty is what matters most. If someone tries to sell you a year-old card without a receipt, it's a total gamble regardless of how you look at it.

Zachary Nguyen2 said:They’re underclocking them for mining too, at least they were doing it a couple years ago.
The whole point was to cut down on power consumption.

Yeah, they're underclocking

fadedsailor17 said:running at full tilt constantly. Use some common sense.

If you're buying from someone who actually knows what they're doing—and isn't a complete idiot—the card was likely underclocked and undervolted. For example, a GTX1060 or an RX480/580 would have been pulling maybe 50-60% of its max power draw during mining.
The warranty matters way more than whether it was used for mining, especially since you can never be 100% sure if a card was mined on when so many people like me mine on our gaming rigs.

The only way to be certain it wasn't used for mining is to grab something with 2GB of VRAM or less, or an older Nvidia card like a GTX700 series or older where mining wasn't really a thing. But let's be real, those cards are either underpowered or out of warranty.

fadedsailor17 said:This is pretty specific to the topic, but if the mods think this doesn't belong here, feel free to move it.
How do you actually test a used GPU? I show up at some guy's house and just fire up a game? Or what? How does this work? Thanks.

I’d run 3DMark and let it rip for at least 15 minutes to see if the card crashes or if it can actually hold its clock speeds.

darkskipper5 said:Thanks a ton, man. That's pretty much right at my budget limit, so I'm grabbing it today.

👍

Best of luck...

no worries

it's a solid PSU

What’s your budget looking like?

You can find be Quiet! power supplies pretty cheap these days—they're decent enough—but if you've got more to spend, the options really open up.

Henry Rodriguez45 said:honestly, I’ve got a dog and a cat that insist on napping right in front of the AC vent (no joke)

😁😁😁😁😁

Just grab some mesh filters for the intake vents.

That's the net price. It's listed right next to the gross amount

Maybe it works for a specific niche of games or some pro workload.

But honestly, the RTX 2060 sits right in that spot where it's basically a GTX 1070 Ti—close to a GTX 1080—and Vega (especially without water cooling) isn't even averaging better than a GTX 1080.

Aside from the RTX 2060, there’s just no point; the value is garbage, and you aren't seeing any real performance gains unless you're looking at something stronger than an RTX 2080.

(It's 11% weaker than an RTX 2070, despite being 25% cheaper)

analogtiger19 said:PowerColor RX VEGA64 $1282Not bad. ☕

The price on that RTX 2060 is a tough pill to swallow. Honestly, why bother? You can grab an RTX 2070 for about the same amount, and it’ll blow that Vega out of the water while pulling half the power. Makes no sense.

Look...

If the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 isn't brand new, there's zero point comparing it to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. Nobody is out here selling used NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Tis.

As for the mining thing... sure, maybe, but who knows? Anyone selling an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 right now because they're upgrading is basically just trying to offload it onto someone clueless by asking for the same price as a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

Then again, I guess a few people might be upgrading from an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 simply because the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080Ti are ridiculously overpriced, so crypto mining is a logical guess.

That said, I wouldn't go out of my way to grab a card used for mining, especially if it still has decent warranty coverage—unless it’s around $500, which isn't anywhere near the price of a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

The 1600X versus the stock 9400F... honestly, there isn't much of a gap.
Maybe those slightly better performance numbers justify the extra cash, but you're getting way more upgrade headroom with the 1600X. Plus, that multithreading makes it a lot more future-proof.

But hey, it's not like it's going to make or break your setup either way.

It’s not weaker; the test just shows it sitting at 36 games somewhere.



Where on earth did you find a brand new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 that cheap?
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti models are going for around $2300-$800.

The only real upside to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the extra VRAM.

Yeah, there's always some little glitch popping up. Nothing stays perfect forever.

Did you check if 3000MHz actually works yet?
Maybe try 3200?

Paul Williams11 said:Thanks for the heads up. I'll go with the unknown series.

👍👍

A 550W unit—maybe 650W if you're feeling generous—is plenty for you.

Paul Williams11 said:I've gone through two power supplies at my home PC in the last year, so I'm playing it safe here.
I'll just pull two HDDs from my current PC and toss them into the new build.

It’s running a few VMs with Linux and cross compilers, plus Visual Studio 2015 and the Keil ARM compiler. Going with an NVIDIA GTX 1660 makes sense.

Thanks to both of you for the input.

That setup will pull maybe 300-400W under load. Getting a double-capacity PSU is a waste of money.
The NVIDIA GTX 1660 and NVIDIA GTX 1060 have similar power draws.
All you're doing is killing your efficiency.

A higher-quality PSU with lower wattage is quieter and more efficient.
If noise is even a minor factor for you, this matters even more. Even within the same series, beefier PSUs tend to be louder when pulling the same 400W—I actually have the manual for my TX650M that lists the noise levels for the TX550M, 650M, 750M, and 850M.
Plus, I don't think the TX series has a zero-RPM mode (at least mine doesn't), whereas the Corsair RMx series does. That means the fan stays off most of the time, which helps the fan last longer.

I'm using a TX650M, so it's the same series as what was suggested. It's a fine unit, but it's just Corsair's mid-range stuff.

Better to go with a premium series.
For instance,
you get a 10-year warranty and it's fully modular.
You can find it at other retailers; just check Newegg.
https://www.newegg.com/p/example-psu-link

"Work" is a relative term. If you aren't running heavy-duty 3D software, you can get away with a weaker GPU. Honestly, I don't think the NVIDIA GTX 1060 is a smart buy right now either.
Since the NVIDIA GTX 1660 hit the market, the price on the NVIDIA GTX 1060 hasn't really dropped. Meanwhile, the NVIDIA GTX 1660 is significantly more powerful and sits at a similar price point.

jadetrucker73 said:So, Samsung was a massive shock to me in the mobile game, which got me thinking... anyone here actually messed around with their laptops before?

I’ve been seeing a bunch of different models popping up on some overseas sites, and honestly, they look decent enough. Does anyone have a specific recommendation, or just a general vibe on whether it's worth taking a chance on them, or if I should just stick to the usual suspects?

I just need something for basic everyday stuff—nothing crazy like gaming. Speed is key, plus I need a decent amount of memory and something that won't weigh a ton in my bag. Everything else is pretty much negotiable, I guess 😁

Thanks, everyone 😉

Samsung makes the "MacBook Air" which is a pretty slick laptop, similar vibes to the MacBook Air.
Build quality is great, but there are flaws—mainly the battery life isn't stellar.

Also, that laptop doesn't fall under "not too heavy"—it's strictly in the "ultra-thin" category.

Be more specific about what you actually need:

Screen size (13, 14, 15.6"?)
Storage (is a 256 GB SSD enough or something else)
Budget

gentleraven172 said:Alright, alright—no more yelling from me, I promise. haha
The reason it came with Windows 10 pre-installed is mostly because they run tests on the hardware before shipping it out—plus, I guess I was just feeling a bit lazy about it.
It’s an optical drive because my kid still gets those educational DVDs bundled with his schoolbooks.
I'm sure someone will chime in saying there's a better way to set things up, since I'm hardly a tech expert or anything, but I appreciate the feedback regardless.
He’s pretty much stuck on Fortnite right now, though I imagine he'll move on to something a bit more intense in a year or so.

If he’s running a 1080p monitor, that RX580 is actually plenty. Just set some settings to high instead of max; you'll barely notice the difference.