Posts by wiredotter14

How am I supposed to charge two 100Ah batteries on a charger within the 10-hour window of off-peak hours?

Even if you assume losses are only 50% of the difference between peak and off-peak rates—meaning a 25% gain, though it’s likely much worse—you might save a few bucks a day. But you'd need pro-level gear to make it work: high-quality batteries, a solid inverter, and a heavy-duty charger (over 20A), which isn't exactly something you want using to blast your batteries at those levels.

Right now, electricity costs are eating up about 15-30% of your margins, so there's really no point playing around with this. Plus, a massive battery—say, something like a 120Ah unit—isn't going to cut it if you're trying to run a single PC with a dedicated GPU for 14 hours straight every day.

mellowtiger83 said:That’s exactly what I’m doing tomorrow. I'm heading down to the store in person to demand my money back. The card was charged directly to GLS during pickup!

Btw, for anyone wondering, Center is working with GLS now. They ditched Overseas. Good news.

Great news about Overseas. GLS is more or less fine.

If you paid GLS, then you ordered online or over the phone.
Anything that isn't an in-store purchase from start to finish counts as a remote sale. That means it falls under the rule where you can return it within 14 days for any reason. This applies to individuals, and you just have to notify them via email or mail within those 14 days to cancel the order—you don't physically have to return the item within that window.

mellowtiger83 said:That linked GT 730 uses DDR3 memory, which actually makes it slower in practice than a GT 710 with GDDR5!
Doesn't matter.
What am I supposed to do with the Center? There aren't any low-profile brackets in the ASUS box. The packaging literally says "low profile ideal for HTPC users," so it makes zero sense for ASUS to ship a card without them. Now I can't even install it at my friend's place.

I wasn't looking for benchmarks, but I'm pretty sure the GT 730 is faster.

If you bought it online, you should be able to return it within 14 days for any reason at all.

Better to grab something like this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-card-listing

It has twice as many CUDA cores as the GT 710.

If you're stuck buying something cheap just to fit into an SFF build, fine.

But don't waste a single cent on some ancient Fermi card that’s basically worthless $33. The price tag is mostly just markup and sales tax—it's a joke.

Driver support for Fermi is garbage. I'm not saying you need it for retro gaming, but I expect a PC like this to at least handle modern video codecs and stuff.

Look, the GT 710 is only worth it if you already own an SFF machine, you're buying it on a corporate expense account, or Intel's integrated graphics aren't enough to run those seven specific games that work on the GT 710 but fail on the integrated chip.

Look, buying one makes sense if you're backed into a corner by a tiny case or a weak power supply and just need a new card.
You could probably find some other low-profile options on eBay. Is a GT 730 actually better than a GT 710?

Actually, something like an HD7750 for around $250$100 would be a much better pick since it doesn't require a dedicated PCIe power connector either.

P.S.

Just because a card can output 4K doesn't mean it can handle 4K video playback. Fermi definitely won't support H.265, whereas newer Intel integrated graphics will.

mellowtiger83 said:So, is it worth it to buy a $100 GT 730
?

There’s really very little you can actually do with a GT 730, even the GDDR5 version, that you couldn't do with integrated graphics.
For things like 4K playback, a newer generation of Intel's integrated chips is often better than an old card that lacks modern codec support.

For $30-$133, you can already pick up a decent used card.

fadedorca66 said:I'm looking at the Best Buy manual, but they kept it pretty vague. From what I can gather, you've got two fan headers: one 3-pin and one 4-pin. It looks like that 3-pin one doesn't offer any real control, whereas the 4-pin one lets you tweak things using either PWM or voltage.
3-pin fans can be controlled via voltage, while 4-pin ones use PWM, which is arguably a bit more precise and better overall.

That method you mentioned—using a 1x4-pin splitter to get 2x4-pin—works fine. You could also turn a 1x3-pin into a 2x4-pin setup, but those fans would just run at full blast since that connector doesn't have any way to regulate them...

If I were you, I'd just grab a case first, see what kind of fans it actually comes with, and then plug them into the motherboard's 4-pin header using a Y-splitter to check the temps. There’s really no point in cramming in a ton of fans if you don't need to; sometimes you just end up creating a mess instead of actually helping anything.

👍👍

Exactly. An Intel Core paired with even a decent GPU isn't going to pull massive amounts of power.

Besides, you can always grab a fan controller. You can mount one behind the PCIe slots, in a drive bay, or wherever there's space.

But that’s only if you actually care about controlling speeds. If you don't give a damn about adjusting RPMs, just plug them straight into the PSU using a cheap Molex adapter.$3.25.

Amy Vaughn12, $1000 plus another 200-$100 is basically $2600

The Quadro 4000 2GB is ancient tech. Honestly, I doubt it offers any real advantage over a GTX1060

Amy Vaughn12 said:I mean, they should probably just grab a used i5. A quad-core is a quad-core, after all. If the game actually requires four cores to run smoothly, it’s going to feel significantly better than anything an i3 could offer.

Depends on where the bottleneck is. If it's the GPU power or VRAM, a better graphics card won't fix a weak processor.

rowdydriver5 said:It seems like the view distance is the biggest bottleneck—if you turn that down, you can probably bump up the other settings a bit and still have a playable experience.
Thanks for the input, I guess I'll just hang tight for now and maybe look into a serious upgrade down the road.👍

View distance eats up VRAM and hammers the CPU at the same time. Try optimizing it that way. Otherwise, the rig is pretty balanced right now; wouldn't bother upgrading anything unless you're planning on swapping out the GPU.

mellowtiger83 said:The processor isn't an issue at all. As my colleague pointed out, you either dial back the settings or upgrade your graphics card; that i3 still has plenty of muscle for gaming.

Wait, which game? PUBG is heavy on the CPU and notoriously poorly optimized.

But since we're talking about a GTX 950, the card is likely the bottleneck, especially regarding VRAM capacity.

That's why you need to run tests on the lowest possible settings first.

My bet? Texture settings are too high and there just isn't enough power or memory to pull it off.

Ugh, PUBG is pretty poorly optimized. Your CPU might actually be the bottleneck here.

Try dropping your settings all the way to low—resolution too if you have to—and see if the issue persists. If it’s still stuttering after that, it’s likely the processor. Check your CPU and GPU usage while you're playing.

Otherwise, if you're looking at an upgrade path for your CPUa, I'd aim for an i7. It'll give you some peace of mind for much longer. An i5 feels like a halfway house at this point since it's already hitting its limits in certain games.

Bryan Taylor6 said:Fine, whatever,

he thinks he can just $500

and then I see all this

http://hwbench.com/vgas/geforce-gtx-...-gtx-1060-3-gb

as if he should still $67

if he's actually buying a new GPU

Yeah, but a GTX 1050 ti isn't $500, the guy said MAX.

The GTX 1060 3 GB costs about 35% more, but it's roughly 50% more powerful.
But since the GTX 1050 ti has more VRAM, the GTX 1060 3 GB isn't much better for futureproofing, and for 1080p, the GTX 1050 ti is plenty.

Bryan Taylor6 said:https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gtx+1060

for $67 there are more gtx 1060 options and the card is twice as powerful as a 1050

isn't $67 but $140 differences, man said Max's $500, cheapest GTX1060 3GB is $566.
We're talking about a GTX 1050 Ti which is under 1300. There isn't a single card under $500 better than the GTX1050Ti

This from Robert Rodriguez2 👍👍👍👍👍

Bryan Palmer9 said:If I were buying, I’d go for more smaller monitors instead. 😁Right now I’ve got a 27" Dell and I'm loving it. My advice to the OP is to stick with the old monitor for now—just buy the tower without a screen and grab a bigger, better display later once the budget allows.
I paid my own way $600 and it was worth every cent. Obviously, prices drop eventually, and you start seeing massive screens for much less.

Where does it actually say the author even owns a monitor?

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gtx1050ti

Ideally something with a three-year warranty from a retailer he actually trusts.

Alexander Moore67 said:Grab this one, it comes with a 36-month warranty.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/monitor-24-inch-display
The price is identical, and honestly, a TN panel is better for gaming anyway. Besides, General Electric doesn't even make these anymore—it's just some cheap Chinese low-end stuff now. I’ve been running my Dell gw2250 for five years straight, at least 10 hours a day, and it hasn't missed a beat.

Why on earth is a TN panel better for gaming?