The SATA version doesn't matter here. It'll run on SATA II, which is still way faster than a traditional hard drive, so you won't notice any real difference compared to SATA III.
Just order the drive online. Even if you have to pick it up at a Best Buy, at least you can return it if there’s a compatibility issue (it should work in theory, but with laptops, you never know when some random hardware quirk will pop up).
And I don't know how old this laptop is, but make sure you switch to AHCI mode during installation if it's currently set to IDE.
wanderingbison9 said:I think most people just give their delivery address because they're terrified of getting hit with a fine.
It’s mandatory once you hit that $100k-$200k revenue mark in the US—which is a lot for some small shops but nothing for the big players—but sure, they can always jump the gun using that centralized system first.
@wiredotter14/">@@wiredotter14 - He didn't get a receipt. Like I said, the guy won this in an international online contest. The rig arrived about a week after the win (fully built), and it came with all the original packaging for the components too. Yeah, it’s a bit of a gray area because it was a prize, so there's no warranty, but looking at the parts listed, everything is brand new. They just turned it on to make sure it booted... then shut it down.
@Patrick Diaz49/">@@Patrick Diaz49 - I wouldn't say a setup like that goes for $2,000 in a store. For instance, look at this $2,000 build from Best Buy. Let's be real: the machine this guy won eats that thing for breakfast and still asks a Dell Precision for a snack.
What you linked there is priced based on old shortage rates (or they're just hunting customers who aren't paying attention). Is that link a "worse" deal for $2k than yours is for $3k? Maybe. But that doesn't mean yours is actually worth $3k. Plus, it doesn't exactly eat it for breakfast. A 3090 is maybe 10-15% faster than a 6800XT at 4K, where you won't even see much difference between a 5600X and a 5900X.
Bottom line: neither that rig is worth $3,000, nor is the one in the link worth $2,000. Before that—maybe $1,500 under normal prices—and even then, only if someone actually wants to buy at current retail prices, which are still way too high since the next gen of GPUs is going to demolish the current lineup. 🙂🙂
at the end of the day, it's pretty tricky because of the warranty situation. You might find someone who desperately wants a killer PC and cares more about saving a few hundred bucks than having a warranty. On the flip side, not many people drop that kind of cash on a computer unless they hit that specific sweet spot: wanting to save money, but not wanting to wait months to get something significantly better with a full warranty.
I think $10 is overkill and honestly just a shop deal (the GPU and CPU are $4.75, but the rest isn't worth nearly that much—especially if you're actually looking to drop $4.75 on a 5900X and an RTX 3090)
Did he at least get a receipt or some kind of warranty for it?
Prices are only going down since new CPUs and GPUs are hitting the market, so keep that in mind—in a few months, this won't even be top-tier anymore, just mid-to-high end.
Do some math first. Figure out the cost of a replacement motherboard plus the labor at a repair shop so you don't end up spending more than the damn thing is worth.
That’s all assuming you actually know for sure the old board is dead and that any replacement you find is actually functional and compatible.
For around $2,000—$1000you could just grab a brand new 15.6" laptop that outperforms this one easily. So the real question is whether it makes sense to sink over $333 into an old machine.
The CPU isn't even the main issue here. A 5600X running with CBO can pull around a hundred watts, but honestly, enabling CBO doesn't make much sense—the gains are tiny. Since the 5600 is likely a bit more chill than the 5600X, you're looking at 70W, which puts the whole setup with the chipset and RAM at a realistic 100W.
The RTX 3070 seems to behave itself; it doesn't have massive spikes. An RTX 3080 or anything higher up the line? Those things can go absolutely wild.
I had the same thought, so I actually went down a rabbit hole looking up 3070 power spikes, and from what I can see, everything looks fine.
Personally, I wouldn't overclock either the GPU or the CPU. Sure, you can tweak the CPU within certain voltage or power limits to maybe squeeze out a little extra multi-threaded performance, but you usually end up hurting single-thread speeds. In the end, your gaming performance stays flat or actually takes a hit.
What’s the deal with imports, processing fees, and sales tax? Now everything gets flagged at customs, and HP charges those $1.75 extra fees for "small packets" or whatever they call them. What does that $6 fee actually end up costing in the end?
Jerry Watson2 said:What do you guys think I should pair with my Ryzen 3600? Looking at the RX 6600, 6600XT, or 6650XT. All three are hovering around the $600 mark.$233 Differences. I need this for 1080p gaming, but it needs to be somewhat future-proof—looking at maybe 3 to 4 years down the line. I might eventually upgrade to a Ryzen 5600, too. I read somewhere that AMD has this feature where if you pair 6000 series cards with 5000 series processors, performance actually gets a boost.
Looks like the RX 6650 XT is actually priced lower than the 6600 XT right now. Choice is pretty obvious. The 6600 is fine. It all comes down to how much you’re willing to shell out.
Neither of them is exactly future-proof, but they’ll still manage to push through new titles on reasonable settings for a few more years.
The whole deal with the 5000 series is the Resizable BAR support. It’s fine, I guess, but honestly? It's a total lottery. You might see a boost in one game, but in most, the differences are negligible. I wouldn't bother upgrading a CPU just for that feature—only if your current chip is actually bottlenecking you during gameplay. These cards are perfectly fine paired with a Ryzen 3600. Personally, I'd rather just swap out the entire platform in a few years. That 3600 isn't going to hold back an RX 6500 XT.
Dennis Patel7 said:Man, that 100-$67 doesn't matter at all.
In that case, grab it while you can. It's your best bet. It’s a solid pairing with that CPU and will definitely give you some extra breathing room.
Keep in mind that newer cards in a similar or slightly higher tier—like an RTX3050, RX6600, or RX6500—usually ship with a PCIe x8 or even a PCIe x4 connection instead of the full x16.
Since your processor only supports PCIe 2.0, it really needs those full x16 lanes to handle the GPU properly. If you use one of those newer cards, you'll be stuck running on PCIe 2.0 x8, which performs about as well as PCIe 3.0 x4. The RTX2060 has the full x16 lanes, so it’ll run just fine on PCIe 2.0 x16. That makes it a smart move.
Bottom line: if the RTX2060 and similar older cards sell out, you're going to be seriously bottlenecked if you try to buy something new. Buying used is a different story; you'll have plenty of options there.