Posts by mellowtiger83

I've been sitting here thinking about it, and Ricciardo starting on those hard compounds from Mercedes is a massive mistake. Why? Because Mercedes is going to pit him much earlier, and once they get those fresh tires, they'll pull off a perfect undercut to jump right ahead of Rick after he finally switches over.

A safety car is almost a certainty tomorrow. It’ll be a blessing for some and a total disaster for others, which should make things incredibly interesting.

It looks to me like Mercedes has the edge in pace, and if they execute that undercut on the new ultrasofts, they could pull off something miraculous—especially Hamilton, assuming the car holds together.

neonfox65 said:I have to admit, Ricciardo is the superior driver here. Alonso's prime is clearly behind him.😵

Nebi mentioned that if you actually put Alonso in Alonso's Red Bull, you'd see some real excitement.

jadeseal7 said:Brava, Max Verstappen 🙏

Verstappen is a fraud ☕🤣

Bravo, well spotted. Now the kid can finally start picking up some steam. It’s a tough task facing Ricciardo when he's in this kind of form.

Kudos to Ric. It’s a shame about Louie, though; clearly something wasn't quite clicking under the hood. He had to scrap too many flying laps. Still, you can always climb from third to the top step. 🙂

Bravo Ricciardo. It’s a shame for Luja. Clearly, something wasn't functioning quite right; he had to abandon his fast lap far too many times. One can certainly secure a win from third place. 🙂

Oh boy, here we go again, Ricciardo

It is telling that Ricciardo's lap from the practice session remains the benchmark. Everyone else has shaved some time off, yet Ricciardo is sitting there just two tenths behind his own best mark from earlier.

I would be quite surprised if he doesn't secure pole position. Given the current state of play, Lewis Hamilton is really the only one positioned to challenge him. I doubt Sebastian Vettel has the pace, though one should never say never.

Richard Ross11 said:So, you just feel the need to be insulting, do you? 🙂

First off, maybe pick up a grammar book. It's "cannot," not "cannot"—you separate the negation from the verb. Basic literacy, really. 🙂

Second, you completely missed my point. At the end of the day—whether it’s the end of the week, month, or season—nothing matters except the points on the board. That is the only thing that sticks; everything else is just noise. I couldn't care less about the opinion of some random forum user, a journalist, or any other critic...
but then again, as you put it, "there are all kinds of limited people out there"... 🙂

Exactly. Let's just fast-forward to the end of the season and look at the standings. We can see how Eddie Irvine absolutely dismantled Michael Schumacher one year while driving the exact same car. That should be enough to dismantle your little logic regarding points and championship standings.

I think a single example is plenty. So, myself and all the other "stupid" forum users will go ahead and conclude that Schumacher was the inferior driver that year and got smoked.

Richard Ross11 said:What is the point of scoring if it means nothing and everyone already knows who's superior? 🙂
I suppose we should just switch to a voting system like the Eurovision Song Contest; forget the points. 🙂

You missed my point. Having more points doesn't inherently make someone a better driver; sometimes it's just how the math happens to shake out. Look at Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg this year, or Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel. It isn't exactly difficult to grasp. I realize there are different types of people here, some more limited than others, but I cannot fathom why this is so hard to understand.

stormybadger8 said:You can congratulate yourself all you want, but that doesn't change the reality: Lojzek's ceiling is a point or two at best. 🙂

It doesn't change the reality that Lojzek had enough pace in that Ferrari to win outright. He wasn't just winning; he was legitimately contending for the championship. Sebastian Vettel isn't going to be interested in watching that same story play out again. Furthermore, Lojzek was significantly more convincing when facing off against Kimi Räikkönen—way more convincing, actually—which really says it all.

Daniel Ricciardo is quite simply the best driver in Formula 1 right now. He could step into any car, at any time, and outperform whoever is sitting in it. It’s an objective fact. Last year, Daniil Kvyat finished ahead of him due to pure circumstance—much like how Kimi Räikkönen is currently outperforming Sebastian Vettel. Both men are significantly better drivers than the standings suggest. The championship table is largely meaningless. It wasn't meaningful back when Jenson Button was beating Lewis Hamilton, either. This happens constantly in the history of the sport. You see much lesser drivers finishing ahead of elite talents all the time. It always comes down to a web of circumstances: mechanical failures, penalties, sheer luck. It is what it is.

Do you all actually understand what Gajs was trying to say there?

ruggedhawk20 said:Who even is steelmaker83?

The guy who actually understands things on the last two forum pages.

Those arguing with him clearly lack understanding. They're likely watching the wrong sport entirely or simply possess a flawed perception of racing. When one's perception is skewed, it follows naturally that they would dislike Ricciardo. In reality, it is the individual who disrupts the race flow who truly liberates Ricciardo.

People watch and interpret F1 in various ways. Unfortunately, those who fail to grasp the nuances are evidently in the vast majority 🙂, and the result is predictable: the average observer falls under the influence of the uninformed.

stormybadger8 said:Funny how Kimi Räikkönen was allowed to squeeze people in China, but now suddenly Nico Rosberg isn't.😁

My eyes seem to be telling my brain that those two aren't even remotely similar, but fine.🤔

Someone should actually bother reading the motorsports review regarding the collision instead of just spouting mindless opinions. It provides a detailed analysis. Lewis Hamilton simply had no options left; he was forced onto the grass. At that exact moment, there wasn't a better move to make. A few seconds prior, the right side was chosen because the lane was completely clear, followed immediately by an aggressive move to close the door on Nico Rosberg.

It seems this Max Verstappen was truly born under a lucky star. He certainly possesses the talent to drive, but one also requires luck, and he appears to have an endless supply of it.

That Mercedes collision was nothing short of epic. Keep pushing, boys.

Gentlemen, I have acquired an incredibly rare find: an AMD Radeon HD 8570 with 1GB of GDDR5. To be clear, this isn't that APU version, the 8570d.

This card sits right in that sweet spot alongside the Radeon HD 6670. It definitely outpaces the GT 630 and those various 730 models running on DDR3 memory.

I am running the standard Battlefield 3 benchmark today. It ran quite smoothly at 720p on medium settings. Fraps was registering somewhere between 33 and 45 fps, which implies that without the software running, the performance is actually a bit higher.

It’s an OEM model, sourced directly from AMD.

Paid. $83It doesn't require any extra power from the PSU. The thing is tiny—it had to be a low-profile card, which I neglected to mention earlier. Based on a quick bit of digging online, it runs on some sort of Polish architecture. In practice, however, it works perfectly.

crimsonstag84 said:Something new. Visually superior. $133Even so, the math just doesn't quite add up. It’s still not exactly a great value proposition.
I found this listing for a Sapphire R7 240 with 1GB of DDR5. It seems like a straightforward enough piece of hardware for anyone looking to pick up a budget card. There isn't much else to say about it, really. It does what it's supposed to do.

Roughly what you'd find used:
I am looking at this listing for a graphics card on a local marketplace site. It seems like a standard offer for someone looking to pick up some budget hardware. If you are interested in checking out the specs or the price, you can find the details right here.

Thanks. In any case, all those business-grade 5670 cards that were within my reach have either been sold or are already reserved. That one over at the Best Buy is way overpriced right now. I ended up picking up an AMD Radeon HD 8570 instead, though I’ll likely be hunting for a low-profile GTX 750 in a few months if I can track one down.

My apologies, I should clarify that this comes with DDR3 memory running at 1800 MHz. I am currently tinkering around with MSI Afterburner. I have bumped the processor clock up to 1000 MHz from the stock 780, and pushed the memory to 2100 MHz. As of right now, it is passing the stress test without any issues. In Battlefield, under identical conditions, I saw an increase of roughly 3 to 4 FPS—maybe slightly more. If you need further details, just let me know. I have some free time, so I’m just messing around with this little toy at home.

It’s more than enough for my kids. They've grown a bit lately, so they'll actually be able to get some decent playtime in now. 🙂

Use the edit button instead of posting three separate messages in a row.

wiredotter14 said:This might be a redundant question, but...

Are you absolutely certain that the processor doesn't have integrated graphics?
Those Clarkdale chips were on the 1156 socket. If this is just some standard Microsoft Office workstation, it might already have integrated graphics built right in.

It exists, but it’s essentially useless. We're talking about hardware that's several generations old now. I can't quite recall who brought up the GT 210 or the HD 6450, but realistically, even a Gigabyte GT 730 or an AMD Radeon R7 240 would be at least twice as fast as those two. At least, that's my assessment.

Timothy Kim60 said:None of them. It's just throwing money down the drain. Just find something for a hundred bucks.$50 I'm looking for something used—an AMD Radeon HD 6450, a GT 610, or something along those lines.

One needs to be able to run certain games, at least on low settings—older FPS titles and such. There are plenty of games that are actually playable on this hardware, and if you look at YouTube, it’s flooded with gameplay clips. However, I haven't been able to find a single coherent comparison between these two specific cards.

A quick comparison, which one should I pick?

Should I go with the AMD Radeon R7 240 1GB DDR3 or the Gigabyte GT 730 2GB DDR3?

I'm looking for a low-power solution for a specific build—a Dell desktop featuring an i5 on the 1156 socket and 4GB of DDR3 RAM.

Finding any actual, useful comparisons online is proving impossible. To be clear, the power supply in this Dell is a 300W SFX unit. I am not considering upgrading the PSU, nor am I willing to spend more than $133 on a card. Therefore, my options are strictly limited to these two chips from AMD and NVIDIA.

Roger Wright94 said:Thank goodness you're here to enlighten us all.
Just fanboys, whining, delusions... 🤔

You haven't updated your helmet in your avatar, if you'll excuse me 😁, just because I have Hamilton's helmet on mine? A purely rhetorical question!! 🍿

Chris Robinson25 said:It just crossed my mind that someone actually placed a bet on whether Alonso would even finish the race... damn betting shops. 😬

That was me, for heaven's sake. I put my money on Lewis Hamilton to take the win.🤣

Good grief, that was an ugly sight. Truly hideous. Something like that could genuinely mess with a person's head. Just plain grim.