saturnotaku

The 4070 Super is an impressive bit of kit that can hang with a 3090 in situations where VRAM is not a limiting factor. I'd be kind of pissed if I paid four figures for a 3090 but 2080 Ti owners should still feel good about how well their cards are still holding up. I really wanted to snag a 4070 Super but my $230 open-box RTX 4060 is more than capable enough to get me by until Intel 15th-gen/Ryzen 8000 (9000?) and RTX 5000.

You can get something like the new MSI Claw and dock it to an eGPU since it has Thunderbolt 4 support.

I had the same dilemma a while ago. I like gaming chairs but none of the ones I demoed at my local big box stores were comfortable. I ended up purchasing a Serta-branded one from Office Depot. I don't remember the exact model and tossed the box, but I would definitely recommend it. When on sale, they're not stupidly expensive. I want to say the one I got was well under $300.

Had I thought more about doing this back then I would have jumped on the 5800X3D. Unfortunately, the announcement of the 5700X3D will likely keep upward price pressure on the more powerful chip so I don't expect it to fall back to $275 any time soon. Heck, I may even just grab the 5700X3D since it's not going to be a long-term thing.

It's darn impressive to see AMD releasing "new" CPUs for AM4 even this many years after Ryzen first went mainstream. Platform longevity is not a major consideration as much as wanting whatever I get to be as current as possible at the time of purchase. That's why I think it would be more prudent to use an AM4 X3D processor as a bridge until Zen 5 and 15th-gen are released.

That's why I'm hesitant to make the move to Intel this go-round. I've gotten pretty used to the near-silence with which my MacBook Pro operates. I also spent a lot of time tuning the fans on my current desktop to a point where their acoustics are consistent no matter what I'm doing. Load temps are almost certainly a bit higher than other AIO-cooled 5950X machines, but I'm not dealing with the fans ramping up and down. I'm thinking now about swapping the 5950X for a 5800X3D and using that until AMD does a 3D V-cache version of Zen 5.

The 14900K's thermals have me very concerned as I'm hoping to get something that provides good performance without being overly loud or requiring a stupid level of cooling. Perhaps a 13900K and an RTX 4080 purchased on sale/clearance would make more sense. I also wouldn't mind going with something like a Ryzen 7 7700 with its 65W TDP as that could easily be managed with a 240mm AIO and the fans on a low setting. Though pairing it with a higher-end GPU may not be the best idea. I don't know. Will have to see how the market shakes out over the coming weeks.

The 4070 Ti Super really should have been $749 to give it more separation from the 4080 Super. I mean, if you have the cash for the former at $799, it's really not that much of a stretch to upgrade to the latter. This leaves me in a bit of pickle for my upcoming desktop upgrade. Not that there's anything wrong with my 5950X, I just want something better for gaming since my MacBook is now doing the heavy lifting I need for work. I had purchased a Radeon 6500 XT for like $100 open box from Best Buy to use as a stopgap until I get the new PC, but I still feel like I got ripped off. It's funny because HUB just did a video showing how that GPU has aged like milk. I was still able to return it and grabbed an open box RTX 4060 for $230 instead. That will also have the upside of making the entire system easier to sell when the time inevitably comes. I'm leaning toward socket AM5 for the new build, but I almost feel like I should wait for Intel 15th-gen. I'm not sure I can hold out that long, though LOL.

Reddit is thataway ----->

While far from the most aesthetically pleasing laptop, you can't help but be impressed at the thought and ingenuity that's gone into everything under the hood.

Again, watch the Snazzy Labs video on this topic. It's likely far more complicated for Apple to try and plug this loophole as it would almost certainly have implications for their enterprise customers. And if there's one group of people you don't want to piss off, it's them.

Games using the original Unreal engine are a pain to get working with Apple silicon, but I finally got Deus Ex 1 to a playable state under Parallels. It requires use of the Revision mod, but fortunately it has a mode that allows you to play the vanilla maps but with updated textures. There's occasional stutter, but at 1080p it's mostly a 60 fps experience. Maybe I'll try my luck with Unreal Gold next LOL. Human Revolution Director's Cut also runs reasonably well under Parallels - again not perfect but more than playable. Mudrunner recently received a Mac port, and it was on sale for $15 so I grabbed it. It's not really my type of driving game, but the developer deserves support for bringing one of their titles to the platform. I'll probably also pre-order RE: 4. The macOS release of Death Stranding was just delayed.

Price: $75 shipped Condition: Used but like new Warranty: Yes, expires September 2024 Reason for sale: No longer needed Payment: PayPal Item location: West Chicago, IL USA Shipping: UPS, FedEx, USPS International shipping: No Handling time: Item will ship within 2 business days of receiving confirmed payment Feedback: Lots of transactions from the NBR days and more than 160 confirmed ones between the /r/mechmarket and /r/hardwareswap subreddits Specification: This is the 240W version of the SlimQ GaN charger. It will be more than enough to power all but the highest-end gaming laptops. In addition to the adapter and cables, you will also receive a tip pack that will be compatible with Lenovo laptops. Other packs for brands like Asus, Dell, HP, Razer, and others are available for sale from SlimQ directly or Amazon for an extra cost. Proof of ownership: Slim Q 240 W Ga N charger, Dare U AJazz wireless gaming mice — Postimages (postimg.cc)

The code can be used twice so you may be able to renew for another year still for the same substantially reduced cost.

The money isn't the point, it's more about providing full support for their mission of bringing as many games to the Mac as possible because you sure as heck can't count on Apple to do it, despite all the noise they've been making recently.

I was able to retrieve the login credentials to my Parallels Desktop account from like a decade ago so I could get upgrade pricing on the latest version of the software. I'm impressed with how easy Windows 11 ARM is to set up and get running. While certainly a far cry from a native Windows machine, under emulation it's surprisingly usable. I also took advantage of CrossOver's Cyber Monday sale to pick up two years of service/support for less than $35. If all goes well with it, I may just end up buying the lifetime license at some point down the road, but I figured this was a small enough investment for me to get my toes wet. The new Half-Life 25th anniversary update works great with CrossOver. I won't be able to experiment with much more until December as I'm approaching my monthly Internet data cap. Come that time, though, I'm going to go all out because I've not used the amnesty month that Comcast gives capped customers every year. I look forward to seeing what these programs can really do.

I fleshed out my Mac gaming adventures with a Parallels Desktop Pro license that I got for upgrade pricing. It's kind of nice that they remember your purchases from like a decade ago and still give you the discount so I got a year for $50. I then took advantage of CrossOver's Cyber Monday sale to pick up the latest version. The one-year plan is discounted by 70% for the rest of Cyber Monday only so it was just $22. I also took advantage of the fact that you can "renew" the service immediately and use the 70% off code a second time, meaning I'm covered through the end of November 2025 for just $32. Pretty solid value and with both of these programs in place, I should be able to play pretty much all the games I want on my MacBook Pro. Then if the rumors of it having 16 GB of VRAM are true, I'll pick up an RTX 4070 Ti Super for my desktop when that gets announced in January.

Streaming is not a viable option because my data is capped.

The 16-inch M3 Max is boxed up awaiting return first thing next week once Black Friday crowds have died down. I'm not going to bother with attempting to troubleshoot why the fans on the specific unit I received were behaving the way they were. Also, Witcher 1 and 2 received Apple silicon ports. Not seeing any news about 3 getting the same treatment.

I suppose I feel more misled than anything as all the videos I watched about the 16-inch M3 Max said the fans really weren't that bad when performing intensive tasks. However, they seemed to be comparable to my former Legion Pro 7i doing similar things in its default balanced performance mode, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Upgraded my wife's 2nd-gen iPhone SE to a 15. In addition to a case for her new phone, I'm getting one for my 14 Pro as I can't stand Apple leather ones. I've switched back to macOS as my daily driver laptop because the performance of games I normally play on the go is surprisingly good even under Windows 11 for ARM emulation via Parallels Desktop. With this, I'm going to hold on to my desktop PC. I sold off the RTX 4070 I was using and had a GT 730 that I bought for like $35 to use as a placeholder. I had picked up a 4070 Ti after getting the MacBook, but with the rumors of NVIDIA doing a 16 GB 4070 Ti Super in January, I took that back. My new stopgap GPU is a Radeon RX 6500 XT that I got open box at Best Buy for $100. It supports DP 1.4 so it can drive my 4K monitor at 144 Hz while the GT 730 maxes out at HDMI 1.4.

I've been using my 12/18 M3 Pro 14, and this is a very impressive laptop. The screen and speakers are amazing as expected, but the performance has really surprised me. The fact that the Pro chip was downgraded to 6 performance/6 efficiency cores hasn't really dampened my experience. Apple put Resident Evil: Village on sale for like $16 a couple weeks ago so I grabbed it, and it performs amazingly on this hardware. 1080p with MetalFX upscaling set to quality is consistently over 100 fps and often times is at 120. Bumping up to 1440p at the same settings is in the 70-80 range. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided runs under Rosetta 2 and at 1080p, it's a pretty consistent 60 fps experience. I did some initial testing with Parallels because Deus Ex: Human Revolution runs best in that environment versus Crossover. It was easier to get going there than it was with my Core i9 Legion because there's a bug in UE3 that prevents a lot of games from running at all on CPUs with high core counts. After some initial shader compilation stutter, it played perfectly. The best part is that the laptop's fans were barely audible through all this testing. Cinebench 2024's 10-minute test has been about the only thing that's gotten the fans really humming, but it's a dull roar at worst. Easily the best blend of acoustics and behavior I have ever experienced in a laptop. Out of curiosity, I picked up a 16-inch M3 Max 16 with the 14-core CPU and 30-core GPU. While the extra size is nice, I was supremely disappointed with its fans. They were very clearly audible when playing DX: MD - it was easily on par with my former RTX 4080-powered Legion at the same settings, and at some points the Lenovo was actually quieter. While performance was significantly better on the 16-inch (108 fps vs the M3 Pro's 60 in the benchmark), I will gladly take that hit for a quieter experience. I shudder to think what the 14-inch M3 Max would be like under similar operating conditions. When watching some videos about the 16-inch MacBook, I have to laugh at more than one person who said this model was "heavy." Coming from 6+ pound gaming laptops with their even heavier power bricks, the Apple machines are comparatively featherweight. Most folks who are interested in these 14-inch MacBooks will be best served with the base 11 CPU/14 GPU model, but the 12/18 version has been amazing for my use case. I was worried about possibly needing the 36 GB RAM configuration for Parallels, but so far it hasn't been an issue. Plus, since I got my laptop from Best Buy, I was able to get $100 off at time of purchase plus another $50 off with a price match, which put the laptop within spitting distance of the MSRP for the 11/14 model had I got it directly from Apple, not to mention that I have up to two years of AppleCare+ included with my TotalTech membership.

An entire sub-forum dedicated to Apple is not necessary given the comparatively much smaller user base this site has. As was stated, make a thread, or go to MacRumors.

Dynamic caching should make the M3 even better. Well, maybe not "better," but perhaps more versatile?

Had to buy a new washer and dryer a couple weeks ago. They're IoT compatible, which I normally wouldn't be fond of, but it's proven to be rather useful. The dryer wouldn't get online at first, but it turns out literally just unplugging it and plugging it back in were all that was needed. Go figure. I had also picked up an M1 MacBook Air. This was before the most recent product announcement so I'm going to take it back in favor of the top-end 14-inch M3 Pro. It's quite the jump in cost, but I really want to start playing around with things like the Game Porting Toolkit so I figured the extra CPU/GPU cores and 1 TB of storage were more or less necessary. Best Buy was also giving TotalTech members $100 off pre-orders so that was helpful.