Mr. Fox

A few products I recently picked up... @Papusan wants the first item because it is BGA.

What Martha Stewart did was equally illegal and she put in her time for it, but I don't refuse to value her talent, watch her on TV or prepare recipes she shares on the basis of her infraction. Neither of their crimes or convictions have any bearing on the validity of their opinions or the information they possess. Their crimes were a direct result of their brilliance, using knowledge and ability to beat the system. It was obviously illegal in the view of their prosecutors and they got caught. If they repaid their debt to society it is now water under the bridge. The way I see it, if what they say has merit then their criminal record is totally irrelevant. Personally, I would not refuse to listen to them or dismiss what they say merely on the basis of their past convictions. But, I totally respect your freedom to do so. I am confident that we have more people than we would ever want to believe we have in positions of power and authority in this country (including a former two-term philandering POTUS circa 1993 and his witchy evidence-destroying wife, our outgoing Speaker of the House, her husband and their son, and our current POTUS and his son) and your country, that are guilty of equal or worse crimes against society that have been overlooked. They are above the law because of their political value to the people that have the ability to turn a blind eye to their crimes in the name of advancing an agenda. They are not held accountable to the same laws because of who their friends are.

Yes, totally. It seems obvious the communication gap was between the father and his son, not between the customer and shop. If I were that Canadian PC shop and I had already been paid I would have refused to give him a refund, especially if the son purchased the system or parts from another PC shop. My response would be, sorry pal, you bought it, it was built for you, it's yours. If you changed your mind and don't want it now, then you sell it and you absord the loss. Not my problem. Once it was built, the parts are all used and instantly worth less than new sealed box. And, there likely would have been restocking fees, etc. It would take a really good repeat customer that I did a lot of business with and wanted to retain as a customer before I would take the loss on that kind of deal.

Interesting that they sell castrated CPUs and spin them as special. This is really difficult for me to relate to as someone that cares about overclocking.

She is a better lady than I deserve, that's for sure. Thank you. It is both awesome and weird that this many years have passed. She is definitely a part of me now and I can't imagine life without her.

Thank you. No problem with the late reply. It's the thought that counts, not the timing. Have a great weekend, Brother.

I think that has been the case for 2 or 3 years. I've been hearing chatter about it for a very long time. I do not use either one and deliberately disable G-stink. There is a differnce between the hardware G-stink and the software G-stink/Freesync, but I do not pay any attention to either one. I do recall some of the people that spent extra for monitors with special G-stink hardware got kind of emotional about everyone else getting it for free on cheap monitors, and I suspect NVIDIA wasn't happy about it.

I believe that 100%, and I also believe the entire pandemic was a planned crisis driven by a number of politically-motivated idealists (many of them very wealthy tree-huggers) that have gone off the rails on the lunatic fringe. Many of them black-hearted elected bozos and self-anointed gurus on mythological ideaologies like climate change and over-population. We have allowed the world's governments, including the US and Canada, to fall under the control of utterly insane and unfathomably evil totalitarian elitists. Big tech and big pharma have their fingerprints all over it, as well as the mainstream media muppets that are assisting with the fleecing and brainwashing of the zombie sheeple that are too damned stupid to recognize what is happening.

If you want a decent gaming GPU at a reasonable price while you wait for stupid to wear off current generation stuff, grab yourself a 3060 Ti. Honestly, I am super-happy with the one I have in terms of gaming performance. Literally everything is around 100 FPS. I like it far more than I expected I would and for the price it has no rival. Overall, great gaming performance (better than a 6900 XT with ray tracing enabled) and for $200-$300 less. I bought mine as a B-stock from EVGA and it is flawless. I am not sure what kind of cosmetic blemish it had, but whatever it was I could not identify it. https://www.evga.com/products/ProductList.aspx?type=8&family=GeForce+30+Series+Family

If they can stop being so idiotic about the price it will be a respectable option for people that don't want to (or cannot afford to) spend a crap ton of money on a GPU. This should be priced around $450-$550. If it hits $650 it becomes a stupid option. Bottom line: If your case does not allow you to configure your system exactly the way you want it, you made a mistake and chose the wrong case. We all make mistakes. That is part of being human. Deliberately spending money in a way that requires compromise or settling for something less than what you want really diminishes the pleasure of PC ownership. When you do that, it suggests that your standards are either set low, not important enough to call them standards, you lack the financial resources to do what you want, or you didn't really want what you thought you wanted nearly as much as you thought.

Case in point...

We have seen the Green Goblin do this in the past with messed up drivers. Did you also test with NVIDIA Inspector to see if it is locked? They never care about how their decisions affect owners of older GPUs. They stopped pretending to care about 9-series product owners when 10-series GPUs were released. They only pretend to care about current generation GPUs. If people do not continue throwing money at new GPUs they are no longer valued. Even when they do keep feeding the pig, it is open for debate whether or not they actually value the people feeding them.

Very nice. Congratulations, Brother. I wish I had your luck on having abnormally good CPUs drop in my lap. Maybe it's good that I do not. It would be more difficult to keep my priorities in check, and that is already hard enough. The price makes it easy to hate on it. If it were priced like a 3060 should be, then there would be no basis for hate or disappointment. It would be a mediocre product at a mediocre price. Nobody likes getting raped, unless they have some sort of untreated mental illness. This is an Arc A770 competitor and should be priced like one. I'd buy an A770 for $350 if I needed a GPU, but I certainly wouldn't pay more than double for this.

100%. It will never stop as long as we continue to go with the flow. Refusing to pay more than a certain amount (even below MSRP) will bring prices down even during a shortage. Product rotting on store shelves because nobody is willing to pay the asking price will be reduced.

It looks great. I think it is the best tower case money can buy. As Brother @Rage Setpointed out, the Level 20 XT with the top and sides removed is like an open bench. I guess that is what sold me on it the most. I might paint the silver pillars black at some point. Having the motherboard horizontal on a removable tray and the GPU in the upright position makes working on things very easy. Laying flat is also really nice for liquid metal on the CPU. Something off topic, but kind of cool. If you have any old mSATA SSDs that you want to put to good use, check this out.

Wow, I really like how the black one looks. It's a bit small for my taste, but it looks like a engineering masterpiece. It would not work well for a custom loop due to lack of space. SSDs: This one is a bit subjective, so take this as personal opinion. I always have, and probably always will, go for cheap and capacity. Being the fastest doesn't matter to me one iota. As long as the brand is known to be reliable, even a SATA SSD is fast enough. I can't "feel" any difference of SATA SSD or NVMe SSD. I can measure it with a benchmark, but that's about it. I see no personal benefit spending more for a popular overpriced brand. Silicon Power, Sabrent, TeamGroup, etc. are all perfectly fine and very reliable. Don't waste money spending extra for Samsung, Western Digital, etc. RAM: Unless you are a rainbow puke fanboy that likes overheating memory modules that are overclock limited due to thermal issues, just get generic Hynix DDR5 modules and tune them yourself. My generic Hynix M-die and A-die memory modules overclock better than any retail kits I tested (and there were too many). They run cooler and you can put your own heat sink on them. No need to install RGB cancer software to stop the rainbow puke because there is not any. Regardless of what route you take, avoid Micron DDR5 like a plague. It sucks at overclocking. Samsung B-die was great for DDR4. It maxes out around 6400 for DDR5. Only buy Hynix M-die or A-die modules. You will have to do research to determine what IC the retail kits have on them because most of the brands do to provide any information about their choice in IC. DDR5-6000 is frequently Samsung B-die. 6200-6400 is usually Hynix M-die and 6800+ is usually Hynix A-die. There is a crappy variant of A-die that has a default SPD clock of 4800 like M-die. The good A-die has a default SPD clock of 5600. Anything less than DDR5-6000 is at risk of being Micron IC. It is dependable, just has little capacity for overclocking. CPU: Intel ONLY. 12th or 13th Gen i9. Save yourself the frustration and grief that goes hand-in-hand with owning something from AMD. Overclocking is lackluster and the CCX chiplet thing is stupid. Memory overclocking is limited, latency high due to infinity fabric, and FCLK needs to be set low enough to impair memory performance to avoid WHEA errors. (This is my opinion based on past experiences. Others may not agree, but this is framed in the context of overclocking because that is your expressed goal.) If you are going to run stock or do very modest overclocking, you can save money on an AMD CPU. The question is, can you afford a high-end AM5 motherboard? They are overpriced. AM5 is a much better product because it has no pins to get bent or broken like AM4. It's past due for AM4 to be retired, so only go with AM5 if you plan to go with Team Red. Interesting. I never thought of Dmitry from Hardware Canucks looking like Chris Pratt, but I can see the resemblance. Especially so at a glance. They could pass as being relatives for sure.

EVGA Z790 Dark (first choice) or ASUS ROG Z790 Apex (second choice) or Z690 Unify-X (third choice). These are all 2-DIMM motherboards best suited for CPU and memory overclocking. They have the traces, phases and VRMs needed. The gamerboy motherboards are not suitable for it and will fall short. Avoid 4-DIMM motherboards if you care about memory overclocking. These products are designed to deliver the best for both CPU and RAM overclocking. From a QC, service and warranty perspective, ASUS is the least desirable option. Custom loop with (minimum) two 360MM radiators (or larger) internally mounted, but ideally with either an Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 1080MM Nova radiator or MORA-3 radiator mounted outside of the case with at least two D5 pumps. An AIO is convenient but restrictive and usually less effective. If you decide to take the easiest available path with an AIO, go with no less than 360MM and try to go with a modular option that can be upgraded and serviced more easily than one with sealed and fixed lines that are a one-size-fits-all solution. Fans in push/pull will help, so choose the case carefully or you won't have adequate space to configure fans that way. Most cases are simply too small and poorly thought out, so they do not have enough space above the motherboard, or they lack space for a big GPU if you install the radiator with push/pull fans mounted in the front panel, or they lack space in both places. An AIO works great if you live in an area that is cold and you can push freezing cold air through the AIO. If you live in a hot environment, the AIO will struggle because it is more easily influenced by ambient temps. OptimusPC Foundation or Aquacomputer Cuplex Kryos NEXT CPU block. (Obviously not applicable if you go the AIO route for cooling.) Minimally. I have 10 of them on my benching rig and still pushing 260+ L/H. The slight impact is more than offset by the massive uplift in convenience. It would be a massive inconvenience to have to drain my system every time I wanted to mess with it, or switch over to chiller without radiator configuration. (Exactly why hard tubing is a massive "hell no" option for me.) What takes only seconds turns into an inconvenient project without the QDC fittings.

Should definitely expect bugs. Winduhz 11 is a buggy mess, and if AMD does that we should not be surprised if things get goofy. If that happens it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to fix it.

This is new behavior. At least it feels like it. They're never going to win when they hire losers. Second fiddle products should have second fiddle prices. This is not new. This is status quo. They're just more emboldened. They're not even trying to conceal their dishonesty anymore.

Thank you. I finally got lucky on the memory silicon quality I think. Even at 8200 with 1.600V on water the sticks are hitting only about 35°C during the memory stress testing.

Yes, we agree on so many things. 🙂 Not the least of which is the preference for black everything. A few chrome fittings look nice with black though. I have learned the hard way that the black QD fittings stick because of the black finish. The nickel plated QD fittings are slippery and do not have the sticky valve issues. (The auto antifreeze has also helped with that issue, as it is a lubricant.)

The Meshify 2 XL is a great choice. If tons of room is important, I really love my Level 20 XT. It has space for everything but the kitchen sink. It is beyond ridiculously massive and with an external radiator setup or your Ice Giant you'll have more space than you can use. It has two HDD caddy's that hold three 3.5 inch HDD sleds each, and there is a removable tray for a 7th 3.5 inch HDD above the PSU on the underside of the mobo tray. In one of the caddy's, I have an optical drive, one HDD and three 2.5 inch SSDs. The second caddy is in my closet. https://www.newegg.com/black-space-gray-thermaltake-level-20-xt-e-atx-cube-case/p/N82E16811133378 Absolutely ludicrous cavern. And, the horizontal mobo orientation and removable mobo tray is wonderful. All thumbscrews and tool-free. It is so massive I didn't like it at first. It just barely fits on my desk. The feet on the case are very wide (thankfully) and the front feet overhang the front edge of my desk by half of their width. I have two 200MM fans in front and two 200MM fans in the top, one (included) 140MM fan in the back. The measurements shown in the last image are totally inaccurate. The accurate measurements (using my tape measure) are 15 inches wide, 25.75 inches deep and 20 inches tall. In terms of aesthetics, my favorite case is what Brother @Papusan has, but it is insanely expensive. In my price range, I also really like the 7000D Airflow. I think it is gorgeous. https://hwbot.org/submission/5162885_ https://hwbot.org/submission/5162883_ | https://valid.x86.fr/4mgpby

Good points. Forgot about the hulk signing scam thing.

Yeah, it has changed. It's not required, but it does improve game graphics quality and lends a higher sense of realism. If you're not into that, or you're not into gaming, then it doesn't matter. If you're primarily a Linux user then you are better off with an AMD GPU. Recent kernel misbehave badly with NVIDIA GPU for some weird reason.

If you're a real pro overclocker, (or a reviewer shill,) then you'll get cherry-picked parts, and sometimes for free from your sponsors, before any of the pions can buy them. If you're a pion it is predestined and there is nothing you can do about it. You are not "special" and you haven't been selected for the anointing. You'll have the privilege of paying top-dollar for the chance to roll the dice in the silicon lottery. It is a lot like a pre-arranged boxing match except that you don't get paid to lose when it is your turn to be the loser and someone else is chosen to play the part of the winner. You're just a loser funding the sport with your own money, and nobody is rooting for you because you are a nobody. If you get lucky and land a knock-out punch and take down one of the champs, then you are accused of cheating or your legit victory gets dismissed as a fluke that is declared to not be a valid win. It can't be, because you were not chosen and didn't have the blessing of the ringmaster. Ain't that right, Brother @johnksss?