Mr. Fox

Congrats. You will be the owner of a piece of history. The last true example of effort to demonstrate something that resembles excellence in an industry that now offers exclusively garbage for purchase in a mobile computing option.

Yes, it is pretty sad how limited laptops are. Wraith has 9 SSDs (5 NVMe, 1 M.2 SATA, 3 SATA SSD) and one 4TB HDD. - Windows 7, Windows 10 LTSC 2019, Windows 10 LTSC 2021, Windows 11 each on a dedicated NVMe, Linux on a SATA SSD and a 2TB NVMe for games installs. Banshee has 7 SSDs (4 NVMe, 1 M.2 SATA, 2 SATA SSD) and one 2TB HDD. - Windows 7, Windows 10 LTSC 2019, LTSC 2021, Windows 11 each on a dedicated NVMe, Linux on a SATA SSD Half-Breed has 2 1TB NVMe and a 2TB SATA SSD. - Windows 10 Pro 21H2 and Windows 10 LTSC 2019 on one NVme (512GB each OS), Windows 11 and Linux on the other NVMe (512GB each OS) and 2TB SATA SSD for data and game installs.

The 10th Gen is still available. The 11th Gen die frame sold yesterday on eBay.

There are random good deals to be had on eBay, but a lot of it is overpriced merchandise. Not just tech items, but many things on eBay are overpriced. The things that are listed at extremely good prices (too good to be true prices) are often scams. An indicator is someone with little or no tenure in their eBay membership and little or no feedback. That said, with respect to the PC tech stuff, I suspect some people are just trying to mitigate their financial loss as best they can.

I use 512GB SSDs for my OSes and 1TB or 2TB SSDs for everything else (data, games, etc.). All of my Steam, Origin, GOG, and Epic clients and games are installed on drives that are separate from the OS drive.

Yeah, you can get 2.5 inch SATA 2TB SSDs from Silicon Power, TeamGroup and Leven for less than $120 USD now, which is more that adequate for data and game drives as long as you have drive bays for it. Heck, unless I run a drive benchmark, I literally cannot tell any difference between SATA SSD and NVMe. I prefer M.2 form factor (SATA or PCIe) just because of how little space it occupies and doesn't require data or power cables in most applications. Convenience aside, I don't really care one way or the other.

I'd love to have a couple (or more) as soon as the price is equal-to or less-than four 1TB SSDs. It's nice to finally see 1TB PCIe and SATA M.2 drives in the $65~$70 USD price range. That's about where the price should be, but it certainly took a while. The price per terabyte should actually decrease as the total drive capacity increases, but right now it seems to be working in reverse on the SSDs larger than 1TB capacity.

New Linux install on my Precision 17 7720.

Definitely improved performance and thermals doing that stupid Plundervolt exploit protection removal. That never should have really been treated like a priority since it requires direct physical access to the hardware. But, I digress, since the tech industry as a whole is run by a self-anointed group of elite retards. Here is a before/after snapshot of the improvement. https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/28218183/fs/28223388# Before After

Really is kind of an abortion. It is a space hog and looks stupid. It definitely reminded me of a colostomy bag and it still does. That, or a fibroid neck tumor. And, it is totally counter-intuitive to tether a notebook to a desktop and use weird contraptions to make it slightly better when you can just put a desktop on a desktop and have everything turn out exactly as you want it. Compromise always sucks at some level, and the more you can avoid it the better off things are.

Thank you. Sorry I never responded before. I somehow totally missed your post. With Cinnamon DE the GUI works basically the same as Linux Mint with Cinnamon. I haven't noticed any differences there. Overally, I really like ZorinOS. It has a very polished feel to it. Some things about it strike me as slightly less tweakable, which is another reason I switched to Cinnamon DE. The default ZorinOS DE has limited configuration options for the panel (taskbar) and "Start" menu.

If it drops to $300-$350 then I might buy one even though it is made by AMD. At that price, it would be compelling enough to gamble.

Well, I did some digging and figured out how to disable the idiotic anti-customer Plundervolt lockdown. So, now the voltage is unlocked and there is a +6 bin all-core clock ratio unlock. That made for an instant performance boost and improved thermals.

No worries. I figured I either didn't explain it well or you misunderstood. A lot of things about this beast remind me of when Alienware used to make good products. I have only had it a few days, but I have had it apart and it's crazy good built quality. Actually even better than when Alienware sold good products. It's a shame it has a BGA CPU. I think the cooling system could support more CPU that it has and still run cooler than most of the idiotic trash notebooks being sold today. I think this one was released in 2017. The other thing that is weird now is the GPU is stronger and faster than a 980M (between 1070 and 1080 performance) but I am so used to my monster desktops, even the Tongfang turdbook with 2060 that I gave to Mrs. Fox, that it seems like an extremely weak GPU because I am so used to having a whole lot more horsepower. I am going to download Steam and see how it runs some game benchmarks. I anticipate most things will be pleasantly playable. But, I bought it for work (business travel only) and it ultimately doesn't need to. I just couldn't handle a tiny 15-inch laptop any more... totally miserable to me using such a small and cramped up machine. Using desktops 98% of the time makes using a 15-inch notebook 2% of the time all the more miserable.

No, it has 4 RAM slots.

Introducing "Half-Breed" as the newest member of the Fox menagerie. I call him that because the CPU is BGA filth and the GPU is standard MXM. The GPU is a Pascal Quadro with 16GB of GDDR5. It came with a single 16GB stick of Samsung DDR4-2400, so I ordered a matching module and slapped an 8GB stick of Samsung DDR4-2133 in one of the 3 open slots for dual channel while waiting for the matching stick to arrive. I also ordered another NVMe SSD so it will have two 1TB NVMe and one 2.5-inch 1TB SATA SSD. Precision 17 7720 in full metal jacket. Very nice work machine except for the soldered CPU filth. Sucker is very heavy, good cooling system, just the way I want it. Not thin and light boiling pile of trash. I downgraded the BIOS from current year "security freak" performance-killling garbage to the oldest firmware version the BIOS would allow for version regression and disabled all of the ludicrous security nonsense in the BIOS (and, believe me when I say there is a crap ton of security cancer in there). I can't imagine living life in fear of the digital boogie man to that degree. It is a miracle a computer would actually make it through POST with the amount of security garbage available to choke it to death. The Quadro P5000 is essentially a locked version of a 1080 with 16GB of VRAM. Everyone gets a trophy for participation. All first place scores, but sole submissions, LOL.

The bigger issue I have had with AMD is lack of durability and reliability. Especially their GPUs are so fragile and prone to failure that the thought of spending my money on one is repulsive. I know it is possible that they have improved, but I have no evidence to suggest that it has, as a matter of fact, improved. The X570 and 5950X was a buggy mess, which didn't bolster my optimism about the brand. It the past 10 to 12 years I can only remember owning one NVIDIA GPU that failed prematurely and I have had about 8 or 9 AMD GPUs that were either defective, weak or died prematurely. Adding insult to injury, they also sucked at overclocking. I overclock the dog snot out of my NVIDIA GPUs and they are like a Timex watch... take a licking and keep on ticking. AMD drivers have always been an issue, but more of a secondary issue.

Yeah, it's very cute. I remember some people at the old NBR were not pleased by my comments that AMD has severe security flaws, just not discovered yet. This is NOT a reflection on any company. All computers and software... Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux.. all of them, and the hardware they run on, have vulnerabilities that nobody has found yet and this will never be fixed. It can't be fixed because people are actively looking for things to exploit. Like going outside with a fly swatter and a can of bug spray expecting to rid the planet of harmful and annoying insects. Ain't gonna happen... period. Human beings are born evil with a predisposition to do bad things. They will always do bad things unless they are taught the difference between right and wrong and taught that good behavior is the best approach. Those that are most popular and have the greatest market share become the point of focus for the scumbags and their nefarious endeavors. This is why some people believe Apple and Linux machines are more secure. They are not more secure, but bad players are not going to waste their time developing exploits targeted for something that represents such a tiny percentage of the digital landscape. AMD has gained market share, so it is natural that vulnerabilities that affect their products will become more common. Just like 1+1=2. The biggest exploit of consumers is the clowns peddling "security solutions" -- digital snake oil.

Oh no. Somebody call 9-1-1. We're all gonna die. *yawn* I'm so scared. *sniff* And global warming. And stuff. *smack* Where's my binky?

The last gladiator... so sad. I can't imagine that a replacement was worthy to usurp the position unless it was a more powerful desktop. Anything less would be an illegitimate surrogate and abortion. I hope he finds a happy home that allows him to enjoy his retirement. May the rest of his days be filled with joy that comes from the merciless taunting and torment of his subordinate digital harlots.

As we have seen more than we would like, on an order of magnitude that is stupefying, there will always be a demand for garbage tier electronics. Turdbook trash has been so wildly popular with the stupid sheeple for so long that now nothing else is left. We can choose whatever we want as long as it is OK for it to be garbage.

Sold to local buyer on Craigslist.

Background music for delidding and shunt-modding...

The idea of paying extra for an excellent GPU that offers zero hope of ever having something other than its stock hybrid cooler and not even one proprietary water block was such a massive turnoff for me that it didn't even cause me to have modest interest in the 3090 Ti KPE. The options are already so limited with the 3090 KPE (and prior generations KPE cards) that I have lost interest in them due to the lack of good alternative options for cooling. One option (effectively zero options) is not good enough, even though the GPU is arguably the best money can buy and worth the extra cost. The lack of alternatives cancels out the benefits of owning it in my mind.