What have you upgraded recently?

[Sandy Bridge]

After searching for a while, I couldn't find a general, "share your upgrade" thread.  Maybe there should be one for notebooks and one for desktops?  I've been upgrading both this weekend, taking Weird Al's mantra of, "I upgrade my computer at least twice a day" to heart.

 

Upgrading an Apple?  Possible if it's old enough!

 

The first computer to get an upgrade was the most difficult, my 2010 Mac Mini.  It had a 320 GB HDD, I'm not even sure it was 7200 RPM, but it was slower than molasses in January.  Put in a spare 80 GB SATA SSD that I bought in 2011, and it boots up in about 20% of the time it did previously.  Massive improvement.  Now the CPU is the main bottleneck, and sadly that isn't upgradeable, but the RAM is still a potential (and much easier) project.

 

But Apple sure doesn't make it easy to upgrade!  iFixit estimated 55 minutes, and it was at least that, and I broke a thermal sensor connector when trying to reconnect it (I felt like a giant trying to reconnect those miniature parts), so the fan thinks the hard drive is on fire and spins at its max speed.  Thankfully software exists to override that behavior.

 

Non-Apple laptops?  A dream by comparison?

 

Next was my newfangled laptop, 13 Philips-head screws and a spudger and you can upgrade storage and RAM to your heart's content, much better than an Apple.  I went whole hog with 4 TB of TLC SSD, and 64 GB of RAM, because prices are crazy low right now.

 

The Old Rig Gets NVME

 

Finally, my desktop got the laptop's old 512 GB NVME SSD, plus a PCIe card to connect it, as well as an extra USB 3.0 port caused by swapping out its old PCIe x4 USB add-on card to a PCIe x1 add-on that is a bit slower, but has more ports.  I call that a win.

 

Add up the three machines, and I match Weird Al's specs, with 100 GB of RAM (64 + 32 + 4).  Took a few decades to do it, and I don't have it all in one machine yet, but this is a milestone I've been looking forward to.

 

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So, what have you upgraded recently?  I know there must be RAM upgrades and new storage disks and GPU swaps happening all the time.  And most of you are probably sensible enough to spread it out a bit.

[ryan]

I have a 115w omen 16 with the 3060. I recently upgraded the vbios to 140w and it's working flawlessly. stock is now overclocked performance and overclocked performance is now quite a bit higher than before 5-10 percent. but in the end its still crap performance for what I have. it's not a purchase so much as an upgrade.

 

I think im officially an idiot becaus im thinking of maxing this laptop and getting 64gb ram and a 4tb SSD. if im able to keep the SSD for when I get a new laptop or dekstop it's worth it but the ddr4 ram will be useless in a few years heck even now its drr5 or bust.

[Sandy Bridge]

Software upgrades definitely count as upgrades!  Especially when they boost performance!  It reminds me of the days of downloading modded GeForce drivers to get an extra 3-5% performance... over the course of that GPU's lifespan it added up to 25% or more improvement, which was significant.  It also probably indicates poorly optimized drivers on release, but it was fun.

 

Is the Omen 16 underperforming relative to other laptops with a 3060?  Is the 3060 just too power-hungry for what it can deliver, or is it limited in other ways?

 

---

 

64 GB of RAM is $100, if it's DDR4.  I remember buying 8 GB of DDR3 (desktop) in 2011 for $30, it went down to $26 or something like that, but then it went way up and I could have sold it for $70 a few years later.  I would not be surprised if DDR4 bought today could be sold at a profit in a few years.  The RAM market is cyclical and we're in a supply glut currently.  Heck, maybe I should go buy a few hundred GBs just to have on hand to resell in 2026.

 

SSDs are highly transferable.  New laptop, great.  No more space in a laptop?  External enclosure.  Or a PCIe expansion card for a desktop, I spent $15 on mine and you can probably find one that supports two SSDs for slightly more than that.  Assuming you'll have things to store on them, it's hard to go wrong.  Although I will admit that hard drives are perfectly adequate for large, infrequently accessed files.

 

I've used 573 GB (binary) of my 4 TB (decimal) of storage so far.  A bunch of games, my entire music collection, various software.  Already more stuff than I had on the OEM 512 GB SSD; I never had my full music collection on that one for starters.  No regrets over going for 4 TB, the secondary drive has a backup of the important (not re-installable from Steam) contents of the primary one, and some day I'll use it for primary storage as well.

[ryan]

30 minutes ago, Sandy Bridge said:

Is the Omen 16 underperforming relative to other laptops with a 3060?  Is the 3060 just too power-hungry for what it can deliver, or is it limited in other ways?

Its originally a 115w gpu and now its 140w so its performance is higher than just about every other omen 16 3060 laptop. but in the sea of 3060s scoring 10000 in timespy graphics mine peaks at 9500-9600. in firestrike ultra im in 29th place overall so its hard to say where it stands in the ocean. I am happy being able to game at 4k with a measley 3060, its runs any game at 4k low/medium and on slightly older titles I can crank up the settings to high/ultra and be comfortably over 60fps average.

 

in the end bang for the buck I got a pretty dang good deal. had it for 1.5 years and no issues. I just don't know if I should get 32gb ram or 64gb ram. im leaning towards 64gb because it looks good when you go an try to sell the beast 4 years after purchase

[Reciever]

Recently picked up a 27" 1440p monitor, it was a budget oriented choice I think close to 200 USD? Sceptre by brand, its mostly pretty good, but there is some light bleed.

 

Been thinking it might be time to get the 5800X3D so I can have my benching PC do benching things again...

[ryan]

31 minutes ago, Reciever said:

Recently picked up a 27" 1440p monitor, it was a budget oriented choice I think close to 200 USD? Sceptre by brand, its mostly pretty good, but there is some light bleed.

 

Been thinking it might be time to get the 5800X3D so I can have my benching PC do benching things again...

Nice one.

 

Never heard of sceptre, have they been around for a while? and is it high refresh rate or do you just use it for productivity?

[Reciever]

On 6/21/2023 at 9:10 PM, ryan said:

Nice one.

 

Never heard of sceptre, have they been around for a while? and is it high refresh rate or do you just use it for productivity?

No idea, my previous was a refurb Acer 27" @1080p144hz 

 

This one is also 144hz 

[ryan]

I saw a deal on ssds 4tb for 350. not sure if I should pounce when im not so broke. I think storage is just one of those things you cant go wrong with,getting more. we all have tons of things to store.

[ryan]

well My dad bought me a 2tb 970 evo plus. its really fast 3500-3300 with read and writes. I have installed all the games I want including os on it and I have 800gb left, also im using my old 1tb as storage for programs and videos. I have 3tb now and using only 1.5tb, so in the end I don't know if it is worth it getting 4tb but I will never know as I can't afford anything, but one things for sure 2tb should be the minimum people should be gunning for in 2023

 

just checked my email and bestbuy gave me a 100 dollar coupon. they are also having a big sale and luckily I need a keyboard. I found a 170 dollar keyboard and 128gb jump drive for 99.75 after tax and now I have a killer keyboard

 

thoughts on this keyboard is their anything better for 80 under

 

ASUS ROG Strix Flare Backlit Mechanical Cherry MX Red Gaming Keyboard ASUS ROG Strix Flare Backlit Mechanical Cherry MX Red Gaming Keyboard | Best Buy Canada

[Raiderman]

On 6/21/2023 at 8:10 PM, ryan said:

Nice one.

 

Never heard of sceptre, have they been around for a while? and is it high refresh rate or do you just use it for productivity?

Sceptre has been around for some time. They make TV's as well.

[ryan]

yeah I looked them up. seem decent.

 

Im loving my new keyboard, its alot easier to type on, it really lets you feel the keys and doesn't require much to actuate

[kojack]

I have a bunch of stuff to do now.  New dual monitor mount for the desk, new ssd pci e card for the acer server, and then load on the server OS to get it all going. 

[ryan]

just got a 2tb evo plus ssd and 32gb ddr4 vengeance ram for my omen 16. now i have 40gb can't wait till i get the other stick in the mail