Off Topic Thread V2.0

Digital Solitude

23% of what the item + shipping costs I think?

So say it's $450 total

$450 = €425

€425*1.23 = €522

So you'll be paying €97 in duty, plus a handling fee.

Percentage might be different but I think it's 23%

ED E

DS is correct.

Cost + Shipping * 1.23 (approx depending on duty code)
+ €7 with An Post
+ €12-15 with a courier (DHL, Fedex, UPS)

Digital Solitude

I was thinking as I typed "I bet ED E is going to correct me"

taytobreath

Hi guys, I took a hard drive out of an old sky box. It's a Seagate Pipeline HD ST3320310CS, I want to reuse it and was wondering could anyone help me regarding the power supply and cable types I would need for a usb connection. Am i better off powering it separatly. It would be another tv box im using it for.

dunworth1

taytobreath wrote: »

Hi guys, I took a hard drive out of an old sky box. It's a Seagate Pipeline HD ST3320310CS, I want to reuse it and was wondering could anyone help me regarding the power supply and cable types I would need for a usb connection. Am i better off powering it separatly. It would be another tv box im using it for.

you just need a 3.5in enclosure it'll need separate power as its 3.5in

something like this will do
https://www.amazon.co.uk/CiT-inch-U3PD-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B00BHARA6O/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1487198291&sr=8-5&keywords=3.5in+hard+drive+enclosure

but its only 320gb youd be better off spending the extra and getting a a 500gb or 1tb drive which wouldn't require its own power

a 500gb can be got for around €50 and a 1tb around 70

ItHurtsWhenIP

glynf wrote: »

Lads, has anyone here bought from the US? Any idea of how customs are calculated? Spent ages on revenue.ie, strugling to find a simple overview of how it works.

I managed to break my work laptop screen, HP but want €890 to repair :eek:
A brand new full screen assembly on ebay from the US costs $420 excluding shipping...

If I buy this through my business, I assume I'm Vat exempt (I'm Vat registered)? What can I expect to pay re. duties etc?

Have you had a look on https://www.laptopscreen.com/English/?

glynf

ItHurtsWhenIP wrote: »

Have you had a look on https://www.laptopscreen.com/English/?

Thanks for the link. Priced same part at under 150, think it's a refurbished part and different colour-will drop them a line to find out.

Have you used them before?

ItHurtsWhenIP

glynf wrote: »

Thanks for the link. Priced same part at under 150, think it's a refurbished part and different colour-will drop them a line to find out.

Have you used them before?

Yeah - a couple of times. They deliver from the UK, usually next day. They offer a warranty on them (haven't needed to use it yet). They also seem to have videos for how to fit screens for a huge number of laptops on their site, if you are not sure of how to do it to yours.

Danger781

ED E wrote: »

Danger are we to assume you dont have any need for a tuner(Saorview) then?

Would be handy but not essential. If I'm not mistaken I can buy an external one if needed?

game4it70

Had my first experience with Intel support the other day.I was sending back my 5820k under their tuning plan and i have to say talk about painless.An absolute pleasure to deal with the rep i had.

mossym

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think all the lower end model Panasonic's like the above are just rebadged Vestel (similar to Bush/Walker/similar brands), so they're not great sets.

I know the Chinese brand 'Hisense' are also quite cheap on Amazon but by all accounts they're a decent step above the likes of your average low-end TV.

A 27" 1440P panel would probably give you much better quality for the money as a screen really, especially when you're limited to 32" in any case.

probably a bit late to this, but i'd be very reluctant to go 1440p if the main use is a tv. if the source is a freesat/saorview box you're going to end up with double scaling, the box will upscale SD channels to a max of 1080p, the screen will have to take care of the rest. the best you could do is probably let the box output 720p and let the screen just line double, but i'd still be worried the results would be, well rubbish.

if it's only occasional tv use, and mainly as a monitor, or the pc is going to be the tv source, and all the scaling done in one, then it's less of a worry

Jacovs

Was about to post link to Asus RX480 4GB sold for £151+£5 delivery+parcel motel etc.
Price been put back up to £210 now though.

Danger781

mossym wrote: »

probably a bit late to this, but i'd be very reluctant to go 1440p if the main use is a tv. if the source is a freesat/saorview box you're going to end up with double scaling, the box will upscale SD channels to a max of 1080p, the screen will have to take care of the rest. the best you could do is probably let the box output 720p and let the screen just line double, but i'd still be worried the results would be, well rubbish.

if it's only occasional tv use, and mainly as a monitor, or the pc is going to be the tv source, and all the scaling done in one, then it's less of a worry

Would be primarily for Chromecast use.

mossym

Danger781 wrote: »

Would be primarily for Chromecast use.

how would you handle audio then?

Danger781

mossym wrote: »

how would you handle audio then?

Currently have my Chromecaset connected to my QNIX QX2710 with my Logitech Z506 speakers hooked up. Not an ideal set up by any means, but it does us just fine.

mossym

Danger781 wrote: »

Currently have my Chromecaset connected to my QNIX QX2710 with my Logitech Z506 speakers hooked up. Not an ideal set up by any means, but it does us just fine.

ah right, just remember to get a monitor with an audio out option so..

btkm8unsl0w5r4

posted on the system pics thread my home server setup, but as this really is of no interest there how about this beauty as my new home server....I am learning a lot as I go with this. Apart from the geek factor, I think virtualisation will solve a lot of the issues I have with my work infrastructure.

Dell R910 from 2012, 4 Xeon processors, 64 hyperthreadded cores, 256gb ECC ram, Raid 0 SSD drives and SAS drives, 4 redundant power supplies....all for less than the price of a top of the line 8 core processor from intel......this server stuff is incredible value, and great for certain workloads. Adverts FTW. Its no even that loud.

AlmightyCushion

Kingsley Cuddly Aircraft wrote: »

posted on the system pics thread my home server setup, but as this really is of no interest there how about this beauty as my new home server....I am learning a lot as I go with this. Apart from the geek factor, I think virtualisation will solve a lot of the issues I have with my work infrastructure.

Dell R910 from 2012, 4 Xeon processors, 64 hyperthreadded cores, 256gb ECC ram, Raid 0 SSD drives and SAS drives, 4 redundant power supplies....all for less than the price of a top of the line 8 core processor from intel......this server stuff is incredible value, and great for certain workloads. Adverts FTW. Its no even that loud.

How much did it set you back?

ED E

My desktop still beats it with two Xeons :pac: (2300CB).


Have you got a utility space to put it in? I was lucky to have a dry storage area before for my just for fun and games lack rack.

farna_boy

Found this tool on techpowerup recently.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2848/radeon-rx-480

It gives a summary of whatever graphics card you have (in this case a RX480) and provides a relative performance chart compared to most other cards e.g. a GTX 1080 has 177% the performance of the RX480.

Now I presume this is compared to initial releases and it isn't updated with drives e.g. the 1060 still outperforms the RX480 by 12%, and I presume it must be for the standard spec card, but it could give some indication of expected performance increase if you are thinking about upgrading, especially for older cards to second hand newer cards.

Xenoronin

I've always liked the AnandTech benchmark section. Take your 480, and compare it against any other card in specific benchmarks.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1748?vs=1714

Same issues apply around drivers.

wotzgoingon

I was looking up online to see which games use more than a single core and seen somebody mention that you can check in MSI afterburner with the rivia tuner. So I fired up GTA V and it used all of my 6 cores plus the 6 hyperthreaded ones, Fallout 4 was the same and so was Skyrim remastered edition and also Mafia 3. I didn't bother testing any more. But judging by those few games it looks like all new games use all cores available to them.

BloodBath

wotzgoingon wrote: »

I was looking up online to see which games use more than a single core and seen somebody mention that you can check in MSI afterburner with the rivia tuner. So I fired up GTA V and it used all of my 6 cores plus the 6 hyperthreaded ones, Fallout 4 was the same and so was Skyrim remastered edition and also Mafia 3. I didn't bother testing any more. But judging by those few games it looks like all new games use all cores available to them.

They still heavily use some cores more than others. Usually 1 core is carrying most of the workload with gradually less and less being done on each core after that.

8 cores have quickly become the standard though because consoles have 7-8 threads available to them and most games made in the last few years show better results with 8 threads over 4.

DX12 makes more effective use of all of the cores if the developers optimise it properly but 8 is still the cap. I have yet to see a game perform better with more than 8 cores/threads available to it including DX12 titles like ashes of the singularity.

wotzgoingon

BloodBath wrote: »

They still heavily use some cores more than others. Usually 1 core is carrying most of the workload with gradually less and less being done on each core after that.

8 cores have quickly become the standard though because consoles have 7-8 threads available to them and most games made in the last few years show better results with 8 threads over 4.

DX12 makes more effective use of all of the cores if the developers optimise it properly but 8 is still the cap. I have yet to see a game perform better with more than 8 cores/threads available to it including DX12 titles like ashes of the singularity.

I'd say that might be the case alright as it is very hard to monitor which cores are being used as it is constantly changing. Like core 3 might be 20% then next second 5% then 30% etc... and that is the same with all the cores and threads.

EoinHef

That core usage doesnt mean extra fps,you might see some usage across all cores but it doesnt translate to double performance in most cases. More cores dont scale well.

In the below you can see the new 7350K keeping pace with genuine 4c and 4c/8t cpus in gta.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11083/the-intel-core-i3-7350k-60w-review/9

K.O.Kiki

EoinHef wrote: »

That core usage doesnt mean extra fps,you might see some usage across all cores but it doesnt translate to double performance in most cases. More cores dont scale well.

In the below you can see the new 7350K keeping pace with genuine 4c and 4c/8t cpus in gta.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11083/the-intel-core-i3-7350k-60w-review/9

It depends on the game engine; I'm expecting PC-centric & AAA console-ports to start utilising extra CPU cores properly in the near future, now that developers are writing for an x86 8-core machine.

EoinHef

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

It depends on the game engine; I'm expecting PC-centric & AAA console-ports to start utilising extra CPU cores properly in the near future, now that developers are writing for an x86 8-core machine.

What would you be basing that on though? Consoles are out four years now and were still not really seeing big benefits from multi threading

BloodBath

EoinHef wrote: »

That core usage doesnt mean extra fps,you might see some usage across all cores but it doesnt translate to double performance in most cases. More cores dont scale well.

In the below you can see the new 7350K keeping pace with genuine 4c and 4c/8t cpus in gta.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11083/the-intel-core-i3-7350k-60w-review/9

Those benchmarks are meaningless though as they don't show minimum frame rates which is where having extra cores have the biggest impact with DX11 games. I've seen 50% higher mins on a quad i7 vs the same architecture i5 at the same clock speeds in some games.

Why are they using a GTX 980 and lower to test the latest cpus in a gpu demanding game as well? Yes it's also cpu demanding but a 980 is definitely going to be the bottleneck with a lot of those cpu's.

EoinHef

BloodBath wrote: »

Those benchmarks are meaningless though as they don't show minimum frame rates which is where having extra cores have the biggest impact with DX11 games. I've seen 50% higher mins on a quad i7 vs the same architecture i5 at the same clock speeds in some games.

Why are they using a GTX 980 and lower to test the latest cpus in a gpu demanding game as well? Yes it's also cpu demanding but a 980 is definitely going to be the bottleneck with a lot of those cpu's.

100% agree more cores means less jarring framedrops,also can help with stuttering in some cases. My point was more that measuring usage on say an i7 with riva would lead you to believe that all cores were being utilised,yet when you campare the actual frame rates with an i3 there not loads higher much less double on the i7. So cores dont scale well.

Im assuming the review pick those gpu's as the average person looking to buy an i3 is most likely going to be bottlenecked by the gpu anyway. Cant see someone spending €600+ on say a 1080 and then pairing it with an i3.

BloodBath

That makes sense I guess. Most of the tests on this are old.

Ryzen reviews should give us a better picture as we will get up to date benchmarks with 4/4, 4/8, 6/12 and 8/16's cpu's with the rest of the hardware being identical.