Off-Topic Thread V3.0

GHOST MGG

Gamemax customer support is shocking..

The gamemax case is great to build in and has great airflow and i have built systems in 5 of them but no more.

problem is if anything is wrong with the case or something breaks their support just gives the run around for weeks and weeks and fobs you off.

Pangea

I Finally got everything up and running, build complete no major problems fingers crossed. My first time building from scratch , started on Monday and took my time and got it done today. A video by Christopher Flannigan on Youtube was very helpful.

Haven't really spent much time on it yet, the Fractal Design 7 case is huge, I didn't think it would be so big. I have it sitting on the floor. It will take some getting used to.

I need to buy a proper mouse now as my old one sticks , can anyone recommend a good wireless mouse? I got a mx master 3 a few months ago but had to return as it caused a pain in my hand.

K.O.Kiki

Pangea wrote: »

I need to buy a proper mouse now as my old one sticks , can anyone recommend a good wireless mouse? I got a mx master 3 a few months ago but had to return as it caused a pain in my hand.

RJN's site is still the go-to for figuring out the correct mouse size/shape for your hand: https://www.rocketjumpninja.com/mouse-search

wotzgoingon

My computer turned itself off this evening while I was in the shower. I haven't a clue what happened I even checked the power settings to see if they had changed but no still on never turn off. Weird one as it never happened before. Only change would be the 6900 XT but I have had that a few months now but did update to the latest driver when it was released last week I think.(last week or the week before cannot remember). But it never happened till now so I doubt that is the reason.

Robert ninja

Did it blink off or shutdown gracefully? Possible windows update or system crash The the power might've flicked off for a second or PSU could've gotten overloaded.

Shlippery

wotzgoingon wrote: »

My computer turned itself off this evening while I was in the shower. I haven't a clue what happened I even checked the power settings to see if they had changed but no still on never turn off. Weird one as it never happened before. Only change would be the 6900 XT but I have had that a few months now but did update to the latest driver when it was released last week I think.(last week or the week before cannot remember). But it never happened till now so I doubt that is the reason.

Think you can open 'event viewer' in windows & look for any outages/errors. Might give a hint.

Could be an aggressive windows update. I've noticed they're a lot more pushy with restarting if you leave them off..

Robert ninja

https://www.csl-computer.com/k/w997h8UO

Any optimisations to be made to this build? Save money, improve performance etc. Give no shytes about noise or RGB.

Giblet

500GB space isn't very much, especially for gaming.

Samuel T. Cogley

Robert ninja wrote: »

https://www.csl-computer.com/k/w997h8UO

Any optimisations to be made to this build? Save money, improve performance etc. Give no shytes about noise or RGB.

SSD seems a bit small and not sure about that PSU, could be grand just never heard of them.

cherryghost

My PC shut down yesterday, had a look around and my power surge protector shut everything on the adapter down. Realised my monitors were off too. Plugged everything in one by one, and the pc was triggering protector. **** in pants time, opened my case and I could smell something but not sure from what, couldn't pinpoint it down. So I stripped the pc down, adding components one by one til the protector flicked on again....it was a hard drive. Nothing looks distinctly off on the controller but I did find the source of the dreaded smell. My oldest one, nothing lost from it. But **** me was I sweaty yesterday. Thought my pc bit the bullet.

minitrue

Go with 2*16GB instead of 4*8GB, saves money and likely to improve performance. The Kingston 3733 will do 3600CL17 instead of 3600CL18 also and cheaper than their 3600 options. If it's purely for gaming the 2*8GB should be fine also to save some more.

The usual question is what sort of monitor you are pairing it with and what you are going to be running on it.

Robert ninja

Giblet wrote: »

500GB space isn't very much, especially for gaming

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

SSD seems a bit small and not sure about that

I'd probably go 1TB but it bumps me past €1700 (my max). I've managed so far with only 200GB SSD for gaming after one of my SSDs died. I try not to have too many games installed anyway. With high speed internet I let valve store my games for me. Easily expandable post-purchase, too. Helps that most of the games I play are super small but that might change if I have the horsepower to run these modern games.

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

not sure about that PSU, could be grand just never heard of them.

Same. It was just the default one in there.

minitrue wrote: »

Go with 2*16GB instead of 4*8GB, saves money and likely to improve performance. The Kingston 3733 will do 3600CL17 instead of 3600CL18 also and cheaper than their 3600 options. If it's purely for gaming the 2*8GB should be fine also to save some more.

Thanks yeah that did save some money on it! 16GB definitely not enough for what I get up to. Tab fiend, OBS and SWAP off means my system will crash if I go over 16GB, which I used to all the time but I've become quite good at manually managing memory. A skill I'd be happy to dull in favor of opening whatever I want without thought. Besides a game I'm interested has this :pac:

minitrue wrote: »

The usual question is what sort of monitor you are pairing it with and what you are going to be running on it.

1440p, 144hz. More of what I do now. Gaming, graphics, code, streaming/recording.

minitrue

You mention streaming, personally I'd go nvidia in that case for it's nvenc encoder. That along with 1440p144 makes me think your budget isn't really going to get you there with prices as they are unless you are sticking to lightweight games, or it's at least worth doing some research on what you can expect from the 6700 to make sure your expectations are reasonable.

Robert ninja

Thanks for advice. Yeah I've mulled over this a lot so I kinda know what I'm getting from the 6700. I would've went 6800XT but the cost is just beyond me.
The nvidia encoder is tempting but not sure if it's worth €100+ more. Most of Nvidia's features don't work on my system anyway (not using windows) so I often favor AMD thanks to reliable open drivers I use. Not completely opposed to going green though.

When streaming modern/heavy games I'll be framecapping em' to around 60~ fps, stream @ 720p, internal @ 1440p, settings at medium. If I set unlimited FPS the games try to reach infinity which can throttle OBS like crazy. Others I may even use resolution scalers to about 75% (1080p).

minitrue

Linux I presume so nvenc can work but only with their closed drivers, their raytracing doesn't (unless quite recently changed) and not sure about anything else. What nvenc is worth depends on how you value the stream quality (including how much stepping down to 720p annoys you). Obviously you are well aware that using nvidia's closed drivers is a headache compared to AMD and trust me it pains me to even point out there is an advantage to nvidia here as I'd lean strongly on the Free Software side of things.

The €100+ is still cheaper then adding more cores I don't think there's been any significant change from AMD or nvidia in the latest generation when it comes to their encoders so the charts and video at this link might help give you an idea what you would get for the extra cash and pain: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/ultimate-encoder-quality-analysis-2020-nvenc-vs-amf-vs-quicksync-vs-x264.998/

Robert ninja

minitrue wrote: »

What nvenc is worth depends on how you value the stream quality (including how much stepping down to 720p annoys you)

For streaming I'm quite happy @ 720p if it means it doesn't turn pixelated during action. The overwhelming amount of viewers watch on phones and those on desktop are practically never going fullscreen so I don't have any incentive to go 1080p. That's for dedicated streaming computers, twitch thots and professional setups where there's a return on the investment. This is pure hobby.

minitrue wrote: »

The €100+ is still cheaper then adding more cores

Whose adding more cores? The CPU in the build linked is what I was gonna go with. You think it ain't gonna cut it for x264 or ffmpeg VAAPI? It thought it might be able to handle medium speed instead of very fast. Ah this is a wreck the head.

minitrue wrote: »

link might help give you an idea what you would get for the extra cash and pain:

Hard to say just from graphs tbh. If I can get a 720p stream that doesn't turn to mush during action, using open AMD drivers then I'm happy as a clown. I really, really don't fancy paying €100 to go near closed nvidia malarkey. Unless that's my only choice for a clean, non-pixelated stream.

Confused11811

Confused11811 wrote: »

Speaking of ITX:D

I received the case, PSU ,M.2 SSD, motherboard and cooler over the weekend to accompany the ram and CPU I already had picked up.

My 1080 TI in current main rig will probably be going into this build. Hoping to land a RX6700XT or RX6800XT from AMD this week to replace the 1080 TI in the main build but if that doesn't happen I've a RX6700XT pre-ordered from Amazon ES to fall back on. Ideally I'd like to get a white GPU for the ITX build but thats not going to happen anytime soon :pac:

Card ordered today building will be starting soon

minitrue

Robert ninja wrote: »

For streaming I'm quite happy @ 720p if it means it doesn't turn pixelated during action. The overwhelming amount of viewers watch on phones and those on desktop are practically never going fullscreen so I don't have any incentive to go 1080p. That's for dedicated streaming computers, twitch thots and professional setups where there's a return on the investment. This is pure hobby.

Whose adding more cores? The CPU in the build linked is what I was gonna go with. You think it ain't gonna cut it for x264 or ffmpeg VAAPI? It thought it might be able to handle medium speed instead of very fast. Ah this is a wreck the head.

Hard to say just from graphs tbh. If I can get a 720p stream that doesn't turn to mush during action, using open AMD drivers then I'm happy as a clown. I really, really don't fancy paying €100 to go near closed nvidia malarkey. Unless that's my only choice for a clean, non-pixelated stream.

What a 5600X will handle no doubt depends on the games, no idea tbh if it will get you to 720p@medium without impacting the gameplay too much if you use x264 though. As a "pure hobby" where you are happy with 720p it's not worth wrecking your head and my apologies if I have. The cores comment was really just pointing out that stepping up to a 5800x (let alone 5900x) costs more then switching to nvidia. I honestly don't know the true state of the vaapi encoding from AMD but I haven't seen anything to suggest it can compete with nvenc which sadly took a giant leap with Turing that makes it a no brainer for people with streaming in mind who don't care between AMD/nvidia.


The link I posted did in turn have a link to the video about it with lots of samples/comparisons and commentary but it's not Linux based so it's not perfect for you.

If you had mentioned Linux from the outset or that you "weren't completely opposed" you might have saved yourself from me commenting so much about nvenc at all as I know full well avoiding nvidia on Linux has value

Robert ninja

minitrue wrote: »

As a "pure hobby" where you are happy with 720p it's not worth wrecking your head and my apologies if I have. The cores comment was really just pointing out that stepping up to a 5800x (let alone 5900x) costs more then switching to nvidia. I honestly don't know the true state of the vaapi encoding from AMD but I haven't seen anything to suggest it can compete with nvenc which sadly took a giant leap with Turing that makes it a no brainer for people with streaming in mind who don't care between AMD/nvidia.

AFAIK AMD one is shyte but it's what I'm using and it's all I can do for now on my current system. Using x264 makes everything stutter which I hate. Hopefully the new CPU will handle it though. And no worries it's not you that's wreckin' the head, that's just choosing PC parts. Similar to monitors... somehow a nightmare.

minitrue wrote: »

If you had mentioned Linux from the outset or that you "weren't completely opposed" you might have saved yourself from me commenting so much about nvenc at all as I know full well avoiding nvidia on Linux has value

I generally dance around mentioning it directly because it either:
1. Gets some people buttmad
2. Solicits unrelated advice about how it's a bad idea not to use windows for X,Y and Z

minitrue wrote: »

The cores comment was really just pointing out that stepping up to a 5800x (let alone 5900x) costs more then switching to nvidia

That is worth noting though, depending if I change the build up. Thanks.

minitrue wrote: »

The link I posted did in turn have a link to the video about it with lots of samples/comparisons and commentary but it's not Linux based so it's not perfect for you

My bad! I completely missed the video. It looked like a quote at the top so I scrolled right the images. Doh. But yeah it might be a bit misleading due to windows testing but similar to benchmarks I do some internal tweaking in my head to lower the expectation a bit.

Pangea

I noticed on my new build there's a bit of a noise, almost like a pur or added noise to the general background noise you would expect from a PC , pretty sure it's the cpu fan which is 3700x.
It probably wouldn't bother many but these things bother me.
Any tips? I do know when I was building i stupidly put the cpu pre added paste side down on plastic , it smudged it a bit but there was still plenty on it so I didn't bother cleaning and adding new. I noticed the noise gets louder if computer is completing a task

wotzgoingon

Is it the stock cooler.

Pangea

wotzgoingon wrote: »

Is it the stock cooler.

Yes

Squidgy Black

Pangea wrote: »

Yes

Check your fan curves in the BIOS for the CPU fan, if it's the wraith prism it shouldn't be overly loud.

Do the same with your GPU with MSI Afterburner, I had a 1650 super for a while that was single fan that made an outrageous high pitched whine because the fan was always on high.

Pangea

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Check your fan curves in the BIOS for the CPU fan, if it's the wraith prism it shouldn't be overly loud.

Do the same with your GPU with MSI Afterburner, I had a 1650 super for a while that was single fan that made an outrageous high pitched whine because the fan was always on high.

Thanks , I have my case fans connected to the nexus 2 hub on my fractal design 7 case so I don't think I can monitor them unless I connect directly to my X570 board, is that correct? What do I look for in the curves? I do have the cpu cooler connected directly though. The GPU I am using is 3070 Gigabyte RTX.

Squidgy Black

Pangea wrote: »

Thanks , I have my case fans connected to the nexus 2 hub on my fractal design 7 case so I don't think I can monitor them unless I connect directly to my X570 board, is that correct? What do I look for in the curves? I do have the cpu cooler connected directly though. The GPU I am using is 3070 Gigabyte RTX.

Fractal case fans would be 3 pin anyways so not controllable, but they should be fairly quiet anyways. Your CPU fan however should be visible in the BIOS.

I wouldn't change anything drastically, just see what point it ramps up to near full speed, and check your temps when you're gaming under load as well to make sure you're not getting mad temps too

SickBoy

Pangea wrote: »

I noticed on my new build there's a bit of a noise, almost like a pur or added noise to the general background noise you would expect from a PC , pretty sure it's the cpu fan which is 3700x.
It probably wouldn't bother many but these things bother me.
Any tips? I do know when I was building i stupidly put the cpu pre added paste side down on plastic , it smudged it a bit but there was still plenty on it so I didn't bother cleaning and adding new. I noticed the noise gets louder if computer is completing a task

The Wraith Prisim cooler is known to be a little on the noisy side.

Discussion on the LTT forum that liks to this Youtube video.

If your sounds similar the long story short is to replace it with an after marker tower cooler or AIO.

Homelander

The Wrath Prism is pretty loud and tends to ramp up and down very noticably. I just set mine to a low manual curve, could barely hear it and temps were fine. Obviously higher than they'd be otherwise, but perfectly within normal ranges.

Pangea

Homelander wrote: »

The Wrath Prism is pretty loud and tends to ramp up and down very noticably. I just set mine to a low manual curve, could barely hear it and temps were fine. Obviously higher than they'd be otherwise, but perfectly within normal ranges.

Thanks , what does settling a low manual curve entail?
Screenshot of fan




I have barely used the pc yet as my mouse isnt working right so graphs might not be telling a lot. Just web browsing so far..

wotzgoingon

In the top image run the blue line from 25 to 75 and start where it is and at half way between 75 and 100 degrees be at half way between 25% and 50% and then the last dot be at 100 and 100.

Lu Tze

A bit of a query for ye, just wondering if I can bang in a couple of extra low end graphics cards (say GT710s or similar) to get 4 hdmi or display port outputs without issue? Nothing intensive just 2d displays.

So say 2 x low end GC => 4 x display outputs