The PC thread

[ReaperKK]

I'm not sure. I could be wrong but I believe the architecture change in the 20xx series made the cards less desirable for mining than the 1080 which is why the 1080's have still held their value in the used market.

When the 20xx series came out I had zero issue buying a 2080 at retail price after the initial rush to buy the cards died down. I was never able to get a 1080 at a reasonable price after the mining started taking off.

[cramx3]

That was my thought too, hope that stays true for us gamers

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Price on the 3090? Nope!

Also I would never buy a reference card, no matter what Nvidia claims about thermals (unless I was going to do open loop custom water cooling). 3rd party all the way.

[Bolsters]

The 3070 is going to cost only a little more than the 2070, but be up to 60% faster. I was looking at the 2070 for my upcoming build so I might just grab the 3070 instead.

[ReaperKK]

Price on the 3090? Nope!

Also I would never buy a reference card, no matter what Nvidia claims about thermals (unless I was going to do open loop custom water cooling). 3rd party all the way.

I like my EVGA a lot despite it's recent thermal pad leakage issue. Looks like I threw a bunch of lube on my card

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Price on the 3090? Nope!

Also I would never buy a reference card, no matter what Nvidia claims about thermals (unless I was going to do open loop custom water cooling). 3rd party all the way.

I like my EVGA a lot despite it's recent thermal pad leakage issue. Looks like I threw a bunch of lube on my card

I used to always buy EVGA's cards, up until the GTX 1070 and now RTX 2070, which are both Gigabyte.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I mean honestly if those starting prices are correct then you will get a 3070 for half the price of a 2080ti today and according to Nvidia the 3070 outperforms a 2080ti!! That's pretty crazy and will probably piss of some 2080ti owners.

[cramx3]

Price on the 3090? Nope!

Also I would never buy a reference card, no matter what Nvidia claims about thermals (unless I was going to do open loop custom water cooling). 3rd party all the way.

I like my EVGA a lot despite it's recent thermal pad leakage issue. Looks like I threw a bunch of lube on my card

I used to always buy EVGA's cards, up until the GTX 1070 and now RTX 2070, which are both Gigabyte.

My video cards have so far always been EVGA and I've had no issues with them so I plan on sticking with them if I do get a 3080 at some point.

[ReaperKK]

DF got their hands on a 3080 to test:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWD01yUQdVA&feature=emb_title

[faizoff]

Another day another drive failed, Newegg had a deal on the 8TB Barracudas so thought why not? This is how my drives look like now








Though you can never be too careful with multiple backups.. I may have a problem..


 

[cramx3]

  damn dude, everything thinks I have an insane storage set up... but it doesn't come close to that amount of data.  I do have a significant amount of my data on SDD/NMVe though and only run two 4TB HDDs.

[faizoff]

Only the C: is an SSD. Once I get my new build I'll switch to a few NVMe drives. SATA SSDs are also being ramped up in capacity with Seagate pushing out 4 TB ones and when they reach an affordable price I might snag a couple.

[The Walrus]

Holy crap dude! That's insane! I have no need for that level of storage and yet I have storage envy. 

Speaking of NVMe drives I am absolutely smitten with mine. Those things are so cool.

[faizoff]

 I was reading this guy's setup at home for a Plex server and he said he added 4 new 16 TB drives. I don't think I'm there... yet.

[cramx3]

Damn, at work, our largest we use are 10TB for our storage units.  But we also do have these crazy 6.4TB NVMe drives that are insane that we use for certain applications.  I often get some hand me downs from decommissioned or tested and not approved to use drives.  In fact, all but my m.2 (we don't use any of those types at work) drives are actually from work. 

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I was reading this guy's setup at home for a Plex server and he said he added 4 new 16 TB drives. I don't think I'm there... yet.

I have NAS drive for my Plex server and it's all SSD storage, 12TB.

[faizoff]

I was reading this guy's setup at home for a Plex server and he said he added 4 new 16 TB drives. I don't think I'm there... yet.

I have NAS drive for my Plex server and it's all SSD storage, 12TB.

Just to clarify about that guy, he added 4 x 16 TB. So a whopping 64 TB!

Your SSD Plex server must be blazing fast! What set of SSDs do you have?

Also has anyone put their SSDs in RAID, either SATA or NVMe? does it help for performance?

[ReaperKK]

I was always curious about SSD's in RAID and performance, is it worth it?

[cramx3]

I was always curious about SSD's in RAID and performance, is it worth it?

Definitely will get performance boost, but how much? I don't know, never ran tests but in my last build I had 3x 400G Intel SSDs in a raid0 which I used for my game storage since at raid0, if it fails it fails and I wouldn't lose data.  That was pretty quick, but I dont think it was as quick as a single NVMe as my games load super quick on my newest build (I'm almost always the first person to load in the COD lobby for example).

[ReaperKK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKneUFwVkXI Hitler reacts to RTX 3000 series

[faizoff]

Unboxing video for the 3080 Founder's Edition. Review and performance metrics out next week. I can't imagine how large the 3090 will be.


Also waiting next month for AMD's unveiling of both the Zen3 CPUs and RDNA2 GPUs.


I might actually go ahead and get my build done in November depending on availability and pricing of the Zen 3 CPUs.

[Progmetty]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some laptop recommendations, in the range of 1,000$-1,500$.
I don't need it for gaming, heaviest processing I need it for is recording audio and occasionally editing video.
I haven't been in the market since 2010, when I bought my Toshiba laptop, which is now slowly dying.
I looked for more Toshiba's but found that Toshiba sold it's laptop division or something, they don't make laptops anymore.
I'm looking at the Dell XPS 13 and the LG gram.
Neither have a VGA port BTW! since when did they stop having VGA ports in laptops? I need that! HDMI just doesn't do it for me, they say it should be higher quality but it's definitely not, in my experience.

[faizoff]

What do you need the VGA port to connect to? HDMI to HDMI should be fine these days. Would a surface laptop work? They fall in your price range. They look good for video editing.


I don't know if you'll find a laptop in that range with a VGA port, there are barely any monitors or TVs that have VGA ports now.

[faizoff]

Well color me surprised, I guess there are still a ton of VGA laptops

[Bolsters]

I can't think of a single thing VGA is better than HDMI for. Unless you simply just don't want to spend money on a new display, HDMI is better.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I can't think of a single thing VGA is better than HDMI for. Unless you simply just don't want to spend money on a new display, HDMI is better.

This, absolutely. VGA has been essentially dead for quite some time now. And for good reason.

To answer Progmetty's question. I would look at the Asus Zephyrus

Yes, it can game a little bit, but the real crown jewel is the AMD Ryzen 4800 processor. It can chew through any video editing or audio recording you throw at it. And it's in the price range you are looking at. No, it doesn't have a VGA port, but see my comment above.

[Progmetty]

What do you need the VGA port to connect to? HDMI to HDMI should be fine these days.

I can't think of a single thing VGA is better than HDMI for. Unless you simply just don't want to spend money on a new display, HDMI is better.

I need it for my external monitors, which does have HDMI ports that I don't use.
Theoretically, you guys are right. But I've tried this with several monitors, HDMI always looks dimmer and not as sharp as a VGA output.
Also, doesn't HDMI force the audio to come out of the monitor as well? I mean unless you plug in external speakers or headphones. I need the audio to only come out of the laptop's built-in speakers, that's just the right amount of sound containment I need for working at night with a bunch of people sleeping near by, while still needing to keep my ears free. So that's an issue, but definitely not a big one, the big one remains the display quality.
I'm discussing all this while I know you guys probably know better, for how long I've been out of the game.

Would a surface laptop work? They fall in your price range. They look good for video editing.

Around 20 years ago; a computer genius told me to never buy hardware from a company that mainly makes software. Sounded like good advice at the time, is it not the case anymore? I mean, it's the main reason I haven't considered these.
Currently looking at this one more closely, what do you think?

[Progmetty]

To answer Progmetty's question. I would look at the Asus Zephyrus

Yes, it can game a little bit, but the real crown jewel is the AMD Ryzen 4800 processor. It can chew through any video editing or audio recording you throw at it. And it's in the price range you are looking at. No, it doesn't have a VGA port, but see my comment above.

Yeah, I bring it up cause I'd like it very much to still be a viable option, but I've reconciled to the fact that if I need a good new laptop, it will come without it.

[Progmetty]

@Puppies_On_Acid that Asus is pretty sweet! I've never had a laptop that wasn't an Intel processor, so that AMD Ryzen is better than i7?

EDIT: It only has USB 3.1 ports, all my external drives use the standard type A cables, this means I need some kinda adapter.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

@Puppies_On_Acid that Asus is pretty sweet! I've never had a laptop that wasn't an Intel processor, so that AMD Ryzen is better than i7?

EDIT: It only has USB 3.1 ports, all my external drives use the standard type A cables, this means I need some kinda adapter.

Yeah, it's becoming increasingly harder to find nice modern laptops with USB type A ports, unfortunately.

As far as AMD Ryzen vs Intel I7? The AMD runs cooler, has more threads, has better performance (by far) for video editing type things, and draws less power. Therefor, much better battery life. At this point, unless you want bleeding edge gaming performance (and I mean like less than 5% better), there is absolutely no reason to buy an Intel processor these days.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I just looked at that LG laptop you linked. That is a terrible deal. Slow RAM, 2 generation old CPU, only 512gb SSD, no discrete video card, and it's more expensive than the Asus. Whereas the Asus has much faster RAM, a brand new CPU, 1tb NVME drive, and a discrete 1660ti video card, for less.

[Progmetty]

Thanks dude! I almost went for it!
Quick question though, you say that it's got a slow RAM, but it's 16 gb just like the Asus one, what am I missing?
Side note: I can't imagine what 16gb of RAM would be like, my Toshiba laptop, which I've been more than happy with since 2010 and up to a few weeks ago, only has 4gb of RAM, I'm preparing to have my mind blown by this haha

[Bolsters]

HDMI always looks dimmer and not as sharp as a VGA output.

Make sure when it's connected that the laptop is outputting the native resolution of the display through HDMI. It could be as simple as the laptop defaulting to 1920x1080 when the display is something else, then the display scales it and it isn't as sharp. If it has its own brightness/contrast controls and such see if they're set to the same values on both VGA and HDMI.

Also, doesn't HDMI force the audio to come out of the monitor as well? I mean unless you plug in external speakers or headphones. I need the audio to only come out of the laptop's built-in speakers

Most laptops default to HDMI audio when one is plugged in but it can be changed. I'm still on Windows 7 (you might be too though?), you can right-click the speaker icon in the tray (while HDMI is up and running), select playback devices, and switch back to the speaker output. While in there, also make speaker output the default, so that it won't automatically switch to HDMI anymore.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Thanks dude! I almost went for it!
Quick question though, you say that it's got a slow RAM, but it's 16 gb just like the Asus one, what am I missing?
Side note: I can't imagine what 16gb of RAM would be like, my Toshiba laptop, which I've been more than happy with since 2010 and up to a few weeks ago, only has 4gb of RAM, I'm preparing to have my mind blown by this haha

Oh, RAM operates at a specific frequency. The RAM in the LG laptop is 2400mhz. The RAM in the Asus is at 3200mhz, which is a decent uplift, especially for AMD cpu's, they thrive on faster RAM.

[XJDenton]

I can't think of a single thing VGA is better than HDMI for. Unless you simply just don't want to spend money on a new display, HDMI is better.

Running CRT monitors is about the only thing.