It's only money.

Mike13Foxtrot

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2020
Messages
380
Reaction score
418
Credits
3,344
So there I was right around the corner from Micro Center. I did not have to venture inside. But......

Turns out the AMD CPU's are reduced. Just grabbed the Ryzen 5 5600 for $149.00 so now the tower build has it's third CPU upgrade in a year and a half.

I was actually gonna pick up either ram kit or a 4TB drive. Now I am waiting for the AMD MB's to start dropping in price I need to grab 2. They had an open box B550 for 68 bucks but it was an ASRock which I have never had luck with them.

Still no PI's in stock. I have yet to grab a Pi4.
 


Gone are the days that I wish to build my own rig, upgrading and tweaking each little bit to pull that little extra advantage. I was big into it in the late 90's-early 2ks. Getting out came with a change in paradigm, when LAN parties were superseded by online play, and I moved from PC to console for my shoot-em-ups. These days, a simple laptop is good enough for my non-gaming stuff. I can wait a few extra seconds for things to happen. Don't get me wrong. I'm fond of those days/ I just let the next generation do all the work. ;)
 
I can wait a few extra seconds for things to happen
I have always been a gen behind, never needed the next best. Too many out there had problems. I now have 3 AM4 CPU's and the boards are gonna be cut in price when they move to AM5 next. The main problem with tech now a days, is there are too many manufacturers who pull stuff off the shelves. Used to be able to buy older gen stuff all the time.

Can't even get an older GPU in the stores you have to go Ebay or such.
 
I recently replaced the optical drive in the HP, trying to get the same one for a 6 yr old machine was 3 wasted days, I asked HP what alternative they recommend, and they didn't, just gave me the part numbers for the dud one, so I took a chance and got a second hand one that looked right, It fitted a treat and is working well, whilst I was going to have it in bits, I decided to install some more ram, another search for the right low voltage ram and I found a 4gb stick cheap from someone who had upgraded theirs [so I now have 8gb] then I thought well as I will have it stripped down I may as well put a faster CPU in, It has an I5, well after checking what the motherboard would take one of the I7 range was recommended Had a hunt round, no re-used ones available and a new one was £200 OUCH, before spending 3x what I paid for the box in the first place, I checked out the CPU test comparisons [plenty of sites you can do this on] and found I would get a 9% gain in overall performance, I took the view that the gain over cost was not economical so didn't bother. Adding just 4gb of ram on the other hand was, I am in several forums and often am logged into half a dozen or so and streaming music at the same time, jumping from one to the other is markedly quicker
[except when cloud flair
UHePGuJRfqsYzzgTKVfK.gif
goes down again]
 
Am so happy with this budget laptop am on, i ordered another one yesterday, this time instead of eMMC it comes with SSD and 8Gig
as opposed to the 4Gig in this one, its the ahem (Pro Model),
will be interesting to compare the Two, they are both Celerons, Quad Core 1.1-2.6Mhz 4021 in my first one, and in the incoming one a Celeron Dual Core 1.1,-2.8Mhz with same amount of cache.
They are both ultra low power 6 watt chips, no fan on either device,
the 4120 never gets hot, much cooler than my i3 which the fan used to run nearly all the time on windows, not so on Lbuntu.

They will be very close in what they can do, am amazed by the number of pages and tabs I can keep open in browsers, these little things can handle video unbelievable well, unlike the Raspberry Pi.

And they sip power, my days of needing the biggest and best are past.
 
You said it's an ahem (Pro Model) But in a search I can't find it, Can you give us a link where to find this model? Looking for a new Lappy for the wife.
 
You said it's an ahem (Pro Model) But in a search I can't find it, Can you give us a link where to find this model? Looking for a new Lappy for the wife.
The one below is the one am typing on right now, it has only 4Gb ram and 64Gb eMMC
the other model has a 128Gb SSD and 8Gb Ram, they show the Satellite Pro model too,
but they list the details of the lower spec model, no ssd, less memory etc, and a different
power brick, but I knew that beofore I bought, the price also reflects this,
the better kitted out model is 100.00 more expensive, though a student can get it for a lot less.
Both mine also came with Windows 10 Pro

I find the one I have perfectly usable for all I do, and a lot cheaper than
the Raspberry Pi offerings, when you buy a case, an Sd Card an SSD
monitor a power supply a keyboard and a mouse and a HDMI cable,
and if you want a mobile raspberry Pi device with screen and input via
touch screen only, then that will cost you.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks!
 
Gone are the days that I wish to build my own rig, upgrading and tweaking each little bit to pull that little extra advantage. I was big into it in the late 90's-early 2ks. Getting out came with a change in paradigm, when LAN parties were superseded by online play, and I moved from PC to console for my shoot-em-ups. These days, a simple laptop is good enough for my non-gaming stuff. I can wait a few extra seconds for things to happen. Don't get me wrong. I'm fond of those days/ I just let the next generation do all the work. ;)
Wow, LAN parties, there's some nostalgia. You don't realise how old you are until something like that comes up. I remember all the fan-translated anime that was shared back then (technically legally b/c it wasn't licensed in my country yet), long before streaming services. Back to those awful Xvid encodes...
I also went through the laptops phase for a while about 10 years back, but I've come full-circle. A lot of it because of all my storage and USB needs, but also because of my need for processing power that affordable laptops can't provide. In recent times, I have wondered if I'll go back, but I doubt it.
 
but also because of my need for processing power that affordable laptops can't provide
I noticed you have the Ryzen 3600 and an X570...upgrade now with the low price on AMD to the 5600 to the 5700. All through that are under 200 right now. My 3600 is now in the box. I may grab a B550 MB and and just keep them in waiting. I am not ready to go AM5 and DDR5 mem yet too high prices.
 
I noticed you have the Ryzen 3600 and an X570...upgrade now with the low price on AMD to the 5600 to the 5700. All through that are under 200 right now. My 3600 is now in the box. I may grab a B550 MB and and just keep them in waiting. I am not ready to go AM5 and DDR5 mem yet too high prices.
I would, believe me, if I could afford it. I'd probably consider the 5700G if my board has a firmware update for it (5600 had one a while back) since I like knowing I have a backup if my video card dies. But, yeah, essentially the 5600 would be my perfect chip. It has an STR of >3k, which breaks the maximum I'll need for a long, long time.
 
5600 would be my perfect chip
I tried it in Doom Eternal at all extreme settings with the 8GB AMD 6600 GPU and was getting 198 FPS throughout. The 3600 I replaced same GPU get me 98 FPS, so the 3600 was the bottleneck. Also the Coolermaster Tower keeps it idle at 31c and the most it rises to it 56. Now I has only days old thermal paste so we shall see over time.
 
I tried it in Doom Eternal at all extreme settings with the 8GB AMD 6600 GPU and was getting 198 FPS throughout. The 3600 I replaced same GPU get me 98 FPS, so the 3600 was the bottleneck. Also the Coolermaster Tower keeps it idle at 31c and the most it rises to it 56. Now I has only days old thermal paste so we shall see over time.
Quite a difference. Well, it is an average of 80% increase for single thread rating (STR). My needs cap at ~3k. After this point, I'm happy (though I'd like to, if possible, get back to an all-AMD system and get a replacement for my nVidia card -- I'm happy with a 6500XT, which is currently the cheapest option in stock anywhere in RSA for AMD). Luckily I'm not a heavy gamer, so I'm not in a hurry to upgrade, so I can hang in. I just hope they're still stocked by the time I can afford an upgrade, lol.
 
I have always been a gen behind, never needed the next best.
Back then, every MHz mattered. It's like adding 15hp to a 100hp engine, vs. adding 15hp to a 500hp engine. So we did what we needed to make the games as fluid and responsive as possible. When water cooling was a new and relatively unproven technology, I remember people paying many hundreds of moolah so they could squeeze an extra 50MHz from their CPUs. Pretty interesting times.

These days my kids play on PS4/PS5 remote with their online "friends". They really have no concept of the excitement of bringing your own rig to a session, with your real life friends, showing off your new hardware, eating cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew from dusk to dawn, before loading it all back up into your parent's car and going home.
 
Never went to a LAN party. I got hooked on Technology, my fascination grew out of using Artillery computers in the ARMY.

We had a DMD, (Digital Message Device) it was a keyboard with a little screen
1653638248094.png

on that would be menus to select fire missions. It encrypted the signal and sent it over FM radio.

I am amazed at the use of drones being used in the Ukraine for the Arty boys. They are using a live feed to get location, watch the incoming, and adjust fire and damage assessment.

My first 1000 dollar pc was an 8088 processor, 2 floppies, no HD, 640K ram. No real time clock. Turn on, type in date and time. If you entered a command that was not stored you had to insert a disk.
 
My first 1000 dollar pc was an 8088 processor, 2 floppies, no HD, 640K ram. No real time clock. Turn on, type in date and time. If you entered a command that was not stored you had to insert a disk.
Ah, the old IBM compatible, I also started with one of those
 
Ah, the old IBM compatible, I also started with one of those
My first was a ColecoVision ADAM. Tape drive. Display was a standard RF TV, channel 3. Turn it on without a tape and it booted into a very rudimentary word processor. BASIC was on tape, and is where I got my coding feet wet. Some games were also on tape, but the big deal about this thing was that it also had a cartridge bay where I could put in Coleco game cartridges!

One bad thing about the ADAM is that when it was turned on, the power supply would emit an EMP that was known to wipe tapes that were on, or around the unit, or worse, IN the drive! This was a known and published issue for this machine model.

I still have that machine, packed away. Last time I turned it on it still ran.
 
I operate my desktops with one side panel removed.:)
My Intel desktop tower has the side off, but my AMD gaming rig I built runs with it on. Took the side off to add 16GB ram to replace the 8 that came with it. added a side fan and just never put the side back on. Also bought a Turbo Blower, got tired off canned air.
 

Staff online

Members online


Top