Random Hardware topics

[Colif]

Sounds like an excuse to upgrade main rig if laptop passes it.

Do you need it all? I have 32gb and most I ever used was when a game (Diablo 4) had a vram memory leak. I only get to 20gb ram usage if I open a Virtual Machine

Having said that, tempting to get 96gb in next PC, just cause I can. Kind of pointless. More likely to change CPU to a 9950x3d instead, 64gb is probably enough ram.

 

[red_5ive]

Sounds like an excuse to upgrade main rig if laptop passes it.

Do you need it all? I have 32gb and most I ever used was when a game (Diablo 4) had a vram memory leak. I only get to 20gb ram usage if I open a Virtual Machine

Having said that, tempting to get 96gb in next PC, just cause I can. Kind of pointless. More likely to change CPU to a 9950x3d instead, 64gb is probably enough ram.

lol I'm fine with 32 GB on my main rig. It rarely goes above 60% with a new(er) game, along with all kinds of other garbage I might have running. But I have 2 slots free, so if I start seeing that hard drive chunking...

I don't really need the 48 GB. The simple answer is I just didn't want to spend the $ on RAM. My prior gaming laptop (Asus F15) came with 2 x 8 GB of RAM, but one stick was soldered to the board. Being that it supported up to 40 GB, I figured I'd just go with a 32 GB stick instead of 16 GB which would have made it 24. I restored the old 8 GB stick and moved the 32 GB stick to the Zephyrus, which similarly has a single 16 GB stick soldered to to the board and 1 open slot. So that's how I ended up with the 48 GB.

While I think 48 GB for now is still kind'a pointless (and also the 40 GB I had previously) for gaming, and 96 would be overkill if not for something like a server, I wouldn't argue on doing it just because you can. I tend to go overkill with some of my other hobbies so who am I to say otherwise. Why not?

 

[red_5ive]

Also, I hadn't tried a game yet after adding the RAM, until now. The laptop has a 4070 M gpu (which I think is the equivalent of a 3070). I was only getting 60 FPS in a 2019 game (Ghost Recon: Breakpoint), but after installing the RAM it jumped to 100 FPS and running very smooth at 100Hz.

 

[Colif]

Guess that is one reason for more ram on a laptop, the GPU gets more resources to access.

If I use the lian li software to control my AIO fans, I can hear this noise all the time from one of the fans.
If I let the bios control then, I don't get the noise.

I can't recall why I swapped back to letting software control them.

 

[Colif]

Progress, went from 32mb of ram in 2001 to 32gb of vram in 2025.
Price almost stayed in line with increase in amount...

ASUS V7100 MAGIC Specs

NVIDIA NV11B, 175 MHz, 2 Pixel Shaders, 0 Vertex Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, 32 MB SDR, 166 MHz, 64 bit

www.techpowerup.com

 

[isleepinabed]

Progress, went from 32mb of ram in 2001 to 32gb of vram in 2025.
Price almost stayed in line with increase in amount...

ASUS V7100 MAGIC Specs

NVIDIA NV11B, 175 MHz, 2 Pixel Shaders, 0 Vertex Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, 32 MB SDR, 166 MHz, 64 bit

www.techpowerup.com

I think I got mine for GTA 3 about that time

 

[Colif]

Dell have been beaten by Asus in a competition neither want to be in

 

[ZedClampet]

It's the CPU using the extra RAM in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, probably to reduce paging and decrease the amount of writes/reads to the SSD or NVMe. Open world games still overly tax laptop CPUs. It would be extremely rare for you to be GPU bound in an Ubisoft open world game on a laptop. Plus that GPU has 12 GB of VRAM, so there shouldn't be any overflow to regular RAM.

 

[Colif]

It's the CPU using the extra RAM in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, probably to reduce paging and decrease the amount of writes/reads to the SSD or NVMe. Open world games still overly tax laptop CPUs. It would be extremely rare for you to be GPU bound in an Ubisoft open world game on a laptop. Plus that GPU has 12 GB of VRAM, so there shouldn't be any overflow to regular RAM.

were you replying to a post in here or was this for another thread?

 

[Colif]

We finally convinced mum to upgrade TV today, we going from a
46inch Sony Bravia from 2011 that was 3d capable - I have the glasses but I never really used feature.... or TV.
to a
55inch Sony Bravia 7 mini led

That is not bad, 14 years out of one TV.

They prefer Sony, I would have chosen Samsung if given choice.

She has needed a new one for a while as her current one is scratched. She tried to clean it and got it wrong.
I have been trying to get her to upgrade for about a year or so... I gave up. Brother found a good deal and suggested she buy it... always case, no one listens to me. Next thing she needs is a new PC... I not going to wait a year for that.

bit of a jump, to a 4k HDR display. I will have to watch a few videos on it to see what I am missing (don't have HDR on PC). I will have to learn how it works just to help her.

 

[Colif]

Observation: most of the hardware items that have screens on them that show system stats use a USB 2 header on the motherboard.
A lot of new motherboards don't have many usb 2 slots so they are working in opposition to each other.
They are like weather widgets on Android. 1000s of them but they all show the same information.
My fans can do it and I found a CPU cooler that was the same today.

My 2nd AIO pump died today, I have taken the hint. Back to air.

 

[Colif]

The impossible pc

Cannot power a motherboard without wires. Hidden wires does not equal no wires.

 

[Colif]

Stats of my old PC

Current:

its speed is a lie, Windows can't actually tell what speed my CPU is running at, its looking in the wrong place still. Good chance its about same as the 4690k, difference is it can boost to 4.5ghz and put cores asleep. The sleep thing is what messes with Task manager.

More concerned about temps, if anything my current system fans are running slower which is funny as the top system had 3 x 180mm fans in it, so I should have been running them slower all along. I didn't think of it for a few years.

My CPU is also running cooler but the previous system relied on the intel stock cooler, this one never used an AMD stock cooler even though its original CPU (3600xt) came with one. Still around here somewhere.

 

[Colif]

I have seen videos of the new Seasonic/Noctua PSU but it didn't look like this one

It was more like:

 

[Colif]

This case has best CPU and GPU thermals on the market... for air cooling

So naturally, every build using it on Youtube (apart from Steve's above) have put a 360mm Radiator in the top of case as exhaust... why?

2 things:

1. its a positive pressure system designed to push all air out the back of case, so when you add 3 x 120mm fans on radiator, now its not so clear. Guess it doesn't matter too much for CPU but sure confuses airflow.
2. putting a pump on the CPU of the best Air cooling case on market just feels like a waste of money.

Just buy another case if you want to do that. Its up there with putting AIO in a Fractal Torrent.

Just shopping for ideas for a future PC. Since I am unlikely to use an AIO in next PC, I am interested in keeping parts inside chilly.
EDIT: in hindsight, they probably got ideas from Antec since they should radiator placements all over case.

 

[Colif]

My new air cooler sounds like there is a propeller driven airplane flying over when it is decreasing its speed after being over 50c.

Its something I just need to get used to so I can ignore the normal noises it makes all day. Especially in summer... it sits on 50c (on the package, cores are on 40C or less - its normal for there to be a 10c difference as the package is outside of the CPU).

After water that is slow to react, its a big change. Four years of water will take some time to adjust (funny, last time I took a pump out of my room the silence was what got me, not the added noise... it was a pump for a fish tank though... and had been running non stop for a few years. Silence is harder to get used to than a noise is)

 

[Colif]

There is such a thing as too many screens, he appears to have 8 LCD screens

I didn't get some of his problems. I mainly use BIOS to control fans so haven't had issues with it swapping sensors. Or any problems with USB.

I also don't think strimmer cables on PSU is right approach, hide them... not flaunt PSU cables.
Don't like color scheme either but I don't have to look at it.

 

[Colif]

So my next PC will likely use this case

FLUX PRO - Antec

www.antec.com

and I noticed it allowed Vertical GPU mounts and thought... i wonder.

https://www.antec.com/documents/product/accessory/accessory-Antec_Shift_PCIE%204.0_Black&White_flyer_231225.pdf

Alas, it only takes at most 3 slot cards and my GPU is 3.5

Guess way case designed it makes sense to have GPU horizontal since two 120mm fans blow right at it from below.

 

[Colif]

I want to give my current PC to my mum but I don't think it will fit in the space she has in her room for a PC. Or at least, where her desk is. I know for a fact it won't fit in the gap under her keyboard. My old PC stopped doing that about 20 years ago.

There is a bed right behind the chair... and too many packing boxes on the floor we need to clear. Not sure whats in there

I didn't plan on giving her my keyboard and mouse, so it needs to be close to her... and well, there isn't much space. She has a Corsair K70 Keyboard and an old Dell mouse (Keyboard was mine)
I should buy her a new mouse

Not sure which is best choice:

1. I could get a longer HDMI cable + wireless KB & mouse set, and put PC in another spot in room so she can use it.
2. Or would a USB hub attached to a long cable with the USB mouse & Keyboard plugged in work?
3. Or she can rearrange room to make it fit without any extra cables - I told her and she has since mentioned she can rearrange the room... only so much as there are bookcases and built in cupboards to deal with.

Think I see how 3 goes.

Pity I can't think of a way of casting the image of PC onto her monitor from another room. But that just means two PC's working in my room... it can get hot enough with one.
Shame mum won't set up PC in living room as plenty of space there. Then she wouldn't ever go into one room.

Not giving it to her right now (I need it) but if I upgrade this year, and she is on a potato PC from 2015 which can't upgrade to 11... why not. I was going to buy her a laptop, this fixes that and means I just put my old PC as is into another room. And its actually useful still. And not that far away. Makes copying info onto new one really easy as well.

It won't have my current GPU in it or the 4 tb games drive, but I can put my old 2070 Super in and she can use my current win 11 install on my nvme. She doesn't use space. She won't play any games either but well, CPU doesn't have any graphics without one.

I will set up a user for her so she doesn't need to deal with any of my software. Its handy as we don't know the username or password she currently has on her PC. This way I will know.


She won't know what hit her... going from 8gb ram hdd based quad threaded CPU to a 32gb ram nvme based 16 thread CPU.
Put it this way, I won't miss her old PC. It takes 5 minutes to start up. It might appear to be at desktop but often its thinking about something for another 5 minutes. Defrags don't help... bullet might. accidentally falling out of a building might. Its so painful, its why I wanted to buy her a laptop but I can't do that and buy a new PC for myself.

Now two reasons to look forward to a new PC.