Random Hardware topics

[neogunhero]

Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT Pulse OC 16 GB Review - An Excellent Choice

The Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB sells close to MSRP, yet it features a factory overclock and higher power limit. In our testing, its cooler remained whisper-quiet even at full load. Interestingly, this model uses Samsung memory, whereas all other cards we've tested so far use Hynix.

www.techpowerup.com

Posted early by accident sorry.

I think the RX 9060 is the one thats gone OEM only, there arent good reviews for that yet I dont think.

Makes sense, the ones I'm seeing on Amazon are the 9060 XT's. Maybe if it dropped down closer to $300-350, it would be a much better value over the 5060 8GB, but if you can find a 5060 Ti 16GB at MSRP that would be the way to go.

 

[Colif]

saving up a little and buying a better card with more vram is a smarter idea than being tempted by a low price on a card that shouldn't exist

i spent all night making sure one thing I want to buy was the best choice. All the alternatives fail one way or another Just need to resist buying it this week. I have wanted it since December so its only a matter of time - not PC related - My PC replaced it as a more interesting thing to save for.

 

[neogunhero]

saving up a little and buying a better card with more vram is a smarter idea than being tempted by a low price on a card that shouldn't exist

i spent all night making sure one thing I want to buy was the best choice. All the alternatives fail one way or another Just need to resist buying it this week. I have wanted it since December so its only a matter of time - not PC related - My PC replaced it as a more interesting thing to save for.

I think it boils down to prices fluxuating so much. The 5060 8GB is at MSRP for a reason, it's not very desirable to most people. To me yeah, only because it will be a big upgrade from my 6 year old card, but to most others it's not a very smart choice. Popular cards are the ones that fluxate the most in price, so the 5060 staying at $300 is what was pulling at my wallet.

Done with this topic, it will only reinforce my bad thought processes

 

[Colif]

The 5060 8GB... big upgrade

How soon you forget

For me it really should be, as like you said going from 6gb to 8gb isn't a huge upgrade... performance wise may be better but longevity suffers at the sake of cost. The price tag is just really good and was tempting me, but really shouldn't waste the money on such a small upgrade. If I plan on using a card for long time like my current card, it needs to be more substantial. the 5060 Ti 16GB would be a much better choice, but those aren't at MSRP like the 8GB non-Ti versions are, could be another point why I was getting tempted.

My next PC is likely Intel but they have to exist and be competitive to let me buy one

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Makes sense, the ones I'm seeing on Amazon are the 9060 XT's. Maybe if it dropped down closer to $300-350, it would be a much better value over the 5060 8GB, but if you can find a 5060 Ti 16GB at MSRP that would be the way to go.

I think for the most part I would go for a 5060Ti 16GB over a RX 9060XT for 50 more, but its not a wash for the 5060Ti in all games. Path Tracing is still way better on Nvidia though and obvs DLSS is a bit better than FSR, but its not the big gap it was.

 

[neogunhero]

My next PC is likely Intel but they have to exist and be competitive to let me buy one

All the negative stuff I hear going on at Intel these days seem to never mention the GPU department of the company. The CPU's aren't doing as well, networking is being spun off, CEO is apparently in hot water because our president hates the fact that he's Chinese or something like that? Yet I never hear anything bad going on with the GPU side of the business. I hope that means they are focusing on strengthening that side, they have some interesting stuff going on. Always welcome to new competitors, as long as they can survive... btw didn't watch the video yet, Steve probably says something about how the GPU's are doing terribly idunno

 

[Colif]

The video mentions the GPU area are the only ones who seem to have any good ideas. Or products people want to buy now.

One German website showed sales figures from July 25
AMD CPU: 12000 units sold
Intel: 1100 sold (no, I didn't forget a 0)
there is no demand for their product on desktop. Or server... Laptop is only market they dominate in pure numbers sold, and a lot of their dominance is from old sales, not new ones.

Video also fleshes out why the CEO might be under scrutiny. Something to do with his previous job.

Steve was giving news, it wasn't opinion as much. No real mention of GPU hardware.

Intel in a slump, AMD were here 20 years ago. It took them 10 years to dig their way out again, they bet the company on Zen and they sure were lucky it worked. Intel not so much.

 

[neogunhero]

Time for a minor but significant upgrade. After searching for what feels like forever, I have found a great SSD that hits all the right boxes at an affordable price. I picked up the Teamgroup T-Force G-50 2TB SSD for $104 USD. I could have spent an extra $20 on something a bit better, but that $20 went towards a new cover for my headphones headband which was needed for a long time as well.

This drive is DRAM-less but I've come to realize that is not the most important thing when it comes to SSDs. DRAM is nice to have but often more expensive by a solid $30-40 than what I paid for my new drive with almost unnoticeable performance benefits in real-world usage. DRAM-less drives have also come a long way and are not all made the same, I've since realized being DRAM-less is not an umbrella term for being a bad drive. TLC/SLC cache size is more important when choosing budget drives. In my case with my WD Blue SN570, the SLC cache size was a meek 15GB, meaning downloading anything above ~10GB to that drive caused it to fill up the cache immediately and slow download speeds to a crawl. The drive I picked up as a whopping 600GB cache size, meaning I will almost never see it perform slower than expected.

It is also PCIe 4.0 which is faster than the slot I have on my mobo, so I will basically get the max speed of what my hardware can support all the time. Technically should be faster too, since the WD Blue maxes at 3500MB/s while the slot can hit up to 4000MB/s. Not like I ever could use the WD Blue at that fast of a speed though anyways.

Also being 2TB is a big benefit over 1TB of course. I will use this as my main drive, and keep my SATA and SATA M2 SSDs installed for extra storage. I may wipe the WD Blue drive and try to sell it for cheap. Good drive if you don't ever game or do anything intensive on your PC. This means I will need to do a clean installation of Windows, I may bite the bullet and just jump to Win11.

 

[neogunhero]

One review for that headband cover I linked above was basically stating "with the cost of this and new earcups, you're already up $50 from the original price of the headphones, may as well save some more and buy a new set".

I disagree with this in my specific situation. I've used these headphones for a good 5-6 years already, and don't want to get rid of them simply because they are the best in their price range, and the fact that the chassis itself is incredibly well built. The earcups and headband suffer from using faux-leather, the kind that flakes off, same as cheap office chairs. The extra parts were a bit expensive but I'd much rather spend a few dollars here and there to extend it's life than buy a brand new set each time my old one breaks. Sound quality is still as great as ever.

The earcups I have are cooling-gel cushioned, so the feel is a bit stiffer but still very comfortable. I like how they are a bit stiff against my head rather than the cotton-like cushion of the original earcups that sort of molded to your head with how soft they are.

The headband cover is a soft-touch silicone, which is not my ideal material of choice, but would be leagues better than the faux leather. There were only a couple other choices for headband covers, this seemed to be the best. One complaint is that the zipper rattles around, a small bit of electric tape will fix that.

It's not unheard of for audiophiles to keep headphones in great working condition for 10+ years, though I wonder how far my milage will go with these gaming headphones. 5-6 years in, no signs of slowing down besides wear and tear.