PC Tech Thread

Hindsight would have me buying 10 off-the-peg refurbed Alienware gaming PCs back when I was looking, then selling off the parts & doubling my money.

All of my work stuff has to be done on cloud GPUs at the moment, which is a bit limiting.

Any gaming is using the lowest settings on 4 / 5 year old games, with either an Intel HD 620 GPU, or a GTX 660M (which struggles on 1080 video...)

This looks fun - thanks.

I didn't know I was looking for that but turns out I was too. Thanks. Should sort out the clunky collection of dynamic IP service and firewall rules that I've had sitting on my routers for the last decade+

Dibs.

Can you actually buy those yet? I've been keeping half an eye on them but having seen them for sale anywhere.

Also not seen much in the way of graphics benchmarking, I'm wondering how well they'd replace my current GTX 970 (I expect they'd be less powerful but wondering how much less).

Yes I think you can get the chip only.
https://www.palicomp.co.uk/amd-am4-cpu

They are also doing motherboard kits, and also some very well priced pre builts with the chip in it.

I was strongly considering, but then increased my budget.

Your GTX 970 is considerably more powerful than the APU.
APU is roughly equivalent to a GT1030, so the GTX will be 3x more powerful.

The chip looks excellent for low level gaming, and HTPC type use, as its Ryzen 5 3600 power, but with a useable APU.

I didn't know I was looking for that but turns out I was too.

Yup.

Between Tailscale and Syncthing it's really easy to move from device to device across different networks and for everything to feel like it's local.

The laptop with the crappy Intel graphics has a 1080 screen. I previous used an older laptop with even older and crappier Intel graphics, output to 1080 TV. It was fine for Zwift.

My decade old desktop is also an i5-2500k.

I5 2500k was a great chip!
To be honest for most of what I do, my current chip with 16gb and SSD has been pretty fine.

At least until I get the new PC and realise what I was missing.

Ryzen 5 4650g chips with their integrated APUs should be a pretty good fit for Zwift and lower res gaming.

My current Zwift machine is a Lenovo IdeaCentre 310S with an AMD A9 processor and Radeon R5 integrated graphics. It's perfectly adequate, but you can't (apparently) select the poncier graphics options if you're using integrated graphics on the PC. Anyway, it's all entirely theoretical because I'm not going to spend stupid money on a graphics card, so the 310S can continue to to Zwift and Sufferfest duties when required.

The A9s were APUs I think so have significantly better on chip graphics than previous, so that might be what’s helping zwift work acceptably.

The poncier graphics options are barely noticeable, honest

Yeah I keep wavering on replacing the i5.

Given I already have a decent GPU and SSD, I suspect repasting the CPU, clean install of Windows and getting rid of legacy storage HDD that something is accessing would make more sense then spending the best part of £1000 to get more, but not much faster, cores, funny little SSD sticks, and USB3/C/something that I will never use.

Can confirm. If Zwift with onboard graphics looks like a 10yr old game then with a 3080 it looks like a 9yr old game.

Don’t tell me this now...

I’m sure most of my computer niggles would be sorted with a fresh install of windows, but new and shiny...

To be honest, considering my bike buying habits, I’m surprised I havent upgraded sooner.

It’s a bit of a shame, as due to a lot of the client base logging on using a laptop, phone, old tablet, backup computers, Apple TV’s, the graphics aren’t great.

No reason it couldn’t look like a lush modern open world PC game.
Most of the people with PCs able to run it well, probably can’t ride a bike however,

Discovered an old desktop I forgot existed, took it apart and de-dusted it yesterday, plugged it all in to see what I was working with, after cracking the password (took longer than expected), running 3 hours of updates, I have a functioning, but shit, computer.
AMD A6 chip, running at 2.2GHz, and a blistering 4gb of RAM

It can just about handle Lightroom, but I think it needs a helping hand, so want some more RAM in it.
I know its DDR3, and looking in the case I seem to have 4 spare slots.
Is it as easy and buying a couple more sticks and plugging them in?
I recall mix and match can cause issues, so may just be better buying a complete new set.

(Also, if anyone has some spare DDR3 sticks they want to pop in the post in exchange for beer vouchers, let me know. It's the desktop longer ones I need, I am not technical)

Cheap Sata SSD + more ram will definitely help.
When you say you have 4 spare slots, do you have 4 total, or do you have 6 slots with 2 used up?

Finally managed to get hold of AMD EPYC server CPUs!

These have been unavailable for ages due to semiconductor shortage and the only way to get small quantities is to buy a complete server from someone like Hewlett Packard Enterprise...

Or forge the serial number of said server to feign eligibility to buy an ‘official upgrade kit’ from the server’s supplier lol

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Just took it apart again, 4 slots, 1 in use with 1x4gb, 3 spares.

Match the speed and you should be ok. I’ll dig around and see if I have anything spare. Might have a cheap spare SSD, but you might not want to go through updates/windows updates so soon

Anyone flown with a desktop PC in their carry-on/hand luggage?

Size case? Yes but I had it in a cabin size peli. Wouldn't do it in anything else.

I'm assuming it's small enough to fit in a carry-on suitcase but will need to measure it against an actual suitcase.

Was just going to wrap with bubbles in case they want me to open it up.

LAN party in the homeland?