UltraMega

More good points. What kind of I/O do you use that a cheaper board doesn't have? Are you using USB4? How relevant is 10Gb networking? Sorry if some of these are noob questions. I don't do heavy I/0 or heavy networking.

All good points. Part of the premise though, is if the cost is justifiable. Do you think you can get more performance out of an expensive board vs putting that cost toward better parts elsewhere? That is the real question. Are people over spending on boards to a point of performance detriment vs overall performance on a given budget?

I think most of us come from OCN, which means most of us were around when overclocking was meaningful. Does anyone think it's meaningful today? Does the tweaking you get from a ~$300 motherboard justify the cost? If your focus is gaming, I tend to think a cheaper motherboard is better. If the sky is the limit, then by all means get an expensive board, but on any budget at all, it always seems more logical to me to get for a ~$120-$150 board, CPU that doesn't need expensive cooling, then push the left over money from not going overboard on the motherboard and cooling on a faster GPU and/or ram. Maybe for intel, it's a little more justified (barely) since there is still a little bit of OC headroom there, but not for AMD. How do you guys see the trade off in cost between CPU, mobo, and cooling playing out today? I see it as, for example, something like a 7700X with a ~$150 cooler vs a 7700 and a $30 cooler. I'd rather spend the extra $150 somewhere else and lose a few % in CPU performance. How do you guys prioritize CPU, mobo, and cooling in a post overclocking era? Maybe this is the wrong crowd since a lot of people here like to setup exotic cooling just for fun, but on a budget, how would you prioritize these things with today's hardware?

https://www.guru3d.com/story/microsoft-delays-controversial-ai-feature-recall-in-windows-build/ This feels like the beginning of a way to sweep this whole thing under the rug. Delay it and limit it to preview versions before just quietly cancelling it. It's the right move. Recall is a terrible idea, and a PR nightmare for Microsoft’s AI ambitions.

I wouldn't say MSI is bad, but they make more cheap low quality boards than any other main brand. Your MSI board isn't a low quality one though, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. There's not usually much tweaking to do on AMD CPUs since they usually barely have any OC headroom. What kind of tweaks were you having issues with? The X3D chips are not made for overclocking at all, so if you do get an X3D chip you will have even less tweaking to think about. IMO, a good 16 thread CPU is ideal until a new console gen comes out. The difference between a CPU like the 5700X3D anything faster is very small, and with virtually all major games being cross platform now, they are always going to target console CPUs, so just having a CPU with the same number of threads is a good idea. Your CPU only has 12 threads, so you're a little behind where your CPU should be just for good PC performance in current gen games. A 5700X3D could easily last you until a new console with a more powerful CPU comes out and games start targeting higher CPU requirements.

I think you would have enjoyed tweaking AM4 more with a different motherboard. As a repair guy, I have more issued with MSI boards than any other brand. Dollar for dollar, you best upgrade is to move to a an AM4 X3D CPU.

If it were me, I would get a 5700X3D on ebay for $270 CAD, then sell the 5600X and get about $100 back. Going from a 5600X to a 5700X3D for $170 is pretty reasonable if you have the itch to upgrade. The 5700X3D is generally faster than a 7700X for gaming, and you wouldn't have to get a new mobo/ram. The difference between a 5700X3D and any CPUs that outperform it in games is very small. With your GPU, assuming you play at 1440p at least, the difference from a faster CPU would be pretty small in any games that are graphically demanding. The difference between a 5700X3D and anything faster would be basically non-existent with an RX6750XT.

Nvidia stock split happened. Split 10 to one.

A lot to show this year. Perhaps Xbox is finally starting to gain some momentum.

Microsoft Research scientist gives non-answer when asked about Windows Recall privacy concerns | TechSpot I tend to think of Microsoft as a company that's definitely not perfect but has generally good intentions. This Recall feature has me scratching my head as to why it even exists. After thinking about it, I have a few guesses: First and foremost, I think Microsoft is looking for more ways to market AI while also pitching the idea of people buying new hardware with NPUs built in. Maybe in part so they can push some of the processing they would be doing in the cloud to be more local. I think the second big reason is that most if not all of the data Recall collects is already collected by other various apps/programs/trackers on people's phones and PCs, so why not try to use that kind of data collection for something local on the machine that's potentially useful to the user. Even trying to give Microsoft the benefit of doubt, assuming that data collection is already so rampant that Recall is essentially just a drop in the bucket, they still need to be more open about how Recall deals with sensitive info like passwords and payment info. If it just stores that info in what is essentially a big log file, then it seems like a huge problem to me. I think Recall would work a lot better as something that was integrated into certain things, but not Windows itself. I could see it being very useful for Office/Word/Outlook kind of stuff, but no one is going to be warm to the idea of an "AI" logging all their activity in a way anyone with local or remote access could easily go through. No one asked for this, and if Microsoft wants to push this anyway, they need to be addressing these concerns in a satisfactory way or they should just ditch this whole idea entirely/rebrand it as a part of Office only. This is what CoPilot says about Recall storing sensitive information: Also, this exists now, which raises questions about if Recall really has much to do with AI or not.

Assuming Microsoft doesn't extend support for Windows 10, it makes sense just based on the timing. Does feel a little arbitrary though.

It happened today, Nvidia has overtaken Apple.

It's fooliah to expect these companies to self regulate. Governments need to setup regulations, and I have no doubt they will eventually but this tech is moving very quickly. Hopefully governments catch up sooner than later.

https://www.guru3d.com/story/intel-lunar-lake-architecture-overview-enhancements-and-no-more-hyper-threading/ Seems like Intel is shaking things up. Ram on the chip, will be interesting to see how that performs.

Onto a different hobby: cooking. I know there is a guy on here that has a pizza oven, and I am very jealous of that. I have a pizza stone and a pizza slate (ceramic vs steel). The steel slate works best. During covid I put a lot of effort into learning how to make pizza at home. I've kept up with that ever since. I make the dough and sauce from scratch. I'm getting pretty good at it.

So rare to be able to say this so I gotta take the opportunity: It's nice to see Nvidia finally catching up to AMD on this.

I actually prefer the 65w CPUs because the thermals are soooo much better. Top tier performance is obvious great for anyone who wants that, but IMO the X700 CPUs like the 5700x and 7700 are the real winners for AM4 and AM5 right now. All those prebuilds I made a while back had either 5700x or 7700 CPUs, all had standard $25 120mm coolers and all ran with great temps.

If there isn't a store near by that has plants you like, you can order them here: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/live-plants Be sure to post some pics once you get it setup

My tank just has sand, not substrate. My sand is expensive aquarium sand, but my gf has a tank too and we set that up with sand from a rock yard that was so cheap it was basically free. Both work equally well. Avoid small ground cover plants. Those never do well without extreme planning, but just about anything else will likely work just fine. I don't even use carbon filters in my tank. I just buy a big roll of filter medium, and cut it to fit in my filter. Vastly cheaper. The carbon in those pre-made filter cartridges is totally useless and it's purely a gimmick to get you to buy the expensive cartridges. I'll just add, be sure you want to commit to the nano tank before you set it up. I think a lot of the time people start small and quickly decided to go bigger. There are usually a lot of 10 and 20 gallon tanks for free on Craigslist around here, and if you get a standard size tank like that then you can probably also find a pretty cheap glass lid for it at petco or on Amazon, and then you will be able to get whatever kind of led strip you want and the plants will blow up.

https://www.guru3d.com/review/amd-announces-ryzen-9950x-9900x-9700x-9600x-processors-zen5/ Happy to see lower TDPs on some of these chips. The 9600x and 9700x will probably run fine on a standard 120mm air cooler.

I think you're right. I forgot the name of that thread otherwise I would have just bumped it.

I bet they will overtake Microsoft as well not too long after.

I have no doubt Nvidia will continue to skimp on vram on the rest of the 5000 series stack.

https://www.guru3d.com/story/new-amd-ryzen-9000-zen-5-cpu-leak-runs-58-ghz-and-faster-than-7950x/ Pretty impressive increase in this day and age.

I've had the same experience with betas. They never live very long in my tank. Got any pics of your tank? Thanks. I wish I could take more credit but I don't really do much with it. The plants do all the work. For a long time I had the wooden box that I made as a light fixture. Since my tank is an odd shape, there were no good lighting fixtures I could buy back in the day that would fit well and have enough lighting to work well with plants. But now that LEDs are so prevalent, I got an LED strip that works great with the plants.