Alex

:omega_joy:

2500K. I still have one in my media PC and how that CPU changed not only price:performance but also overclocking definitely makes it one of the best CPUs in my mind.

Much like everything in this recession the World is going through the budget option has almost been eliminated for what seems like financial reasons and this has had an impact on shifting the entire line-up of products up a tier. My partner and I were shopping for a daily driver car (and her first car) and we really fell in love with the new Honda Fit/Jazz... but of course they aren't coming to North America anymore so we had to look at a Civic... but of course the base-model civic doesn't come in red (she was very insistent on this)... so we would have to upgrade to a Sport model to get red. So our initial idea of spending $20k after taxes on a car turned into $35k after taxes on a car... and with housing being as crazy as it is now we'd rather have that cash be liquid in-case the house of cards ever topple and we can get an opportunity to move out of a minuscule apartment and into even a small townhome.

It's why I spent my money on headphones and cars. $2000cad after tax got me my HD800S and I absolutely love them. The thing that I like about TOTL audio is that it never really expires or gets worse... only ever-so-slightly better things come along so I don't feel the constant need to upgrade based on a time-frame (eg: with computers, games getting slower, unable to play new games at high FPS/quality, etc). The same goes for cars, each upgrade, mod, preventative maintenance, etc thing I do delivers so much more impact and satisfaction than computers for me. It was easy to justify computer parts/upgrades when you were looking at like $2-3k total for an entire high-end system but now that barely buys you a top-end GPU...

A new headphone stand:

Finally decided to properly redo my network: Ubiquiti WAP 6 Lite, 802.3af PoE injector plus a crimping tool, RJ45 connectors, CAT6 cabling and it's almost all coming from different places so things are arriving bit-by-bit. Had the WAP for awhile now but the PoE injector was sold out almost everywhere... ended up spending $30 to just get it from another store despite it being only $10 on Ubiquiti's website

What alternatives do we have, mem-ex?

Lol Newegg, I have gone through 3 defective Z390 motherboards from them. Each having a different issue (dead PCIE slots, dead secondary BIOS (which was the biggest PITA to refund), dead USB ports) with them. I hate to support Amazon but honestly with their nearly no-fuss return policy it's more appealing than Newegg... and Canada Computers is basically in-store only now since the pandemic for things I actually want (CPU, motherboard, RAM, GPUs).

Y'all need some Marie Kondo

There's a lot to go through in this thread but I want to add some key points: Sound cards are useless these days, go stand-alone DAC, Amp or DAC+Amp. Schiit has been behind the curve for awhile, they are overpriced and have poor quality and QC. They are making strides in fixing this but for now avoid them. Go for something from Topping (DX3 Pro is very, very good if you want SE out and don't care about balanced) or SMSL. EQ Apo is great, but use the Peace GUI for it as it makes it a much easier to use tool. Not to gate-keep or anything but the Z-5500 is really not great. If I were to off the top of my head build out a quick 2.1 budget system it would be: Subwoofer: Elac SUB1010 or Dayton Audio SUB-1500 Speakers: KEF Q150 Receiver: Onkyo TX-8220 or something second hand from Onkyo, Yamaha, etc. Usually people off-load these really cheap second-hand.

3D NAND and only I think a week's worth of supply - but no doubt storage manufs. will use this to jack up prices for years to come like they have done in the past... really not regretting spending the money meant for upgrading my PC on other things just because of how constantly screwed over PC enthusiasts are.

That's how I bought my PS1, PS2 and PS3.

After having used HD650s for nearly a decade, finally an upgrade.

I've been enjoying it a lot, especially the new UI and overhaul of settings. TPM2.0 is why they're seeing the low numbers.

Went to look at the 11th gen the other day, really nice car. Love the inside. Only downsides are the complete lack of steering feel, very touchy brakes despite having a lot of travel after the initial bite and the accelerator felt like it had 1000ms of input latency and then on a rubber band. Probably going to buy one in Spring regardless, have to go CVT because my partner can't drive manual. Hopefully she can learn in my S2000 and we can trade it up for a manual one down the road though

I'm still gonna do summers/winters when we get around to actually getting a car we can drive all year round... Still thinking 2022 (with a manual I hope) Civic LX in white.

As someone with a relatively low car that makes me sad. I mean you probably don't leave it on all the time but it is annoying how many lights cut-off zones are way above my car. Speaking of my car, although it's in storage. Still getting parts for it, should have a Recaro Pole Position seat and a new clutch soon.

I'm really glad my stock lights are really good, no need to worry or fuss about going aftermarket anything. My CL9 Accord lights absolutely sucked and it wasn't fun at all.

That's weird, I thought BC doesn't get nearly as cold. Guess it's the same as here where they apply salt even if the weather report says 1% chance of snow for 1 second during 1 of the days of the month when it should really only be used to prevent black ice / ice.

Sadly they are already putting salt brine on the roads here... and that means: At least the Science of Speed car cover is really nice.

Sadly they are already putting salt brine on the roads here... and that means: At least the Science of Speed car cover is really nice.

It's why the most popular boost application is to supercharge it actually, that plus it is a lot less complex than turbos. I don't want to do that though, it's plenty fast enough for me as is and I want to keep it OEM+ really.

I recently took my fully functional car out on a road trip, how has your fully functional car been?

I still have around 0% return given my losses/gains lol. I did the dumb and bought $BB when it was too high and that's really skewing my portfolio (which is only like $700 total anyway). The stocks I really didn't think would do well have done well... such is life.

The level of detail of the new cars compared to what they were in the one I know the best (GT4) is astounding. I really can't wait to try this game out.