pio

I have zero problems gaming on my FX 8350 rig at 1080p, so it still makes me happy to fire it up every once in a while. If you want some number chasing, K8 and K10 is almost more fun than FX is. K8 is DDR2 only though, but K10 would be fun. Finding a 960T that unlocks to an x6 and does 4.0GHz+. The chase to 4GHz was just as fun as the 5GHz chase lol. If you're after 5GHz, shoot for a x300 series FX. 4300, 6300, 8300. The 3 in the series shows that its Piledriver over first gen Bulldozer. Piledriver was more likely to do 5 than Bulldozer was.

You CAN yes. The z5500 is a decent 10" driver inside, IIRC it was manufactured by Tang Band. You COULD build it a new enclosure tuned lower and use either a subwoofer plate amplifier at around 250w RMS (being careful not to blow it with overpower), or a good solid desk or home theater sub amp. Many options, but you need a dedicated "sub amp" for it to be right so you have the proper controls over its frequency. What that enclosure would be, I would have no clue without getting the exact T/S parameters for that specific driver. I'd take a guess and say somewhere in the realm of 1.50 cubic feet tuned for like 30Hz should work, but I could be waaaaay off too.

Just in case it was missed earlier too...... Subs are meant to fill in the lower octaves that your main speakers cannot do. Even large tower speakers need assistance getting into the subsonic frequency range. The bass from your z625 set, honestly.....should be coming from your front main speakers (or most of it). Your front speakers SHOULD be able to get down to 80Hz with ease, and down into the 60Hz range if you can get some that do (pretty easy). 60Hz is where the z625 sub is tuned to IIRC, or somewhere around there (again been years since I've listened to a set). The z5500 sub is closer to being "proper", but its still tuned really high at like 40Hz since it also has to cover the inadequacies of the 2" main speaker drivers. So it doesn't extend much below about 35-40Hz. You're missing the low lows entirely. And your high bass is going to be accentuated to the point of being "boomy". Not knocking it either, its a "fun" system to listen to I'm sure. Proper Frequency Responses (roughly / there's opinions on these): Subwoofer - 20Hz or lower if you can / as close to as possible - 80~120Hz or so Front Mains / Center - 60Hz-20,000Hz (full range) (crossover around 80-120Hz) Rears - Should be similar to front mains, but passable to have a higher crossover on these (or smaller speakers) Your best setup z5500's (from my recollection, again I could be off a tad): Subwoofer - 40Hz-250Hz All satellites - 150-16,000Hz You're missing sub 40Hz and above 16kHz roughly with those speakers as is. Nothing you can do about it as its the way they were tuned and built. You can EQ down the hot spots in the response, or EQ everything down to accentuate other spots. But either way you're still missing the lower octave and upper octaves.

Well, according to AMD the maximum temperature of the FX 6100 is 70*C. Since you don't care too terribly much about it, I say rock it up to that 70*C mark. Most of the overclocking forums say 60*C or less if you can do it, which is true. I think my FX 8350 is hitting like 63*C during p95 at 4.8GHz, 1.59v or so. I'm using a 240mm Coolermaster AIO kit on it. You'll hit a temperature wall long before you hit a voltage wall with the FX series. You can send upwards of like 1.7-1.8v through theses CPU's and they'll live........if you keep them cool enough. Maximum voltage per AMD is 1.55v.

Oh boy, another fake crisis with storage manufacturers? -_- I remember the "flooding" at WD (or was it Seagate?) like 10 years ago. They had the situation controlled and fixed within hours, but yet they blamed the "flood" for storage prices for like 3-4 years after the event. I expect similar to happen this time too. Never let a good crisis go to waste. -_- Kind of ironic how these crisis' only seem to happen when storage prices are decreasing.

I have my 8350 at 1.59v daily. If that helps any.

One sub should be capable of the full range itself. Neither of the Logitech subs do the full range since they're tuned to be boomy and loud. The purpose of adding another sub IS typically to fill in frequency gaps, but you typically see people using the same sub twice so they don't interfere with each other. Frequency gaps with normal equipment occurs from room placement. The size and shape of your room has just as much to do with audio as the speakers and subs do.

I will resay this again though too, kind of as a warning lmao. Audio gets addicting. If you're happy with it, enjoy it. We can always help you chase decibels and proper frequencies. Absolutely. Depends on the budget. Expect to spend about $300 ish on the lower end to get started if buying everything. $150 for a sub, $100 for amp / receiver, and $50 ish on speakers.

I mean you can keep them and use them. But they're still going to be limited by their physical size. A 2" driver can only move so much air to make sound. Dayton b452 air speakers are inexpensive and sound fantastic. The regular b452 speakers are like $30 a set. There's more expensive speakers too of course, I'm just talking low end of the budget. Up to you on that one. If you are just after thump, a receiver made in the last 10 years should do the trick from any good brand. Pioneer, Yamaha, onkyo, denon, all good. That will handle the majority of what you need. Speakers, add to taste lol. Subwoofer, you can't go wrong with the Dayton subs. Pick the size you can fit. They have 8" up to 15". The bigger ones get lower than the little ones.

This should do what you are wanting yes. It's not going to fix any inadequacies of the systems, but it will allow both to operate at the same time. Again, I would not dump too much money into these setups. They're not worth it when a Dayton set up beats the snot out of them for $200-250 or so. Keep in mind that budget speakers, amps, and subwoofers do exist. They will beat the z5500 set in every way. Not trying to be mean about it, just honest.

1. You want better control over the subwoofer you'll have to change the amplifier. All sub controls are usually tied to the amp. Some are in the receiver or speaker amp / dac, but 90% of sub controls are on the sub amp. The z5500 doesn't have those controls on the stock amp. I would NOT recommend a new amp, instead I'd look at a proper sub. The z5500 doesn't extend very low to begin with. Changing amps will not fix the enclosure tuning. 2. Make it easy on yourself and look at home theater receivers. Unless you have limited space, a receiver is the best bang for buck. Good dac, possible surround sound or 2.1 just depends on the amount of speakers you have, crossover controls, and good speaker power output. All in one package. If you have limited space and require a t amp we can figure that out too. 3. Nope. I'd start at a receiver plus a proper sub and go from there. 4. The reason the z625 sounds different is room placement and enclosure tuning. If it's tuned higher, which it is, it will sound louder at higher frequency than the one that's tuned lower since it's tuned higher. Your tuning frequency is where the sub sounds loudest at with same volume (most of the time). The z5500 needs a higher gain to get the 60hz range of the z625 set. Neither set is really proper since a sub should be 30hz or lower (lower the better) and upwards of 80-120hz on the high end. All those frequencies SHOULD be similar volume, but they're not in your instance. It's a fault of keeping the system stupid simple for gamers. A real sub fixes that.

You might get better sound out of just the z5500's honestly. Might be worth a try to use optical to them, and actually place the speakers properly. Subwoofer in a well insulated corner, preferably your "hot zone". Speakers placed properly around you. If you can't properly utilize the 5.1 with proper placement, you'll be much better off with a better 2.1 set.

I know I am too! Just need enough time to throw a couple builds together. Still have 6 more hours of school to do with kiddo this week, going to try to get it done this evening so I have the weekend to build.

o.0 Yeah a Brissy 5600+! Yeah you need to overclock that thing now.

Hey, look at it this way. You were able to get the GPU you wanted in 2022. +1 for that! It's still a fast setup regardless of who makes it. You bought what your budget allowed for, there's absolutely no shame in that. Honestly, you got a pretty nice rig anyway. 12700k is right up there with the best CPU's for gaming, and even for multitasking. Really it wasn't a bad tradeoff at all.

Oh yeah, forgot to upload a picture earlier. Here's the latest addition to my ATI / AMD GPU collection! ATI Radeon 8500LE. From what I can find, the only difference between the LE and non LE variants was clock speed. The LE is clocked at 250 / 250, and the non LE is 275 / 275. So close enough to highest end DX8.1 card I could find anyway, I wasn't paying $300 for a 25 year old GPU.

It has more thump than my setup. I'm rocking a 6.5" Pioneer soundbar subwoofer that I scored at a thrift store for $7. Only reason I don't have a giant sub is because neighbors. If they keep pounding their little soundbar sub at 4am though.....I'll tell you what, they're going to wish they had a different neighbor after I bring in a real sub. As I said before though, if you're happy with it, that's what matters. If you're after advice? Get rid of the Logitech and step into some real speakers. These types of setups can be anywhere from thrift store finds and ebay amp kits all the way up into the thousands of dollars. Just like a PC. However this time its not framerates you're after, but ease of listening on your ears. You can start by using bits and pieces of the Logitech setup too. Think about your speaker setup more as a long term enjoyment kind of thing. You don't replace speakers every build if you have good ones. You keep them for years and years. The important thing to start off with is a good signal, whether its analogue or digital, doesn't matter. To figure out what type of signal you need, you need an amp. Choose one with however many channels you're wanting (good stereo will beat bad 5.1 anyday for sound quality). Feed it the appropriate signal. From there, its time to look at speakers and subs. Again, you can piece together bits from your z5500's to make that happen, so I'd start at sub first if you're looking for "thump". And again, a good base model home theater receiver would be an easy way to step into that area since even just adding a proper sub, its still going to need the right frequencies. As is, you're making middle school me jealous. Heck, even adult me kinda wants to take a critical listen again to the Logitech setups since its been 10 years since I've heard them lol.

Not to say you chaps haven't done your own gluing and screwing in the past (maybe one more than the other? ). But I feel accomplished this evening. Did a really sub par job, completely forgot to tin both ends that I was working on before trying to join them together. However.....they're stuck and not going anywhere, so mission accomplished! I finally remembered how to solder properly on the very last terminal, the + on the terminal cup. Next up will be testing the seal on this new back to the sub. I'll do that after the glue is fully dry. Might wait until my new desktop sub amp arrives too since that should be any day now. If I get antsy though, the car amp is still hooked up.

That's fine and I respect your opinion on the subject, whole heartedly. I too like to think about "why are they doing this". Which is kind of why we're debating in so many words. You say forcing updates is microsofts choice in the matter since so many people lack updates, businesses, botnets etc reasons. Okay. I can understand that. My point being that those reasons are not justified for the force they're displaying by these moves. It's a power move. "You can't use older versions because we say so" , in so many words. The same exact reason why many a piece of old software is disgaurded. It's not because of a lack of functionality, it's because the company deems it so. If a new update, new service pack, or new os is actually worthwhile to use, it should be upon its own merit, not by force. EDIT: It's like the arguments of software use and EULA's. It's a very similar argument. On one side of the argument, the EULA says so, the user is forced to agree with it, so it must be okay. You either agree with the EULA or you don't use the software. Doesn't matter what the point is in the EULA, that's why you have to agree with it. Doesn't matter if the EULA changes after you've purchased said software, because you already agreed that any changes to the EULA you agree with before the changes were even made. Basically, the software is the company's property so the company has every right to do whatever they want. On the other side of that same argument, you have people that believe that the customers or people should be right and to do as they please with software they've paid their hard earned money for. It's the same argument, we're just talking about Microsoft in this instance. So we get it, you support Microsoft knowing that its their software to do with as they please. I'm on the other side of that argument because I paid my hard earned money for a product, and I expect I should be able to do whatever I want with a product I paid for.

How does it not make sense? No, I'm pretty sure I'm having the same conversation since I'm responding DIRECTLY to your points. You probably will repeat the same thing over again for a third time. Another thing we've already pointed out. A minimum standard that everyone has to adhere to? Why do we HAVE TO? Why is it the almighty Microsoft that has the final say on what MY HARDWARE does? It's NEVER been a thing before Windows 10, and it SHOULD NOT be a thing now. It's my hardware, not Microsoft's. Why are you picking that ONE small word I said in all of those paragraphs and writing your response solely on that one word, "punish", and making it sound like that's solely what my concern was? You haven't been reading any of my comments, or at least not comprehending them very well. I mean I could take this very quoted response of yours and be like, "haha, gotcha, so you admit Microsoft wants to punish us??!!". Except I didn't, because I can understand that your comment there was sarcasm. You see, I am reading your points. You just haven't provided a valid reason to defend Microsoft in their pursuit of forcing things down people's throats. Botnets, security updates, virus', fringe users that just click next next next finish.....all things we've talked about already. None of which are an acceptable reason as to WHY Microsoft thinks this is okay behavior.

Okay, so we're going to punish the minority of power users and majority of general users because of a few bad eggs that don't understand the update process? Sounds familiar.......

My gosh dude. Do you REALLY believe that I'm arguing that viruses are harming the people themselves that use the computers? OF COURSE ITS THE COMPUTER THAT'S THE TARGET. -_- My point being, that botnets do not target regular everyday users. They never have. Why would they start now in 2022? One or two fringe examples may be able to be found, but in my 20+ years of computer repair I've never once seen a regular user effected by a botnet attack. Why is it out of touch to say that there's no logical reason to force updates? Why is that so fringe to say, when just 5 years ago this exact argument was being had, and the users complained about forced updates? Why is it changed now? My opinion has never waivered on this subject, I have NEVER been for forced updates. It was not fringe 5 years ago when Windows 10 came out and everybody else was worried about these exact problems. Why now, that those problems are showing their ugly faces and I'm pointing back and saying, "see told you so", why now is my opinion so cringe? 5 years ago, forced updates would have been laughed at in these types of communities that we have here at EHW. And no, its not in my mind that its all a game to get my to update to Windows 11. I said with my VERY FIRST RESPONSE in this very thread, that I have the features disabled in my BIOS so that Windows 11 will NOT be offered. I'm not worried about them forcing 11 on me. Why would I be when my system is "incompatible"? "The most logical reason is security updates, duh"? What is that supposed to mean? Did security updates never exist before Microsoft started forcing them?

Exactly what I said a while ago that we're beating a dead cow here. This is exactly why I used XP as an example earlier to prove that updates aren't necessarily needed for everyday browsing. You countered that by stating that of course XP wouldn't be a target for malicious means since its not used by the masses anymore. We agree. We also agree on botnets seeing as how it really wouldn't be a target by everyday users. Another point being here, that system admins for large businesses and web infrastructure is ALREADY on top of keeping things secure. Security updates absolutely are one tool they use. You have yet to prove a point defending Microsoft here though since your arguments CAN be countered with valid arguments. There is absolutely no logical reason to force updates beyond a power flexing purpose. Regular users aren't affected by them that much these days, and major sites that would be....already have security teams in place. And this isn't even about security patches since that's already been forced since Windows 10 released. Part of why large businesses don't use Windows 10, because they cannot afford the unplanned downtime.

Right, I understand your point there. And I agree with it to an extent. Yes, botnets are a PART of the security updates. Sure. The reasoning BEHIND it is where we differ on opinion. I'm stating that botnets are a non issue for the vast majority of Windows users as they would not be targeted by such an attack. Attacks and virus' are a result of people trying to get money or power from malicious means. Why do we need botnet security updates, when the average user is not attacked by botnets? Those are a concern moreso for web infrastructure and larger businesses, not your average home user. So it begs the same question I've had this entire time, why are we forcing these updates if they don't actually help anything? Of course system admins for larger businesses and web infrastructure would be on top of deploying security patches as quickly as they can, especially if they're targeted regularly by botnet type attacks. One COULD make the argument that if it weren't for the security updates, botnet attacks would be more frequent. Okay, let's go down that rabbit hole. Why would botnets target regular everyday people? It takes far too much effort to do a successful botnet attack, why would a scammer or malicious person use such a tactic on a regular everyday person when they can just phish their email or call them and claim to be from Microsoft, give them money or else? So it doesn't make sense for doing these updates "automatically" (or forced) for a large business or infrastructure as the system admins would already be on top of security patches as is. It doesn't make sense from a standard user point of view either since they typically wouldn't be attacked by a botnet type attack. Sooooo why are we forcing them then?

Well I'm glad that Microsoft is worried about these things, they should be. It's not like updates haven't broken systems in the past before or anything, so its not like I or others don't have valid concerns here. And that is a VERY good question, "Will Microsoft be able to deliver an extremely issue free update if its not optional?". Very VERY good question. Time will tell. I would like to make note though, that past experience with Microsoft says the answer is no. However, the correct answer is absolutely, "time will tell". We'll see. I don't have faith in them though based on their past and present. How am I arguing in bad faith regarding botnets? We discussed it already. I didn't avoid engaging in it, I directly responded previously. I don't see the point in beating a dead cow when we've already discussed it and together determined that botnets are not the sole cause for forcing updates.