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So the Bank of Russia is against it, who'd have thunk it that a major bank would be against its competitors? It doesn't say Russia is, it says the Bank of Russia. They also state right there in the excerpt, and I quote: "Importantly, the Bank of Russia does not propose banning crypto for Russian citizens, so they will be able to use foreign exchanges to purchase cryptocurrencies." This is not why crypto fell recently either, it falls every January, Feb, March as people are cashing out to pay their taxes. There's also been a market correction that's been LONG overdue. It says so right in the article, "It is not clear whether the news will have an immediate impact on Bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Cardano or Solana." The recent bubble was also bound to crash. A 2 year bull run is VERY unlikely to stick around, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did to be honest. People always say its the end of crypto every SINGLE time this happens, and yet.....crypto isn't dead yet. This is no different than the 5 different times China "banned" it. You can't ban something that's decentralized to this degree, best they can do is tax it into oblivion which is exactly what they're proposing if you read the article. It's like trying to ban piracy. In this case, they're actively saying they're going to ban hardware in so many words, since they're trying to attack 11% of the world's mining population. That's all mining is, just hardware running. And why is this so dangerous but yet folding@home is okay? Same thing, its sustained loads on the electrical grid from computers crunching numbers.

Oh, and if you had actually read my projects thread.....you'd have recognized that I'm building my old systems for my kid. That way he can learn where PC's came from and how they've evolved over the years. I intend on teaching my nephews about them too. It's a learning experience for the younger generations, something that it really sounds like YOU could have a lesson or two in as well.

Actually yes its a VERY good thing I'm building retro systems to enjoy the games I've paid for. Thank you. Just played Quake again just 2 nights ago.....a game that got a FREE revamp recently, 26 years after release. Talk about customer service. It has absolutely nothing to do with platform of choice here mate. I used to play on NES, SNES, PSX, N64 too. Also played on DOS and original Mac systems too. I had an original Gameboy as well. I quit consoles after the original XBox and PS2, never owned either but my friends did. It had nothing to do with the consoles it was more....why should I keep buying boxes when my PC can already play the games I enjoy? Back then, the exclusives for the consoles didn't really tickle my fancy too much and the games I did want were available on all platforms. Only reason I switched to PC gaming was because I was already in love with building my own dream hardware from the ground up. But good job gaslighting my rage as "elitist" and "anal" for PC only.

And I'd argue that we've seen nothing but a decline in the quality of games since at least 15 years ago. To be honest, I think the last real good year of gaming in general was 2007, when things were still actually new and innovative. And this anticompetitive, day one DLC, subscription model, intrusive DRM for paying customers system we're into is directly to thank for that. Every one of the large companies in the industry is at fault here, not just Microsoft. There was a comment above about why are we complaining so hard about when Microsoft does this.......how about because this thread is about Microsoft doing it and not Sony? Sony is just as guilty here, but that's getting off topic. And yes, there are exceptions to my statement. There are some good titles here and there still. But they're getting fewer and further in between. Just because they put more pretties in the games doesn't mean the games are better. All they're doing is rehashing old ideas, and copy / pasting old games with new flair. I mean jeez, speaking of Activision, look at COD MW "Remastered". It's quite LITERALLY a copy / paste of COD4 from 2007, and that game sold millions. Why, WHY when the same EXACT freaking title was already available since 2007? And there's talks of them re-releasing MW2 as a "remaster". How about GTA III, Vice City, and SA Remastered? Again, titles that were ALREADY available.....and the remastered copies are actually worse than the originals even! And yes, as far as "console exclusives", that's been a thing since the NES and Sega Genesis days. It's expected. What's NOT expected is when you're literally splitting the gaming community in half with exclusives. They used to be the occasion not the norm, and today exclusives are slowly becoming a norm. Every generation there's more and more exclusives for one system or another. Exclusives USED TO BE very specific titles, usually released at launch of a console kind of like tech demos for the consoles themselves. Most titles were available on all systems back in the day. With one exception of course that I have not mentioned yet......Nintendo. They've ALWAYS had a large number of exclusives, but that's because they develop their own games.

Same here. Welcome to the forum all!

It's a Corsair RMX 550w PSU with ONLY a 24pin ATX power connector coming off the PSU. I need a 20 pin on the motherboard. The 24 pin will not plug in at all, I've tried lol. Thought I ordered the right adapters previously, but they were male to male, and obviously I need female 24 pin to male 20 pin (or 20+4). Found some extensions by Raidmax that'll do the job, they're on order now. I also found the additional molex cables, apparently I need "Type 4", but I'm waiting to hear back from Corsair first. They might have a better price than ebay does.

You still have yet to show me where one can purchase a HOME license of Office Premium with all the features of the subscription model mate. You say they're not doing these things.....but they are. You just keep comparing apples to oranges. You really think they're not going to do the same with games, when they've flat out stated they're going to?

Man, Rigs of Rods was freaking awesome back in the day! I haven't tried that out again in ages! Pretty sure I still have my installer for it laying around somewhere on my NAS. Let me know if you find some time. I'm usually playing it at night after kiddo goes to bed so he's not bugging me for a turn.

So I got that rig stable at 3GHz CPU, HT Link at 1000MHz, and DDR400 @ 2.5-3-3-6-2T timing. Took 1.52v and the CPU gets overly toasty under load, but its fine. This particular 939 rig I wasn't intending on playing on too much anyway, its too perfect to use. I'm going to swap the Xonar out for an X-Fi Xtreme Music here once I get the second 939 built, the other 939 build is for me to play with.....and I REALLY like that Xonar sound card. Going to start assembling my Athlon-XP build today. Let's see how that goes! EDIT: Sigh......and the build is on hold yet again. 2 reasons this time. Reason 1 and the main reason, I bought the wrong stupid 24pin to 20 pin adapters. So now I have to try to hunt a couple of those down yet again, which sucks because these were the only ones I found that were black. -_- Reason 2, nearly all the front panel clips on the case are broken and I require the front panel to be mounted properly so I can line up all the external drives and fan controller. I've already glued the clips back into place with gorilla glue, and I'll also be doing some hot glue on them after the 24 hour full cure time period is over. I noticed when I received the case that the front panel was a little loose, I didn't realize every single clip and bolt point was snapped off except for 2. -_- Just grrrr, its always something with these old builds. Ordered appropriate 24pin adapters. Waiting on Corsair to email me back about running extra molex leads off these PSU's instead of the SATA plugs, and asked them for extra molex cables. Figured better safe than sorry since everything in this rig runs off molex. Really don't think its safe to run everything off just one cable.

No, its a still in alpha game that's been actively in development since 2013. I think regular price on it is 20 bucks. They regularly release pretty decent sized updates, the game's came along very nicely over the years so far. "Beam MP" is a multiplayer mod for it. It's a sandbox crash simulator basically, but they've gotten so many things right for driving its quickly becoming (in my opinion) one of the better sim driving games out there. It's no longer just simulation for crashing, they have missions and races and stuff built into it now already. The AI has gotten better at driving. Idk, just thought maybe some of you guys might have had a copy already and we could do some multiplayer on it.

Welcome! We've got a pretty active folding community here. Things move a little slow because the userbase is pretty small, but our folding team is absolutely awesome!

Any of you guys have a wheel setup and want to start doing some Beam MP drifting or racing with me? Maybe we could go offroading? Let's go! Let me know.

Ahem, I thought we were talking about HOME Office here, not the $439 Pro version? And you don't understand how COD is relevant here? Dude, just nevermind. I've only picked a handful of titles that I personally knew off the top of my head for my arguments, there's many many more that I could complain about. Here, I'll make it easy for you, you're right and I'm delusional. K? K. Obviously you just don't get it, you said so yourself. I've only been involved in the PC community since about 1998. It's not like I haven't personally watched all of this evolve over the last 25 years or anything. Let me ask you a question, maybe this will make more sense. Why do you think we're all here at EHW and not over at OCN anymore? Do you think it has anything to do with the biggest media company buying a website and ruining it for a lot of people? Because that's why I'm here and why I haven't logged into the other site in years. You might not view it that way, but some of us do. There's a reason people don't like these things, it's because we know better because we've seen better.

I'm still waiting mate. You CANNOT buy Office 2021, only "classic". You CANNOT buy Office Premium. You skipped outlook, which again you cannot buy. And the "free" version of OneDrive that's included with Windows is gimped compared to the subscription model version. I've shown you evidence, I've given game examples even. You're just not listening. Go try to play MW2 online. Then go play COD4 online. Let me know what the differences are. I'll give you a hint, COD4 you can still play. MW2, you can't without installing mods, and even then there's just no community for it anymore. Go play GTA IV online, hint...you can't. Developers are nerfing old games so they can push their latest games, DLC, and subscription models. This has been happening for years.

Dude, that's like legendary Kentsfield clocks there. Most Core 2 Quad Kentsfields tapped out at 3.6-3.8 if you had a GOOD one. Dang. I remember seeing a few people hit 4 with their Q6600's and Q6700's, but it wasn't very many. 15 years later and you're at 4.1....... just wow!

Show me where you can buy Office Premium, Outlook, and Onedrive. Go ahead. I'll wait. And yes, I have shown you evidence, you're just not looking at it. I'm done with this conversation. Clearly you can't see other people's point of view. Personally, I'm fine with having the OPTION for these things. So long as it stays an option. But its not, and it hasn't been for a while.

Dude....they're already doing it. I showed you that earlier with office. Here, let's look at game pass. What all items do you NOT get unless you pay for the "Game Pass Ultimate"? Xbox Game Pass Ultimate — Ultimate 1 Month | Xbox WWW.XBOX.COM You keep saying that they're not doing it yet, but they ARE. When I go and buy a new game title today, I also have to buy day one DLC, and other nonsense just to get the full experience. Some games are already rolling out regular DLC or some other form of subscription model to get you to pay more for the game you've already paid for. With gamepass, its turned into a monthly subscription. How long until that's the norm? It's painfully obvious to ANYONE who's been in the PC industry for years that this is where its headed, especially when these companies are flat out saying it in press releases. I just....I can't even argue with you when you don't even read what I'm telling you, and showing you directly from the company themselves. It has nothing to do with how big the company is, it has to do with where they see the future going. I could care less if its Microsoft, EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Google, whoever. When I pay good money for something, I expect a product in return. Period. And on top of that, I expect the FULL product that I paid for.

You mean like how GTA V "wasn't exclusive" to consoles? Or did you forget that PC gamers didn't get it for over a YEAR later. And it was BROKEN on PC for years after that. Face it bro, we have valid complaints here about this aquisition. It's NOT a good thing for one company to own so many game companies. They're going to ruin those companies further than they already were.

You should head over to the CPUz bench competition we're doing for fun. Looks like a fantastic rig and setup! Your overall cable management makes me jealous. My "mid life crisis" seemed to manifest in me buying a bunch of old junk. You went the opposite route. Touche. Any plans on going bigger on the monitors? That seems to be about the only thing really "lacking" in your setup there, and even then that's just a personal preference anyway. 10/10 rig there, decent to great audio, great keyboard, great cable management, I mean you're really not leaving us much to critique here.

It kind of depends on the scoring criteria I'd think. Your i5 3337u there is modern enough and has enough modern instruction sets to do just about anything you'd want it to still. Slowly, yes.....but it'd do it. The QX6850, while yeah it has high raw CPU power still (for its age), it's lacking instruction sets. There's some games it won't play, despite it still being a half decent CPU even today (ironically). It doesn't even have AVX, whereas yours does. If we're scoring based off the benchmark numbers, then yes you'd be correct. The QX6850 is a pretty strong CPU, and yes....its faster than stuff on the "fast" board. Personally, I've got CPU's from Socket A up through AM4 (AMD, because I didn't feel like doing Intel builds too). I consider my FX and AM4 builds "modern", but I wouldn't call my Thuban, Phenom, or Deneb CPU's modern at all even though they're multi core and still all capable. Personally, I'd say it shows just how freaking awesome the Core 2 Quad series really were back in the day. My 2 cents. He's beating my Thuban with that QX6850, and I have 2 more cores and a newer CPU, and 100MHz clock speed advantage. And he's wiping the floor with my Thuban there. Pretty impressive for a CPU from what, 2007?

Classic versions of word, excel and powerpoint instead of their premium versions. Lack of onedrive, outlook, and android / IOS apps. But sure, its the same thing. Also, its "Home", "Personal", and "Family" that I showed......ALL are home versions of Office. I'm not saying that having the OPTION to rent your software or games shouldn't be allowed, I think that's a wonderful idea. Always has been. Renting serves a purpose. It's so you can try a game (any media) BEFORE you buy it and invest hundreds or thousands of hours into it. It's great. But it shouldn't be the ONLY option, and that's exactly where we're headed. Go look again at that Office chart, look at what features are NOT there when you buy a "full" license. Microsoft isn't the only company pushing this either, I'm just picking on them because this thread is about their merger with Actiblizzard. Actiblizzard is JUST as guilty of this, go look at WoW, or the latest Call of Duty yearly expansion pack for $70. I dare you, go try to play MW2 online, I'll bet matchmaking is disabled now. Whereas COD4 is still alive and kicking. They've been slowly removing features and going to a subscription based model since about 2007.

You haven't checked even on Office products lately have you? Microsoft IS doing exactly what I'm griping about lol. It's only going to continue to get worse. They're not going to magically just decide to give consumers power back over their purchases. It's bad business. $150 for a basic version is what you get to "purchase" it, or you can get a full featured version for a subscription. It's okay if you like renting things, that's fine. But me, I like to own what I buy. This is the future of gaming with Microsoft. You WILL be forced into subscription models like Game Pass.

Agreed with you on your first point about everybody having their preferences. And you know, I had Netflix for a while and Disney+. I tried to like it. But I remember several times I was wanting to go and watch something, and it was gone out of the library. The companies decide what they want on there. Game pass for $10 a month, yes it seems like a steal. You're right. Until you want to go play say (example) Forza Horizon 5, and its no longer on there anymore. Or whatever game. It's fine for casual stuff, but if you want to enjoy your titles long term its most definitely NOT the way to go. Personally, I absolutely LOVE going back and replaying my games again years later. I still pick up Crysis from 2007 every once in a while and enjoy it. COD4 still has an online community even, and that game is ALSO from 2007. There's a few modern titles that have been great too for a consumer. Tripwire seems like they've been keeping some decent morals as a game company for one example. BeamNG.drive is another, that game's been in "alpha" stages since 2013 and the devs ALLOW modding, they allow local servers, they let you do just about anything you want (within reason). Just a couple examples that I personally know of, I'm sure there's more. I understand WHY you are okay renting your games. That's fine, I used to rent SNES and N64 games from blockbuster back in the day. Nothing wrong at all with having the OPTION to. All I'm getting at, is that it should NEVER become the norm, and day one DLC's, and milking the customer dry just really grinds my gears. Or again, when game devs kill their games entirely so they're not competing with their old games themselves because an old game is still popular. You're trying to act like these things aren't a problem, but they really are. GTA IV is completely dead, they've REMOVED online from it, a feature I paid $60 for, TWICE (retail and Steam when my disc broke). It's dead because they wanted to push GTA V Online. People have been warning about this stuff for years, and its slowly becoming a reality in the gaming industry. Office was just an example of Microsoft doing the same practices. That's all I was getting at there. It's a thing, subscription models are "the future", and as a consumer, I don't appreciate it. You can claim Microsoft won't do these things, but they already are.

See, that's exactly my gripe. You're fine with RENTING your games and the "store" telling you what you can and cannot play. I'm not. If I pay good money for a game, I expect to OWN that game forever. Same thing with movies. I understand there's some licensing limitations, always has been. But I can still play my original copy of Quake from 1996. I cannot say the same for half of my Steam library.