neurotix

Alright guys, so I bit the bullet and ordered a R9 5900x from Amazon. Arriving today and then my wife and I will put it in. I just had a back surgery and am not supposed to lean forward at the waist, and obviously working on rigs I think most people lay them down on their back side on a table and bend over to work on the inside. Well, I'm really excited so idgaf and will be ignoring doctor's orders. Unfortunately, wife has great PC building skills and her own rig (In an anidees Crystal Cube case) but she can't mount waterblocks-yet. Also, my cooler's mounting system for AM4 sucks really bad and literally just has screws that go through and into the stock AMD backplate with no front side bracket or anything to help align it. There is no way to keep the AMD backplate in place besides holding it on the back manually while you mount the waterblock from the front and get the first 2 screws in diagonally. Aside from that- I am very excited. I have essentially golden G.skill B-Die RAM. I have run it at 4266MHz out of ratio which is like 15 dividers higher than it's rated for. So I will be aiming for 2000MHz fclk and 4000MHz c17 memory. I'll be able to OC both the memory and the chip and bench it for HWBOT, so that should keep me busy next week. And yes, you all are correct that in terms of gaming performance, at 3440x1440 and especially 4k I will probably see little to no gains except maybe for minimum framerate. But since I am sticking with this platform until Zen 5 releases (probably 2025), I wanted the best chip for it, and before all the retailers clear inventory and they get scalped on Ebay. I am not interested in a 3070, if we can get our hands on one I will be getting an RTX 4090. Since it's literally twice as powerful as my 1080ti SLI and in a single card. We are going to wait until Nvidia and the card vendors fix this melting power connector issue, so probably early next year. I am looking at the MSI model, or possibly the Gigabyte model but I would appreciate suggestions and links to a good RTX 4090 considering EVGA no longer makes GPUs. Thanks for all the input, though.

Yeah, I mentioned that earlier in the thread. I would need to invest in a $300 Hakko desoldering gun. I hate hate hate hate desoldering. It's not too bad for retro game batteries, but it's awful for capacitors in retro consoles I've recapped. I use a solder sucker as well, for some reason I can't get wick to work properly and actually do anything and I have brand name SuperWick. Eventually a lot of my game consoles will need full recaps, or possibly my stereo components, when that happens is when I'll get a good desoldering gun.

Wow, if only Squeenix had used something similar to upscale the backgrounds for the Switch port. I thought it was actually really well done- I was surprised that in addition to the character models being higher res with more polygons, the text boxes were all in HD. If they had used the AI upscaling on the backgrounds it would have been perfect. It's a shame how the community does so much with Square games that Square should be doing themselves but doesn't. It's really a shame they shut down that Chrono Trigger remake project, also the translation patch for Final Fantasy Type-0 on PSP (which was covertly released anyway). My favorite FF game, and favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy 4- aka Final Fantasy 2 back in the day on the SNES. I have cleared FF2 US (really dumbed down version), FF4 "Hardtype", FF4 Easytype which was a Japanese rerelease of FF2 US and Zeromus looks different, FF4 Wonderswan Color with translation patch, FF4 GBA, FF4 DS (good lord that was hard) and FF4 PSP Complete Collection, though I did not do Interlude or After Years (that one was a complete 2D remake of FF4). All in all I'd say I've probably cleared FF4 easily 150 times. I replay it on a yearly basis. I'd highly recommend playing the FF4 "Hardtype" with either the bad J2E translation patch or FF4 Namingway Edition if you have not already played 4. 9 would be very high in my ranking and its a shame there's no other FF like it. It's easily the funniest FF, and I really liked all the stuff to collect, the Chocobo hot and cold quest (my wife loved it and thought it was cute), and the Active Time Event thing where you can see cutscenes of what your characters are doing when you split up in town. I've cleared 9 at least 10 times. I am actually a very big fan, though not extremely good at, the original FF for NES. With the way the magic system works, and item system (Heal potions only and they only restore a small amount of HP), it's very much a dungeon dive game based around resource management. I love how you can pick a different party each time, and you can complete the four main dungeons out of order if you want once you get the canoe- skipping the volcano and going to the ice cave to get the FLOATER and getting the airship, then doing either the water dungeon or the air castle (granted you gotta get the SLAB from the water shrine to access the air castle). To me, FF1 has nearly endless replayability which isn't too true for the following games.

Yep, pretty much my endgame board, though I really enjoy the modded E-Yooso z77 with whites once in a while. I'd use my OCN Ducky as well (which is what got me hooked on clicky switches and was the impetus for me building my boards, instead of using the others I had with MX Reds)... however the OCN Ducky is more or less shot and the switches barely have any click to them anymore due to heavy use from the previous owner. Also hey there The Pook- good to see you here.

Thanks for the advice guys. And yes, there have been rumors of a 5900x3D as well as 5950x3D, at least speculation on OCN. Maybe I'll hold off on upgrading to save money given that I have a big backlog of PC games from 2010-2020 that all run great on the current setup. Also have backlogs of PS5, PS4 and Switch games to play. Had Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for Switch for like 3 mo. And haven't touched it yet because I know once I do, its all I will want to do and potentially for hundreds of hours. I can only imagine the prices for RTX 5000 series when those come out and with inflation and everything, I may still try and get a 4090 given that it may end up being much cheaper than whatever is next. It was hard enough to convince my wife to spend $400 on a HD 7970, the prices for this hobby have gotten out of control.

I figure with how cheap a 5900x is currently, it would give me something to bench for HWBOT. Sig rig is up to date, yes. My question is still about the chances of AMD releasing a X3D version though. GPU upgrade might happen too and is necessary since I want to hit 144 fps in Forza Horizon 4 & 5. Both of which are DirectX 12 and don't utilize my 2nd card. Even turning settings to medium or low in Horizon 5, my 1080ti only hit around 80fps in the ingame benchmark. My monitor is an Acer Costco special from a year or two back- 144hz FreeSync HDR 3440x1440 curved Ultrawide. I am looking at the RTX 4090 which has over twice the shaders of my two 1080ti put together. However I am weary because of the connector melting issue. Also sold out at my local Microcenter. I worry about my PSU being able to provide up to 600w on one 12v rail (its a CM V1000 that only has 6+2 pin cables meaning I'd need to use an included adapter). We might wait til they resolve the melting connector issue so it might not be til next year, and that's if we can get and reserve one at Microcenter.

Hey all. With vendors clearing stock of Ryzen 5000 series and the R9 5900x being available at my local Microcenter for $329, I am considering upgrading my R9 3900x then selling it on ebay to offset the cost a little bit. I already know that the 5900x is about 25% more powerful single thread in games. I sticking with AM4 until DDR5 is cheaper and Zen 5 comes out (probably 2025). What I'm wondering is, what are the real chances of a 5900x3D coming out? Which would offer an additional 25% performance in games? The 5800x3D is more expensive and I don't want to go from 24 threads to 16. It seems like its now or never to get a 5900x and with Zen 4 launching soon, will AMD really compete with itself by releasing more AM4 chips with 3D V-Cache? Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Pioneerisloud, see the joining rules. Nice collection but if you want to be added I need those abbreviated into a list with commas. Just list OS and processor for each box seperated by commas. Thank you~ Yes, upkeep for all these consoles and games can require a lot of work. I actually recapped the PC Engine Core Grafx fully (it was known as the TurboGrafx 16 here) as well as replacing failing caps on the motherboard of my model 1 Sega CD. A working one of those is like $400-500 on ebay last I looked. The tray loader that matches my model 1 Genesis and sits underneath it. If any other systems fail I will have to recap them as well. I have also desoldered and replaced countless save batteries in games. With everything that can go wrong, and how much space it takes up, I can totally understand why people choose to emulate. I emulated stuff for years too and it wasn't really til 2010 or so that I started collecting and basically started with a NES, a Genesis and a Dreamcast (which of course has a big binder full of burned games). Back then it was much cheaper to collect and my collection grew slowly over years. I was getting good Genesis games at a place for like 75c each. Also, I basically have a few rules: no more than $70 per game (exception was Chrono Trigger) and I only collect good games, I don't buy any that I'm unfamiliar with or suck. I also tried to stick to only games I played growing up either owning, renting or played at a friend's house. Final Fantasy 9 eh? How did you like it? A few months ago I helped my wife clear the game on the Switch port of it including the entire Chocobo Hot and Cold sidequest. The music for that is permanently engraved in my brain. I can't comment on 10 as I hated it personally when I tried it. Played for about 10 hours and despised it, especially the voice acting. I've never used one of those bluetooth controllers for emulators on a phone but modern phones can emulate stuff up to the Dreamcast excepting the Saturn. Might be worth it if you can find a quality one with decent sized buttons and dpad.

Yeah, despite packing the case with foam to dampen sound and doubling up on o-rings for the space bar on both boards, there is a pingy metal sound from the spacebar. Keep in mind my pc is in a very large finished basement room (like 1100 sq ft) so there's an echo down there which makes these sound worse than they are.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I too had Nintendo growing up but also played the Genesis a lot at friends houses so that's why I have all the Sega stuff. I always wanted it as a kid. The 32x sucks, but the Sega CD is actually awesome and has quite a few shoot em up games as well as Snatcher so its not just fmv games like everyone thinks. For Nintendo, I loved Mario but then some friends got me into Final Fantasy and that started my jrpg addiction which continues to be my preferred genre to this day. I did have a PC eventually, a Pentium 75 with 16MB RAM that my uncle gifted me for my birthday when he upgraded. It had Doom and Duke 3D as well as a few other games. I cleared them both back then but I recently tried Duke3D and even on the easier difficulty couldn't even clear the 1st stage lol. Pioneerisloud, if you wanna list your retro machines with specs seperated by commas I can add you to the club list. And yes, most people choose to emulate and with stuff like RetroPie it makes sense. We recently moved and like I had like 12 heavy boxes full of everything.

Reserved.

Useful videos: Cleaning stickers, labels etc off of old game boxes and carts. Nintendo Gamebit Kit

Reserved for convention information.

EHW Retro - The ExtremeHW.net Retrogaming Club aka the I Need More Alcohol and Q-tips Club Welcome to EHW Retro, the ExtremeHW.net Retrogaming club. Atari or Coleco, Nintendo or Sega, Game Boy or Game Gear, Sony or Microsoft, it's all the same here! If you have an Atari ST, a Commodore 64, a Macintosh or an IBM AT, or even just older PC hardware, this is the place for you too! I am not sure how much interest there will be in this, but I figured I'd remake my club here. Whether you have a small collection, a medium collection or a large collection, everyone is welcome here. If you think games were better when you were growing up, and you want to relive the nostalgia, this is the place for you. If you played a game back in the day, but you can't remember what it was, this is the place to ask. Feel free to post pictures of your newly acquired games, post pictures of your collections, and so on. If you go to gaming conventions, feel free to post pics of those too- we would love to see them! Retrogaming includes all consoles, handhelds, arcades and computers prior to the Eight generation (PS4, Xbox One, Wii U) which is still technically ongoing, even though we're in the Ninth generation now with the recently released systems. As long as new games still come out for the PS4 and Xbox One, they won't be considered retro, sorry. Update for 2022: This year, the Vita has become retro per the 10 year rule and in about a month the Wii U will as well if you want to list them. The 3DS also qualifies. This was a request of members of the old club (10 years) though I personally feel a game or system isn't retro until it's 15 years old. How to Join Joining is simple. Just post your EHW name, and a small list of the consoles you own separated by commas. I'm putting this here since some people ignore it, if you want to join and have 10+ consoles, I need them put into a list with commas like in the club members list below. I will not add you if you use bullets, line breaks or any other format besides a simple sentence with commas. If you want you can include an estimate of how many games you have. You can include classic computers, handhelds or arcade cabinets if you want. Look at my listing in the members list as an example in how to format your application. Members list: neurotix (Founder) - NES, SNES (x2), PC Engine Core Grafx, Master System, Genesis, Sega CD(x2), 32X (x2), Saturn (x2), Dreamcast (x2), Game Gear, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance SP, PS2, Xbox, PSP-1000, PSP Go, Macintosh SE w/ replaced PRAM battery and 4MB NEC 80ns SIMMs. 250+ games on cart. ENTERPRISE - PS3 pioneerisloud -AMD K6-III 450 @ 600MHz, AMD Athlon Thunderbird @ 1100MHz, AMD AthlonXP 3200+ @ 2.2GHz, as well as many other retro AMD PC setups Sir Beregond - PS2 Fluxmaven - Sega Genesis, PSP, Xbox 360, liquid cooled PS4 axipher - Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, DS Lite, DSiXL, PSP-1000, NES, N64, GCN, Wii, PS2 Slim, PS3 Fat, Xbox 360, Q6600 / 8800 GTS Crysis rig (lol) Slaughtahouse - Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Switch, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo 3DS, SNES Classic, Xbox 360

There you go. Decided to include the non-Box Kailh MX Blue switches in the Rosewill K85 for reference, since they are clone Cherry Blues which everyone is familiar with. Which do you like best?

Buckling spring switches are awesome. I'm old enough and a school I went to when I was in 3rd or 4th grade had a computer room full of IBM systems that all had IBM model M keyboards. I can clearly remember doing typing class on them and thinking at the time that the keyboard was much higher quality than the Macintosh keyboard we had at home. Imo, if you want buckling spring switches just buy an IBM Model M keyboard on ebay (they ran around $90 last I checked) and a PS/2 to USB Adapter. Though they aren't pretty so I can understand wanting a modern kb, choice of size, choice of keycaps etc. An IBM model M has actually been on my wants list for quite a while but we've been trying to be frugal and our savings keeps getting depleted by having to give money to my sister nearly monthly since shes in between jobs and not making ends meet on her own.. Also, I read on reddit or something that a keyboard enthusiast used an IBM Model M at work for years, then built a board with Kailh Box Jades and ended up loving them enough that he considered them superior to the model M and switched. Also, that's correct, the collab was Kailh x NovelKeys not kbfans. Never ordered anything from either site. Supercrumpet, can't hurt to build a board or swap switches and try the Kailh Box Whites. I will try to take some short videos of my wife typing on my boards so you can hear the difference and put them on YouTube. If I remember to. Also both of us have been playing Grim Dawn over the LAN and its the weekend so we'll see because we're both heavily addicted, lol.

I like the Box Whites a lot. They have a lower activation force (like 30g of pressure to actuate) compared to the Box Jades which are around 55g. The click is higher pitched/less loud and since they require less pressure I can type more softly on them. Compared to MX Blues, I think they require less force to actuate and they sound totally different. Though I can't compare them properly to MX Blues because the OCN Ducky I have with MX Blues is pretty much shot and needs a full switch replacement which is beyond me as they are all soldered (I can solder and desolder but I'd need a $300 Hakko desoldering gun for a project like that). I can, however, compare the Whites to the Kailh Blues (non Box- clone MX Blue switches) in saying the sound and feel is completely different and the clone Blues definitely take more force to actuate. Though not much more. Basically I would recommend the Whites if you want clicky switches that aren't too loud and that you can type on very lightly, which seems to increase my speed. Essentially typing with your fingertips. Compared to the Jades, well the Jades are perfection to me. Loud satisfying click, can type hard on them, basically a Jade kinda feels like a white or MX Blue switch that is sticky, and you feel that on the upstroke moving your finger away. This is not a bad thing but going from the Doraemon board to my GMMK, its the best way to describe it. (the sticky feeling) This sort of makes sense as a Jade was based on the White but with a thicker click bar and tighter spring. I have NOT used Box Navy however it was what I was initially considering and interested in before building either of these boards. They are supposedly like Jades and came out around the same time. However the actuation force for them is crazy high, like 85g or something so you would really need to type HARD on them. I opted for the Jades instead and got like the last shipment of them during the early pandemic that took over a month to arrive from a Chinese Amazon seller, and after we bought them they were no longer available. They were also sold out on kbfans or whatever that site was that directly did the collab with Kailh to make them. I'm not sure if you can even get them anymore, as it was a limited time thing... I am actually interested in doing a board or swapping the Jades in my GMMK for Kailh Box Rose. Which are also clicky. I don't know the actuation force for them but did see a YouTube video testing them around the time they became available and they seem interesting, I am curious to try them. Hope this helps.

There's one with the lights off (it's really bright) and one with the lights on. For those who don't know Doraemon is like the Japanese equivalent of Mickey Mouse. Hes above my left arrow key. I would actually like to get some dark blue and white keycaps as the logo for Doraemon is dark blue.

Will take and upload a few pics of my secondary board later.

Will do. Probably tomorrow when the wife is working because we are about to start multiplayer Grim Dawn. Not sure I'll be active enough here to keep a club list and list everyone's consoles... I will probably just repost the one I did for OCN and edit it heavily. (Keep in mind I'm not really into retro pc gaming much, no room for it. I freaking love the old DOS game Tyrian though. This thread would be console focused though I did add people's retro pcs.) Thanks again for the CT Sounds recommendation to replace my blown Polk PSW-505 woofer. See that other audiophile thread for a picture of my house system. Its a shame they went out of business.

Wow lotsa work going into this thread. Nice spreadsheet. Attached are photos of my main board, pretty much my endgame, I love it. I could possibly make a YouTube vid demo of how it sounds if anyone is interested. I can post pics from different angles too. Pictures at bottom. I can't figure out how to do inline images on mobile. GMMK v2 fullsize 104 key Custom white plastidip + plastidip pearlizer on the top, some white plastidip on the inside of the top plate to help rgb light diffusion Kailh Box Jade switches, a few are Gateron Browns (like Caps so if I bump it I immediately know) Cherry Blue o-rings Filco Sakura keycaps Stabs clipped and lubed with lithium grease Case weighted and noise dampened with some small metal weights I had laying around as well as packed with crafters foam.. the kind you get at Hobby Lobby or whatever that comes in a big flat sheet. I think thats about it for my main one. Secondary one: E-Element or E-Yooso Z77 or whatever Removed stock Outemu Blue switches. They advertise it as being hot swappable but if that means using 50 lbs of force with a switch puller... Yeah my lovely hardworking wife removed them all. The switches are not soldered but the contacts on the switch are too large for the hole so yeah. Replaced all switches with Kailh Box White switches. Each one needed the pins trimmed with a flush cutters to fit into the PCBs non standard hole size (too small for the right pin). Cherry Blue O-rings Stabs clipped and lubed cheapo white and blue keycaps Case packed with foam Multiple Doraemon stickers from Ebay In the spreadsheet just put modded E-Yooso Z77 with box whites. I will take pictures if anyone wants to see it. Additionally I could also do a test video. They do make these kbs in Tenkeyless and 60% versions for like $30, add in the cost of some switches, o rings and crafters foam and maybe some keycaps and you might be able to do a fully custom board for around $100. If you are brave enough to try lol Additionally my wife has a GMMK fullsize with Kailh Box white switches. It might have o-rings but I don't remember. She's an accountant so she needs the numpad. Additionally she works 100% remote and that just got extended through June. This board sees heavy use. It has PBT pudding keycaps because she likes them. Moms pc has a Rosewill something black board, RGB, fullsize, with Kailh Blue (non box) switches. She plays Tetris and some other games on it and loves it. I'd have to go look in storage for the model number. It has really nice lighting. On top of that, in storage I have (and want to sell): Corsair K70 Lux fullsize stock with Cherry MX Red switches..red backlighting. my first mechanical board before I realized I like clicky switches. OCN Ducky with Cherry Blues. Switches need to be replaced, it was used heavily. Paint on keycaps is yellowed because the previous owner smoked. Ducky One 2 RGB fullsize year of the dog edition with Cherry MX reds. I want to try Topre switches but don't like the HHKB and a fullsize Realforce is like $300 that I would rather save to eventually get a new GPU. Sorry for how long this was! Also good to see you here Fluxmaven.

Sapphire was my go-to brand for years until I got my current 1080tis. I've had: Sapphire 4670 Sapphire 6870 Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X 2x Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X.. rma'd because of fan grinding noises under load at 100% fan and got 2x Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X (my favorite GPUs ever) 2x Sapphire R9 380X Nitro 2x Sapphire R9 Fury Nitro I benched and sold: Sapphire 7870 XT (a Tahiti chip with 1536 shaders- pretty rare) Golden Sapphire R9 270X that did 1300Mhz on the core Golden Sapphire 7770 that did 1300Mhz core I think thats it. Never had a Sapphire Toxic card but wish I did. Anyone remember the MSI Lightning cards? Those were out around the same time the 7970 Vapor-X was and they did Lightnings for both vendors. I wish they'd do these again minus the all yellow theme given I have an RGB case with black powder coat sparkly paint... Kinda need a neutral color.

I am planning to upgrade to single card 5000 series when they come out and would have gone with EVGA Ftw3... Now I have no clue what to buy. We went with MSI recently for my wife's rig. Asus is great for motherboards but I'm pretty sure they have terrible support and RMA process from what I heard years ago.

Sorry to double post but, also wondering if there is a anime/manga thread since I'm a huge weeb. Lol If there isn't a thread dedicated to old games and game collecting, I might have to make one but I dunno how much interest there would be or if its outside the scope of this site.

Not much activity here I take it? I'll join the team anyway and bring about 1200 points with me. Also will be doing some Time Spy benches on my sig rig since I finally paid for a 3dmark key >_> My wife's R9 380X Nitro (basically a glorified 7970 but a little faster- 7 year old card and she has a 3440x1440 Ultrawide now) developed a problem recently with the right fan scraping against the metal shroud and only when the card heated up. So we bit the bullet and got her a MSI Ventus 2X RTX 3060. Its running great so far. I plan on benching that too but in her rig which has a i5-7600k. If I hadn't just had a back procedure limiting bending and if both of our cases weren't tempered glass I would obviously put it in my system with a R9 3900x for the physics score. But since my 1080ti ftw3 pair are deeper than usual cards, we actually have to bend the aluminum bracket you put screws in to get the things in and out of the case. Really happy with the RTX 3060, in most games it is about as powerful as my 1080tis- I saw a comparison chart on the two testing them in like 20 games.