Post your Last Purchase

[Snakecharmed]

Well, who knows if we'll still be here by the time this is scheduled to be delivered.

 

 

I also proudly came up with lyrics to celebrate my purchase.

 

96 gigs of RAM in the board

96 gigs of RAM

Windows goes, “Gimme those”

95 gigs of RAM in the board

[Slaughtahouse]

On 30/10/2024 at 23:49, Slaughtahouse said:

 

That’s actually pretty interesting. I have a hammer drill and oscillating tool, both m18 Milwaukee.

 

USB-C is hella more convenient and likely lighter but the M18 tool probably has a lot more power (voltage) and more versatile.

 

Appreciate both recommendations  Gotta read up on this m18 version.

 

Just a follow up, I purchased a USB-C powered / mini air compressor tools back in Oct/Nov. Been using it for months.

 

My thoughts: I mainly use it for cleaning dust around the house. It's not powerful enough to get rid of fine dust particles on flat surfaces, but it helps with bigger dirt and debris. Top of door / window sills and trim, behind furniture etc. I also used it to blow out some water lines (winterizing). For electronics, its good enough... but not as good strong as a can of compressed air or using a workshop air compressor. Easily powerful enough to clear out dust between fins on a heatsink. OKish for a keyboard. I feel if it had a nozzle small enough, like from a can of WD40 / air compressor, it would be great.

 

Best use case: Accelerating fuel burn for your fire. If you ever needed the BBQ or smoker to increase in temp quickly, 20 seconds of blasted air will get those coals glowing. I have one of these chimney starters to get the fire going quickly at the beginning, but when you tend to a BBQ/ Smoker for a long period of time, sometimes you just need a bit more air to light up whatever additional fuel you threw in. This tool makes it so much easier. Just be careful because if you're cooking food, you're gonna blow ashes everywhere. 

 

Link to the one I bought (Amazon Canuck edition). https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BXH5JR7N

Edited January 13 by Slaughtahouse

[Snakecharmed]

Similar tasks, different tools, related principles.

 

I ended up getting the Project Farm recommended "knockoff" Milwaukee handheld vacuum which replaced an ancient Black & Decker Dustbuster with a weak battery that I hadn't used in years. It's also a much more portable alternative to my Miele canister vac, which is a much more portable alternative to my Kirby upright vac. Anyway, the handheld vac has taken on everything that was too cumbersome for the Miele, from my car interiors, to my furniture, to chunks of drywall and wood dust from doing some electrical work. I also used it to vacuum dust from my case when upgrading the RAM and CPU a couple of weeks ago. I rarely have a need for dusting with compressed air. The last time I needed it was when I was selling off my old GTX 1080 Ti and needed to reach the inner fins of the heatsink.

 

For lighting up lump charcoal, I use a 1500W, 1150°F hot air gun and it works great. 45 seconds of direct heat gets them going without needing a chimney starter. I first tried the wood shaving and wax fire starter pellets, but those get too hot too fast. I would have tried a chimney starter next, but I was trying to not buy a single-purpose tool.

[pio]

Completely forgot this thread existed.  Still relevant though.    

[Slaughtahouse]

1 hour ago, Snakecharmed said:

Similar tasks, different tools, related principles.

 

I ended up getting the Project Farm recommended "knockoff" Milwaukee handheld vacuum which replaced an ancient Black & Decker Dustbuster with a weak battery that I hadn't used in years. It's also a much more portable alternative to my Miele canister vac, which is a much more portable alternative to my Kirby upright vac. Anyway, the handheld vac has taken on everything that was too cumbersome for the Miele, from my car interiors, to my furniture, to chunks of drywall and wood dust from doing some electrical work. I also used it to vacuum dust from my case when upgrading the RAM and CPU a couple of weeks ago. I rarely have a need for dusting with compressed air. The last time I needed it was when I was selling off my old GTX 1080 Ti and needed to reach the inner fins of the heatsink.

 

For lighting up lump charcoal, I use a 1500W, 1150°F hot air gun and it works great. 45 seconds of direct heat gets them going without needing a chimney starter. I first tried the wood shaving and wax fire starter pellets, but those get too hot too fast. I would have tried a chimney starter next, but I was trying to not buy a single-purpose tool.

 

Depends on how much you BBQ/Smoke with coal but a $15 chimney starter is fantastic. I use it everytime I start a cook. 10-15mns (passively) and the coals will be scorching. Dump onto your fuel, like unlit coals and you're golden. 

[tictoc]

Moving on from my current 5x 360 radiator setup.

 

[Sir Beregond]

3 hours ago, tictoc said:

Moving on from my current 5x 360 radiator setup.

 

Seriously thinking about an external setup if I can make it work...i.e. where to put it, etc.

[tictoc]

I've been on external rads since I went to Threadripper with my 2970WX.  It's really the only option that makes sense when you're trying to cool 3-4 GPUs and a 400W+ CPU.  The huge MORA IV 600 should keep up and be quieter than my current 5x 360 rad setup. 

 

I have my external on the floor  under the end of my desk.  With hardwood floors dust isn't a huge problem for me, and it's easier to clean then a bunch of rads mounted inside a case.  It only takes a few minutes to disconnect the QDCs, and take it outside to blow off the dust.  

[Fluxmaven]

On 16/01/2025 at 13:12, Sir Beregond said:

Seriously thinking about an external setup if I can make it work...i.e. where to put it, etc.

 

I know a guy that can get you into a big boi external on the cheap 

 

On my main rig I have it on the floor around the corner from my desk blowing the heat out of the room. 

 

QD fittings on the external  plus datavac equals cooling system cleaned in minutes vs dying trying to carry the full tower outside. 

[Mr. Fox]

On 16/01/2025 at 11:12, Sir Beregond said:

Seriously thinking about an external setup if I can make it work...i.e. where to put it, etc.

It's really the only way to fly IMHO. Two of my three desktops use external cooling systems with large rads (NOVA and MO-RA) and multiple D5 pumps and nothing but tubing, fittings and waterblocks inside of the cases.

 

Last purchased:

New - X670E Gene to tide me over until I can replace it with an X870E Apex. (The X870E Carbon and X870E Taichi were both returned for refunds.)

Used - GTX 1080 Strix 11GB/s for $142 (Replacing RX 590 as a spare GPU for unexpected needs, and also for a few HWBOT points since I skipped 1080 and went straight to 1080 Ti when 10-series was new.)

New - another IceMan Cooling direct-touch RAM waterblock kit (love these things)

 

Other than its mATX size handicap, the Gene is a very nice enthusiast motherboard. 

Edited January 20 by Mr. Fox

[Sir Beregond]

On 20/01/2025 at 07:11, Mr. Fox said:

It's really the only way to fly IMHO. Two of my three desktops use external cooling systems with large rads (NOVA and MO-RA) and multiple D5 pumps and nothing but tubing, fittings and waterblocks inside of the cases.

 

Last purchased:

New - X670E Gene to tide me over until I can replace it with an X870E Apex. (The X870E Carbon and X870E Taichi were both returned for refunds.)

Used - GTX 1080 Strix 11GB/s for $142 (Replacing RX 590 as a spare GPU for unexpected needs, and also for a few HWBOT points since I skipped 1080 and went straight to 1080 Ti when 10-series was new.)

New - another IceMan Cooling direct-touch RAM waterblock kit (love these things)

 

Other than its mATX size handicap, the Gene is a very nice enthusiast motherboard. 

The MSI and Asrock boards no good?

[Mr. Fox]

On 21/01/2025 at 09:24, Sir Beregond said:

The MSI and Asrock boards no good?

The firmware was rubbish on the Taichi so the memory latency was too high. I think they fixed that issue. But, the Taichi PCIe lane distribution sucked big time. The bottom PCIe slot could not be used. If I put my Sabrent quad NVMe x4 card in the slot it cut the GPU to x8. That critical design flaw made it an instant fail for me... unacceptable. It was very disappointing as I expected the Taichi was going to be awesome. It wasn't.

 

The Carbon was a really nice motherboard, but MSI firmware was pretty messy. They would fix one thing and mess up another. Per CCD manual overclocking was broken until their current A23 BIOS and they hide menus for things like individual SATA port configuration, how long to wait and display the BIOS boot logo for entering Setup and other similar things that should not be hidden. (This same issue exists on my Z790i Edge and it seems to be the MSI way of doing things.) The Carbon did not have an issue with using other PCIe slots cutting the GPU to x8. The trade-off there was you could not use the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot under the GPU. Populating that with any NVMe (Gen 3, 4 or 5) cut the GPU to x8. You could only use the one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot between the CPU and GPU and the two other M.2 slots (Gen 4). So, I was able to use the Sabrent quad NVMe in the Carbon no issue.

 

Going 2-DIMM is the only way to fly anyhow. 4-DIMM configurations are kind of sucky unless you care more about maxing out your system with slow memory. Although it is only PCIe x1 on the Gene, I am still able to use the Sabrent quad NVME in that slot and the SSDs work fine (slower of course) and the GPU maintains x16.

Edited January 22 by Mr. Fox

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

The firmware was rubbish on the Taichi so the memory latency was too high. I think they fixed that issue. But, the Taichi PCIe lane distribution sucked big time. The bottom PCIe slot could not be used. If I put my Sabrent quad NVMe x4 card in the slot it cut the GPU to x8. That critical design flaw made it an instant fail for me... unacceptable. It was very disappointing as I expected the Taichi was going to be awesome. It wasn't.

 

The Carbon was a really nice motherboard, but MSI firmware was pretty messy. They would fix one thing and mess up another. Per CCD manual overclocking was broken until their current A23 BIOS and they hide menus for things like individual SATA port configuration, how long to wait and display the BIOS boot logo for entering Setup and other similar things that should not be hidden. (This same issue exists on my Z790i Edge and it seems to be the MSI way of doing things. The Carbon did not have an issue with using other PCIe slots cutting the GPU to x8. The trade-off there was you could not use the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot under the GPU. Populating that with any NVMe (Gen 3, 4 or 5) cut the GPU to x8. You could only use the one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot between the CPU and GPU and the two other M.2 slots (Gen 4). So, I was able to use the Sabrent quad NVMe in the Carbon no issue.

 

Going 2-DIMM is the only way to fly anyhow. 4-DIMM configurations are kind of sucky unless you care more about maxing out your system with slow memory. Although it is only PCIe x1 on the Gene, I am still able to use the Sabrent quad NVME in that slot and the SSDs work fine (slower of course) and the GPU maintains x16.

Good information, thank you.

 

I'm not on any DDR5 platform yet for my main rig, so other Zen 4/5 users can maybe correct me. On an Intel system I definitely wanted a 2-dimmer since the goal is to get as fast as possible. Not sure that matters so much on an AMD system. My biggest gains on my 5900X came more from tightening my secondary and tertiary timings. It may be different on Zen 4/5 now since I think you can do different ratios with the FCLK while on Zen 3 it had to be 1:1 with DRAM, but I think it's still a case of biggest gains probably coming from tuning the timings vs raw MT speeds like on Intel. 

 

Still a 2-dimmer is nice just for that reduced stress on the IMC. I certainly intend to look for a 2-dimm board when I get around to upgrading next. And I've been a little perplexed about the PCI-E lanes and where you can and can't use your nvme drives. Seems really confusing these days.

Edited January 22 by Sir Beregond

[Fluxmaven]

36 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

Good information, thank you.

 

I'm not on any DDR5 platform yet for my main rig, so other Zen 4/5 users can maybe correct me. On an Intel system I definitely wanted a 2-dimmer since the goal is to get as fast as possible. Not sure that matters so much on an AMD system. My biggest gains on my 5900X came more from tightening my secondary and tertiary timings. It may be different on Zen 4/5 now since I think you can do different ratios with the FCLK while on Zen 3 it had to be 1:1 with DRAM, but I think it's still a case of biggest gains probably coming from tuning the timings vs raw MT speeds like on Intel. 

 

Still a 2-dimmer is nice just for that reduced stress on the IMC. I certainly intend to look for a 2-dimm board when I get around to upgrading next. And I've been a little perplexed about the PCI-E lanes and where you can and can't use your nvme drives. Seems really confusing these days.

The dual CCD chips actually benefit from increased bandwidth. For single CCD, just tightening up a decent kit makes more sense than spending a bunch on a kit that will do 8000+. When it comes closer to your upgrade, I'd see what the recommendations are at the time. 

 

The PCIe lane layouts are infuriating and the manufactures don't bother to clearly show how that works. For my main system I wanted 3x M.2 without stealing lanes from the GPU. I was actually interested in an Asrock X870E Nova but it was always out of stock. Ended up with an MSI X870 Tomahawk which can do what I want for the most part. Populate all 4 M.2 would still not drop main PCIe from 16x. You do have to sacrifice the USB4 ports and/or the other PCIe slot though depending on what slots you use. Using M.2_1 and M.2_4 affect nothing else. I don't need the other PCIe slot so I'm using my 3rd M.2 in M.2_3 so I keep the USB4 ports (which share lanes with M.2_2). 

 

Like Mr Fox, I also recently purchased an Iceman direct touch RAM waterblock set after seeing several people seemed to have good luck with them. The flimsy heat spreaders on my G.Skill A-die were already starting to fall off. 

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, Fluxmaven said:

The dual CCD chips actually benefit from increased bandwidth. For single CCD, just tightening up a decent kit makes more sense than spending a bunch on a kit that will do 8000+. When it comes closer to your upgrade, I'd see what the recommendations are at the time. 

 

The PCIe lane layouts are infuriating and the manufactures don't bother to clearly show how that works. For my main system I wanted 3x M.2 without stealing lanes from the GPU. I was actually interested in an Asrock X870E Nova but it was always out of stock. Ended up with an MSI X870 Tomahawk which can do what I want for the most part. Populate all 4 M.2 would still not drop main PCIe from 16x. You do have to sacrifice the USB4 ports and/or the other PCIe slot though depending on what slots you use. Using M.2_1 and M.2_4 affect nothing else. I don't need the other PCIe slot so I'm using my 3rd M.2 in M.2_3 so I keep the USB4 ports (which share lanes with M.2_2). 

 

Like Mr Fox, I also recently purchased an Iceman direct touch RAM waterblock set after seeing several people seemed to have good luck with them. The flimsy heat spreaders on my G.Skill A-die were already starting to fall off. 

Ah I hadn't considered the difference between a single vs dual CCD config in that equation. Good to know.

 

Yeah that's the plan. Think life is just going to have me wait for Zen 6 

[Mr. Fox]

10 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

The dual CCD chips actually benefit from increased bandwidth. For single CCD, just tightening up a decent kit makes more sense than spending a bunch on a kit that will do 8000+. When it comes closer to your upgrade, I'd see what the recommendations are at the time. 

 

The PCIe lane layouts are infuriating and the manufactures don't bother to clearly show how that works. For my main system I wanted 3x M.2 without stealing lanes from the GPU. I was actually interested in an Asrock X870E Nova but it was always out of stock. Ended up with an MSI X870 Tomahawk which can do what I want for the most part. Populate all 4 M.2 would still not drop main PCIe from 16x. You do have to sacrifice the USB4 ports and/or the other PCIe slot though depending on what slots you use. Using M.2_1 and M.2_4 affect nothing else. I don't need the other PCIe slot so I'm using my 3rd M.2 in M.2_3 so I keep the USB4 ports (which share lanes with M.2_2). 

 

Like Mr Fox, I also recently purchased an Iceman direct touch RAM waterblock set after seeing several people seemed to have good luck with them. The flimsy heat spreaders on my G.Skill A-die were already starting to fall off. 

Yes, with a dual CCD CPU like my 9950X there is a significant improvement in memory bandwidth running at 8000 and the 2-DIMM configuration is more elegant (cleaner signal, shorter traces, less VDIMM needed, etc.). Single CCD there is not as gigantic a difference in bandwidth. Probably because with more cores and threads it saturates memory bandwidth and bottlenecks memory performance with the memory clocked at 6000-6400.

I just received the IceMan RAM block. Delivery from AliExpress was super fast (like a week). It is my second IceMan RAM block. Also have a Supercool direct touch RAM block. Both are outstanding. I prefer the IceMan RAM block just because I like how it is designed a little bit better. (Same is true of the IceMan direct die CPU block. Supercool works great but the design is lousy.)

 

The stock excuses for a heatsink that memory manufacturers use are pure trash. Any memory kit will improve thermally by simply removing the worthless heating blankets and running them bare chip. They are made to look nice and provide no functional benefit. The best stock heatsinks I have seen came on my TeamGroup Xtreem 8200 memory, but even those are not good enough. The were super heavy, but they still got heat-saturated during high stress scenarios and unable to do the job a heatsink is supposed to do. Because they were thick and heavy, they took longer to cool down than the flimsy trash sheetmetal heating blankets.

 

Edit: I decided to leave the magnetic black trim off this time so that accessing the screws did not require removing the fittings. The black trim looks nice, but not worth the extra effort needed. RAM temps are 1°C higher than the water in the loop.

 

 

Edited January 23 by Mr. Fox
got the RAM blocks - added picture

[Sir Beregond]

We just upgraded our internet speed with Xfinity since last 2 year contract just finished. It was only $15 more to go from 800mbps to 1.2gbps so we did. It was cheaper to go with their modem/gateway with included unlimited, so we did. But it only had a single 2.5g ethernet, so went ahead and picked up a couple of 2.5g switches at Micro Center today for the rooms that needed it and upgraded some old cat5e cables to cat6 while I was at it.

 

 

Pretty solid so far with the overprovisioning on the download speeds.

 

[Alex]

Finally decided to do something about hitting the OCP limit on my 850w PSU:

 

 

[neurotix]

On 23/01/2025 at 20:38, Sir Beregond said:

We just upgraded our internet speed with Xfinity since last 2 year contract just finished. It was only $15 more to go from 800mbps to 1.2gbps so we did. It was cheaper to go with their modem/gateway with included unlimited, so we did. But it only had a single 2.5g ethernet, so went ahead and picked up a couple of 2.5g switches at Micro Center today for the rooms that needed it and upgraded some old cat5e cables to cat6 while I was at it.

 

 

Pretty solid so far with the overprovisioning on the download speeds.

 

 

It'd be good if it were symmetrical.

 

We pay Xfinity $89 for 300 megs down. Thankfully, Metronet is building in our area so we can dump Comcast (which has a monopoly here) and get fiber, no idea if it will be symmetrical or not though.

Edited February 7 by neurotix

[Sir Beregond]

On 07/02/2025 at 15:10, neurotix said:

 

It'd be good if it were symmetrical.

 

We pay Xfinity $89 for 300 megs down. Thankfully, Metronet is building in our area so we can dump Comcast (which has a monopoly here) and get fiber, no idea if it will be symmetrical or not though.

No fiber here.

 

Man that's monopoly pricing for sure. I'm paying $85 for the 1.2gbps

[Snakecharmed]

On 07/02/2025 at 17:10, neurotix said:

 

It'd be good if it were symmetrical.

 

We pay Xfinity $89 for 300 megs down. Thankfully, Metronet is building in our area so we can dump Comcast (which has a monopoly here) and get fiber, no idea if it will be symmetrical or not though.

The fiber plans I've seen are typically symmetrical. There isn't really a good reason for them not to be. Have they published pricing in your area yet?

 

AT&T recently finished laying fiber in my area. It's $65/month for 500 Mbps symmetrical and I think $85 for 1 Gbps. I'm not on it because I want my neighbors to be the guinea pigs, plus the installation of the fiber ONT would not be completely straightforward and clean because my network closet is on the second floor, although one wall of the closet is an exterior-facing one. Alternatively, I could have the ONT enter my network via my downstairs MoCA, but that will add a small amount of latency to the rest of the network. There are ways to make a second floor install clean, but I have no expectation that their techs would spend the time doing a bespoke installation. I also don't like AT&T, although it's hard to say whether I dislike them more than Comcast. Probably not at this point because at least AT&T isn't playing a bunch of BS games with their pricing.

 

I had to figure out what was going on with my 1 Gbps Xfinity plan late last year because the price went from $65/month to $88. Apparently, they stripped away more of the auto-pay discount with credit card (and I refuse to switch to debit or ACH when dealing with them) and I must have forgot that I'm on a two-year contract with a reduced second-year discount compared to the first.

 

Mid-split is available in my area which would give 100 Mbps upload on the 1 Gbps plan instead of 20, but I would have to buy a supported modem because they are stubbornly dragging their asses on certifying the Arris S33 for mid-split, if they ever do at all.

[CoolGTX]

18 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

No fiber here.

 

Man that's monopoly pricing for sure. I'm paying $85 for the 1.2gbps

So, did you have to do a new 2 year contract to get $85/m rate? 
That same plane for me is $99.99/m & I never see anywhere near 1.2 Gb download speeds, even with a new Nighthawk 2.5 Gb modem & my PC connected directly to the modem for a "clean speed test" ... maybe 900 Mb is the best I'm seeing  Comcast sucks, cant even go back to only 800Mb and save any money - it would actually cost even more ????  Comcast = monopoly + bad customer service & automation hell to try & get any help / Live body on the phone.

back on subject: bought some Bird seed for the cat TV

Edited February 9 by CoolGTX

[neurotix]

5 hours ago, CoolGTX said:

So, did you have to do a new 2 year contract to get $85/m rate? 
That same plane for me is $99.99/m & I never see anywhere near 1.2 Gb download speeds, even with a new Nighthawk 2.5 Gb modem & my PC connected directly to the modem for a "clean speed test" ... maybe 900 Mb is the best I'm seeing  Comcast sucks, cant even go back to only 800Mb and save any money - it would actually cost even more ????  Comcast = monopoly + bad customer service & automation hell to try & get any help / Live body on the phone.

back on subject: bought some Bird seed for the cat TV

This 150%. Comcast is effing terrible.

Edited February 10 by neurotix

[firedfly]

23 hours ago, Snakecharmed said:

I also don't like AT&T, although it's hard to say whether I dislike them more than Comcast.

 

I've had att fiber for the last 4 years.  A few minor issues that they resolved eventually.  I won't willingly move somewhere again that I have to use Comcast.  Att has been $80/mo for gigabit fiber from the start...without data caps. 

 

It was always a hassle to get decent pricing at Comcast... Every year.  Never again.

[bonami2]

Weird book on my past order but i love reading about everything. Got the dsm 5 but wanted the old one also

 

RIP Anne Frank

 

Edited February 10 by bonami2