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Post by killerbee on Jul 25, 2024 21:36:24 GMT
I recently bought a Dell G15. You can get an i7 + RTX4060 version for £999 - or maybe less if you can get a discount code through an employee scheme: www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/gaming-and-games/g15-gaming-laptop/spd/g-series-15-5530-laptop/cn22251Plusses: - It’s fast and has so far played everything I’ve thrown at it (albeit at 1080p on the laptop’s own screen). - I value the fact it has a number keypad, as a lot of gaming laptops don’t. The keyboard and trackpad do the job well enough. - The one I bought has a different screen (I bought the 360Hz one but it’s no longer discounted) but it’s bright and sharp. - I’ve mostly used it plugged in when gaming - it seems to want to use a power saving mode when running on the battery, but I could probably override it if I could be bothered to work out how! There is some Alienware software pre-installed that lets you tinker with power profiles, fan setting and so on. It tends to switch between “Balanced” using the integrated graphics, and “Performance” where the RTX4060 comes into play and the fans kick in. Negatives: - it’s heavy. You can carry it around of course, but lightweight it is not. - the power brick is massive. - Fans can get noisy when you push it - playing Portal RTX on it had everything spinning to the point you really needed headphones. Think PS4 level fan noise. However, most of the time it’s pretty quiet. - pray you never need to contact Dell customer service or technical support. It’s abysmal. Overall, I like it. It feels sturdy and the plastic is solid enough. Things like screen hinges seem like they will last. The other brand I considered was the HP Omen, but I found the Dell to have slightly better value all things considered. Good luck! |
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zisssou
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Post by zisssou on Jul 26, 2024 11:08:57 GMT
Nice one thanks! A good detailed analysis there. I’ll send it over and see if it’s what she’s after.
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Chopsen
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Post by Chopsen on Jul 28, 2024 21:20:17 GMT
So....this intel cpu thing is a bit of a shit show, innit?
Upgraded to a 13700kf last year, and it's got the raptor lake dies that possibly effected. Now I guess I wait to see if it's been silently fried by my mobo over those months....
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Post by dfunked on Jul 29, 2024 6:28:11 GMT
It's like a lesson in how not to handle this kind of thing from Intel. Puts me off ever getting one of their top end chips again. (or even a lower end one)
Just keep quiet and settle the inevitable class action seems to be their stance.
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Post by Vandelay on Jul 29, 2024 7:27:14 GMT
Hadn't seen this before, but argh. That all sounds pretty bad from Intel, not just the fault itself (surely you would have safeguards in place to prevent it ever sending voltages above a safe amount?) but the response sounds abysmal. Think that confirms I'll be getting AMD next CPU upgrade.
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on Jul 29, 2024 7:43:10 GMT
Decided I wasn't going intel ages ago. Their approach to CPUs always seemed to be to hell with optimisation, MOOAR POWAR!!
Blows my mind that some gamers still swore by them being the better option for a few extra FPS but double and in some cases triple the power budget and then having the extra heat.
Fuck that.
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Post by Fake_Blood on Jul 29, 2024 10:11:50 GMT
I wonder what their update to the microcode is going to do in terms of performance. Sounds like they flew too close to the sun, and the board manufacturers pushed it even more.
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Chopsen
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Post by Chopsen on Jul 29, 2024 13:48:58 GMT
I can't see how it won't be a downgrade.
My very basic understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is that modern intel chips are thermally throttled by design, right? They'll ramp up the speed under load until it hits the max quoted speed or the tjmax and then throttle. That will correspond to a greater power drawn by the cpu, and a corresponding drawing greater voltages.
Anybody's who ever tried overclocking knows higher speeds are less stable on lower voltages. No?
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Post by Fake_Blood on Jul 29, 2024 14:03:30 GMT
This is also going to fuck with the second hand market imo. I’m not going to gamble on a 13900k that might have been in a system with whatever bios the motherboard came with.
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Jul 29, 2024 14:04:29 GMT
Depends which "algorithm" is causing it. Might be minor, might be on the critical path, running it at proper voltages may just be the actual performance that was expected and the extra voltage at the point in time it happened wasn't a big performance impact.
It could range from super minor to extremely important. Doesn't sound as bad as the Pentium floating point bug.
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Blue_Mike
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Post by Blue_Mike on Aug 5, 2024 14:03:02 GMT
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Post by Fake_Blood on Aug 5, 2024 14:25:35 GMT
Intel are just going to wait till this blows over. Sure, they’ll lose some money on people in the know that will RMA their cpu, but the vast majority of users will just accept a sporadic crash. And I think the problem is just vague enough that they can get away with it.
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Post by rhaegyr on Aug 7, 2024 10:25:15 GMT
I'm looking for the simplest PC for my parents as the one they're using is nearly 20 years old.
All they'll be doing is browsing an occasionally listening to music. Tried to steer them towards a laptop but no joy.
Any advice? I like the Beelink Mini PCs but ideally want a machine with Win 11 already on.
Any suggestions welcome, thanks!
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Post by dfunked on Aug 7, 2024 10:31:08 GMT
If they already have a monitor with HDMI inputs then any of the N100 based mini PCs should do the job nicely. They usually come with Windows 11 preinstalled but you're better off doing a clean install to get rid of any dodgy Chinese guff.
Think blue mike posted a link to one in the what have you been doing today thread recently.
Or eBay/HUKD for any reconditioned SFF/USFF PCs from Dell/HP/Lenovo
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X201
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Post by X201 on Aug 7, 2024 20:05:06 GMT
Do AMD name their chips like the World Cup draw?
Picking random balls from separate pots until you’ve got something that will confuse everyone.
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Post by ignatiusjreilly on Aug 7, 2024 20:58:41 GMT
I'm looking for the simplest PC for my parents as the one they're using is nearly 20 years old. All they'll be doing is browsing an occasionally listening to music. Tried to steer them towards a laptop but no joy. Any advice? I like the Beelink Mini PCs but ideally want a machine with Win 11 already on. Any suggestions welcome, thanks! I bought this one last week, comes with Win 11 installed only £160
BMAX Mini PC 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake-N100 Processor 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Business Mini Desktop PC www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D8KN7FXC?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details |
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lukasz
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Post by lukasz on Aug 8, 2024 0:16:16 GMT
Do AMD name their chips like the World Cup draw? Picking random balls from separate pots until you’ve got something that will confuse everyone. Erm. They all do. Have you seen computer monitor naming schemes? |
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X201
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Post by X201 on Aug 15, 2024 8:19:02 GMT
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Post by Vandelay on Aug 15, 2024 8:46:54 GMT
Saw the fairly underwhelming results for the 9600x and 9700x. Seems to be a trend with this series. Then again, I expect anyone who really wants a chip for gaming is going to be waiting on the 3D versions. Hopefully, those will show some gaming improvements.
I was thinking of upgrading to this series to replace my 5800X (not 3D). Likely be eyeing the 9800x3d. Hopefully, they will be coming out towards the end of this year.
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X201
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Post by X201 on Aug 15, 2024 9:31:49 GMT
Same here with the X3D, I was just hoping that there would be a performance leap on the non-X3D, that would point to there being an even bigger leap on the X3D version
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on Aug 15, 2024 10:21:12 GMT
With intel in the toilet maybe there is some laurel resting.
Still happy with my 5800x3d and have held off jumping to the 7800x3d so I can go straight to the next one ... assuming it's not shit
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Post by dfunked on Aug 15, 2024 10:23:11 GMT
You'd think they would have finalised this gen ages before the Intel stuff came to light, so probably just an unhappy coincidence. It feels like an absolutely shit time to build a new machine anyway.
5900x here and I'm hanging on to that for a good while!
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on Aug 15, 2024 10:31:22 GMT
So all the benchmarks done have been for nought because the new chips need their cores 'parked' to prevent being included for scheduling tasks?!?
Cores are split across chiplets as we all know but AMD finally started communicating that one lot is faster with more cache than the other so you have to basically tell windows 'not' to use the slow ones for high performance latency sensitive stuff a.k.a gaming.
What the actual fuck!?
EDIT, clearly out of the loop because apparently this was a thing for some CPUs in the 79xx range.
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Post by Fake_Blood on Aug 15, 2024 12:34:58 GMT
I’d be up to replace my 7800X3D because flight sim, when would the X3D version of these new ones come out?
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Post by uiruki on Aug 15, 2024 12:40:53 GMT
It’s interesting that the Linux benchmarks are more like what you’d expect on the 9900 and 9950, suggesting that the scheduler is better for AMD on that side. Phoronix has a solid 15% uplift at lower power usage and Wendell at Level1Techs was getting performance a few percent better in games in Linux and Proton when you’d expect to be losing a bit of performance to the translation layer.
Ryan Smith of Anandtech turned up some major latency between the two CCXes on those processors which is why that makes such a difference on the 9900 and 9950.
I’ve been reading a lot of comments that memory speed is limiting improvements all round so I’m interested in seeing how that shakes out, particularly on the X3D part and the upcoming rumoured portable chips with soldered LPDDR5X.
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on Aug 26, 2024 14:35:07 GMT
Next Windows 11 patch 24H2 should give performance gains for Ryzen Zen 5 (and also 4 and 3). All games tested saw gains with no regressions. #BigIfTrue
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Post by Fake_Blood on Aug 26, 2024 14:50:33 GMT
24H2 will also remove support for windows mixed reality, so a bunch of wmr VR headsets will stop working. Most notably, my HP Reverb G2  |
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X201
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Post by X201 on Aug 26, 2024 22:14:18 GMT
Next Windows 11 patch 24H2 should give performance gains for Ryzen Zen 5 (and also 4 and 3). All games tested saw gains with no regressions. #BigIfTrue It’s a bonkers situation. 30% improvement over here and a 1% improvement over there, both solely due to a Windows update. |
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Post by dfunked on Aug 28, 2024 12:46:40 GMT
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Post by Dougs on Sept 8, 2024 8:15:46 GMT
My 14 year old is after a mid-range PC for Christmas. He's been saving diligently, so if possible we'd like to top it up to get it over the line so looking for second hand options. Not looking to spend a huge amount more than probably £3-400 as also need a monitor. It's been a while since I delved into this, so 2 questions:
1) Anyone here looking to shift one?!
2) What would be reasonable specs for that sort of price and any pointers?
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