Help me build my PC: 2024 Catch-All

Depending on the policy, there may be a restocking fee if you return a functional video card.

If you're happy with the 6650 and there's no restocking fee on the 6800 (or you don't mind paying it), I'd just return the 6800.

I literally got the 6800 yesterday. I can't imagine even as sad as newegg has become that they'd have a restocking fee on something owned for a day. I could be wrong

And I am definitely considering getting a new SSD to backup the current one. SATA SSDs are cheap. You can get a 2TB for $120 and a 4TB for $270 on amazon.

Keep the 6800 if you want better 1440p/4K performance.

Keep the 6650 if you want to be a GPU hipster and have a model that practically nobody else does.

Well, I am not interested in owning the latest greatest. So the 6650 I am happy with now and will be happy with next year and the year after.

The 6800 will fare much better next year and the next 4-5 years. So I am future proofing my mediocrity vs. getting me by?

I was thinking that the 6800 will be better for VR but I kinda don't care about that anymore. Unless they can fix my sensitivity to it to lengthen my capability to play, VR is just not for me.

Once things stabilize with my compy, I could also give the 6650 to my nephew. His dad bought him a prebuilt with a 1660 or 1660ti. That would be a nice more than doubling of rasterization.

VR is much more sensitive to low frame rates then regular gaming, so staying with the 6800 may help you last longer be more comfortable in VR.

So the culprit was a loose sata cable. It was a cheaper one that didn't really "snap" when seated. Funny that it lasted me several years. Well, the cable is still good, it just can be jostled loose enough to stop the drive.

I swapped the cable from one of my HDDs and the SSD was rock solid. Just as a precaution I bought another 2TB SSD since it was only $120. I used easeus partition magic to clone the old boot SSD to the new SSD that will take over boot drive duties.

So I am going to let it run/go/play overnight before wrapping it. But it looks like I am (knock on wood) good to go

I still can't wrap my head around how a loose SATA cable would cause a black screen so severe that it wouldn't even show the CMOS screen on boot.

Pretty sure that if the system boot process detects high weirdness from a bus, it will either stop using it or be stopped in its tracks, and if that bus has the disk with boot code on it, it might not even get to the point where it was able to talk to devices like the graphics card (although the bios should have its own little graphics driver... Hmmm... Not sure of the Windows boot order anymore). With a loose cable, it could just have hung waiting for a response.

I dunno, really, just speculating.

Yeah. I am scratching my head. The only time I've seen the CMOS screen not come up is when there was a memory issue where you get nothing but a beep code on boot. And I've been doing this since '89.
Well or its dead dead, and the psu won't even come on or only spin a couple rotations.

I have seen bad connections on busses take them out and hide the disks that were there. If the OS boot sector is on one of those, it could stop the boot, is what I was thinking. I've also seen only-beep-codes from dead BIOSes (usually a battery issue), but still even then, I got beeps.

You had a poser there. Glad you solved it!

SUCCESSS!!!

Looks like it was either the NVMI (?) SSD that was the problem or the port. Possibly due to the friend (who does tech support) who initially installed it not using a standoff, just screwing it straight into the board. The SSD is definitely borked, and I didn't want to try with a new NVMI SSD only to find out the port, so I got a 2TB SATA SSD instead.

My computer is back alive!!

That 2TB Crucial SATA SSD on amazon for $120 was too good to pass up eh?

It was actually a Western Digital blue that I used.

mudbunny wrote:

SUCCESSS!!!

Looks like it was either the NVMI (?) SSD that was the problem or the port. Possibly due to the friend (who does tech support) who initially installed it not using a standoff, just screwing it straight into the board. !

That guys owes you big time, congrats on solving the issue

I've had a few standoff issues; they sneak up on you even when you know about them. Sorry you lost the SSD but, yay, solved!

Feeank wrote:

Happy New Year to you all, I just bit the bullet ordering a RX 6650xt (XFX merc 308) I'll be receiving it around the end of the month I think, I'll also get to pick 2 free games from someplace (I guess steam?)

The card looks fantastic and it matches very well with my case, I didn't want a card with 3 fans in it but searching online couldn't find any negative review on the model and brand, and apparently the 3-fan design is quieter than the 2-fan equivalent.

I was undecided between the 6650 or a more expensive 6700 that suddenly seemed more affordable given the option to pay in 5 installments, but in the end I realized I'm not seeing myself getting into 1440 gaming any time soon so I would be spending extra for capabilities I wasn't going to enjoy. Still, the 12 Gb video Ram were very very tempting.

So the wait begins, hope to report how it handles itself when it gets here!

Edit:typo

This took way less than I had expected, Yeay!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/rfGBG9V.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/qpMomM8.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/PXrU8tt.jpg)

Ran a small test with the Witcher 3 and it looks amazing, the fans were unnoticeable and the graphic quality feels flawless, everything looks smooth where it needs to look smooth and sharp where it needs to look sharp.
More in-depth tests with results slightly more accurate than "ITS AWESOME" will be performed in the upcoming days as I'm currently finishing Thief 3, but looking forward to put it through a wringer with Dishonored 2.

On the downside, the "free games" can't be redeemed from my location, quite the bummer

can you just use a VPN to redeem them?

FiveIron wrote:

can you just use a VPN to redeem them?

Yeah, I thought it would be easy like that but nope, the authenticator you download to check whether you really own/have an amd card installed checks the region as well and that can't be fooled by a VPN. Still, I'm contacting client support to see if there's anything I can do to redeem these rewards that had an important say on which card I choose to buy, I very well could have gone for a 3060 but nah, I choose AMD because there were rewards involved and now I'm heartbroken as my trust on the brand has gone sour (I'll be as melodramatic as possible, who knows if any of that works hehe)

Interesting article about monitor specs and marketing lies.

Stele wrote:

Interesting article about monitor specs and marketing lies.

That website is unreadable. I'm old and even I think the font and layout are obnoxious.

tundra wrote:
Stele wrote:

Interesting article about monitor specs and marketing lies.

That website is unreadable. I'm old and even I think the font and layout are obnoxious.

It's displaying the mobile version. Try this instead https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/gaming-monitors-have-been-lying-to-us/

Corsair seems to do it right. My monitor is listed as DisplayHDR 600, and that seems to fit its performance.

I pay zero attention to a display's stated specs, and full attention to what RTINGS testing demonstrates the monitor does in reality.

Tom's hardware typically verifies standards and performance claims, where they can be tested.

Fredrik_S wrote:
tundra wrote:
Stele wrote:

Interesting article about monitor specs and marketing lies.

That website is unreadable. I'm old and even I think the font and layout are obnoxious.

It's displaying the mobile version. Try this instead https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/gaming-monitors-have-been-lying-to-us/

Thank you. Much better.

*Legion* wrote:

I pay zero attention to a display's stated specs, and full attention to what RTINGS testing demonstrates the monitor does in reality.

Exactly this

The DisplayHDR standards are honestly trash.

Exhaustive 3rd party testing and comparison like Techspot or Rtings does is the only way to go for monitor research for me.

I've got a fairly cheap LG IPS monitor. It supposedly does HDR. For the first year I used it, I ignored the HDR settings (my thinking was that they were going to be unreliable garbage that was going to decrease the quality of the image). Through the time I owned it, I was always a little dissatisfied because the colors looked a little muddy and off.

Eventually, I turned on HDR in Windows Display settings, which also shifted the monitor to HDR mode. Now it looks better. Now it looks like my old non-HDR monitor.

Similarly, I have an old Samsung 1080p flat panel TV which was a pretty high end 14 years ago. It's attached to the kids' Xbox. Obviously, it doesn't do HDR. But, the colors often often seem as good or better than the new OLED when it is running in non HDR modes.

My guess is that a lot of manufacturers are restricting the color space of their non-HDR modes so that HDR looks better by comparison. Pre-HDR displays may do a better job of displaying non-HDR content.

I have a IPS LG 1440p monitor now with ‘HDR’, although I think it’s HDR400.

I’ve turned it on from the outset and there is a noticeable improvement over my old 1080p monitor with contrast in night-scenes (both gaming and TV) so long as the rest of my office room is dark. During daylight hours it makes no difference, which is sort of to be expected I would say.

I still use my 1080p monitor, and I tested it using Baldur’s Gate 3 and flipping the display from one monitor to the other. It’s definitely there, but it’s not pronounced or anything (tbh, the bigger improvement is probably 1440p over 1080p) but when a game is in a dark area the HDR capable screen definitely shows better contrast. It’s not nearly as good as if I turn HDR off.

It probably helps I use it in an office setup and sit close to the screen regardless.

Best way to connect a PC to an AMP? I used my GPU hdmi signal to an an hdmi rca out to the amp. The PC thinks it has another monitor hooked up. If I turn that off the signal turns offf too. Would optical cable be the same quality?