GR ~ PC Hardware thread

[Rorschach]

Recently sold my GTX 1060 laptop as the longer I held it, the less it was going to be worth. Got $500 for it which I though reasonable for a 2018 machine. Co-worker ended up getting a 4070Ti and looking for quick sale so I picked up his 3070Ti for $550. I feel we both met in the middle on price, the 6800 represents potentially better value but I don't like buying second hand parts off of people I don't know. My old 1070 is currently on eBay where it has met the reserve price of $100. Hoping the auction pumps before the end and it gets close to $150-200. That'll further offset the price of the 3070Ti.

Finally, I saw Hardly Norman had a reaonsable sale on Macbook Pro 14 inch models over the weekend - $320AUD off the regular price and they sent out a $250AUD gift card for the purchase which was unexpected as it wasn't advertised in the listing. Strangely, the base specs aren't too bad - M2, 16gig RAM and 512gig NVMe main drive - more than enough to daily drive and do some Mac-specific gaming. Most importantly, Baldur's Gate 3 is compatible with Mac so I have a game to play away from home. I'm no Apple fan but they make damn well built laptops, like my previous MacBook Pro I expect this to last at least a decade.

[Deef]

I feel like 1070s are worth more than that in sentimental value alone. They were such a workhorse, such a good buy back then. I hammered mine for over 6 years.

Ouch for your workmate upgrading from a 3070Ti to a 4070Ti. o_o

[Rorschach]

The second hand market has them in the $200-300 range. $100 is well undervalue but I'm willing to roll the die on an auction. The alternative is that it sits in a closet. The 10 series cards are still my favourite generation by far. Reasonably priced and well and truly over performed. I regret selling my 1080Ti now, still a unicorn card IMO.

The 4070Ti I think set him back about $1500, if the specs are to be believed its a pretty massive jump in performance. I actually think I got a reasonable deal on it, if only for the performance jump that comes from three generations. Plan for me is still do the wholesale upgrade next year once the new GPUs hit. And have three builds good to go, one for the family in laws over in Japan as a daily driver/media system.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Congrats, Rorschach.

I've got my 6700xt up for auction. Will be interested to see where that lands. It's listed at $390 with other listings around $420 - $450. I paid around $1150 for it in 2021.

[pilonv1]

I paid $425 for a new 6700XT a few months ago

I feel like 1070s are worth more than that in sentimental value alone. They were such a workhorse, such a good buy back then. I hammered mine for over 6 years.

I just kept mine. Was a great card and I'd rather keep it as a back up than get $100 for it

[Rorschach]

It's getting more bids now. I used to hoard old hardware - still do to an extent, plenty of fans, radiators and CPU coolers - but trying to declutter. Once I refresh next year I'll have three working systems which is more than enough.

[Peppermint Lounge]

I swapped my RAM out. Was Corsair Vengence 6000 CL36, is now Kingston Fury 6000 CL36. With the Corsair I was getting an intermittent stuck DRAM light requiring a hard reset. It would happen during Windows update restarts, BIOS config changes and most recently I would select shutdown and the system would restart to a stuck DRAM light. Resetting RAM to stock timings/voltages would always resolve it. I managed to reduce the DRAM light frequency by using the one EXPO profile available and dropping the speed to 5200mhz but the issue still cropped up. Kingston is running fine at 6000mhz, boot times are faster and I've not had any DRAM light issues.

The community increasingly says motherboard QVL lists are less relevant as AM5 matures but my Corsair RAM wasn't on my motherboard's list and I made sure the Kingston Fury I bought is. Mileage will vary but for me in this instance the QVL list seems relevant.

[unfnknblvbl]

Intel 14th gen has exploded onto the market with all the grace of a carp being dropped into the jetty, flopping around and gasping for air, only to be picked apart by a local seagull.

There is almost zero generational improvement, going by the reviews I've seen, at least. I'm getting third-hand embarrassment.

[lestat]

WFH got heavily reduced beginning this year, a work colleague has a steam deck. I had a few gift vouchers and thought a PC handheld for the extra time spent on the train might be ideal.

I picked up a ROG Ally recently, having looked at the options available I chose the ROG because I wanted the 120hz VRR screen and could get it locally with warranty/gift vouchers.

So far I'm absolutely in love with this thing, it can play a lot of games pretty well, you do need to turn down settings but for the most part it's not noticeable on the small screen. Running windows 11 it has full compatibility with gamepass, epic games etc. Although the Armory Crate software is a little buggy at times, probably not as clean as the steam deck ui/os.

Battery life depends on the power profile you use, you can select 10w/15w/25w profiles, 10w gives you around 3-4hrs great for light 2d style games and emulation. 15w will run more modern games with some compromises 1.5-2hr. The 25w profile is where the z1 extreme processor stretches its legs but it comes at the cost of battery power with roughly a 1hr play time.

My commute time is around 30-40m so I find I have enough battery and the 65w charger means you can recharge it fast within an hour. I just bought another 65w charger for my desk at work.

It's an awesome device to get more game time in and I have the benefit of accessing my massive PC library, I've been using it to chip away at older backlog titles.

In terms of desktop hardware, still rocking the 13900k although I hate the power consumption it has, when zen5 launches later in the year I will probably switch over to that, my 4090 even though it was a stupidly priced purchase has proven to be a good investment, they've only gone up in price and we're probably another 12-18 months away from anything faster hitting the scene. GPU market is still full retard.

[unfnknblvbl]

Stop. Tempting. Me.

That said, I am extremely happy with my 4070Ti + R9 5950X combo. It handles everything I throw at it (in terms of productivity) with ease. I honestly can't see mystelf needing to upgrade for quite some time, to be completely honest. Although there's rumours that Zen 5 or Zen 6 (I forget which) will have 16-core chiplets, which... well that makes me breathe very heavily indeed.

[Vince]

So, after a few personal issues I had to cancel my original PC order. This time I went with Scorptec and ordered all the parts and got them to build it for me.

I went witha 4070 ti super and a 14700k and this thing is a beast! Plays everything I throw at it with ease! Sold my Series X and all physical games after all the talk of them possibly going 3rd party and migrated most of my digital library to the PC anyway.

So glad to be back in PC gaming and won't be going anywhere else for a long while!

Just picked up Helldivers 2 on PC. Looks and plays superbly and i'm not getting the issues I'm seeing some getting so far on Steam.

[Rorschach]

Picked up a 4080 non-Super variant for just a touch over $1500 as they were dumping stock to make room for the Super cards. It's not very pretty - the Galax SG, the one that comes with the detachable fan - but I didn't see the value in spending $300-350 more for a very minor bump in performance. Massive jump in Cyberpunk from the 3080 (a card I spend Crypto prices on in 2021, picking it up for $2200 at the time). I was tempted to get a 4090 but going to wait for the 50 series cards now and go the top variant there, just need to upgrade my PSU to accommodate it.

With the old parts I had, built a new TV PC with the 3080 and 3900X, plenty for couch gaming. Strangely, an SSD died on me - it was one of the first gen 4 drives on the market and just refused to boot and self-created partitions - was using it as an OS drive but now the system is decked out with only SATA SSDs.