Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

Post by Winnow »

My new build is based around a AMD 3950x 16 core CPU that was released on Nov 25th.

I've been with Intel ever since I've built PCs but while they still hold their own for gaming, AMD has passed them in every other way.

I'm ordering up my parts, including a new PC Case for the first time since the Antec 180 I got...what...12-14 or more years ago...I honestly can't remember. Long time!

3950x is extremely hard to find. Sold out in a few minutes on Amazon and whenever one pops up at quite a markup to the $750 suggested retail price, it sells out within a few minutes. Their 12 Core 3900x has also been pretty much sold out the past few months. (AMD stock is up over 300% this year)

Parts so far:

CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-core, 32-thread Unlocked Desktop Processor,- $750 Retail whenever it becomes less scarce (I paid quite a bit more than that)
Cooler - NOCTUA NH-D15 chromax.Black, 140mm Dual-Tower CPU Cooler (Black)
OS Drive - Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD Extreme Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-1TB)
Memory - G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C14D-32GTZR
Motherboard - MSI Prestige X570 Creation Motherboard (AMD AM4, DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2, AX Wi-Fi 6, 10G Super LAN, Extended-ATX)
Case - Corsair CC-9011030-WW Carbide Series Air 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black

Already have:

Nvidia RTX 2070
CORSAIR RMX Series, RM750x, 750 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply
Craploads of SSDs and HDs

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Build Cost including Graphics/PSU I already had: about $2,600, not including displays, keyboards, mouse, controllers, storage beyond OS drive, etc.

Hoping to get about 4 years out of it with maybe a graphics card upgrade or something before that. I should have everything by next weekend so I can build it!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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My current PC is still pretty ok. i7-6700K CPU actually still holds it's own. I decided to buy a few more things, 850W PSU for the new PC so I can leave the 750W in my old pc, a budget graphics card capable of pushing 4K video and playing games on low settings, etc to put in my old PC. I'll keep it as a 2nd PC for now and also, a lot less headache building new PC when you have one that's currently working! When my PC died back in April, it was a major headache getting it up and running without using another PC to research, download, etc stuff. I can take my time with building it now and won't be the end of the world if it's not up and running by the end of next weekend.

Image

Don't know if Amazon image will link, but I really like that my new motherboard has a ton of USB ports. There's only 2 USB 2.0 then there's x10 USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A and 1 Type C. There's also a motherboard connection for USB 3.2 for the front as well, x9 more USB not located on the back panel. Glad that they're all not just 3.0 but 3.2 gen 1/2. Speedy!

Amazingly, it's hard to find any motherboard (expensive or not) that has a lot of USB port (especially the new 3.2 ones).

-wireless keyboard
-wireless mouse
-game controller
-wireless headset
-Oculus Quest (can connect to PC to play normal PC VR games when not wireless)
-external USB SSD drives x3
-external USB SATA x2 HD hot swap dock

There's 9 USB ports taken already for me with 5 or them requiring high speed.

My motherboard is also PCI 4.0 so the M.2 NVMe Gen 4 fast drives work on it which is why I bought that new 1TB NVMe drive listed in the previous post. Intel boards don't have PCI 4 yet. The motherboard can handle 2x m.2 on and also comes with a PCI4 expansion card that allows for 2x more M.2 drives. I suppose I might start buying M.2 drives for storage when they drop a little more. I'm ok with the few normal 2TB SSD drives I already have. The board comes with Wifi 6 and 10G Super Lan. Not sure I'll ever use 10G lan but the Wifi 6 I will with the next generation of phone and other new wifi devices.

My new PC case isn't an expensive or a newer one, but it's roomy!

If not familiar with AMD Ryzen 3950X, here's the press conference: (about 9 minutes)

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Official Tech Briefing

faster, cheaper and at 2.34 more per watt performance than Intel while running on a cheaper platform. Intel's chips still hold their own for gaming (although less efficient) but get destroyed in anything using more than one core. For pure gaming, you could use the AMD 3700x or a nice in between the two would be the 12 core 3900x. the 3950x I bought is overkill unless you're editing video etc but it will still be noticeable to me when I'm compressing, decompressing, multitasking, etc. I run emulators for Android, etc on three screens, play 4K movies while gaming, etc...I'm sure the also awesome 3900x 12 core would still be plenty but anything that will use multiple cores will be super speedy. The PCIe 4 NVMe is also another nice boost to overall system performance. Hoping I have a little future-proofing in this!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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As you said, more than likely overkill for your usage and the $900 (probably) you spent on the CPU. More cores are only helpful if software takes advantage of them. But hey if you got the money why not spend it? You only live once! Personally if I was primarily gaming I'd just get a 9900K at this point. For myself I couldn't see spending $2600 on a computer.

Sounds like you need to invest in a USB hub (or two). I don't think your USB usage is typical.

As a NAS is on my horizon eventually I do wish my MB had 10Gb LAN. ASUS is slacking in the motherboard department these days for the most part. I've stuck with them for awhile now but for my next upgrade I will seriously consider others.

As far as cannibalizing older PCs during an upgrade goes that's not something I do anymore. The past 3 or 4 I've always gotten a new case because as you said it makes things much easier. I have them running side by side until I have most things running on the new PC and then I shut off the old one. I have it around though in case I ever need it for something.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote:As you said, more than likely overkill for your usage and the $900 (probably) you spent on the CPU. More cores are only helpful if software takes advantage of them. But hey if you got the money why not spend it? You only live once! Personally if I was primarily gaming I'd just get a 9900K at this point. For myself I couldn't see spending $2600 on a computer.
16 cores is most definitely overkill but I have the money and I will get a little use out of them and hopefully over the 4-5 years I plan having this build, they'll become used more in games etc. Not proud of it, but I paid more than $900 BTW. I'll immediately get some speed benefits from the PCIe 4 SSD which any Intel board can't match. This is the first PC that I haven't "value" shopped on. Previously it's been "best bang for the buck", now it's whatever performs really well with not much tweaking.

I'm definitely not a fanboi of AMD as I've never even owned one and up until the past year wouldn't have even considered it. Intel is in trouble. AMD's 7nm chips are killing Intel. Intel gave up on 10nm much less 7nm and it will be a few years before they can compete again. I will reserve my thoughts on AMD satisfaction until after I actually build my PC and see how it goes!

Better, faster, cheaper, more efficient. AMD earned my business due to that as well as PCI 4 which Intel boards don't have. A part of me likes to reward companies for not sitting on their asses and instead being innovative. Intel cut their prices in HALF and their chips still cost more and under perform AMD's in most things except gaming where it's close to even now.

Intel is getting a little shady in their practices as well:

Intel’s behavior is PATHETIC – Core i9 10980XE Review

I know we tend to focus on gaming here but the Threadripper CPUs released the day after Intels rehashed chips, destroy them.

AMD can't make product fast enough because so many of their high end CPUs use the 8 core chiplets.

For gaming, it's a tossup as to whether you might go for Intel or AMD. For everything else, AMD.

Intel is STILL using 14nm process because they failed at 10nm while AMD is already at 7nm. Big deal when it comes to power consumption.

Here's a video that further explains Intel's shadiness about their product release, he addresses fanboism as well:

Intel REALLY needs to rethink it's priorities...

He does rip Intel, deservedly so, but also mentions at the end that gaming is ok on the Intels. If you can make it through the part where he rants about the packaging, he makes some good points. (jump to about the 2 minute mark to skip the less important stuff) I don't care for either of the above two youtube personalities but they do demonstrate Intel is kind of fucked right now and are lucky they have the OEM market for the time being.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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The first PC I ever bought with my own money was an AMD 386/40 (with a Cyrix math co-processor.. remember when those were a thing?!) so I'm not against AMD. I even had another during the Athlon years whenever those were. I have nothing against AMD I just prefer Intel these days.

However I am glad AMD is around because it's helping to keep Intel (and NVIDIA) in check because without the competition we'd be way behind where we are now when it comes to price and performance. So I'm all for AMD kicking the competition since it only benefits everyone.

But I have seen reviews and they say if you're mostly gaming then the 3950 doesn't make sense over something like a 9900K. If you're doing media type work then sure spend the extra on the AMD. I'm doing neither so spending $1000 on a CPU would be dumb.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: However I am glad AMD is around because it's helping to keep Intel (and NVIDIA) in check because without the competition we'd be way behind where we are now when it comes to price and performance. So I'm all for AMD kicking the competition since it only benefits everyone.
Should really be more than glad AMD is around, Intel has been so complacent that AMD blew right by them and now they can't even match performance even with a 50% price drops. The days of just picking Intel because it's Intel are long gone. 4 primary reasons: faster, cheaper, more efficient, PCI 4.

Makes no sense to buy AMD if you just recently purchased a new PC but definitely worth a hard look at AMD the next round. For the time being, at least for the next couple years, they have the better technology. The few FPS difference between Intel and AMD specifically for gaming isn't enough to stick with them when everything else is better with AMD.

Besides Intel having the better CPUs the past 20 years, the other reason to stick with them was compatibility but I think that's pretty much resolved. I'll know soon enough. The reason I didnt update my CPU sooner is that the 6700K still does very well, also meaning Intel hasn't done much since.

Top ten CPUs sold on Cyber Monday on Amazon:

https://i.redd.it/8yhzbs8ls8241.png

Image

If Image is too big, there are ZERO Intel CPUs in the top ten. 3900x is 10th because you can't find it in stock, same with the 3950x, otherwise it'd be the top 11 CPUS AMD.

From top to bottom, high performance to budget, AMD is killing it right now while Intel tries to squeeze out a few more MHz with their 14nm process.

That's pretty impressive considering Intel's name brand.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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You go on and on about Intel but not a mention of NVIDIA. NVIDIA is even more evil than Intel imo! The whole reason the Super was released was because AMD embarrassed NVIDIA and their whole fucking RTX lineup.

Regardless, I am all for competition. However there's no AMD CPU I would buy at this time since I just put together a PC a year ago and it's more than functional for my needs. Not everyone, probably even including you, needs 16 cores. But it's good for bragging rights!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote:You go on and on about Intel but not a mention of NVIDIA. NVIDIA is even more evil than Intel imo! The whole reason the Super was released was because AMD embarrassed NVIDIA and their whole fucking RTX lineup.

Regardless, I am all for competition. However there's no AMD CPU I would buy at this time since I just put together a PC a year ago and it's more than functional for my needs. Not everyone, probably even including you, needs 16 cores. But it's good for bragging rights!

I agree on both points. Nvidia is worse than Intel and I definitely don't need 16 cores although I think the 3900x (12 Cores) might be a nice trade off for people that want to spend $500 or less on a CPU.

Well I got my CPU today (I fucking hate having to go the post office to pick up a package) All of my other stuff arrived early yesterday was Amazon Prime. CPU was not prime and got stuck with ass backwards US Postal service delivery.

1. My new build booted up on the first try! Pretty stoked about that!

2. Hardest part was getting the freaking massive Noctua NH-D15 Cooler installed. It's HUGE.

3. Hugeness of the NH-D15 makes me happy I bough the very roomy Cube Corsair case. It's been an awesome case to work in.

Ran into an issue and then solved it.

The Case and Cooler combine for 5 large fans but it was louder than I expected. I checked the bios (which is really nice compared to Asus bios(s) I've been using the past 10 years. Turns out my chipset fan was max speed 5000 RPB and it's a small can compared to the other 5 Fans. The fan isn't even supposed to spin unless under heavy workload. I did a quick search and some other person had the same problem. Turns out the 1 of the 4 pins was bent to the side and so the fan was acting like a 3 pin fan (no speed control) instead of a moderated 4 pin. I pulled of the super small connector and sure enough my 4th pin was smashed to the side. It's so freaking small (way smaller than normal system fan socket) I really couldn't even see the 4th pin, tried magnifying glass, etc, I finally used a pin to dig it out and managed to adjust it so it fit in the 4th hole. Rebooted and fan works as it should, spun up on boot and then stopped. Whew! PC pretty quiet now, although not super quite because designed for high airflow.

Will be awhile before I have the system entirely setup but happy so far.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Image

Update and some comments on AMD 3950X upgrade project.

- smoothest PC guild I've ever experienced

Wi-Fi 6 is all it's cracked up to be. I'm downloading Steam game updates right now at over 900Mbps using Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax). I don't think I'm going to need to hook my PC up to ethernet.

I bought a NETGEAR Nighthawk AX8 8-Stream WiFi 6 Router (RAX80) - AX6000. It was on sale for $279 through Amazon, original retail was $399. It looks like Kylo Ren's space ship. That Gigabit Wifi to Mobile devices is no joke. I'm consistently getting 980Mbps on my iPhone using my Wi-Fi at home. Didn't even know that was possible. My average download speeds on my PC are around 650-850 Mbps using Wi-Fi 6.

The Netgear Nighthawk has been great for me (for the 2 days I've had it), but it gets it's share of bad reviews. I think routers, more than other PC items, depends more on the intelligence of the end user. To be fair, there has been a few recent firmware updates that fixed a lot of the early issues. Most of the setup and configuration is done on an IOS/Android app.

Transfer of Windows 10 license to my new PC went fairly smoothly. Only issue I ran into was that after removing my license from the old PC, it didn't recognize my Windows 10 Pro Product Key on the new PC. For some reason is still used my Windows 8 Product Key so I'm good to go with Windows 10 Pro. I'll continue to use unlicensed Windows 10 on my old PC which won't get much use, more of a backup type thing.

As for my new PC parts:

-Corsair CC-9011030-WW Carbide Series Air 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black

I'm extremely happy with this case. The way it's divided with PSU, SSDs, 5.25 bays on one side and Motherboard on the other side makes for a super clean setup, no messy wires on the motherboard side, wide open for great airflow. It's surprisingly quite despite the 3 case fans, 2 fans on the CPU cooler, system fan and GPU fans. System fan doesn't even spin unless heavy workload. CPU fans purr along at a very low rpm, same with the case fans.

-NOCTUA NH-D15 chromax.Black, 140mm Dual-Tower CPU Cooler (Black)

Looks aren't that important, but the all black version of this cooler is OK. I was the most nervous about installing my AMD 3950x and this behemoth cooler but if you take your time, it goes smoothly. I haven't stressed tested anything or decided if I'm going to OC anything but this cooler keeps my CPU at 29-32C. That's really cool.

-Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD Extreme Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-1TB)
-G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C14D-32GTZR

Not much to say except I've had zero problems with my RAM and PCI4 NVMe SSD. Work perfectly, maybe more to say if I decide to OC anything.

-MSI Prestige X570 Creation Motherboard (AMD AM4, DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2, AX Wi-Fi 6, 10G Super LAN, Extended-ATX)

Stupendous. ZERO issues with this motherboard. Everything just works like it's supposed to. OK the smooshed system fan pin was a minor issue, potentially big one if I hadn't found the solution right away. First time ever that everything I plugged into a motherboard worked the first time without troubleshooting. Bios update was easy and smooth. The bios itself has some drag and drop UI in places, seems clean and straight forward. Haven't had to adjust anything at all yet. Will follow up if I OC anything.

-AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-core, 32-thread Unlocked Desktop Processor

So far so good. This CPU sleepwalks through the normal things I've thrown at it so far. Going to play around with virtual machines and maybe get a few emulators up and running while playing a power hungry game and see how things go.

I was able to transfer over my Steam and Blizzard game folders (just moved over my game SSD that included those folders) so that saved me probably a half terabyte of downloads. I set up a shared folder with my old PC so I was able to easily send over config/preset, etc for my file manager, game controller, etc etc etc. For future full PC upgrades, it's useful to have things like that on something other than your OS drive.

Some testing later but very satisfied with the new PC and unexpectedly surprised about 802.11 ax (Wi-Fi 6) My old router was slowing me down a bit I think. It was always really hot while this new router runs much cooler. There's also a fan in it that can spin up if needed but I haven't heard it do so.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Just an update on this build. Outstanding so far after 3 months. Zero crashes or issues that I can think of. Even that batwing looking router has worked flawlessly.

I'm running two 4K 55" monitors and one 46" monitor. I added the second 55" monitor today and like it so will probably go with 3x4K 55" monitors soon. It's a full 180 degrees of monitors about 3 feet away from me.

Just a heads up on 4K monitors. nVidia cards have 2x display ports 1xhdmi. It's easy to get an hdmi cable that runs at 60hz 4K, but you need to be sure you get one of the handful of display port to hdmi 4k @ 60hz cables, otherwise you'll end up with a 30hz refresh rate.

Here's the one I got (that worked)

Onvian DisplayPort to HDMI Cable 6.6ft Nylon Braided Gold-Plated 4K 60Hz UHD Unidirectional DP to HDMI Cable - Aluminum Shell
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Processors can be found in stock now without the crazy gouging. It pays to wait a few months!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: March 9, 2020, 12:58 pm Processors can be found in stock now without the crazy gouging. It pays to wait a few months!
the 3950 has been available at retail since mid January! When I bought for over retail, it happened to be the time I had a week to dedicate to building my new PC. Time/Convenience was worth it for me.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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On sale at NewEgg for $730.

It still pays to wait a few months!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Everything in tech and gaming goes down in price over time. CPUs are no exception. If you want to make your comments useful, you can mention certain times products are best to buy. TVs for example. The best prices are always around November starting right before black friday.

You can also mention things like SSD shortages which raise/lower prices, or floods that wiped out the spinning drive plants in Thailand that caused them to go up in price years ago. "It pays to wait" is a pretty generic statement. That would apply to most things except limited edition items that could sell out. timing/convenience/circumstance play a factor. In this case it was Intel sucking ass resulting in huge demand for the better AMD chips.

For a system with a planned lifespan of 4-5 years, the extra money for the CPU I want is meaningless to me. I don't have time right now to build a system like I did a few months ago. CPUs/Motherboards are less convenient to upgrade than graphics cards. Overclocking also isn't what it used to be. In the past, buying something like the 920 and OC'ing it made sense but these days, you're less likely to be OC'ing a CPU crazy levels like that to compete with more expensive chips that already have it built in.

I can say, no matter what price the 3950 is obtained for, it's been a badass CPU for me. Rock solid. You may not need 16 cores, but I'm running many apps on three screens, emulators, games, etc. Zero crashes or headaches combined with the memory/motherboard/storage, etc that I chose. Apps that do take advantage of multiple cores zip/unzip rar/unrare, etc are ridiculously fast. I can also assign a high number of cores to each of my emulators because I have cores to spare.

I hope it goes to $500. It won't impact my satisfaction with it over the past 3+ months. I took the time to research and put together the rest of the parts. I'd say that's the more important factor resulting in a solid build.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Winnow wrote: If you want to make your comments useful

Oh the irony.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: March 14, 2020, 5:50 pm
Winnow wrote: If you want to make your comments useful

Oh the irony.
I've done alright in that department. Going back and reading previous upgrade threads over the past 10+ years will demonstrate that.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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8 months later, checking in. This has been the most stable, pain free build I've ever made. I don't know if I need 16 cores but man my PC runs smooth, zero crashes, hiccups, etc. I'm sure the supporting components help with that, but I'm highly impressed with my first multi core AMD CPU.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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If you're not running workstation apps like Blender, the Adobe suite, etc.. Then you probably don't need that sort of performance. But I'm glad it's working for you!

I'd advise others to base your purchases on what you're going to be using it for. Unless you have money to burn then have at it!

(This post is certified 100% useful)
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: August 10, 2020, 6:55 pm If you're not running workstation apps like Blender, the Adobe suite, etc.. Then you probably don't need that sort of performance.

(This post is certified 100% useful)
Fake news!

There are other uses than Workstations. I run emulators and in those emulators I can dedicate however many cores I want. Compression/decompression, running multiple emulators with multiple cores, while watching a TV show on a side screen while playing an AAA game all take advantage of multiple cores.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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AMD is absolutely crushing intel on performance even at lower clock rates and lower power consumption, including gaming:



Linus is annoying but he covers the stats. Even the lowest AMD CPU at $300 beat all of Intels CPUs.

Even more interesting is AMD's new 6000 series GPU beating out or matching Nvidia at lower wattage and now it actually benefits you even more to have an AMD CPU/GPU combo.



Same performance at lower wattage. If you hadn't noticed, Nvidia's new high end GPUs suck up a huge amount of power.


AMD is crushing it in both CPU and GPUs.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I think Nvidia is a shitty company but I still think I'd get a 3080 (if you could actually find them) over an AMD card at this time. RTX Voice itself is worth the extra $50 to me.

As far as CPU goes I don't give a shit at this time. When I upgrade again in 5+ years I'll take a look at what is out there and make my decision then. Until then I have no issues with my current Intel build.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: November 7, 2020, 10:28 pm I think Nvidia is a shitty company but I still think I'd get a 3080 (if you could actually find them) over an AMD card at this time. RTX Voice itself is worth the extra $50 to me.
RTX voice is ok if you like taking at 10-12% hit in FPS and if you live in a noisy place I guess. I don't have background noise so it's pretty much a waste or at least not that important.

If you're really excited about taking FPS hits and want to get a headstart, you can use RTX voice on GTX cards as well:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-enab ... -gtx-cards
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

Post by Aslanna »

There isn't that much of an FPS hit.

I have a GTX card and I already use RTX Voice and have been using it ever since it came out and people got it working on GTX cards. That's how I know how nice it is. I have the AC/Furnace return 8 feet away from me. It's very noisy for others when I don't have RTX Voice running.

The few frames lost are worth it to me. But you do you. I'm happy if you go with an AMD video card. It will work well with certain AMD CPUs (probably even yours). It can only help competition with Intel and Nvidia.

I don't champion brands (or political parties) like you do.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: November 7, 2020, 11:13 pm I don't champion brands (or political parties) like you do.
You sure seem hell bent on ignoring AMDs advances simply stating and restating your own personal situation like that's all that matters.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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/yawn

I've said nothing bad about AMD.

If anything I've been positive on AMD. Just because I don't want to upgrade my 1 year old system to AMD doesn't mean I am ignoring them.

But good job with the deflection once again.

Typical Republican.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: November 7, 2020, 11:46 pm /yawn

I've said nothing bad about AMD.

If anything I've been positive on AMD. Just because I don't want to upgrade my 1 year old system to AMD doesn't mean I am ignoring them.

But good job with the deflection once again.

Typical Republican.
If you want to talk about typical. Where was I asking you to upgrade anything? I was pointing out AMD's advancements in their CPU and GPUs. Only negative on Nvidia's recent cards are their power requirements otherwise both AMD and Nvidia are killing it in performance improvements over last gen.



This guy is pretty straight forward with stats. I appreciate tech channels on youtube that aren't annoying.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Intel just released their Alder Lake 12th gen CPUs and the reviews are pretty good in comparison to the current AMD lineup. With the exception of power usage. Intel definitely needs to work on that.

At least for the 12900K reviews I've seen. I'm curious to see the 12700K reviews, which should be out soon, as i7 is typically the level I buy at. Having said that I will still be skipping this gen and probably the next. I'll look and see where things are with the 15x00K series and whatever AMD has out at the time. That will put my system at 5-6 years old which is when I typically upgrade. Maybe by then DDR5 will be a more reasonable price.

Still waiting in the EVGA queue for a card... Supposedly everyone in the queue before they closed it, which includes me, will get a chance at one before they open it back up again. That was back in August when I signed up so yeah... Definitely sucks for people trying to get a new video card.

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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: November 5, 2021, 1:34 am Intel just released their Alder Lake 12th gen CPUs and the reviews are pretty good in comparison to the current AMD lineup.

Still waiting in the EVGA queue for a card... Supposedly everyone in the queue before they closed it, which includes me, will get a chance at one before they open it back up again. That was back in August when I signed up so yeah... Definitely sucks for people trying to get a new video card.
I don't regret buying my 3080ti for $1,900 back in July. EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming, retails for 1,499 so "only" $400 above retail was actually a decent deal considering the ridiculous GPU shortage. I just checked and it averages about $2,300 on Amazon still. Crazy that $1,900 was actually a little dip in the price back in July.

Good to see Intel with competitive CPUs again. AMD has won my business for the moment. The Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core I bought awhile back has been outstanding. As you would imagine, that CPU, the 3080ti and supporting memory etc cut through everything thrown at it. I think I'm good for awhile which is a relief considering the chip shortages are projected to last at least into 2023.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Winnow wrote: November 18, 2021, 10:43 am I don't regret buying my 3080ti for $1,900 back in July. EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming, retails for 1,499 so "only" $400 above retail was actually a decent deal considering the ridiculous GPU shortage. I just checked and it averages about $2,300 on Amazon still. Crazy that $1,900 was actually a little dip in the price back in July.
Never thought I'd buy an electronics part that actually goes up in value instead of plummets, at least in the short 1 year term. That $1,499 3080ti I bought for $1,900 is selling for $2,500 if you can find it in stock even at that price.

It's a sad state of affairs for GPUs and doesn't look to be improving. The pending possible US hyperinflation in general doesn't help the outlook.

Pricing aside, I'm very pleased with the EVGA FTW3 3080ti card. I doubt I'll have to upgrade for quite awhile since few can afford/justify buying these cards, the graphics requirements for games etc probably won't increase as well.

At least the best GPUs for crypto mining (Etherium) are AMD now so that may help Nvidia's prices a little.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c5/13/71 ... 14e132.jpg

According to the article, that 78x3080ti setup makes 128K/year, but doesn't say how much is paid back in power bills. If they got those 3080ti's for $800 each that's $63K so if paid less than $60K in power bills they made a profit the first year. Besides the general chip shortage, crypto mining is killing the GPU market. Nvidia is raising prices on newly released GPUs because otherwise they are just losing money to the resellers. The standard 3080ti at $1,199 in a "normal" world would be considered overpriced yet it actually sells for double the suggested retail. Something has to give. The power consumption for mining crypto is insane.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I am still in the queue! So eventually I'll be able to pick one up for $1429. However 3080s are now a year and a half old so I'm thinking if I ever do get it maybe I'll flip it and wait on the 40xx series. Although I imagine those will be in short supply too so...

For the most part I am making due with my 1070Ti so it's not like I really need to upgrade. The only game I play on PC is Destiny 2. But I do run 3 monitors (1 1080 and a 2 2k's) and am thinking of upgrading the last of them to 2 or 4k so might need a bit more juice. One of those 43" would be good as a main display but I don't know if they are quite there yet.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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It only took 6 months but I was finally allowed the "privilege" of spending $1500 on a video card. I also went with the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming. I have a 850 Watt power supply so should be good to just install it. I am mostly more concerned about the extra heat generation in my system.

Or maybe I'll just flip it. Who can say! Although checking ebay it looks like prices have gone down. Not sure I'd buy something like this on ebay though so there is that. I imagine most of those are scam listings
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: March 1, 2022, 8:32 pm It only took 6 months but I was finally allowed the "privilege" of spending $1500 on a video card. I also went with the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming. I have a 850 Watt power supply so should be good to just install it. I am mostly more concerned about the extra heat generation in my system.

Or maybe I'll just flip it. Who can say! Although checking ebay it looks like prices have gone down. Not sure I'd buy something like this on ebay though so there is that. I imagine most of those are scam listings
I've been happy with my FTW 3080ti. It's a beast.

I don't notice any extra heat with my FTW. I don't think the fan even runs on it unless I'm playing a game. It's got a lot of fancy lights but I never see them. My huge case does have a side window but it faces up against the side of my desk. It's quiet most of the time. You still got a good deal. I paid 1900 for mine July 2021 (prime delivery), I just checked and FTW 3080ti is still $1999 and that's from shady non prime vendor on Amazon.

Nvidia got hacked and part of what was stolen was the code that limits hash for crypto mining so cards may go up again if that can be disabled on the the 3080ti again.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I was considering maybe selling it but I finally got around to opening the box. Considering the price I was a bit disappointed there wasn't at least 1 DP cable included. A beefier card than I was expecting but rather barebones as far as packaging goes.

I suppose I was spoiled by previous graphics cards that came with all sorts of things. Did I always need them? No. But it was nice to have them if I did and it indicated a more quality product.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: March 9, 2022, 6:05 pm I was considering maybe selling it but I finally got around to opening the box. Considering the price I was a bit disappointed there wasn't at least 1 DP cable included. A beefier card than I was expecting but rather barebones as far as packaging goes.

I suppose I was spoiled by previous graphics cards that came with all sorts of things. Did I always need them? No. But it was nice to have them if I did and it indicated a more quality product.
I don't know if you use your PC to play movies like I do but if you do, I recommend Potplayer. Extremely customizable and you can also use hardware acceleration to take advantage of the 3080 ti.

https://daumpotplayer.com/

It has an overwhelming amount of settings but that means you can customize it exactly as to how you want it. For me, I like it as streamlined as possible, uncluttered UI, I remove everything I can , logos etc to make it as clean as possible. I like frame by frame, customized skip jump timings, thumbnail popup searching when moving along the progress bar etc. All the usual things you would expect plus a lot more but it's fast and clean and free and includes all the codecs. It's Korean and I'm big on Korean stuff right now. Loving my kdramas! Just keep in mind, it has a ridiculous amount of settings. Very actively developed.

As for games, everything automatically defaults to max settings and that's at 4K. If you're using less than that, it's extreme overkill but of course max settings.

If you ever get a Quest2 (Meta) headset. Skybox is the player to get.

https://skybox.xyz/

Braindead easy to use. You basically just drag folders or individual files into the app window on your PC and then have access to stream them on your Wireless VR headset. Plays VR movies and all types of 3D/360 movies and also regular movies/videos. You can choose various theater/environments which is cool for some standard 3D type movies but I prefer Void with just a black screen and the video. High quality VR movies are amazing but those are mostly porn. Still mind blowing no matter what the content. Older stuff from 2016-2018 that's not 59/60 fps and 2160 isn't quite as good and some of that stuff was filmed in fisheye type VR as opposed to SBS (side by side) format. Shitloads of content but it's all porn.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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No 4k at this time. But I have 2 2Ks along with a 1080 that I'll probably get around to replacing in the next half year so that's a few pixels to push. I was eyeing the OLEDs but the burn-in issue might scare me away from considering those too seriously as a main display at this time.

For video I typically just use Plex since I add everything to my library although my drive is starting to get full. When I don't use Plex I'll just load things with VLC but I suppose it doesn't hurt to look at what else is out there as VLC can be a bit clunky.

The only game I play on PC is Destiny 2 so a bit more fps will be nice. I'm a steady 80fps with my current card so I should have no issues getting to 120.

Did I need this much card? Probably not. But hopefully it will last me 6+ years. Sad that the lifetime warranties on graphics cards are no longer a thing. I have a faulty EVGA 8800GTX with a lifetime warranty that I need to get around to RMAing. If they can't fix it and they have none of those around I wonder what they'll send me back instead.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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After poking around a bit it sounds like undervolting, which I didn't know was a thing, is the way to go with these cards. You get basically the same performance and ~100W less power usage. Which means cooler temps with lower fan speeds and less noise.

Since I'm not running crazy demanding things I doubt I'll notice any small difference in performance.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I finally got around to installing this thing. Looking at the numbers it seems at idle it runs around 49 degrees which is about the same as my old card (EVGA 1070Ti) however the default behavior is to not have the fans spinning at all under 55 degrees which I do not like. So I turned those on and around 500 RPM, which I can't hear, the temp drops to 35 degrees so I feel that's a good change to make permanent.

My old card had a single fan and idled at 1200 RPM but since it is over 3.5 years old I imagine there is some dust in there that impacted temperature a bit. However 3 fans is definitely more better than 1. I never did like the blower-style cooling for cards.

Power usage is about 6 more watts than the 1070Ti so that's not terrible.

I haven't tried anything too graphically demanding so I haven't messed with the undervolting stuff at this time.

Overall, despite the purchase price, I don't have any regrets. Hopefully when the time comes to replace it in 6+ years the market will have calmed down a bit and things like this won't set me back as much as my whole system did in 2018.

If I had to list criticisms at this point:

1) The price

2) For the price the memory should have been at least 14 GB. I get why it's 12, since it's basically a 3090 with memory on only one side of the board (Hence 12 being half of 24), but.. Still.

3) Lack of documentation. Even online there is no user manual for this card. Sure there aren't a lot of settings but all you get is the single folded sheet of generic instructions. What are the fan and power connections for on the side of the card? If I hadn't seen it mentioned in a review video I'd have no idea.

4) Lack of at least 1 DP cable. The packaging was about as bare-bones as you can get.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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It looks like the graphics card situation is improving. I waited 6+ months to be able to get mine and you can now order it on their site with no queue.

So I'd advise anyone not to pay scalper prices. Things are getting better! I would imagine the more budget-friendly cards, if that even is a thing anymore, will start making more frequent appearances but as of right now I guess it makes sense for them to make the pricier ones more available since that's where they make the most money.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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My timing on buying things sucks but I suppose I knew that going in with the 30 series almost 2 years old at the time. These (3080 Ti Ultra) are now fairly plentiful and are also going below MSRP as there is a $130 discount at MicroCenter as well as the EVGA site and probably most other places. The 40 series will be announced soon do I imagine they are trying to dwindle the current stock down. Rumors are they are fairly decent performance improvements over the current generation.

All I know is I won't be buying another card for many years!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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We'll see if the lower prices last. If China invades Taiwan, no one will be getting new video cards!

Crypto isn't doing well right now so it doesn't pay for miners to be buying mass amounts of GPUs.

No plans to upgrade my 3080ti even if the new cards are substantially better. There would have to be a really compelling reason to do so. FPS on 4K isn't an issue and it doesnt look like 8K VR headsets will be mainstream anytime soon.

I'm sure I'll be buying one of the 4 new "Meta" VR headsets that are due to come out over the next 2 years. I use my Quest 2 almost every night, more for media consumption though than gaming.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Full on meltdown of GPU prices right now. Nvidia FTW 3080 Ti is -23% retail prime at $1089

So hard to predict the market.

So latest is the Nvidia ordered their 40 series wafers before the cryptowinter (crypto crash) happened. So they are now stuck with an over load of wafers for their upcoming 40 series.

Short clip discussing the issue:



They also briefly touched on Samsung having an overload of Phones and Apple reducing their forecast for new iPhones. My Samsung s20 crapped out on me recently. Instead of buying another $1K phone (none impressed me), I bought a new unlocked Samsung A53 at -22% off for $349. It looks and functions exactly the same as my s20. The only thing it was missing was wireless charging so I bought a wireless charging adapter for $19 and that issue was resolved. I've been working from home since COVID hit in 2020 so really no need for a powerful phone since I have access to my PC.

If Nvidia somehow manages to sell the new 40 series at high prices, finally it seems like a good bet they will drop fast.



I currently have a 750W PSU. I have no desire to upgrade that for the 400-450W 40 series card. Anyone with a higher end 30 series card I think will be good for quite some time. You're good for 4K gaming. For those holding out for the 40 series, factor in probably needing a bigger PSU but the good news is that it appears Nvidia, unless they are able to artificially create demand at a high price, will have plenty to sell.

PS sure would be nice if you could embed videos on every forum! Some people still living in the early 2000's!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I originally said I had no regrets paying MSRP but when you can now buy a 3090 TI for less than I paid for the 3080 Ti, only a few months later, I suppose I am a bit salty about it.

I don't run 4k displays so at least this will be good for many years to come. I definitely will never pay more than $1k for a video card ever again. I suppose I sort of got caught up in the hype of not being able to find one that once I did the only logical course of action was to purchase it.

Initial leaked specs for the 40 series was high power consumption but I think those numbers have gone down a bit since then to a bit more reasonable range. Something like 35 more watts than the 30 series but I suppose that would depend on the specific card.

The new line of AMD and Intel processors are set to be announced soon so that should be interesting. I think I'll skip another year which puts me on a 5 year upgrade cycle which even that is faster than needed.

My current computer runs fine with the exception of the Windows 10 update. Every time it installs the mandatory H2 Features update my system stability takes a nosedive and I get bluescreens often which leads me to having to rollback the update. As it's a mandatory update that means it will install itself again so I go though this process every 6 weeks or however long you can defer updates. It's great fun and a wonderful use of my time. Thanks, Microsoft! I suppose I could do a fresh reinstall but the thought of setting up and configuring all my applications again is not one I want to entertain at this time.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I can't say I saw that coming. Now who will I buy video cards from?!
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Nvidia got greedy and over ordered and now with crypto not doing well, they are overloaded with cards and can't give them away it seems. 3080ti FTW was $895 a few days ago. It's higher now but you can get other 3080ti brands in stock prime for in the $800's.

I'm happy with my EVGA 3080 ti even though overpaid for it, I've made good use of it over the past year+. I'm am pissed at the situation that caused them to be that high and have no pity for Nvidia's current predicament of over estimating future demand and not being able to get out of their contracts.

Due to the bargain basement prices, Nvidia is probably ok with just selling their own brand.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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How about those 40 series prices? Crazy pants. And that's FE versions.. From third party vendors they will surely be higher.

The 12GB 4080 should have been a 4070.

While the performance looks promising I can't see myself buying one of these.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Nvidia 4080s sitting on shelves. I'm not sure what Nvidia was smoking. Apparently they thought we were still in a crypto meta. Who would buy one of those when they could get a 4090 (if you can find them) for $400 more? Makes no sense. I do hope the AMD cards coming out stomp all over Nvidia as far as price/performance goes but we'll have to wait and see. That's also why I hope Intel gets their shit sorted out on their ARC graphics cards. More competition can only benefit the consumer.

In other upgrade items Micro Center has a 12700k + Asus Z690-PLUS TUF MB for $350. I was going to wait until the 14th gen to upgrade, since it will be a new socket, but for $350 I think it's a decent upgrade I can drop into my existing system since I can use all my other hardware other than my cooler since the 12th gens are a different socket than my current 9th gen. But supposedly I can order a new bracket for that. Windows will probably be the thing that complains the most because... Microsoft.

Once the 14th Gen is out next fall I'll probably go that route as well as DDR5. I probably should have waited until then but for $350 why not! Although if everything runs great with this I may even skip upgrading for a couple more years.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Wow I can't believe it's already been three years since I built my AMD 3950 system . I have zero plans to upgrade anything. Best/most reliable system I've ever had. As long as nothing breaks I can see myself using this system for at least 2 more years for a 5 year cycle or maybe longer.(especially with the later 3080ti addition)

I still hate having multiple 14-16TB spinning hard drives and want to replace them with SSD eventually. I already have about 5 TB of SSD storage but want multiple single large 10TB+ SSDs. I have about 30TB filled up that needs to move to SSD at some point. On the flip side of that, I'm not too concerned about a hard drive crashing. Everything on the spinning drives is media, movies, audiobooks etc that I can easily replace. I pay for unlimited bandwidth and have gigabit so not too big a deal to get it back. The harder to get or personal info is on the SSDs. Kind of like with my hacking years, I find the challenge of collecting shit on the internet fun but after I get it don't care much about it...sort of like "it's the journey not the destination" but for downloads. I see something, like maybe an old TV series that's not as readily available then go out and find it. For new TV Shows/Movies, I grab everything in 4K 2160P so even just one episode of a show is 10GB and movies like 20-30GB each which adds up. Crypto is in the shitter but I still have plenty of that to not have to pay any "real" money for online services I might need. My crypto is in an offline wallet so thankfully avoiding the chaos going on with the exchanges.

I mentioned it earlier in this or some other thread but Nvidia screwed themselves. During the peak of the crypto mining craze when gamers were getting boned and Nvidia was making huge profits and raising prices, they made supply chain purchases at high prices expecting the trend to continue and now are in a big bind because they can't get out of their contracts and no one wants to buy their expensive cards. They can't really lower the prices because of what the supplies cost. Fuck them. They've been asses as EVGA will attest. They aren't going to crash and burn but hopefully their stock takes/took a huge hit.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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I did get the LGA 1700 bracket requested so that was nice of NZXT considering I bought it 4 years ago.. But I might just a new cooler and power supply for this as I typically like to keep my old system running while configuring a new one.

The only downside of this motherboard, other than only 4 SATA ports (but 4 NVME slots), is apparently the onboard sound is pretty lacking. If so I'll just get a soundcard or something. I said I'd never buy a Creative product again but I do like the AE-9 for the external control module while isn't a common thing these days. I'd go refurbished though as $200 is much better than $350 which is just a stupid price for something that isn't even essential to most people these days.

As far as shows go 1080p x265 is good enough for shit I'm only going to watch once. The slight visual benefit of 600MB vs 6GB isn't worth it to me. I am still planning on a NAS project at some point but it's not too high on my list.

Speaking of downloading though I did get my first DMCA strike. I'm not sure what happened there. I guess I didn't have my network lock set like I normally do when using VPN. Luckily it was only one strike though as that day I got like 10 shows and 6 or so albums.
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

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Aslanna wrote: December 2, 2022, 10:29 pm
As far as shows go 1080p x265 is good enough for shit I'm only going to watch once. The slight visual benefit of 600MB vs 6GB isn't worth it to me. I am still planning on a NAS project at some point but it's not too high on my list.

Speaking of downloading though I did get my first DMCA strike. I'm not sure what happened there. I guess I didn't have my network lock set like I normally do when using VPN. Luckily it was only one strike though as that day I got like 10 shows and 6 or so albums.
I disagree about the resolution. I can't bear to watch 1080p if at all possible and notice right away if it's not 4K (2160p). I do sit like 4 feet from my 4K 55" screen though so that might make a difference. The quality of the TV also makes a big difference which is another thing I can easily notice with 3x55" screens of varying quality surrounding me. If you're not as close as I am to your screen then I'm sure 1080P probably isn't that bad. Bitrate also matters along with resolution.
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I've never gotten a strike. Are you using a torrent site or something? Those for sure will do it. I only use premium filesharing services with VPN on 100% of the time. For about $99 you can get a year sub and 6TB bandwidth with no daily limit for the service I use and download at 500mb/sec or higher most of the time (that depends on your connection and your VPN of course). I use a pretty expensive VPN for past 5+ years that I know is fast with a bazillion cities/countries to switch around to if needed. There are shorter/cheaper options from the same provider but after so many years I'm comfortable with the longer/better value plan. That's basically all you can eat movies, TV, music, whatever for $99/year or maybe a little more if you you use up 6TB before a year which you have zero chance of doing if you are going to keep downloading 1080P. I have to work at using that much with 4K content. One of those services combined with a site like this and you're set. Depends on your VPN etc but RG seems faster than NF of the file sharing service options used on that site. I'd say it works out to subbing to one single premium service like HBO Disney or Netflix but in this case you get everything under the sun, every show from every service available the same night it airs. That site isn't unique, it's just a very well put together one that's been around for awhile and stable. There's also no need to log in or set up an account on that site which is nice. For 99% of new media content, I don't have to look anywhere else.

One note, if you do download 4K pay attention to what version of 4K. There's standard 2160P which I like, then there's HDR version and Dolby Vision versions. If you download Dolby Vision and don't have that on your TV, you'll get an unwatchable purple tinted picture and HDR looks dark if you don't have HDR enabled. I stick to the standard 2160P. It's easy to see in the descriptions what version they are. They also list all the different sound codecs supported and whatever subtitles etc.
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Aslanna
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Re: Non Forced 2019 Upgrade Edition AMD 3950x

Post by Aslanna »

While it was a fairly good deal I decided to return the 12700k/MB combo I got at Microcenter and will just wait the ~10 months for the 14th gen Intel CPUs. It will end up costing me more but I'll be up to date and set for another 5-6 years.

As I'd probably buy a new power supply I'd rather wait for the ATX 3.0 powers supplies. There are some out now but nothing from Corsair at this time and that's who I prefer for power supplies so hopefully they have something out by then.

As far as all the other places to find 'programs' I haven't really investigated those. I usually just default to doing a torrent search. Maybe I'll look into alternatives.
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