Tech Gaming Hardware discussion (& Hardware Sales) thread

[avenue94]

There's always the good old DIY Ikea setup.

A couple of Alex cabinets, and a butcher block coutner top.

Yeah solid choice, even though prices for Alex cabinets have gone up so much in recent years. Probably not a bad idea to go with a knock off ikea cabinet.

Drawers I can take or leave. Cable pass through is a yes. Got to be a clean look. Should have added at least that much.

I keep getting ads for several, and all seem nice. The secret lab magnus pro looks nice, but it’s pricey, and don’t know enough about them to really have a sense of fair prices. Definitely could continue to look, but real time feedback is always better.

My option probably isn't for you but I went with just a basic Amazon desk and added my own drawers underneath. All around a lot cheaper and desk has held up well and through a move. It doesn't have cable cut outs though. The premium for a gaming desk isn't usually worth it, unless you really want the niche stuff (lots of cable passthroughs, built in charging, leds, etc.)

 

[Slobodan]

Drawers I can take or leave. Cable pass through is a yes. Got to be a clean look. Should have added at least that much.

I keep getting ads for several, and all seem nice. The secret lab magnus pro looks nice, but it’s pricey, and don’t know enough about them to really have a sense of fair prices. Definitely could continue to look, but real time feedback is always better.

What about height adjustable desks?

 

[Satur9]

What about height adjustable desks?

Yeah been looking at them too and will probably get one with that ability. Could definitely go the diy route like another poster showed but kind of want something a bit nice for once.

 

[WhiteMousse]

Word is the RTX 5000 series are not going to be quite as high-priced as people feared. That doesn't mean it will be good, just not as un-good. It will be gooder

 

[jefferz]

Yeah been looking at them too and will probably get one with that ability. Could definitely go the diy route like another poster showed but kind of want something a bit nice for once.

With a budget that high, you should be able to find a desk with a solid wood top. Try to avoid MDF, particle board, etc.
Any decent solid wood, even bamboo, should last you 15+ years.

 

[Satur9]

With a budget that high, you should be able to find a desk with a solid wood top. Try to avoid MDF, particle board, etc.
Any decent solid wood, even bamboo, should last you 15+ years.

Are you at all familiar, or heard anything about one's like Secret Lab Magnus pro? There are so damn many with good reviews that it is hard to differentiate between them all. I like the idea of a metal desk, but definitely looking at all options. I tend to get buyer’s choice paralysis when searching for luxury items I don't actually need... Then I buy the cheap stuff and hate the decision I made.

Standing Desk | MAGNUS Pro Metal Desk | Secretlab US

All desk, no cable mess. Standing desk engineered for superior cable management and performance, the stage is set for you to elevate your everyday.

secretlab.co

 

[Madmick]

Well, the embargo is lifted. The Tom's Hardware Pros and Cons sort of nutshells what everyone was expecting based on the architecture material already released to the press, and any leaks you might have seen in the past two weeks since that time. However, game performance is even worse than expected. Overall...it's bad. It's really, really bad. Intel had a real chance to stun AMD after the latest Ryzen's lackluster reception, and they blew it.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review: Intel Throws a Lateral with Arrow Lake​

Pros​

• +Productivity performance
• +Power consumption and efficiency
• +Support for CUDIMM memory
• +Relaxed cooling requirements
• +Higher memory OC headroom

Cons​

• -Pricing
• -Generational regression in gaming performance

And now the games:

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review

Finally! Intel's new Arrow Lake architecture is launched. The new CPUs are full of design changes, like removal of Hyper-Threading, new Lion Cove P-Cores, an improved Thread Director and more. In our review we got surprising results that were both impressive and disappointing.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[JBSchroeds]

Well, the embargo is lifted. The Tom's Hardware Pros and Cons sort of nutshells what everyone was expecting based on the architecture material already released to the press, and any leaks you might have seen in the past two weeks since that time. However, game performance is even worse than expected. Overall...it's bad. It's really, really bad. Intel had a real chance to stun AMD after the latest Ryzen's lackluster reception, and they blew it.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review: Intel Throws a Lateral with Arrow Lake​

Pros​

• +Productivity performance
• +Power consumption and efficiency
• +Support for CUDIMM memory
• +Relaxed cooling requirements
• +Higher memory OC headroom

Cons​

• -Pricing
• -Generational regression in gaming performance

And now the games:

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review

Finally! Intel's new Arrow Lake architecture is launched. The new CPUs are full of design changes, like removal of Hyper-Threading, new Lion Cove P-Cores, an improved Thread Director and more. In our review we got surprising results that were both impressive and disappointing.

www.techpowerup.com

Power limiter removed doing almost nothing and loses to not just your competitor but your own previous generation products. Damn, Intel.

 

[Madmick]

Power limiter removed doing almost nothing and loses to not just your competitor but your own previous generation products. Damn, Intel.

Yeah, the only upside is the massive decrease in power consumption, and the temperatures. LOL, you could run the CU5-265K at stock on one of those flimsy old Intel coolers. That's how cool that damn thing runs.

They both clearly realized they had to scale draws down after the last gen, but this release in particular is just a brush off of desktop gamers. From the larger perspective of their business it's justifiable. It's all about servers, laptops, and eventually competing against ARM with phones (while ironically ARM seeks to ramp up to compete against more powerful x86 processors). They took back both the single thread & single thread efficiency crowns, especially if you evaluate solely P-cores per the latter. And even for gamers it's justifiable. As I wrote last year, the relative processing power of the overall Steam user survey's pool of hardware versus AAA demands has never been more in gamers' favor. There's not really a terribly great need for more powerful hardware.

But for PC gamers it's still a disappointment. Because I don't think we can expect this gen of CPUs to drive down the real market cost-performance curve at all. But, on the bright side, CPUs prices are tremendous. They aren't the component that's pricing needs to come down. Here's looking at you, NVIDIA.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Well, the embargo is lifted.

Read the Techpowerup review earlier when waking up. Graph results indicate this CPU line is directed at Machine Learning/AI task users.

 

[My Spot]

245k - $315
Ryzen 7700 - $280 and it comes with a good enough cooler

 

[JBSchroeds]

Read the Techpowerup review earlier when waking up. Graph results indicate this CPU line is directed at Machine Learning/AI task users.

Aren't those tasks almost entirely GPU-compute? I thought that's why nVidia was going all-in on AI crap.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Aren't those tasks almost entirely GPU-compute? I thought that's why nVidia was going all-in on AI crap.

If that were true the discrepancies between Intel and AMD CPU's wouldnt be so large when using an identical GPU. Tasks are clearly being offloaded to the CPU.

 

[avenue94]

Aren't those tasks almost entirely GPU-compute? I thought that's why nVidia was going all-in on AI crap.

Yes, there's a theoretical slice of rhe market for consumer where customers want some AI support without the cost of a GPU. But it's so small it's tough to understand why the NPU was included unless they just had so much excess from meteor lake.

 

[My Spot]

All sold out already at Microcenter. I wonder how many marks were there at midnight.

 

[Madmick]

Read the Techpowerup review earlier when waking up. Graph results indicate this CPU line is directed at Machine Learning/AI task users.

We discussed this two weeks ago when it was announced. The NPU is too pitiful to be worthwhile for anything. The focus was clearly on reducing temps and power consumption from the 14th Gen, and at least in that respect, it was a huge advancement. Bigger than AMD's. But AMD also manage to at least improve performance over the previous generation.

 

[KaNesDeath]

But AMD also manage to at least improve performance over the previous generation.

That performance gain came post launch from Microsoft three(?) weeks later.

 

[idrankyourbeer]

Well, the embargo is lifted. The Tom's Hardware Pros and Cons sort of nutshells what everyone was expecting based on the architecture material already released to the press, and any leaks you might have seen in the past two weeks since that time. However, game performance is even worse than expected. Overall...it's bad. It's really, really bad. Intel had a real chance to stun AMD after the latest Ryzen's lackluster reception, and they blew it.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review: Intel Throws a Lateral with Arrow Lake​

Pros​

• +Productivity performance
• +Power consumption and efficiency
• +Support for CUDIMM memory
• +Relaxed cooling requirements
• +Higher memory OC headroom

Cons​

• -Pricing
• -Generational regression in gaming performance

And now the games:

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review

Finally! Intel's new Arrow Lake architecture is launched. The new CPUs are full of design changes, like removal of Hyper-Threading, new Lion Cove P-Cores, an improved Thread Director and more. In our review we got surprising results that were both impressive and disappointing.

www.techpowerup.com

its flagship model is getting pieced up by their own flagship models of their last 2 generations. is this an out-of-season april fools joke?

and they really got rid of hyperthreading? what the fuck?

 

[avenue94]

All sold out already at Microcenter. I wonder how many marks were there at midnight.

Not many. Early stock is lower than usual to both prebuilds and DIY. It's part of the cost of getting Lunar Lake stock into the US a few months earlier than usual.

 

[Madmick]

That performance gain came post launch from Microsoft three(?) weeks later.

Wrong, even at launch, the 9xxx series was already beating the 7xxx series (just not the 3D variants). The BIOS and Windows patches improved performance a bit, very significantly in some games, but it only added to an advantage that was already observed with the launch reviews. Disabling SMT also improved performance. But all of these things improve performance for the older Zen processors, too, just not as much, especially the SMT disabling technique. The margins are very slim, though. I haven't seen all of these techinques combined in a controlled test bench, yet, but Zen 5 is ~7% stronger than its predecessor in gaming, now, and with the SMT trick for both Zen 5 & Zen 4, and also optimized power profiles for both, it would probably be <10% now.

Techpowerup > We found the Missing Performance: Zen 5 Tested with SMT Disabled (Aug-10-2024)​

PC Gamer > Zen 5 revisited: Testing what a new BIOS and Windows update does for AMD's Ryzen 9000 chips (Sep-26-2024) [Windows KB patch]​

Techspot > Testing AMD's Zen 5 Performance Update: Ryzen 7 9700X, Windows 24H2, AGESA Update (Oct-18-2024) [AGESA patch & Windows 24H2 update]​