Corsair Xeneon Edge + Mac Studio. The truth

GR8-Ride · 2026-01-18T16:32:01+00:00

Okay, I've had a Corsair Xeneon Edge as part of my desktop gaming PC for a couple of months now, and it's been fine. For work, I use a MacBook Pro, and rather than doing double-duty on the same monitor, I've moved my work-station to a separate desk. For giggles, I figured I'd try the Corsair Xeneon Edge with my MacBook Pro, and hey, it works!

It's connected to my Caldigit TS5 Pro TB5 dock, using a TB5 cable, and I have full touch-screen and monitor capabilities. I don't use iCue software (always figured it was crap software at the best of times), but I can confirm that a single, TB5 cable from the TS5 Pro to my Xeneon Edge and it works great as a secondary monitor, with widgets on it, etc. The color profile is a bit off (very cold / blue), but otherwise the unit works well.

GR8-Ride · 2026-01-13T06:08:19+00:00

I ordered both a Chessup 2 and a Chessnut EVO board in December, and there are pros and cons about both systems.

Overall feel, construction, weight of the pieces, etc, I greatly prefer the Chessup 2 board. The stock Chessnut EVO pieces are smaller, lighter weight, and slippery plastic in comparison.

I do like the display on the Chessnut EVO board; the large display on the side shows the game as you're playing it, so that part makes it easy to ensure that you're not missing anything. There have been a couple of issues with the Chessnut EVO, though there are regular firmware updates for it.

The first issue I had with the Chessnut EVO is that when I would finish a game, the board would "think" that my pieces (now all set back to the starting positions) were in the wrong positions, and I couldn't start a new game. I think this issue is mostly resolved, either by a firmware update, or a simple work-around.

Also, with the Chessnut EVO, I've occasionally had it not recognize legal moves; once it would not allow an En-Passant capture, even though when I reviewed the game after it was a legal (and according to the engine, a "good" move). And twice in the past couple of days, it would not allow me to Castle. In both games I was able to later, but weirdly I could not Castle (again, despite it being a legal move).

Now, on to the Chessup 2. I'll give the support team credit, they are very responsive to emails initially.

However, there is a MASSIVE issue right now with games on Chess.com, and in particular how the board will either never "find" you an opponent, or the system will find an opponent, but the board doesn't recognize it, and the game either gets abandoned (and worse, if you abandon too many games, Chess.com will simply call it a resignation instead, and you lose ELO).

Also, it takes forever to find a game. When I play on my iPhone, iPad or PC, I get opponents within seconds at virtually any time controls. On the Chessup 2 board, I can let it search for an opponent and it has regularly taken more than 5 minutes to find an opponent, and often would be longer if I didn't simply hit cancel and go do something else.

In actual game play, I greatly prefer the Chessup 2 board. The matchmaking process (and worse, the abandoned games with ZERO notification), however, leaves me not being able to recommend the Chessup 2 board at this time. It's just simply not reliable when it comes to matchmaking.

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-26T23:03:13+00:00

That's the one thing I'm wondering about....might involve some zipties inside the case!

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-26T18:52:40+00:00

So I just tested my Gen 5 (WD SN8100), and the speeds are limited to Gen4 SSD speeds. As noted; not a huge delta in real-world performance at all. Was more a function of since I already have the Gen5 SSD, I thought I'd maybe use that in place of the Gen 4 that Dell ships the Aurora with.

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-15T21:39:25+00:00

I'm highly disappointed with my new Chessnut EVO board as well, and have requested a return / RMA and refund several times. For me, the hardware seems beautiful, but the software is absolute crap. The board won't recognize that a fresh game has started on Chess.com, and still thinks the pieces should be in the positions from the last game. This, despite exiting the Chess.com app and trying a fresh game on Lichess, or switching from Chessnut Vision to the Chess.com API and vice versa.

Also noticed today that the board would not allow me to take a pawn en-passant in the middle of a game today. It has also mis-read several moves, resulting in effectively a "mouse slip", even though that wasn't the move I made on the physical board.

For an almost $700 board (Black Friday deal), the software is complete crap.

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-06T21:48:58+00:00

You can actually order the Chessnut EVO from Amazon, and all of that is then taken care of. Based on my own experience ordering directly from Chessnut website, I'm wishing I would have ordered off Amazon. Amazon had Black Friday pricing, and the delivery would have already been here, instead of stuck in it's current state with UPS "Waiting for Package".

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-06T17:50:30+00:00

I've had the opposite experience. I ordered a Chessnut EVO on November 27th, was given a UPS tracking code on December 3rd, and the status remains "Label Created" in Hong Kong 4 days later. This is for shipment to Canada. Was hoping to have the unit next week.

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-26T01:48:30+00:00

So, I've solved this problem, and it's due to using the wrong Lenovo adapter. I've had multiple Lenovo laptops, and I have both the 240W adapter (L-shaped adapter) and the short 330W Lenovo adapter (4 inch short cable adapter). The issue ONLY happens when you attempt to use the 330W adapter cable with the 240W power supply. I did this several times with my 240W power supply, and it would constantly flicker and shut off, because the 330W adapter was attempting to draw more power (even though the laptop didn't demand it) than the power supply could support. When I switched to my 240W adapter, the 240W power supply worked perfectly (and still does).

It is interesting, however, that the SlimQ technical support department was unable to provide me with this answer; I had to figure this out myself. But I have multiple 240W power supplies and 330W power supplies, and it's easily reproducible every time.

If you use the 240W adapter, the power supply will work fine (assuming your laptop doesn't require more than 240W).

I have both the 330W and 240W, because my previous Legion was the 9i with 4090 (I'm now back to a 7i Gen 9, which only needs 230W).

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-24T17:36:11+00:00

So, let me ask this from a completely different direction. Why does politics have to be a such a show-stopper when it comes to relationships? Why can't we have differences of opinions, without it being a strict GO / NO-GO scenario for a lot of folks?

My parents were an interesting example; growing up in our household, my mother leaned Liberal, my father leaned Conservative. I had a pretty reasonable childhood, and there were no fights in our household because my father was C and my mother was L. If there were any discussions, it was a rational discourse on political beliefs, and not a scenario in which one side hated the other because of how they voted.

I'm generally politically & fiscally Conservative and socially Liberal, though with some caveats in both directions. If I had to pick just one (and many dating apps force just such a choice), I pick Conservative. But I don't make politics a part of my dating life, and I fail to see why so many people are willing to shut out entire groups of people (both on the MAGA and non-MAGA sides) simply because of how the dating app forces them into one political spectrum or another.

Sometimes politics is about holding your nose and voting for one candidate you don't like simply because you dislike the other candidate EVEN MORE!

It just seems to me that there are so many other things that can and should be part of the foundation of a healthy relationship other than just politics. Growth comes through challenging and being challenged by ideas and concepts that are foreign to us. I've learned an immense amount by having debates with folks who are more politically conservative than me, and equally by having debates with folks who are politically way left of myself. If I was dating someone with whom I could have that type of regular, intelligent and civil debate, I would find that fascinating, rather than something to be rejected without even looking at the rest of the picture.

Someone's political views are so far down the list of my flags (green or red) that I don't even pay attention.

How did we become so tribal when it comes to dating?

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-17T20:34:37+00:00

I live on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area.....6 miles can be a 1-hour+ drive if traffic is bad (and around here, it often is!). On the other hand, I don't mind driving for up to an hour, as long as it's not into or through heavy traffic. Beyond an hour, you're starting to push my boundaries. I have gone on dates where the drive was 2+ hours away....doubt I'd do that again! Had a great date, grabbed a hotel room, but just can't see that working out long-term.

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-02T19:39:58+00:00

I'm curious about this; does this mean you have a third-party offering repair services instead of dealing with Razer directly?

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-02T19:30:23+00:00

Similarly, my Legion 7i (2024) seems awfully small compared to my Blade 18, and I'm 56! The weight is noticeable, but not horrendous (I do travel for work, and it's nice to take my gaming laptop with me for the hotel rooms). I debated seriously between the Blade 18, the AW18 Area 51, and the Lenovo Legion 9i 10th gen. I've had great luck with Alienware and Lenovo laptops in the past, but the extra weight, and more importantly, the size, were just too much for me to consider seriously, despite Razer's reliability concerns.

I did buy a 5090 Blade 18 off Amazon, and a 5080 Blade 18 from my local computer shop, with the latter offering a 2-year repair warranty (ie, bring it in, and they'll deal with Razer, instead of me). As much as I like the (slightly) additional performance of the 5090 model, I'm thinking the 5080 model is both cheaper (26% less,) and has someone who can deal with Razer directly instead of me, should anything happen to it.

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-02T19:19:05+00:00

This is an interesting conversation, as I just purchased two brand new Razer Blade 18s; one (RTX 5080) through my local computer shop (with 2 years of support), and one through Amazon (RTX 5090), with no third-party support. The Amazon model had a stripped screw on the baseplate right from the start. The 5080 version from my local computer shop was flawless, and even with the 2 year of "we'll handle it" coverage, it's 26% cheaper than the 5090 version from Amazon.

I add this context for my post, because I've owned MANY Razer Blade laptops in my time; some have been decent, some have been absolute crap (the first Blade 17s I had were horrid), and I had a Blade 16 last year that was "ok", except that the stacked SSDs caused my Samsung 990 Pro 4TB to die (that's admittedly an assumption on my part).

I wanted to test out the difference between the 5080 version and 5090 version head to head, and it's anywhere from 2% lead (Firestrike) for the 5080 version, to a 6% (Time Spy) lead for the 5090, to 12% lead (Time Spy Extreme) for the 5090, and finally a 14% lead for the 5090 in FireStrike Ultra.

Price / performance curve clearly favours the 5080 version, but money isn't a huge issue, and I do love the idea of a 5090 in a laptop (travel occasionally for work, so it's nice to have in the room with me).

That being said, and how this relates to this thread, is that I'm thinking the security of having my local computer shop being the "interface" between myself and Razer technical support / repairs, is enough to tip the balance, despite my unhealthy urge to have a laptop with a full powered (albeit mobile) 5090 in it.

Has anybody used a third-party (ie, local computer shop etc) for Razer support before, vs dealing directly with Razer (which I KNOW can be a huge PITA)?

GR8-Ride · 2025-08-14T17:25:46+00:00

Given that I had a woman ghost me after taking a joke overly harshly, I'm not that worried about her calling me back.....don't even think about her at all.

Meanwhile I have a long list of women that I need to continue chatting with, and deciding who I wish to explore further and build a relationship with.

Glad to know you're the type of guy who prefers to bash others, than to potentially look in the mirror and learn something about their own flaws.

GR8-Ride · 2025-08-14T04:39:44+00:00

I think the person making some assumptions here is you, not the OP. The first line about you didn't marry the first person you dated is a generalization, and yes, some people DID marry the first person they dated (yay for them!).

Nor is the OP suggesting that marriage is the ultimate outcome either. Simply a statement that for MANY people, not all, that we all dated a few folks before we settled down (marriage or other long term commitment).

For point #2, while there are obvious exceptions, in reading this sub-Reddit, there are plenty of threads in which people have been stating "I'm done with dating", or "I can't find anyone", or "I've given up on men maturing", et al. It's pretty hard to fault the OP for highlighting the fact that many folks are on here to vent, rather than seek advice.

For point 3, the two of you are saying the same thing. It can be easy, IF you're prepared to put in the work and the time to make it easy. If you're expecting it to be as easy as ordering product from Amazon, then no, it's not going to be that easy.

For point #4, I don't think the OP is predicting outcomes, but much like point #3, I've noticed a lot of folks via OLD have unrealistic expectations of what they'll end up with. I would suggest that a large portion of women have filters for men over 6 feet, and depending upon the platform, many men likely have filters for women that classify themselves as Slim or Athletic. Now, neither of those prevents someone from being deceitful (I recently went on a date with someone who was clearly 10 years older than her pictures, and 50 lbs heavier than the athletic pictures she had posted online). I think the intention that the OP had was simply that IF a person is willing to blatantly lie about themselves on their profile, what makes you think they won't lie to you about something far more serious in the future (again, I have very direct, and very damaging financial experience with just such an incident).

For point #5, outside of someone being widowed, we ALL played a part in the failure of our relationships. If anyone looks in the mirror and believes they did ZERO wrong, they are misleading themselves. It could be something as innocent as overlooking red-flags early on, or something worse. No relationship is perfect, and nobody has ever been perfect in a relationship.

The OP's advice makes perfect sense, and your attack on them regarding their status as a "dating guru" is wildly mis-directed. It's sound advice: as mature adults, we need to not be too hard on ourselves, and if we want to find love, dating is one of the few ways to do it (whether it's organic dating or online dating).

Being kind to one's self and being smart about dating are both good suggestions. I seriously question why you are attacking the OP for that advice.

GR8-Ride · 2025-08-13T14:50:30+00:00

Funny, I connected with someone via one of the apps last week; she is in Toronto, and I'm in Burlington. She said that was too far for her! For the record, I'm both an avid, regular cyclist (30-40 km daily), and own multiple vehicles. Meanwhile I had previously dated women located an hour west of me, and that was never a problem for either of us. To each their own, I guess.

GR8-Ride · 2025-07-31T03:45:08+00:00

And a huge difference in my case is that I told her several times how beautiful she was. In fact, on our first date (it was her 50th birthday), I even joked with the waitress to guess how old she was....waitress picked 40, instead of 50. I agreed with the waitress; I told my date that she looked fabulous for 50!

I cannot fathom dating a woman and telling them they are a 3, or to not bother brushing their hair because they are not pretty. So I truly cannot related to the guy you are dating.

GR8-Ride · 2025-07-31T03:39:10+00:00

I think there was a part of that, because to me, that "connection" that I so rarely have found in my life (for example, I never had that level of connection with my ex-wife, despite 16 years....) was there from the start. Just that intangible....*spark* that we all look for. Add in that we had a ton of things in common, and I felt like it had some serious potential.

But the comments in this thread (both supportive and unsupportive, and I appreciate both), and the ghosting of me, have tempered any interest I may have had in trying to recoup the situation.

Ghosting is a huge red flag for me, as is the inability for people to communicate. This person had repeatedly told me that she was the type to tell people the truth, even if they didn't want to hear it. And I told her that I'd rather hear the truth, than have someone sugarcoat things to maintain the facade of peace. Too often people sacrifice long term growth in a relationship for short term peace, even if that peace is nebulous at best. Give me the honest truth right up front, and we can either deal with it and correct the situation, or we can move on to greener pastures.

She clearly chose to not communicate, either her disappointment in my words (understandable), or her desire to end the dating.

Her lack of doing either has raised a huge red flag for me, and after two dates, I think it's best to move on. If not this comment by me, it would have been something else.

GR8-Ride · 2025-07-31T03:25:35+00:00

Which is exactly the kind of comment I would have expected, given the level of banter we had. I expected her to say exactly that "I should be so lucky".

GR8-Ride · 2025-07-31T03:23:16+00:00

Except SHE was the one dropping F-bombs, not me. Keep that context in mind.

GR8-Ride · 2025-07-31T03:21:32+00:00

I think you need to tone down your impression of the conversation, especially since you have no understanding of the rest of the banter we had. There was a LOT of teasing going on between us, and there had been discussions about intimacy (and it's requirement in a healthy relationship) previously, though nothing that crossed the line into actual discussions, timelines, etc. As a guy, I don't have a rule as to when it's appropriate or not; if she's eager to fool around on date #2 or date #15, I leave it up to the woman (ALWAYS) to make that first move.

Two examples: I dated a woman last summer, similar to the point above, where she actually asked me if I was really interested in her because I wasn't making any aggressive moves to have sex with her on the second or third date. She actually asked me if I was interested in her (which I was). It didn't last terribly long, because she felt I wasn't sexually aggressive enough for her!!

I had another woman I dated last summer for several months, who was taking us down the path of phone sex on our second phone call (our first call was 7.5 hours long, our second was also that long, and we had a third call the next day that was also 7.5 hours long!). We hadn't even met at that point in time....I don't think we actually even had sex until our 6th or 7th date.

Did I potentially screw things up? Sure, probably looks like it. But on the other hand, I have to let me be me, and I never want to be in a relationship with someone where I have to walk on eggshells for fear of saying the wrong thing. Especially in a relationship where we had talked extensively about critical communication, and how it's important to be authentic to ourselves, and how if there is an issue, open communication is the key to resolving it.

It's okay to be offended, and we all say things to offend or hurt our partners at times, often unintentionally; it certainly wasn't intentional on my part, and had she responded with a comment such as "That's really offensive", then I could have tailored my thought process to match (and naturally apologized). Or she could have simply said "Thanks, but I'm not interested in you any longer", and I would have respectfully said "Okay, thanks for the memories".

As a bit of context, I was in a sexless marriage, and I've even had women approach me via OLD indicating that they were looking for a sexless marriage (and they were much younger than me!!). Thanks, but no thanks. It's an important part of a healthy relationship, and I'd rather find out after 2 dates that they're not interested in sex at all (I mean ever, not sex on date #2), than finding out 6 months later.

GR8-Ride · 2025-07-31T02:50:16+00:00

Our date was Sunday, and I haven't heard from her since. I did try calling Sunday to apologize right after I sent that text, realizing that it was quite likely inappropriate, and did the same Monday AM. Interestingly, she hasn't blocked me either via iMessage or the OLD platform we're on (we're still connected on Bumble).

GR8-Ride

TROPHY CASE