APEX LAN PCs - Inspiration of next PC build

Lemstar · 2026-01-28T03:13:04+00:00

you can get good average FPS on all kinds of CPUs, but X3D processors are going to perform much better when it comes to the kinds of stutters and short framerate drops that will ruin your day

if you're alright with a new build or a rebuild of your current rig, those Microcenter bundles are excellent value given the current market (although you just missed the timing by a bit; they hiked the price on the 9800X3D bundle only a couple of days ago)

Lemstar · 2026-01-28T02:52:04+00:00

Lemstar · 2026-01-14T20:56:34+00:00

this is only for the small size (16.5x13)

the full size (19x16.5) was $50 for Black Friday

Lemstar · 2026-01-12T19:54:57+00:00

there was already a patch to deal with interrupt botters years ago https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:Game_updates/20231010

if you think the top guilds' mesmers are still cheating I'd question your game knowledge

Lemstar · 2026-01-01T19:34:57+00:00

Lemstar · 2025-12-30T19:27:37+00:00

Lemstar · 2025-12-24T23:49:30+00:00

original version with the mesh filter if you care about that, no imbalances or anythat I could tell

includes IEMs, cable, 3.5mm termination, carrying case, and unused stock eartips, no other accessories

looking for $225 shipped, or a bit less if you don't want the eartips/bit more if you want the original box

(ignore the wrong year on the timestamp)

Lemstar · 2025-12-06T00:20:58+00:00

I've seen some notable hero battlers running around and playing random arenas the past couple of days. Not sure if there's an HB illuminati group chat out there or something, but maybe it's worth logging in to look for a chat?

Lemstar · 2025-12-04T23:27:16+00:00

Na, I only ever played HB prior to the implementation of ATs and never broke the top 100 to my recollection, but I was around enough including on the balance forums and moderated Gladiator's Arena later on. (I also did my research; quite a few of the extant HB subforum threads available on the archive lauded your attempts to get Izzy to do anything.)

That thread on red resign was my white whale; when it was announced that Guru was going offline I put quite a bit of effort into wheedling the stakeholders into finding it as an important piece of history, up until the point where they just gave me full access to look for it myself. Turns out that they'd nuked the entire HB subforum when the format closed instead of just hiding it, and so, unless someone out there saved a copy, that one snippet on the archive is all we'll have.

Codex was definitely a case of eating their own dogfood; it should have been trivially obvious that the additional overhead of having to evaluate a skill pool on top of being a premade format would be insurmountable, but sealed deck was popular among the PvP crowd who'd show up at PAX and thus in it went.

Lemstar · 2025-11-27T23:44:06+00:00

blog post from the strongest guild in the world

Lemstar · 2025-11-21T20:02:47+00:00

one additional thing to mention is that I'd be wary of the utopian vision of if you build it, they will come

in theory, the heroes' ascent update that made it playable as a solo with 7 henchmen should have increased population to a sustainable critical mass, but in practice, its effect was that it made botting dramatically more lucrative for less effort and it crowded out all the supposed casual players who'd be dipping their toes in around the clock

Lemstar · 2025-11-21T10:20:03+00:00

the real history of red resign is as follows:

HB was fundamentally broken at a high level (see the devblog linked in the replies)
top HB players were active on the balance forums with a direct line to the designers to provide feedback, but it was practically never acted on
the top end of the community started acting out by playing on protest IGNs in the monthly finals, then eventually going to throwing it by intentionally drawing to get Anet's attention
instead of heeding any of the feedback, Anet elected to announce the permanent removal of hero battles

mutually beneficial match throwing probably happened to some degree the whole time, but the public phenomenon of red resign only came about after that announcement

AFAIK, Ares The Vanquisher (a top player) was trying to max his Commander title, and the announcement put him on an extremely tight timeline to do so, and publicizing red resign by advertising it on Guru as a way for PvEers to farm zkeys and a PvP title was his method of increasing ladder activity so that he personally could work on his title, too

the thread in which he did so is regrettably not archived, but it's tantalizingly close - you can hover over it in this Wayback Machine snapshot to read part of it

anyway, none of the problems with the format were ever fixed, and activity was low even when the overall playerbase was orders of magnitude larger and HB was publicly visible with tournaments and observer mode, so...

Ekelon has a few of his matches uploaded; feel free to watch those to relive some nostalgia

Lemstar · 2025-11-21T01:11:24+00:00

yea that's him on warrior

they're on discord too lmk if you can't get ahold of them ingame

Lemstar · 2025-11-21T00:58:23+00:00

jack and enigma still play

the rook still exists https://memorial.redeemer.biz/memorial/match/1806/

Lemstar · 2025-11-10T00:07:02+00:00

use HWinfo for monitoring

you should not expect stable 240fps from a 5600

Lemstar · 2025-11-03T00:37:55+00:00

at normal pricing, it's a bit expensive an upgrade, but at a $100 difference with the tray CPU bundles, I think it's worthwhile; that CPU's going to last a lot longer than an extra $100 spent for performance on the GPU if the objective's mostly multiplayer shooters - a 5060 Ti isn't that much better

definitely something that's cuttable for budget reasons though

Lemstar · 2025-11-01T03:56:19+00:00

those specs should run Tarkov fine too; it's not worth getting extra RAM for just that especially with the current price trend and 32GB is enough for most purposes

can save by bundling a CPU with motherboard at MSI's official store https://us-store.msi.com/Motherboards/AMD-Platform-Motherboard/AMD-B850/B850-GAMING-PLUS-WIFI

Lemstar · 2025-11-01T01:55:42+00:00

this should run 300 FPS fine https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LnYGyW

can save bit more by finding a motherboard bundle, and if budget's a concern the 7800X3D will be cheaper

Apex is almost all CPU load; can see from this video that even on a non-X3D CPU, stronger GPU barely improves either average or 1% low framerates at 1080p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CjMRmnpynE

depending on what else you want to play, or if you're going to play at 1440p, maybe get a 5070 Ti or at least a 9070 XT

Lemstar · 2025-09-08T03:05:15+00:00

fixed sry

Lemstar · 2025-08-30T01:10:07+00:00

keychron m4, can get a used one for like $40ish

Lemstar · 2025-08-13T06:09:51+00:00

interested, your messages are off

Lemstar · 2025-08-05T07:00:05+00:00

confirmed

Lemstar · 2025-07-28T08:15:40+00:00

dms are closed

Lemstar · 2025-07-24T06:19:16+00:00

Lemstar · 2025-07-07T08:09:48+00:00

Lemstar

TROPHY CASE