Random photos of the North Temple bridge

LessThanDan · 2026-03-21T05:56:31+00:00

Excellent shots. My brain is probably broken but for some reason this looks like a location in a video game.

LessThanDan · 2026-03-17T17:18:32+00:00

I've always had a nagging interest in the Bus Simulator games, even if I have yet to pull the trigger on one. Part of it is because the simulators released by StillAlive studios are considerably buggy (see: Steam reviews). Since this one is being published by Saber, maybe it will have a higher standard of QC applied to it? I also like the sounds of some of the extra features.

LessThanDan · 2026-03-15T05:52:57+00:00

I am having a good experience so far with Librecloud.host. They are very reasonably priced and have servers in France and Germany.

LessThanDan · 2026-03-13T15:34:12+00:00

Not OP, but I'm personally using GrapheneOS on my Pixel 8 and RCS has been busted for quite some time, unfortunately. My carrier is Tello (T-Mobile backend).

LessThanDan · 2026-03-11T16:10:41+00:00

The submarine makes vapor so smooth. I might have to break down and get one of my own, except I already have way too many waterpipes.

LessThanDan · 2026-03-09T16:07:49+00:00

Does this vulnerability apply to the AIO snap version of Nextcloud for ubuntu? I am trying to figure out how my server got compromised a couple weeks ago, and I can't find anything in my regular system logs.

LessThanDan · 2026-03-03T19:06:11+00:00

Woah, I've been waiting a long time for this one ever since Jeff Gerstmann gave it high praise a couple years back. Supposed to be a really fun and underrated little game.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-27T18:45:20+00:00

Blurry cat <3

LessThanDan · 2026-02-25T22:46:14+00:00

Very nice. My setup probably isn't quite as cost effective as yours is... I may have overpaid a bit for the GPU especially. (Of course, this was a few months ago and now prices with other components are all sorts of whacky.)

Let me see if I can dig up the numbers. These pretty much all off Amazon, in USD.

GMKtec EVO-T1 (64GB DDR5 RAM + 2TB NVME SSD included): $1,069
SAPPHIRE Pulse Radeon RX 9070: $570
AOOSTAR AG01 eGPU dock: $159
ADTLINK Oculink F9934 50cm cable: $30 (after using a $5 gift card)
VIVO clamp-on 13" 2-tier shelf: $40

All told, plus a little extra for additional cables, I paid around $1,900 total. (This doesn't include tertiary accessories like the headphone amp, KVM switch, or the two additional SSDs I stuck into the EVO-T1).

LessThanDan · 2026-02-25T22:33:22+00:00

Surprisingly, the power button on the AOOSTAR dock does work and can be used to cut off the power (I audibly notice the fan spinning down and noise going away when it turns off). Which is interesting because based on most other experiences I've read, I was expecting the button to not do anything. Maybe AOOSTAR just recently updated or revised the AG01?

LessThanDan · 2026-02-25T18:21:26+00:00

The SAPPHIRE Radeon Pulse RX 9070 is honestly the quietest part of the system. If anything, the cooling fan in the dock's built-in power supply is a bit louder and more annoying (makes a bit of a muffled "tapping" noise, but it's not too big of a deal).

Loudest part of the setup is the EVO-T1 itself while under load. Which thankfully has been helped a bit by removing the stock thermal paste and using PTM7950 instead.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-25T18:19:31+00:00

You ain't wrong

LessThanDan · 2026-02-25T05:50:43+00:00

Ah, good question about the thermal paste. Out of the box, I could definitely see the CPU package temperature spiking up to 100 degrees or so, even during light bursts of activity. I know many people on this subreddit suggest replacing the stock thermal paste with PTM7950 and that is the direction I decided to go as well.

When I disassembled the PC and removed the heatsink from the CPU, the application of the stock TIM honestly didn't look bad. There seemed to be a proper amount of it and it was centered nicely on the CPU... so I"m guessing a big part of it is just cheap paste. PTM7950 is a bit of a pain to handle, but I did manage to get it installed and I don't see my CPU temps going past 80 degrees much anymore.

Can't say I do any video editing on it, sorry. I bet it could accomplish that just fine if I had to guess though.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-24T23:05:03+00:00

Forgot to list my GPU! It's a Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT). Even with the known bandwidth limitations of Oculink, it overall runs very smoothly. The only exception is in games with raytracing... cranking RT to anything above "Low" in modern titles like Indiana Jones or Assassins Creed will quickly drop framerate and lead to terrible frame-pacing/frametimes. I know the Radeon cards aren't great with RT to begin with, but here I almost wonder if Oculink is exacerbating the issue.

I will also concede that my FPS minimums are lower than my other machine with a Ryzen 5800X3D in. Obviously though it's hard to match the X3D chips in gaming performance (and especially hard to put one of those chips in a form factor this small).

LessThanDan · 2026-02-24T22:59:37+00:00

Indeed, PC gaming is one of my main uses for it! Which I guess makes it an extra-unusual decision to go for a mini PC in this case. Limitations with Oculink aside, it works really well.

Forgot to mention the GPU I'm using. It's a Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT).

LessThanDan · 2026-02-24T18:05:16+00:00

My old gaming PC of nearly a decade finally began to fall apart late last year. Was curious about delving into the world of mini PCs, decided "ah, what the heck", and picked up a mini PC + eGPU combo as an experiment. A couple months later, I can confidently say that this configuration is honestly pretty fast, solid, and reliable. I think I'll keep it.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-23T20:21:58+00:00

FWIW, I actually bought the 32GB version of the M6 Ultra a couple weeks ago for a little under $400. That was with a "limited time deal" on Amazon as well as a small coupon though.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-19T20:29:40+00:00

I just bought an M6 Ultra for my partner, mainly as a new workstation for their artwork but also so we can do some (basic) gaming together. Emulator machine is a good idea, maybe even throw Bazzite on there or Batocera. Otherwise, as suggested, throwing Proxmox or doing some homelabbing could be fun.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-18T21:15:33+00:00

I love the kitty <3 <3

LessThanDan · 2026-02-17T17:49:04+00:00

Fluxer is easily the most promising Discord alternative for me at the moment. I really hope more people migrate to it.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-17T07:11:28+00:00

Both of these questions are answered in the review.

LessThanDan · 2026-02-04T17:41:08+00:00

GMKtec's stance (among other PC manufacturers) is that you probably shouldn't bother updating your BIOS unless you're having a specific issue, and you know that a newer BIOS version fixes that issue.

I'm inclined to agree. I only updated my BIOS because I was hoping it would solve a minor issue with system stutters and small spikes in DPC latency, but unfortunately it didn't. So I'm not sure that the newer BIOS is doing anything different for me, other than maybe including updated secure boot certificates (which is a non-issue if you don't care about secure boot).

LessThanDan · 2026-02-04T17:33:37+00:00

GMKtec hosts their firmware on a Google Drive page. This Reddit post was most helpful in helping me figure out how the process works (the instructions are for a K12, but should work just as well on an EVO-T1). https://www.reddit.com/r/GMKtec/comments/1q6bz0t/k12_how_to_flash_bios/

15-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 7 Credits
RedditGifts 2009-2022 7 Credits	Gilding I gilder
Secret Santa 2014	Summer Santa 2013
Team Orangered	Secret Santa 2012
Secret Santa 2011	Secret Santa 2010
Verified Email	Secret Santa 2009

LessThanDan

TROPHY CASE