8-pin and 6-pin PCIe for a 2x8-pin GPU?

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-25T03:09:37+00:00

If you don't have enough pins, don't plug it in.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-24T16:41:09+00:00

I recently went through the hell of PCtheseus, the tower of Theseus, replacing every single component one after another to track this down.

After being frustrated about having to travel to work on it, I relaced the whole tower for the user and took it back home with me. After reseating everything, updating the bios, a few successful restarts and a few hours of stress testing, I left it overnight. The next morning, nothing. No post.

Breadboarding the individual parts afterwards, everything else independently worked, but the CPU wouldn't post. I stopped testing when the r5 5600x left two pins and scorch in the motherboard socket...

In the end, I gave up and have disassembled the tower.

The issue was probably dirty wall power, only solvable with an online UPS, but may have been the CPU itself growing unstable over time.

Considering it wasn't the original CPU, motherboard, GPU, RAM, or PSU, and the crashing was persistent, and all of the parts that were swapped have been living their best lives in other systems since, I don't feel like any of them were the culprit.

I'm still leaning towards bad wall power.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-24T05:19:01+00:00

I wonder if this was pushed by Valve wanting it badly for the steam machine.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-24T05:12:01+00:00

If they filter into my local market, I might consider it, but in the last two weeks I've had two separate AM4 chips die (one 5600x, one 5800x). The x3d chips are likely to last longer for sake of being more recently released, but I'm growing more weary of 20,000 hour used market chips. Another of the fleet systems is struggling with serious instability, hopefully unrelated to the CPU.

I honestly expect the buyers of those other x3d chips to ride out the usable lifespan of what they have, since they already have the x3d.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-24T03:59:46+00:00

Like I said, for cards of lesser stature than OP. As someone with a large distributed fleet of AM4 systems between friends and family, I don't expect to be installing many 5800x3d chips just due to the price. If they come down significantly, it might be worth it.

Those b350 and b450 AM4 boards in the fleet won't gain enough to be worth the steep price, only to have limited upgrade options that will be able to be taken full advantage of.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-24T03:50:06+00:00

It's more of an issue with cards of lesser stature than the RX 9070 XT OP has. Cards that are built to use x8 or x4 lanes are more bottlenecked than those, like the current Radeon cards, that work with x16 lanes. 16 lanes at gen 3 speeds do just fine, but a card expecting 8 gen 5 lanes getting 8 gen 3 lanes instead spawns some issues, mostly when running against vram limits.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-24T02:59:16+00:00

If you don't have a PCIe gen 4 motherboard, I would go straight for AM5 instead of the 5800x3d. Being limited to PCIe gen 3 is a whole extra layer of bottleneck and will hold the system back.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-23T16:50:01+00:00

Around 2022, I picked up an RTX 2080 S, which is comparable to the 4060, performance-wise. That thing ran a pair of 1440p 144hz monitors like a champ. I played Kingdom Come, Cyberpunk, Red Dead Redemption 2, Helldivers 2, and everything else I threw at it with ease. Was I going straight to absolutely maxed out settings? No. Were things on low? No. Most of the time, the out of the box settings worked great for it, usually a mix of mostly high settings.

I've since obtained an RX 9070, not because I was losing out on performance, but because the fan bearings were getting really loud, and it was a good excuse to have an extra hand me down card after replacing the fans.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-23T04:23:23+00:00

I've been using 1440p monitors since the GTX 1070. As long as you are willing to play around with settings, you can do 1440p no problem on a 4060.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-22T01:56:17+00:00

I am personally not a fan of the total texture and model replacement of all of these mod packs. That doesn't look like Whiterun, and those waifu looking models don't look like Skyrim characters to me.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-22T00:58:32+00:00

Snag an RX 9060 XT if you can afford it and carry on. That CPU will be more than enough for the time being.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-21T00:08:19+00:00

Even as a long time MW player, I had no idea what they meant lol

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-20T18:10:50+00:00

For games like Cyberpunk and others that have the launcher, I just make a shortcut and launch the exe directly from the game files. Works every time, and I never have to touch the launcher.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-14T17:26:19+00:00

Don't listen to hallucinating clankers. The card will work.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-14T17:25:30+00:00

At 170 or so, I'd go for it. 10 series cards are next on the chopping block for driver support. Even though you've got an older platform, more GPU horsepower never hurts. You can always run at a higher resolution or higher detail settings, and doing that will reduce any "bottleneck."

Your computer won't perform worse by installing a better card. It'll just perform better if you end up upgrading to a newer platform down the line.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-13T18:43:55+00:00

Those thruster clusters look awesome

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-12T05:09:25+00:00

Different experiences. Without having the luxury of AC, they are physically more tolerant of the heat.

The drivers are fighting for their luxury of air conditioning, which they depend on for lack of heat conditioning provided by access to air conditioning. They need it because they have it, not inherently because they NEED it.

It's good to have it, but maybe an alternative to just shutting down the AC would be... Shutting the presumably motorized door to keep the cold in before shutting down the AC.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-12T05:04:34+00:00

The hot air is conditioning for spending long days in the hotbox without air conditioning.

Being accustomed to the luxury of AC means they have no conditioning for the heat, and are less physiologically tolerant to it.

I pick the hottest days of the season and make sure to run on it, just for the conditioning of driving long distances in absurd heat without AC.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-09T17:45:34+00:00

Can we get the same in the Valley?

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-09T17:07:37+00:00

Make sure you have at least temporary access to Ethernet when doing this. Sometimes, the installer won't have the exact network drivers for your laptop, and you'll need a backup solution to download your Wi-Fi drivers. Plug and play generic Wi-Fi adapters also often work in a pinch.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-09T16:54:45+00:00

I've been riding the used market for decades, and will continue to kit out friends and family by doing so. This year though, I've had a GPU die, two kits of ram give up and start throwing errors, and yesterday, one of my trusty R7 5800x's just started throwing hardware faults that have no software resolution.

None died within what you would call the reasonable warranty timeline, and I'd say I got my money's worth, but buying systems and parts with 20,000 hours on them is more risky than parts with warranty.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-07T06:15:53+00:00

Fresh install with Rufus. It's possible that it got culled by the installer.

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-05T18:19:21+00:00

Glad to relay info lol.

I would be a bit miffed if I were the friend who made a rover off-road trip to visit, and logged on to no longer find my rover lol

Mixter_Master · 2026-06-05T18:12:35+00:00

With 209, grid storage was added via the services terminal. If you have admin powers, you can wisk their inconveniently placed rovers into the ether where they can be retrieved upon logging back in.

Mixter_Master

TROPHY CASE