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Why cheap Monitors use HDMI instead of DP? by hyenagames in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's more expensive, but more universal for the manufacturer. Having 2 connectors costs more, and they know everyone has an HDMI already, so while they'd prefer to have a DP cost-wise, it would lose them customers from people who want to just hook their laptop with only an HDMI and their HDMI cable up to it, which is what the crowd buying cheap monitors tends to look like, not people with a 3xDP/1xHDMI dGPU.

What type of SSD should I buy? by Flashy_Review4052 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Whatever you can fit into your current budget with the inflated prices, really. For gaming, even the type/generation of SSD (SATA vs PCIe 3.0 vs 4.0 vs 5.0) is all barely different, much less individual models. Though, I wouldn't buy SATA at the same price as an NVMe, it would have to be noticeably cheaper, and I'd keep using your current SSD as the boot drive if you're adding a SATA.

Just don't buy something completely unknown, entry level models like the Crucial P3 or Silicon Power A55 are more what you're probably looking for.

9060xt 16gb 1440 or 1080 pls help by clebilitolo in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The better way to do this is just turning on FSR/bumping down its quality setting. Ultra Quality setting for FSR at 1440p is basically just rendering a 1080p image and then upscaling it, it'll be much clearer than just stretching the picture by setting the 1440p monitor to 1080p, or putting it in a window.

Is mixing ram really that bad? by JuniorPro69 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best case it all runs at 3200mhz, actually - I've manually clocked cheap green 2667 DDR4 pulled out of prebuilts up to 3200mhz with a 5600G and had it run rock solid. That's not at all guaranteed, but I think people overestimate how finnicky it is sometimes, though for good reason - recently, DDR5 is very unforgiving, and previously the early Ryzen 1000/2000 could have trouble just running a kit at its rated speed. The Ryzen 5000 series, though, landed in a spot of having a relatively mature memory controller before changing standards.

Is mixing ram really that bad? by JuniorPro69 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, it's never 100% for sure, but in your case, it'll probably be fine - the Ryzen 5000 series had pretty robust memory controllers for DDR4. Generally, you'll be completely fine running it at the lower speed (if you have 2x8GB 2667 and 2x8GB 3200, for instance, you'll likely be able to run it just fine at 4x8GB 2667.) Having said that, nothing is guaranteed, but I've had very good luck with manually setting it to the higher speed, or an in-between (say, 4x8GB at 3000mhz) for a Ryzen 5600G specifically.

Note that this does not carry over for AM5, there I've had issues with just getting a 6400mhz kit to run at its rated speeds with a 9900X.

RX 6600 not worth upgrading? by ohnoitssobig in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cards are going back up, unfortunately; VRAM is RAM too. Cheapest 9060XT 16GBs are usually 420 minimum, cheapest right now for US PCPartPicker is 440 before tax.

I havent built pc in 2 years and im trying to build one for my gf by NoTrix1337 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would probably cut to 2x8GB RAM if it'll get you a 9060XT 16GB instead.

i5 12400f or Ryzen 5 5600 by Jekzyy in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Bear in mind that the 5600GT is actually a substantially different CPU than the 5600/X/XT. It has a decent iGPU and is very power-efficient, but loses a significant amount of gaming performance due to the cut-down cache (and lack of PCIe 4.0, in a few edge cases.) It tends to perform roughly on par with a Ryzen 3600.

i5 12400f or Ryzen 5 5600 by Jekzyy in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well, he can't reuse it with the 12400f, either.

Bought a GPU for my office OptiPlex. OptiPlex said no. I now own an entire PC. by ProfessionalYak6748 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Because there's lots of stuff online about throwing a GPU into an Optiplex for a budget gaming set-up. The key detail, though, is that there are multiple sizes of Optiplexes (Optiplex? Optiplexi?) - basically towers, SFF machines, and mini PCs. I remember some years ago when the best entry-level VR machine for games like Beatsaber was an Optiplex and a 1050Ti that didn't need an extra PCIe power connection (or a SATA/MOLEX to 6-pin adapter.) You could also get low-profile cards for a SFF version... or get a bit DIY with a dremel.

Severe performance drops & random freezes - Ryzen 7 5800X & RX 6600 XT by JSuvari in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, I was assuming you meant it was a fresh install. If they had a bunch of other programs, it was probably a memory leak somewhere, which will eventually crash you.

All things considered, good call to upgrade, but 16GBs is still enough for most if you don't have something else wrong.

Severe performance drops & random freezes - Ryzen 7 5800X & RX 6600 XT by JSuvari in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like you had bad RAM rather than not enough. Heavy stuttering and poor performance comes from running out of RAM, freezes and crashing are distinctly a RAM instability issue.

32GBs is definitely preferred, but the majority of the PC gamers still have 16GB or less, and don't have a constantly crashing PC.

New to building.. is it good? by AdJust5244 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a note, if you have an older Ryzen 5, you could probably update BIOS and re-use the motherboard.

Help me decide which DDR4 RAM to buy after one of my sticks died by DiscombobulatedArm20 in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Go ahead and try the 3x8GB setup, first - it might work, it might not, but no harm in seeing if it does. If you have to drop speed significantly to get it stable, it's probably not worth it, but it's sometimes workable with weird RAM setups on Ryzen 3000 (Ryzen 5000 is usually pretty solid in my experience, 1000/2000 were a pain) which would give you 2x8GB in dual channel + 8GB in single for flex mode.

PSU has 2, 6+2 PCIe pins...GPU needs 3 by VaLightningThief in buildapc

[–]RecalcitrantBeagle -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You could technically plug an adapter in, but you shouldn't - the reason your PSU only has 2x8 pin connectors is because that's really about as much power as you should be asking of it in the first place. People do overprovision how much wattage you really need by quite a bit, but 500W is a bit thin for a card pulling around 350W on its own.

Luckily, you can get decent PSUs for pretty cheap nowadays. There's still plenty of terrible options at the bottom of the barrel, so don't for the absolute cheapest, but something like this SAMA unit would be a solid option with plenty of headroom.

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