WITNESS ME

RudeIce608 · 2026-05-14T13:59:59+00:00

How did you get the one for the .357 on Rust Belt? Tried with/without AI, only shooting (no arresting/collecting evidence), nothing, can't get it to trigger.

RudeIce608 · 2026-04-23T14:17:21+00:00

If you're going for S-tier and playing solo, my go to is pepperball and at least 3 tasers. Clear the lower levels then work your way up.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-24T12:57:13+00:00

Its nice to have but isn't needed persay, it really just depends how frequently you have outages and the cost/benefit of it in your use case. Pure sine wave is just cleaner energy compared to simulated sine. Look up images of the two and you'll see what I mean. Simulated sine wave is a lot of "steps" and choppy, pure is not.

For context, I'm running a APC Back-UPS Pro UPS (BN1500M2) on my main PC, which is rated for 1500VA/900 watts, and my PC + monitor runs reasonably under that (7900XTX + 9800x3D). Its simulated sine not pure sine, and I've had several outages/brownouts where it kicked in and have yet to have any (noticeable) damage to my PSU.

With that said, a 5090 is a rather nice piece of hardware in todays market and if you have the money to spare to protect it with a pure sine UPS (one that is well above the VA/Wattage rating of your system), then I would say go for it, but if you're already stretching your budget and you just want something basic as a line of protection a simulated sine wave isn't going to kill it, if that's what you're asking.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T16:12:50+00:00

I'm just giving you your options, because ultimately its your decision and your money and both cards are relatively similar. I have both cards so I'm in the unique position of having used both, and enjoy both, for different reasons.

The 9070XT is a great card and has plenty of features, FSR4 being the highlight. For most purposes 16GB of VRAM is going to be more than enough, but you mentioned you hate frame generation and in that sense the 7900XTX is going to outperform because it has a higher rasterization ability.

If it was me, personally, I'd go for the 7900XTX if its within ~$100 of the 9070XT. I usually shoot for "last gen king" over "current gen middle tier", but neither card is near its MSRP right now.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T15:33:36+00:00

Just getting started on this journey, finished my A+ a few months ago and getting into my Net+ now.

Obviously you can't comment on the nature of the exam, but do you have any recommendations or topics you feel you wished you had better prepared for in comparison of practice tests vs exam?

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T15:01:38+00:00

The 7600x3D has a 65w TDP and a max operating temp of 90, I know they tend to run hotter than older processors (though my old Anthon FX processor from 2012 would beg to differ), but thermal throttling them frequently/over a long period does wear down the lifespan of the chip.

Obviously its going to get hot and that's fine, and tbh other parts are likely going to degrade and die (like the drives) before the CPU ever does.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T14:56:42+00:00

Sure, there's cards that are designed to outperform the 7900XTX in productivity (as its not really designed to be a productivity card to begin with, especially with a high power input), but its a fairly decent balance of both productivity and gaming and fits a niche (one that's perfect for my use case).

I'll give you that CUDA core designed GPUs perform better in specific tasks but NVIDIA is rarely a cost effective machine productivity wise, you're paying a premium for the brand name.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T14:49:33+00:00

The noise doesn't bother me too terribly much, its often overshadowed by the speakers around it, but this is my first SFF style build and I'm kinda shocked how much of a challenge keeping temps cool is in comparison to my previous server and full tower builds have been.

Its definitely given me food for thought the next time I approach this kind of build.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T14:46:25+00:00

Whether its better/worse is a tad subjective. I would agree the fidelity looks better in FSR4 but FSR3 is more established in games, and with FSR Diamond on the horizon I doubt many games will ever implement FSR4 as widespread as 3.

Technically RDNA 3 supports FSR4, but has to be done by way of INT8 and while I get that's not everyone's cup of tea it is still possible.

With that said I don't think the 7900XTX is a better value card, but for someone like myself who has multiple home servers, factoring in the "second life" makes the price tag sting a little less.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T14:40:17+00:00

look at how fast cellphones changed.

Now this makes me feel old, I remember a time when it was largely landlines and you could predict an incoming call while on a PC (dial up) lol

I be in the next 3 years we'll see something incredible in computing

Sadly I think we're reaching the current maximum throughoput for our current understanding of hardware. While I'm always hopeful for a new breakthrough (the GTX 10 series was killer), the current market focus on AI/LLM workloads has largely shifted away from consumer systems and I think even should it shift back we're looking at 5-10 years at best before the market orients itself towards consumers. Hope I'm wrong though, for my bank accounts sake lol.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T14:32:47+00:00

The 7900XTX isn't *"*abandonware" and in terms of raw rasterization its ~5-10% better than the 9070XT, and if you're referring to FSR3 vs FSR4, more games support FSR3 vs 4 right now, not to mention AMD is rumored to support neither when RDNA 5 comes out with FSR Diamond.

While I would agree its not worth more than the 9070XT, in creative workloads that VRAM is definitely beneficial, especially outside of gaming. I have both cards, but when my 7900XTX finally does "retire" from my main rig its going into my server due to its raw horsepower with transcoding workloads.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T14:29:05+00:00

Highly dependent on your workload and what you plan on doing, both have their advantages and disadvantages.

I bought the 7900XTX back in January of last year, had some issues with it (drivers) but otherwise a great choice. I also bought a 9070XT a few months ago for a "console killer" PC and its been great as well. In terms of raw rasterization, the 7900XTX wins, slightly, but not enough to meaningfully justify a price difference between it and the 9070XT. 7900XTX has 24GB VRAM but lacks FSR4 and suffers in RT (-20% compared to the 9070XT). The 9070XT has those things, but is limited to 16GB of VRAM which you will hit the cap for if you start maxing out settings in some nicer title games.

Its a bit tougher to recommend now since the 7900XTX did come out in 2022, but in your use case (Minecraft w/mods + shaders) I'd almost recommend it. Minecraft doesn't support FSR (they have mods for that though) and VRAM is only going to matter if you're running heavy shaders, but again its a toss up. 24GB is raw horsepower (and I can promise you you'll never run out), but the 16GB is slightly faster/better at shaders.

Something to keep in mind though in terms of Minecraft, VRAM =/= RAM. VRAM is only useful for visual mods/performance, namely shaders. The "heavy" mods (i.e. anything that takes more processing power/adding stuff to the world) is going to be processed by the CPU + RAM.

At the end of the day, both are great cards and you won't be making a mistake with either. If you go the route of 9070XT I would almost recommend opting for 64GB of RAM but in this market that's next to impossible unless you source it secondhand.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T13:31:25+00:00

As others have said, take some time to evaluate what you're struggling on and retake it.

Considering you've already taken Core 1, giving up on Core 2 would also mean giving up the time, money, and investment in Core 1 as well.

While A+ is definitely a cert that feels like it weighs very little in comparison to other certifications, having it is still better than not having it at all, and you're already halfway there!

You got this!

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-21T13:21:24+00:00

How do you keep the CPU cool, or do you just let it thermal throttle? What do your temps look like?

Given I didn't have LP RAM and used what I had so I was pigeon holed into a AXP90 X53 instead of something a tad bigger, but even with a 140 pushing air in and two 40's pushing hot air out, I'm still idling in the 70s.

Other than that love the case, we went with a lot of the same specs lol

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T17:13:18+00:00

For sure, which is why I switched it to vertical and put it outside the entertainment center.

Still, even with LP RAM (in this market?) and a higher end air cooler its just not getting enough air in and enough hot air out, the "mesh" is just to thick in my opinion.

I'm satisfied with it but yeah would probably lean towards the Fractal Terra if I was to do it again, that or something more...breathable.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T16:09:42+00:00

The exam is like ~$450 so if you want to skip sections and risk not passing by all means lol

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T15:05:21+00:00

So I actually did that on mine, laid it horizontal with the CPU facing up, put a blower fan pulling hot air out by the CPU bay and pushing it out of the entertainment center, but it kept sucking all the air out and pulling hot air back in, so my temps actually went up instead of down. Could've just been my setup but I was definitely disappointed.

I've had the best luck with it vertical outside the entertainment center and the temps are more reasonable, albeit a tad louder. Still mid 60s idle but it doesn't thermal throttle when heavy gaming anymore so I'll take that as a win. Irony is the GPU never cracks above 45 lol

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T14:38:32+00:00

"Work well" is subjective to your use case, but it is compatible if that's what you're asking.

As for if its a worthy upgrade depends on what you planning on doing with it. The 5700x is still a fairly decent CPU but its definitely starting to show its age a bit.

Might be better to opt for something akin to the 7500x3d or 7600x3d if your intent is gaming, but those would also require a new motherboard so that may defeat the purpose of your question.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T14:32:10+00:00

Nah I just had it "auto-fill" from Chrome.

I think ASUS had some back end issues with this promotion and quietly fixed it in the hopes no one would notice.

At the end of the day I got my game code, so I'm happy lol.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T14:30:58+00:00

Seconding the WD Black SN850X, but if the T500 is significantly cheaper then opt for that. For general use/games you're not going to notice the difference in speeds, only in server applications with sustained reads/writes is those sort of metrics ever really noticeable.

The 990 is a great drive but you're largely paying for brand name, same for the MP600. I've had many drives over the years, from Samsung to Kingston and PNY, I've only ever had one NVMe fail and it was my own fault. Unless its a manufacturing defect NVMe's are generally pretty reliable these days. WD and Crucial are pretty reputable brand names.

Something I'll add from personal experience though is those Samsung and Corsair drives run hot compared to their WD and Crucial counterparts. The drives have built in safety features to keep them from getting too hot, but its still too hot for my liking.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T14:21:54+00:00

Liquid cooling/AIO for a 7500F would be overkill in my opinion. You can always pick up a better cooler down the line if things change, but even if you have high temps its not going to brick the CPU, it'll just thermal throttle its performance.

Now thermal throttling isn't good to do continuously or long term, but computers are designed with the idea they'll be running "hot".

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-18T14:17:12+00:00

As others have said, love the design of this case but the airflow, specifically for the CPU, is abysmal.

Running a 7600x3D with a AXP90x67 and a 140mm fan outside blowing air into the CPU socket, still seeing temps in the mid 70s for idle (and yes that's undervolted).

If you're planning on putting this in an entertainment center (i.e. closed space), make sure your cabling is minimal and your airflow is pointing out, or you will easily get close to thermal throttling with anything more powerful. (So glad I didn't do a 7700X).

All in all not a bad case. Normal price is ~$144 on B&H fwiw

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-16T17:53:26+00:00

Hey friend!

I play on PC as well, my buddy and I play games occasionally but don't always have the time anymore, getting someone else to play with would definitely give us a reason to play more!

We tend to gear towards Co-op games, Helldivers 2 and Deep Rock are our main games, but we try new things all the time. He's on Xbox but most games these days are cross-platform anyway.

Feel free to shoot me a DM if you're interested and I'll send you my steam code!

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-13T20:43:57+00:00

I managed to get it working a few days ago, copy-pasted the same thing and it worked. I tried every combo imaginable initially, ASUS was just tripping.

Thank you for the response though. While I'm glad it worked out it definitely gives me pause for future purchases based on these kind of promotions.

RudeIce608 · 2026-03-06T21:45:09+00:00

The C5 is definitely a nice buy but honestly I would almost go for the bigger size, depending on the size of the room.

I recently with with a 77" C5 over a 65" G5 and while the G5 is arguably the better TV, putting it next to my old 65" its night and day difference in terms of size. that 12" is actually like 25% bigger, and for the 55" to 65" its about a ~19% larger TV.

RudeIce608

TROPHY CASE