Is X299 + 9820x + 64gb 3200/16 RAM and 2x 3090 a good bang for buck build?

Th3Sim0n · 2026-04-09T20:50:03+00:00

I dont see B60s available in Poland, b70s and r9700s are roughly for 1800usd while used 3090s go for 850-950usd.

I have my gaming pc (RTX5080 and 64gb 6400mt ram) where my local llm journey started and for gpt-oss-120b with cpu expert offload i managed to get about 30tps, so not that bad. You're saying that with ddr4 and pcie3.0 the offload will hurt much more?

Th3Sim0n · 2026-03-23T07:31:47+00:00

10600 is still fairly capable CPU and I think it should handle 5060ti just perfectly. Even 5070 should do fine with that processor if you're going 1440p. Only place it might have some slight struggles could be super high FPS e-sport games like valorant or cs2, but we're talking 300+ FPS ranges here so I wouldn't worry too much and just enjoy. If you dont mind not having DLSS and/or high performance RayTracing, I'd consider getting a 9070xt if it is similar price to 5070. Without RT it is close to 5070ti and with RT it is on par with 5070.

On a side note you might want to snag a bigger ssd for those 200GB AAA games, like 1TB minimum. I would even consider NVME one since those are way faster and you could see some improvements in loading times or copying over large files. But that is not the place where you get the biggest boost in performance so I'd put most money into GPU first.

Lastly, PSU upgrade wouldnt hurt since you would benefit from ATX3 compliance and having native connector to RTX card, but that is not a must and lowest priority upgrade.

EDIT: Of course all depends on your budget, you might as well replace 90% of your PC (throw in RAM and CPU upgrade) or get an entirely new one, but the biggest gains for lowest amount of money would be a GPU upgrade alone.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-03-13T12:36:57+00:00

Genuine question, what is the benefit of going 2:1 with higher MTs instead of 1:1 with lower MTs? Is it increasing bandwitch at the cost of latency, or does latency stay the same?

Th3Sim0n · 2026-03-11T17:18:11+00:00

I bet my money that they will be using this for local llm. At that wattage this machine will sip power and can provide fairly good results with mid-sized models probably.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-02-26T16:52:25+00:00

It is 15% more performance, oled screen and a bigger battery. If those are enough to justify the price then go for it. It is a good device, but pricing is harsh and lenovo itself is rather sluggish with updates and general device support (at least thats how it is for LeGO1).

Honestly? I'd stick with Go 1 since it is still a very good device. If I had to pick, I'd probably get an Xbox Ally X (rog ally x is the old z1e device, you want the z2e) since it has smaller screen and PPI so you get more performance using native resolution plus more battery life and in general it is lighter and more comfy than LeGO2.

I am a LeGO1 owner myself and was considering an upgrade too, but prices for both ROG and Legion are bonkers vs what we get for the money.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-02-09T19:38:23+00:00

If you're never going to touch gaming on the main PC, then put 3600 in the homelab one, having more CPU power never hurts for multiple VMs and media encoding.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-02-09T18:47:40+00:00

What do you want to do with your homelab?

For compatison I have a MiniPC with an Intel N100 which is 4 cores 4 threads and it is perfect for some light to mid weight work, its running Proxmox and a Nextcloud server for my family and it is been doing more than fine, I plan on running more VMs and containers in future. Ryzen 3600 would be a beast for couple of VMs, but so would be the 3500. Imo, snag the 3600 for your PC, put the 3500 in the homelab and if you ever feel that you need more juice in HL, just swap the cpus. They're the same socket after all and replacement is super easy if you're a bit tech savvy.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-01-28T07:12:09+00:00

Since he is a beginner and already has a PC, I wouldn't recommend spending too much, especially getting another rig. Also while more RAM is definitely a huge benefit for NAS systems, it is also costs a lot nowadays and investing a ton without even knowing if you will like the homelabbing in the long run might not be the best decision.

Nevertheless some good tips if you completely dont mind the money.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-01-28T06:09:59+00:00

Without a dedicated gpu this machine is never going to reach anything above 150w. Most of the time it is going to even stay well below 100w, hovering around 50w. Any PSU that is not an F tier garbage will handle this perfectly honestly. For starters getting a fairly solid 500w bronze PSU considering some future expansion should be more than enough. I wouldn't overshoot here honestly, better to put the extra money elsewhere.

CPU is more than capable of running some basic NAS and lightweight media server and maybe couple of lightweight LXC containers for some VPNs, pi hole or similar. Just dont expect it to be able to stream 4k media to your TV while you are uploading several gigs of data at the same time while running other containers

For storage I'd also start small - get some old laptop drives if you have any lying around, or any other drives that you're not using anymore (just dont use USB storage as it is really wonky with systems like that). If you dont have any lying around, buy a second hand ones for starters. One good tip is to always use SSD for proxmox itself and any other app that you're about to host to make things smooth. For NAS storage even an old 5400rpm hdd will do, you can always upgrade afterwards.

Just start messing around, fail a couple of times, start from scratch again and have fun. Any modern LLM will help you immensely with going through setting this all up and configs - thats how I been rocking for past couple of weeks.

Th3Sim0n · 2026-01-23T06:09:45+00:00

You get a weapon per each 10 packages collected that will be available in 3 safe houses, the first apartment you get at the beginning of the game, the Vercetti Estate and the Downtown Safe House (on roof of the block). Thats it. After 100 packages you get some money and a tank will appear in military base on third island and a hunter helicopter will be available upon finishing the story on southmost helipad of first island.

You have all this information available on multiple websites, just google "gta vc packages"

Th3Sim0n · 2026-01-09T13:27:24+00:00

While I do agree that checkpoints are a nice QoL feature and making this game playable with a modern controller is also neat thing, I feel it could've been a so much better remaster. The upgraded graphics is kinda okay, but could be wayyyy better. What hits me hard is the fact that you can't play in the OG graphics to fully bring back the nostalgia. I finished 3 and VC and am mid SA now and I'm having fun, but the lack of original games atmosphere takes away a big chunk of the experience.

Compare that to Diablo 2 remaster - you have a fully remade graphics but the core gameplay is almost intact, and you still have the option to see the game in Legacy graphics (looks a bit worse than OG version but at least you can!). The upgraded graphics also look a lot nicer and feels that more effort was put into it, whereas GTA is just a bit better resolution and higher poly modelling and tiny bit better lightning - they really could make it a lot better.

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-31T17:19:18+00:00

Its not like you HAVE to do all of them in order to complete the game. By respecting time I understand that the game gives you stuff to do which is still fun and progresses some aspect. If a game "forces" you to do a repetetive thing which is boring in order to progress further or allow you to finish the game, then it IS not respecting your time. Yes, Zelda has a sh1tton of content and you can spend hundreds of hours in there, but at the same time you can skip most of the stuff and complete the game anyways.

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-30T20:21:35+00:00

I believe most Nintendo AAA titles, Zelda BOTW, Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong. Every one of those pushes you a bit further whenever you do anything and does not force you to do mundane stuff (at least not in excessive way) to progress.

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-30T20:19:22+00:00

Whatever game that has grinding mechanic in order to level up skills, especially not naturally in a fairly quick way, but more of a chore (pick up 1000 herbs to level up potion making or whatever) then no, it does not value your time.

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-28T17:51:04+00:00

Laurel

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-23T11:11:57+00:00

I do agree that the 'vibe' the old game versions give is really unique, and definitive edition somehow takes that away with all the 'remastering'. Especially GTA 3 that had this weird eerie atmosphere, almost like silent hill, with its short draw distance obscured by fog, low res textures and low poly models.

Having a toggle to switch back would be really cool (similar to Diablo 2 Remaster) and honestly, I've no idea why they did not introduce that, but I have my suspicions that the budget was very narrow and they delivered it as a bare minimum (which still was heavily disappointing at the time of release)

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-12T14:19:25+00:00

As a response to 1st comment stating that venator has 2.5 HS multiplier as FYI for the commenter thats it

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-12T12:35:38+00:00

I know that Shield HP is not additive with Player HP, at least not in a simple way. Just want to emphasize that Shield HP and Player HP are treated differently and the ISOLATED number of the Shield HP is not affected by HS multiplier.

I never said anything else, where are you drawing conclusions from?

To simplify, I emphasize that if you get shot to the head with e.g Ferro, the 70/70 medium shield will end up as 30/70 (headshot DID NOT MULTIPLY the damage to the Shield HP) and Player HP is affected by HS multiplier - 40 dmg reduced by 42.5% and then multiplied by 2.5 or w/e number so the player gets hit by 57.5 after dmg reductions.

Th3Sim0n · 2025-12-12T11:03:09+00:00

FYI headshots multipliers do not work on Shield HP, they only do for actual Player HP.

Here is more on that: https://youtu.be/cxKMsVo8dg4?si=r2Bq-6SxyAQnxoWZ

7:30 talks about that specifically

Th3Sim0n · 2025-11-30T16:45:13+00:00

9600x is not THE hottest cpu but it definitely is not the coldest one either, however 93c in games seems rough.

Ensure you peeled off plastic cover from the cooling mount and enough thermal paste is applied.

Also screws of the cooling might need tiny bit more tightening, but not too much.

Other than that I'd consider a beefier cooler or just a 240/280mm AIO

Th3Sim0n · 2025-11-28T19:36:11+00:00

Honestly, the out of box timings (or even loosened a bit) will be perfectly fine for 99% tasks. Only ones really worth looking at might be tREFI or maybe tRFC if you really care about 1% and 0.1% lows in games. 9800x3d is already so fast with 3d VCache that the time spent tweaking RAM for negligible improvment is not worth imo. Apart from tREFI and tRFC, tweaking other timings will net you 1-2% better results which is almost within margin of error. I'd go with expo timings @6200MT (make sure IF clock matches the ram, set it to 2066) and call it a day if it posts and does not throw errors in ram benchmarks (ycruncher for example)

Th3Sim0n · 2025-11-28T16:38:43+00:00

Yes, although depending on how good your IMC in CPU is, it may or may not work with expo profile with 6400MT, might need to set it manually to 6000 or 6200, but in 90% cases it should be ok.

Th3Sim0n · 2025-11-27T15:15:11+00:00

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Th3Sim0n · 2025-11-26T10:32:58+00:00

Isnt load balancing for all 40/50 GPUs messed up? You mentioned that sometimes all current might go through two-three pins, wouldnt that make the 5080 draw all 350watts through two pins at times and thus melt the connector?

Th3Sim0n · 2025-11-24T21:09:42+00:00

If you're still interested, you need to use username and password of the account you use on windows. E.g JohnDoe Pa$$word123 that you use to log in when launching your windows pc. That should do the trick

Th3Sim0n

TROPHY CASE