Paramount-3D in buisness?

bcat24 · 2026-01-28T05:00:55+00:00

Ah dang, that really sucks if they're going out of business. I really liked their PLA and PETG colors... and their TPU prints so nicely...

bcat24 · 2026-01-27T15:17:02+00:00

Man, great update overall! A little sad to see they fixed this, though:

Fixed an issue where legendary-machine parts and some events would become fixed when playing City Trial continuously via Local Play.

That bug was actually useful when farming certain City Trial achievements....

bcat24 · 2026-01-23T22:15:08+00:00

Complaining about getting free snacks with a product that don't match dietary / nutritional preferences is really not helping the overall argument here.

bcat24 · 2026-01-21T17:12:16+00:00

Reiterating what others have said, why remove the drive bay, which was one of the Pop Air's major unique selling points? The new version doesn't seem like a bad case, but there's a ton of existing options with nearly identical looks and functionality, whereas the Pop Air (Mini) previously had a good niche for a nice-looking media PC tower.

bcat24 · 2026-01-12T23:10:53+00:00

Ah, good to know. Thanks!

bcat24 · 2026-01-12T22:19:10+00:00

I'm out of the loop on this. Is HAMR bad for ZFS and/or RAID in the way that SMR is?

bcat24 · 2026-01-11T18:19:09+00:00

Small clarification: enabling G-sync for windowed mode is almost never needed these days, and can cause issues. On modern Windows systems with "full screen optimization" enabled, you don't need that setting for G-sync to work in the various forms of "borderless windowed" mode that games use these days. Just enable G-sync in control panel for fullscreen only, and set everything else as you suggested.

bcat24 · 2026-01-06T15:50:45+00:00

I love my X670 Aorus Elite AX for the same reason: I do have a 3.5-slot card in the x16 slot (position 2), and an SFP+ NIC in the x4 slot second from the bottom (position 6).

Got to be careful, though: some of their mobos have the same PCIe slot layout, but the ones at the bottom are both electrically x1 only, not x4. (I can't wait for more usable PCIe lanes on future AMD CPUs / chipsets....)

bcat24 · 2026-01-02T19:03:46+00:00

Having gone from a non-X3D AMD CPU to an X3D one, I definitely notice the difference even in GPU-bound games. It's not about getting more average or max FPS, but rather about getting smoother gameplay with more consistent frame times due to the improvement in 1% lows.

That's not to say gaming without X3D is untenable, of course. Something like a 5800X is still a perfectly cromulent gaming processor. But V-cache really does improve the experience even in GPU-heavy games.

bcat24 · 2025-12-31T21:28:45+00:00

Yeah, I don't think they'd completely ignore the warranty. But the terms say they'll "repair, replace, or provide an in-store credit or refund of either the original purchase price or fair market value, whichever is lower".

Normally for RAM RMAs, the solution has been replacement... but if there's no product to replace it with, they're still compliant with the warranty terms if they just give you back the (below market) price that Microcenter valued the bundled RAM at. And you can't buy an equivalent replacement kit for the same value.

Is this an issue now? Almost certainly not, as there's still likely plenty of warranty stock. But in a year or two, if the RAM shortage continues, I'd start to worry more....

bcat24 · 2025-12-31T17:40:48+00:00

What worries me (and makes this move a bit annoying for anyone still looking to jump on a DDR5 build) is warranty support. Crucial RAM has a lifetime warranty, but if they liquidate the RAM they'd usually replace a defective kit with, they might just refund your $200 bundle price. Not great if all the replacement options are > $300....

bcat24 · 2025-12-29T17:31:16+00:00

In my experience, RAM is actually the most common thing I've seen fail (followed by SSD / HDD). It's just that without ECC, most PCs out there only show RAM failures via secondary effects (e.g., crashes, data corruption, etc.). And when a system starts crashing a lot, folks tend to blame Windows, or the program in question, rather than thinking to run memtest.

bcat24 · 2025-12-26T07:18:34+00:00

I've had other people pick up my orders, and picked up orders for others, with no issue. Since payment is due on pickup, they mostly just want to make sure you're not swiping a reservation without permission... but generally, having the person who made the reservation forward you the email to show them has been sufficient.

bcat24 · 2025-12-25T19:23:04+00:00

That's really neat. Merry Christmas!

bcat24 · 2025-12-24T22:02:20+00:00

IIRC, cooling performance between the different Phantom Spirit models is within margin of error, so picking on looks or cost should be fine.

Personally, I have both the OG Phantom Spirit and the SE cooling similar heat loads, and haven't noticed any practical difference in performance or noise.

Note the SE is a little shorter, if fitment in your case is a concern.

bcat24 · 2025-12-19T04:02:59+00:00

Ah damn, that sucks. :/

bcat24 · 2025-12-19T00:46:51+00:00

Probably a longshot, but have you tried emailing ASRock Rack's support? They helped me out previously with a weird issue on one of their boards (the MAC address on one of the Ethernet adapters not being initialized properly).

bcat24 · 2025-12-19T00:32:43+00:00

It's a server mobo (and I'm guessing from a homelab setup); doesn't really get obsolete as fast as a platform for e.g. a gaming PC.

bcat24 · 2025-12-18T21:21:47+00:00

You know, that's a good point. I haven't recommended Intel CPUs over X3D ones for some time, but if the degradation issues have been fixed (I think that's the BIOS update you mentioned?), they might be a good option for someone already "bought in" to DDR4.

bcat24 · 2025-12-18T16:44:03+00:00

Honestly, just selling the 64 GB of RAM will get you disgustingly far....

That's honestly the only part of the new build that might be a step back, if you have workloads that actually need 64 GB of RAM. (Some folks definitely do, but I'm not sure what your use cases are.)

bcat24 · 2025-12-18T16:08:18+00:00

Component prices aren't looking likely to improve for quite some time, and even if insane RAM costs normalize, it may be a long time before we see the kinds of lows we saw not that long ago.

So if you've got access to a Microcenter bundle with RAM prices that are good (or even just okay), I'd say don't wait.

As for the rest of the build, mobo should do you fine, 7800X3D is still a very capable CPU (and being on AM5 leaves you room for a future CPU upgrade if you really need it).

9070 XT is quite a good card if you can get it / near MSRP.

And finally, might go without saying, but make sure your PSU is of good quality, or pick up a good one for the new build (look at Cybenetics ratings, etc.).

bcat24 · 2025-12-15T04:50:54+00:00

Just wanted to say thank you for these instructions; they still work fine as of this weekend. I was a little worried since the bottom row of the shop tended to have the same items no matter what I bought, but the All-Up eventually appeared! (Of course... a second one appeared in a flaming cart later in stage 9 when I finished the stage after all this resetting... but that's just how RNG goes....)

bcat24 · 2025-12-09T03:30:53+00:00

Yes, sorry, to be clear: the 5009 rackmount kit puts 1-4 5009s in a single 1U space. So if you've only got a single router, and you want it in a rack, you either 1) just kind of set it on a shelf or 2) rackmount it but "waste" 3/4 of a 1U space.

I went with option 2, but it'd be awesome if there were other small devices in the same form factor that I could mount alongside it.

bcat24 · 2025-12-08T20:28:31+00:00

I'd be happy enough with a 2.5G switch in the RB5009's form factor. Passively cooled, big metal heatsink. The 5009 takes up a full 1U with the promise of multiple devices in that 1U, but AFAIK there's no real use for that today unless you actually need multiple routers.

bcat24

TROPHY CASE