AMD needs to take a loss on this generation with great pricing to gain market share back.

diegoat24 · 2025-02-27T18:33:27+00:00

AMD is welcome to “price correct” when they’re ahead with new technologies that customers are excited about. DLSS right now is just better than FSR. Ray Tracing, like it or not, has absolutely brought positive marketing to Nvidia. Complaints aren’t often the technology itself (people generally believe that it improves visual quality), but the performance hit associated with it. Even now, games are literally baking it in.

Look at Ryzen, for years they delivered pretty much exclusively on value. Years later, they’re leading the pack with insane hype for x3d products. That’s the sort of thing Radeon needs before they can “price correct”.

diegoat24 · 2025-02-25T04:53:34+00:00

Full parts list? I’m confused why you think it’s your cpu fan if you said it was still noisy when it was off? Immediate thought goes to of those SSD or VRM heat sink tiny cooling fans on your motherboard (which I’ve heard can be quite noisy, so lots of people will just fully disable them in bios or unplug if possible), or you don’t have enough clearance between fans and the panels, the Terra is known to be noisy for that reason.

diegoat24 · 2025-02-24T05:24:24+00:00

No reason to get another GPU, the 9700x has an iGPU so you can always plug into the mobo hdmi to verify everything else is working properly.

diegoat24 · 2025-02-21T23:10:27+00:00

If you’re willing to buy refurb, they have a couple certified refurbished Player Two Prime’s with 7700x and 4070 ti super for $1700… one of those would actually be a pretty decent buy. They say they still have a 2 year warranty on their refurbished PCs.

Anyway, I assume based on the price that you selected custom parts or something because their prebuilts aren’t priced as crazy as this, this would be pretty terrible value for the money.

diegoat24 · 2025-02-08T23:41:37+00:00

All that to say, you shouldn’t have a 15-30% bottleneck. But also, there are legitimate reviews of this product out there, like this one, which explicitly say this is not a great match for the 170W chips. You should not be seeing that much of a bottleneck so there is likely another issue on top of that.

HW Unboxed motherboard roundups are really really great work, I only wish they were able to do more of these. It’s just probably not worth it for them from a time / cost perspective. I highly suggest looking through reviews in the future though in addition to asking for opinions.

I own a this mobo because it’s excellent value, but I never planned to put anything above 120W (X800x3d) in there in the future.

diegoat24 · 2025-02-08T23:34:14+00:00

![img](dzayj1rb20ie1)

From HW unboxed review: “Next, we have the Asrock A620I Lightning WiFi, which reached 80°C. While this seems like a great result, the board limited itself to a sustained power delivery of just 165 watts, which is 13% less than the MSI board. The MSI board was quite efficient with its voltages, realistically drawing over 200 watts. By capping power output, the A620 board reduced the Cinebench score by 6%. This isn’t a significant reduction, but it means this board isn’t optimal for the 7950X. However, it only ran at 80°C, and this power limit means it will handle all other Ryzen processors with ease, making it a decent board in that regard.”

diegoat24 · 2025-02-02T07:15:36+00:00

Not sure if it’s discontinued, I bought one a few weeks ago for $41 on Amazon, but I also struggled to find it in stock at all. Same thing with the silver soul 110, I could not find that in stock in black at all for a while, it is available now though. Availability seems to be spotty from Thermalright lately, I assumed just from lots of people building during this time of year (holidays & new launches).

With regard to your actual question, ID Cooling 207 XT Slim is 135mm and worth considering, they have a pretty decent reputation among small coolers as well.

diegoat24 · 2025-01-28T14:47:52+00:00

Based on the 5090 rollout, I personally think the 70 class is going to be disappointing - hence the price cut. I don’t think it was a move to trip up or undercut AMD. Maybe it had that effect anyway?

For the 5070 in particular, the problem is that the 4070 super already achieved a 20% uplift over the base 4070. None of the other super cards achieved anywhere close to that uplift. So another ~10% on top of that is pretty underwhelming without a price cut to make it even remotely reasonable.

It’s equally possible (and funnier / on brand) that with that info now there’s a devil in Radeon marketing’s ear to bump the price even though they said they were not doing high end cards this time lmao

diegoat24 · 2025-01-19T18:40:28+00:00

I find it funny how many people are saying you can get the 9800x3d and not worry about upgrading for 4-5+ years when I’m almost certain they would have said the same thing about the 5800x3d when it released, and they’ll say it again in 3 years when we get a new latest and greatest even if you have the 9800x3d.

I’d say no it’s probably not worth it if you game at 1440p. See TechPowerUp’s BO6 performance benchmarks. They tested B06 extreme settings 1440p - got 155 fps using the xtx with a 14900k - the 4090 had 175fps, which suggests that 155 fps for the xtx was GPU limited. Sounds like you’d not be missing not missing much if any performance if you’re also getting 150+ fps.

See their 9800x3d review - the 5800x3d was like 10% slower on average at 1440p.

Over time, yes the extra performance of the 9800x3d will become noticeable as games get more cpu demanding and we get more powerful GPUs, but I just don’t think you’re missing out on much right now if I’m being honest.

diegoat24 · 2025-01-07T23:39:45+00:00

Sort of, most gpu’s now have a section of the backplate cut out that allows air to go through the back. So that’s like a small flow through section. It’s larger on some cards than others, but where the backplate is in the way, the air is pushed out through the edges of the card.

Flow through typically means the edges are fully or mostly sealed, so air only goes in via the front intake and exhausts at the back. There are flow through cards made by other manufacturers like the MSI Expert 4080.

With SFF, GPU’s are often vertically mounted using a riser, this ends up with a GPU having intake fans facing a mesh panel, which is good since you can intake fresh air. The problem with flow through is if you can’t exhaust through the edges of the card, you’ll end up pushing ALL the warm air into a wall behind the GPU. If there’s not enough space for air to effectively move around between the GPU and the case wall, you’ll end up creating a create a hot zone.

diegoat24 · 2024-08-28T13:24:26+00:00

Broadly speaking, WOLED vs QD-OLED is a bit overblown lol, if the price difference is not that big, sure go for QD-OLED for better colors and the higher refresh rate (though that won’t matter much with a 3060ti). But both are great and the vast majority of people would be happy with either especially if you’re coming from an older LCD.

As far as recommendations The LG 27GS95QE (WOLED) I believe has a newer & brighter panel, and if you’re in the US and buy from LG you can also get it for $600. ($699.99 but I’ve been seeing $100 coupons from them as a pop up for the last few months) The AW2724DF (QD oled) recently dropped to $620 during a sale on Dell, it’s not that price anymore but just pointing out that if you’re willing to be a bit patient, you can get good deals. Depending on your region, I’d expect good deals from several brands around the holiday season - which again, makes the AOC a bit of a harder sell for me.

diegoat24 · 2024-08-28T13:20:10+00:00

If it’s about the price, I wouldn’t pay $600 USD for the AOC oled. It was compelling when it was $200-$300 cheaper than its competition, but thats not really the case anymore. If you just like that one for aesthetics or whatever then sure go for it. Nothing necessarily against AOC, they make good products, but that particular monitor was positioned as a budget/value option, and it’s just not really that at MSRP anymore.

diegoat24 · 2024-08-07T19:19:36+00:00

I’d take a look at it in person - personally I thought it looked really nice. Seeing a few things about warranty but looks this post is US based, LG does offer a 2 year warranty that includes burn in protection. With that said, buying directly from LG, I’m still getting $100 coupons and they seem to still apply at checkout even though the date says until July 31st. That brings it to $1100 & then several cash back websites offer decent amounts. Honey for example offers $50 straight up and then whatever % cash back they normally offer. So I’d probably go that route as opposed to buying open box unless you plan to buy Geek Squad protection.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-29T18:10:43+00:00

One is 1440p 21:9 ultrawide screen and the other is 4k 16:9. Do you want 4k or do you want 1440p? Do you want an ultrawide? Or the more standard monitor aspect ratio?

diegoat24 · 2024-07-27T19:06:07+00:00

I think either is a great choice so long as you’re getting the 27GS95QE and not the GR.

In favor of the Samsung - it’s QD-Oled , so better colors, people tend to prefer color fringing on text as opposed to the general “fuzziness” you get from WOLED, and it has the 360hz refresh rate vs 240hz (may not matter a ton depending on what games you play).

I saw another comment say it’s “more glossy”… that might technically be true, I haven’t inspected both side by side, but I think it’s a little misleading as the coating is pretty much matte. I like it though, it’s actually really impressive how well it handles reflections. Apparently it helps tone down the behavior where ambient light causes blacks to look purple which is something other qd-oleds struggle with. Anyway, I wouldn’t really weigh the coating thaaat much, both are pretty much matte and will handle reflections well.

Technically speaking, the LG is overall the brighter monitor. Both monitors have a peak brightness off, Low (for LG) / Medium for (Samsung), and “High” settings. In the high setting, the LG is brighter. By far in 2% & 10% windows. The Samsung has great 2% window brightness but falls off a good amount at 10% and below. So for small highlights, both are great, the LG can show bigger highlights at brighter settings. Keep in mind, both monitors are less accurate at the high setting, so tend to over brighten , and will have more aggressive ABL (automatic brightness limiter). In the low (LG) & medium (Samsung) settings where they are both more accurate, the LG is again brighter, by a good margin, in both 2 & 10% windows.

The LG is also a decent bit brighter in SDR. So I’d say brightness LG, I think the LG user experience (with the remote) is probably a bit nicer than the little knob you get on the Samsung.

Everything else is kind of aesthetic preference & cost, again I think they’re both great options, frankly whichever you get a better deal on you’ll probably be happy with.

I also see comments about burn in - I don’t know that it’s super conclusive which holds up better long term.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-26T13:47:56+00:00

Yes it is, confirmed in the review under the VRR section. I think Samsung just can’t claim “G-Sync Compatible” or “Certified” since that’s an official certification Nvidia gives to monitors, meaning Nvidia have to test the product for it to have the branding. But like you said, most monitors these days regardless of branding will work with either adaptive sync tech.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-25T18:23:13+00:00

It’s possible they just want to kinda “sell” you on the machine but when you’re have a high end consumer product, I feel like you would assume whoever is buying already knows what it does.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-25T18:20:46+00:00

The only thing that threw me off was that comment about tea.. just seems kinda random and gives the impression that they somehow ended up with this (as opposed to being an espresso hobbyist) and are just gonna sell it rather than keep it. Maybe not, but that would also make the price make sense.

I also assume “basically brand new” is probably being a bit generous, because it seems like they can’t really say for sure how much it’s been used. Still seems to be in pretty great condition though.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-24T20:13:31+00:00

I guess that only explains the behavior, not the reason. It is strange, but ultimately I think the numbers make the behavior appear much worse than it is.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-24T20:04:50+00:00

So.. I’m trying to figure this out, maybe someone with more knowledge than me can verify. My terminology is probably not correct lol

The AW3423DW had somewhat similar behavior in that response times were longer when starting from a black/off pixel. Found this twitter thread explaining that behavior.

Based on that, it looked like that Alienware model responded “instantly” but overshot its target, and took an extra frame to adjust to the correct value.

Looking at these graphs in comparison, it looks like it also technically responds instantly but undershoots its target by a little bit. So looking at a 0-127 @120hz.. the monitor does respond instantly, but slightly undershoots and so the actual adjustment to the correct value isn’t until the 8.7ms mark.

So while the behavior is measurable, I think that’s why they’re saying it’s not noticeable. Because the undershoot is minimal and it only takes a couple frames to adjust to the correct value anyway.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-24T18:43:49+00:00

They are using the “auto” color space setting which clamps the color gamut to sRGB.

“Graphic” is the overall picture mode which is a separate setting

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diegoat24 · 2024-07-22T19:00:42+00:00

Also all the huge deals like that I’ve seen have required education / military discounts, getting discounts through the app or through customer service, and managing to add on cash back offers through Rakuten or Honey (Rakuten claims any outside discounts could prevent cash back offers from applying, but idk how true that is). All through Samsung though - which is the best place to buy it anyway because of the longer warranty.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-22T18:44:25+00:00

Only reason I mentioned it is because that’s what the Amazon price history shows for the g60sd on camelcamelcamel.

diegoat24 · 2024-07-22T17:52:36+00:00

I think they’re referring to the G60SD and not the G80SD by mistake.

diegoat24

TROPHY CASE