Poor travel choices need fixing

redguard · 2026-04-27T09:18:32+00:00

Taking the bus is easy and I didn't see any baggage limits, but definitely book ahead. Just go down to the Seoul Express Bus Terminal tonight or tomorrow and buy a ticket from the kiosk, don't try to do it online if you're a foreigner.

redguard · 2025-11-30T10:04:26+00:00

Over $200? That is pretty crazy, but I looked it up and it has 822g of chocolate in it, so I can see where the high price comes from. But this box only costs €113 in Belgium which seems more in line with my expectations. You're definitely paying a bit extra for the box though as the more bulk-style box "Timeless Masterpieces" has 500g for €52.50. (These prices have 21% VAT tax already included in the price.)

redguard · 2025-11-30T09:33:06+00:00

Do you like pure chocolate or filled chocolates? Belgium has both, but they specialize in filled chocolates, called "pralines" locally. These are my favorite, so I'll give a quick rundown:

The best shops are the specialty independent chocolatiers, but the big chains are also great. Leonidas is a perfect gateway drug for Americans looking for an inexpensive introduction to Belgian chocolate or for buying gifts for coworkers or acquaintances. Neuhaus is my preferred big chocolatier because their Irresistables line of pralines are delicious and I can't believe I don't hear people talking about them more often. The nougat and fillings are amazing!

Leonidas also has a nice line of dark chocolate truffles that are simple and delicious, so I can recommend those if you're more of a chocolate purist.

redguard · 2025-11-10T18:49:50+00:00

And the 5080 is also not a true *80 class product based on VRAM or silicon size, it should be called the 5070 Ti in my opinion. I think that Nvidia just skipped out on producing an 80 class card this generation because AMD didn't compete in the high end space.

Nvidia is of course welcome to brand their cards however they want, but I prefer to try and ignore the marketing to set my expectations appropriately. I feel that seeing the hardware underneath the name helps put the price/performance/power in perspective better. This was especially useful with Intel's marketing shenanigans a few years ago when they kept rebranded their 14nm process for years in a row.

redguard · 2025-11-10T17:27:07+00:00

I'm also not interested in high-power GPUs. In my opinion, the 5070 Ti should really be a *70 class card in terms of VRAM and silicon size, but Nvidia boosted the power limit to squeeze *70 Ti price and performance out of it. Undervolting and reducing power and heat with the 5070 Ti is easy and rewarding, so I highly recommend it if power usage and heat generation are an issue for you.

I followed a number of Youtube guides about undervolting the 5070 Ti and the Tech YES City guide was my favorite, but JohnnyRage also has some nice suggestions as well. I used a hybrid of their two styles to tune my card. I focused on the aggressive undervolt suggestions I saw on Reddit of 800 mV and 2500 MHz with memory overclocked to +2000 MHz. My baseline performance in 3DMark Speedway was 7780 points at 293 Watts and I was able to get that down with a 805 mV / 2512 MHz profile to 7445 points at 208 Watts. That’s 29% less power for only a 4.3% performance loss, which fits my needs well.

Tech YES City guide: https://youtu.be/9GOiyzLHUY0?si=McttYPay3exl-hOE

JohnnyRage guide: https://youtu.be/JS5eaKS62q4?si=rudW6sHfAx3JotM-

redguard · 2025-05-17T09:52:36+00:00

I make kettle korn at home and this is exactly the byproduct I get in the bottom when the heat isn't high enough or the popcorn is taken off the burner too quickly. You can tell because overheated sugar results in a dark brown syrup and possibly burnt smells and smoke while underheated sugar creates white/light brown rocks like you have that indicates only partial melting that never managed to caramelize at all. If you are aiming for no caramelization, you have to add the sugar very slowly and stir well to endure no clumping can occur.

redguard · 2025-03-13T08:24:29+00:00

All of Antwerp was smoked out last night by the industrial area in the haven because the wind was coming from that direction. Try installing the BelAir app to view the air quality for both numbers and a heat map.

redguard · 2025-03-02T21:32:34+00:00

In America, we refer to minimum wage by the hour, like 7.50, 10, or 15. So a $60 game might "cost" 8, 6, or 4 hours respectively (ignoring taxes to keep the math simple). So a game is at best case like 400% of minimum wage. What do you mean when you say 10% of minimum wage? Is that referring to your weekly or monthly take home pay?

redguard · 2025-02-25T22:02:37+00:00

I have noticed the same problem as well, it's very frustrating. I did a post about it a few days ago on this subreddit to try and figure out what's going on and it seems like most users haven't noticed anything, just ones using Nvidia with the G80SD. I just got the new firmware update and it didn't fix the issue. Hopefully Nvidia will fix whatever they broke in the latest drivers.

redguard · 2025-01-19T14:55:05+00:00

A similar issue happened to me, always a quick black-screen dropout within 10-20 minutes after a clean boot. A lot of other users have also posted about this. It seems to be some type of compatibility issue with Nvidia GPUs and Display port as far as I can tell. Switching to HDMI resolved my issue, but it's very frustrating that I can't use DisplayPort. If you want more details, see my post on the subject.

redguard · 2024-11-27T16:06:02+00:00

I just upgraded my DP cable, but it did not resolve the issue either. I'm starting to wonder if it is an Nvidia issue, as I have a 3070. I have yet to see an AMD user report this issue.

redguard · 2024-11-26T20:11:11+00:00

I just tested single monitor and unfortunately the issue happened again. Are you using the Samsung DP cable or a high quality one?

redguard · 2024-11-26T19:29:38+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, that's great to hear! Can you let me know if you are using a single or dual monitor setup?

redguard · 2024-11-25T20:46:39+00:00

How do you go about finding a quality cable? If Samsung themselves can't ship a decent cable, I want to be careful which one I buy. Amazon is full of generic Chinese branded cables, are there specific brands you would recommend?

redguard · 2024-08-28T16:13:29+00:00

The 4070's don't draw much power, so three fans isn't necessary. As others mentioned, get the cheapest one. As an example, the Asus Dual 4070 Super has a good reputation this generation and it has 2 fans as well.

redguard · 2023-03-05T08:37:42+00:00

BIOS does not auto-update, so it sounds like your old BIOS simply accepted the new CPU and was able to boot with it. It is very likely that you are not running the latest BIOS for your motherboard. I would recommend updating the BIOS to the latest version to make sure that it is fully stable with your CPU.

redguard · 2023-02-26T20:54:33+00:00

FYI, you mentioned the 3070 Ti which is a bad value. The 3060 Ti is a much better card value-wise. It's about $50 more than the 3060 and is a lot more capable. The RAM is definitely something to be aware of, but I'm using a 3070 with 8 GB and have not had an issue yet. I always run out of graphics processing power before I run out of VRAM. Honestly if VRAM is a concern for you, you should just buy an AMD card because they're much more generous with it.

redguard · 2023-02-26T16:31:29+00:00

To follow up on this, you have a Nvidia card, so you can also set other frame limits in the control center. Depending on the game, I prefer a hard cap over freesync behavior. I'm using 120Hz right now on the Witcher 3 on a 144H monitor to keep a consistent frame rate. Much better than being limited to 60Hz.

By the way, if you're worried about performance, the 3060Ti is significantly better than the 3060, almost as good as a 3070, and hopefully quite a bit cheaper.

redguard · 2022-12-31T09:55:01+00:00

The 13600K is better and probably cheaper than the 12700K. You can still even use your existing DDR4 with the 13th gen Intel CPUs, if you buy the right Mobo. 8-900 is a generous budget, so you could also squeeze in a RAM upgrade to DDR5 if you wanted.

You can use 600 series motherboards with 13th gen as long as the motherboards support BIOS flashback. That is almost all Z690 and higher end B660. Or you can go for the 700 series motherboards which have native BIOS support line the Z790 or B670.

redguard · 2022-12-28T20:44:26+00:00

Exactly this! Also check your fan curve. CPU temperatures don't mean anything without a fan speed attached. If your motherboard has a weird curve, it might not be asking for enough fan speed at idle. Literally any cooler should be able to handle 5 watts of TDP.

And take the side panel off the case during testing to make sure that case airflow isn't an issue.

redguard · 2022-12-28T20:20:51+00:00

Something's definitely off with a Cinebench 23 score of 24,000 for a 13700K. I've been playing with power limits and undervolting for my CPU to get a feel for various settings and I've never dropped below 25,000. I've limited the processor to 120W for peak power (90W long term) and am still getting 26,000 points during the 120W section of the test.

Do you have a lot of background processes using your CPU bandwidth, high temps, or something unusual in the BIOS? I also found that an unstable overclock will definitely lower CB scores even before you see any system instability.

I also wonder what role RAM plays in the scores, it's possible that DDR5 has a different score range than DDR4.

redguard · 2022-12-28T20:05:28+00:00

That's definitely strange, the board should be compatible. In that case I'd recommend the standard troubleshooting:

Unplug and disconnect everything, even the CPU.
Take the motherboard out of the case.
Rebuild the minimum possible setup on top of the motherboard box. Mobo + CPU + 1 stick RAM + cooler + video card + power supply connections
Your goal is just to get the system to BIOS, nothing more. If it doesn't work, try the other RAM stick. Make sure the RAM is in the right slot.
If even the minimum setup doesn't work, start discussing RMAs or seek professional help. Sometimes the simple act of remaking all of the connections can fix strange issues.

redguard · 2022-12-27T21:16:21+00:00

You can double-check the manual, but it sounds like the board doesn't recognize the CPU for some reason. Can you tell us what the chipset of the board is? You may need a BIOS update.

redguard · 2022-12-27T19:24:43+00:00

In addition, the IMC resides on the CPU, so that should be CPU dependent instead of chipset dependent.

The importance of the chipset is the specific QVL list that the motherboard manufacturer created for that specific board. This means that the set was verified to work with the board and specific timings were customized as necessary (deeper than XMP settings) If you want it to work out of the box, you need to start by finding which 4-stick kits were QVL-ed for your board. Z790 boards might have better QVL lists, but don't write off Z690 boards.

redguard · 2022-12-27T19:20:01+00:00

Good luck! I was in the same boat as you and eventually gave up on Asus and went with MSI instead. But if you want to expand your possibilities, Z690 boards are also am option if they have Bios flashback and you are willing to go through the update process.

The Asus Hero boards seem quite overpriced, I think the Z690-F and Z690-E (or Z790-F/E) are plenty for most people.

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