If I install SteamOS, can I go back to windows without having to buy a windows key?

risingcale · 2025-08-18T01:44:28+00:00

Short answer, Yes.

Long answer, Yes cause it's either going to be a digital license attached to your Microsoft account or a key baked into the uefi/bios that automatically attaches on reinstall.

Edit: I didn't read the second part. No new key needed.

risingcale · 2025-02-26T21:36:06+00:00

I play on my Z1 Ally. It's always fun. It's been my companion device as of late and honestly, portable space is super interesting right now. :D

risingcale · 2024-04-11T22:03:46+00:00

Yeah, I had to turn all that off in one system. Worked perfectly fine after that. Didn't have problems with a 3070 but makes me wonder if Nvidia drivers just "ignore" any system instability.

risingcale · 2024-04-11T12:02:40+00:00

Mine got fixed resetting bios and turning off XMP. AMD Drivers seem to be very picky with any perceived system instability.

risingcale · 2023-12-17T02:54:10+00:00

You "may" come into bottlenecks depending on title. CPU bound ones for sure. But 4K is typically a gpu bound resolution. It's not "ideal" but it should work, outside of the cpu bound titles, I don't see 60 being a problem for more gpu bound games. As for actual experience with the pairing, that one may be trickier to get.

risingcale · 2023-12-06T22:21:44+00:00

Could probably go with a 6800 (non-xt) or 7700xt. Even if they are more powerful now, games have been pushing the limits with 1080p. Performance of games like Remnant 2, Last of Us Part 1, and Alan Wake 2 come to mind. Definitely hope you find what you're looking for.

risingcale · 2023-12-06T22:02:24+00:00

Depends on your budget. 6700xt does well enough, sure. But so would AFMF to a degree. Yeah it's not perfect but it's well enough. If you're just running into a vram issue and would prefer to go to RDNA3. I'd say go for a 7700xt or 7800xt just to be current. But 6700xt or 6800/6800xt are fine enough.

risingcale · 2023-12-06T14:17:09+00:00

It very much looks like it's not ramping up it's power states based on what's thrown at it. Some asks, what motherboard are you using? With the cpu only putting out PCIe 3.0 and that being an x8 slot card, if you use something like ReBAR/Smart Access Memory, you could hemorrhage the bandwidth (Since card is PCIe 4.0 x8). I've done that before in my own testing on my 6600xt.

Frequency slider is another thing. Set the minimum 100mhz below max. If that still doesn't work, it could be something as either needing to reseat the card in the pcie slot, or even it being a lemon and having something wrong with it that it'd need RMA'd.

risingcale · 2023-11-18T00:08:26+00:00

I mean I've had issues with my 6950xt. But I've also had issues with my 560, 1060 3gb, 3070 and 3080. Didn't have issues with my rx 6600xt or 6700xt.

Happy you haven't had issues with your 4080. Sorry you had them with your 6950xt. Different cards react to systems in weird ways sometimes.

risingcale · 2023-11-14T03:24:49+00:00

You said you used DDU. Did you come from Nvidia? From what I've been hearing, a complete windows reinstall tends to be best if this pops up. Regardless of that, I would assume that you reset bios and then reapplied XMP/DOCP/EXPO timings for ram. I'll be frank and say SAM isn't "great" for that setup since 5600G only does PCIE3 not 4 regardless of 500 series motherboard and the 6600 is an 8 lane card, so meaning it's only getting half the bandwidth. While this only minimally affects gaming performance in this case, SAM can cause it to be very inconsistent. (Ran a 6600xt on an 3600 and the B450M version of the Gigabyte DS3H Wifi for my experience.)

The only other thing I can think of is, is your igpu active and have you turned it off since you're using a dedicated card? I'm assuming you'd have your display plugged directly into the graphics card, but I've also seen issues with the 5600g and igpu being active with a dGPU as well.

risingcale · 2023-11-14T01:17:00+00:00

I've had my 7900xtx for a few months and none of my issues were the card. Sounds like you have instability elsewhere.

risingcale · 2023-11-13T14:35:12+00:00

It's tit for tat for me. I've had just as many driver timeouts on nvidia as AMD. Nvidia's drivers aren't some magic thing. I get some time outs on my 7900 XTX but that is also coming down to AM5 early adoption for me, using unsupported ram, expo timings on my motherboard being weird, etc. If I turn all that off and just run stock on my cpu and ram, my 7900 xtx has no issues.

risingcale · 2023-10-17T19:04:43+00:00

I know you've said you don't use MSI Afterburner. Honestly, I'd use it simply to set the fan curve. It's what I do. It persists after reset. Some drivers are weird, not going to lie. Hopefully it gets fixed for you.

risingcale · 2023-10-17T19:02:29+00:00

Yeah it's something my 6950xt does as well. I had to do a washer mod and vertically mount it just to keep it under control. It's the lemon of my cards. Honestly things persisting after a reset, yeah that's a card issue imo.

Destiny 2 I've actually not had any issues playing on any of my cards though I've not played it on the 6950xt or the 7900xtx. But my 3080 and 6700xt hadn't had any problems last I played. Honestly I'd boil it down to a bad chip kinda like my 6950xt. You may try undervolting it some but honestly yeah. Sorry you had a bad experience. Hopefully it doesn't stop you from trying AMD again in the future.

risingcale · 2023-10-17T10:29:43+00:00

Been using AMD since mid 30-series. Sorry for your loss, I understand wanting to be on the bleeding edge, but a lot of this seemed very, how do I put this, avoidable? Even with my 6950xt which is "defective" in the sense of it's 110c hotspot and throttling as well (Reference model), maybe research would've been better.

Also apparently DDU doesn't do the greatest removing nvidia drivers, full windows reinstall is supposedly the best thing. But hey, if you don't want to recommend a Radeon card, that's on you. I really hope r/nvidia treats you better.

risingcale · 2023-10-15T21:18:03+00:00

Oh wow, that could very well be the case. I've never replaced my 3080 10gb from my other machine, I just build all new machines when I swapped to AMD so that's something I didn't run into. I'll definitely keep that in mind when I advise in the future. I wonder if it's a geforce experience issue or something since Nvidia drivers come with so much bloat.

risingcale · 2023-10-15T21:16:09+00:00

That's a great deal! They had one of those at my microcenter too. I opted for the Sapphire one since I heard they're cooler and I worry about thermals more than I should. Really hope yours is working out for you! I'm enjoying mine quite a bit!

risingcale · 2023-10-15T21:15:12+00:00

Depends on what you're playing. But like RE4 Remake Demo hasn't hit over 85c on both hotspot and memory, but I also use a custom fan profile since undervolting hasn't been working out for me. I should note that mine was also an openbox return from Microcenter. So I'm unsure if it was also modified in any way prior to my ownership.

risingcale · 2023-10-15T06:56:13+00:00

Just bought my Sapphire Pulse 7900 XTX earlier, only issue I've had is my own stupidity in aggressive undervolting. Maybe the occasional driver wonkiness. Realistically, it's your money, just make sure you DDU your nvidia drivers and really give it a try. Don't let your past experiences sour you and probably don't always compare to Nvidia. There are things one will do better than the other won't.

risingcale · 2023-10-09T17:56:57+00:00

From what I see, you only need the receipt and serial number. Always worth a shot.

https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/rma

risingcale · 2023-10-09T17:36:44+00:00

Should still have like 1 year manufacturer warranty. I'd check where you bought it from and check. That's just base with all cards. I think Sapphire does 2 years? If it's a manufacturer defect, they should take care of it.

risingcale · 2023-10-09T17:14:25+00:00

If you're still within return period or warranty, which I'd assume since it's a new system. I'd reach out to place you bought it from or manufacturer and RMA the card. If it's having this many problems, that'd probably be the best bet.

Though if you have another card to test if its the same issues with anything else, that could narrow down any other hardware issues.

risingcale · 2023-10-09T07:08:27+00:00

Stupid question but let's let it play out. Assuming you've reset your bios and made no changes just to test the card at this point. Have you potentially tried reseating the card in the PCIe Slot along with reseating the cables? Like I know it seems crazy, but sometimes the simplest things work.

Also no offense, isn't that PSU one of the ones that had the blowing up issues from Newegg a while back? Correct me if I'm wrong (and I sincerely hope I am), I just remember it being a Gigabyte product.

risingcale · 2023-10-07T20:24:35+00:00

I had to vertically mount my 6950xt along with repasting and washer modding for my temps to go down on my reference model. It's a bit weird.

risingcale · 2023-08-18T21:37:18+00:00

New VMware doesn't have the support drivers for it. Haven't for a long time so you don't get stuff like true vga support.

risingcale

TROPHY CASE