(PCGT VI) It's not just about hardware

Would you recommend PCIE 4.0 over 3.0? Most of the stuff I’ve read is that gains are marginal for the GPU, and you are better of buying a better GPU?

As for RAM, the board won’t be limited to 2666MHz. I’ve never quite understood why but all boards and RAM come with a stock setting that is far less than what it says on the tin. So you go into the bios and enable ‘XMP’ which effectively raises the speed to what you bought. It’s one click. It’s perfectly safe, and gives you what you paid for.

Not really, I would probably got for a nice B550 board to be honest as long as the board has the IO I need. Yo need to looks ate the IO especially if you use a lot of USB connected items.

DDR is double data rate so ram 1800Mhz x 2 = 3600Mhz.

Buildzoid does a nice breakdown of the better boards out there.

Yeah nice. So the 2666Mhz actually allows you to put 5300Mhz Ram in, which is nuts...

I meant to say, the guys over at Hot uk deals regularly find the best deals on PCs and do loads of options for customisation with a view to whether these are good value. They also pitch palicomp against AWD for cheapest prices, so there are some great posts about what to get.

They sometimes get other suppliers in, CCL and others, but they tend to be less aggressive with price matching palicomp and AWD. Never used palicomp, but loads have.

Cool, thanks Xeno. Feel more confident going for a B550 if the trade off is just sacrificing the absolute fastest possible internal bandwidth, for a cheaper or more feature rich set board.

Guess M.2 worries can wait until I next look at upgrading storage. Even the most sparse boards seem to have room for one without blocking off anything else significant.

I've also convinced myself to just bite the bullet on a 5600x, rather than sit and hope that a non x variant turns up at a lower price.

Feliz Knoyvidad wrote:Cool, thanks Xeno. Feel more confident going for a B550 if the trade off is just sacrificing the absolute fastest possible internal bandwidth, for a cheaper or more feature rich set board.

Guess M.2 worries can wait until I next look at upgrading storage. Even the most sparse boards seem to have room for one without blocking off anything else significant.

I've also convinced myself to just bite the bullet on a 5600x, rather than sit and hope that a non x variant turns up at a lower price.

I don’t think there is necessarily a problem with ‘blocking’ although getting your fingers into tighten the screw is a pain. I tried to install one with the mobo in the case and without taking the GPU out, and any mild shake translates to a big movement when trying to tighten the screw.

With a drive in the m.2 slot it tends to disable a group of sata ports (on my b450 it’s 2 ports grouped together (ports 5 and 6)). But there are 4 other ports to use. I think it’s a bandwidth thing.

Zen 3 and 5600x is a good choice.

Wondering if anybody on here plays PC games exclusively on a TV rather than a monitor? I currently have both set up but considering ditching the monitor as I find I'm using it less and less frequently. Opinions would be appreciated!

I use a TV and I'm really looking forward to having a monitor again when I every get around to moving house. Being further away from the screen has obvious drawbacks, and I miss using keyboard and mouse for certain games - which I find awkward when I'm reclining on my bed, so I just use a controller. Also I swear the screen I'm using isn't 1080p even though it says it is - but it is quite old.

I haven't owned a tv in well over a decade now, everything I watch is on my monitor. I do have a work colleague who plays everything on a 4k TV and he loves it. He is also PC exclusive as well.

I think if I had the cash I’d be tempted to go 4k and 120hz. But that with HDMI 2.1 isn’t cheap. Until then, 1440p at 144hz at my desk is better than my 1080p tv.

I prefer frame rate to graphics quality since going for 144hz.

Appreciate the responses, I definitely enjoy having the higher refresh rate for certain games - especially fps games and although my keyboard/mouse are wireless I'm still not sure I'd get the same comfort using them from a sofa. I would still like the option to be able to sit close to the screen but I feel like a 43" screen is too large for extensive use at a desk.

Perhaps the better option might be to replace both with a 32" monitor, which is a nice middle ground between the two Just need a monitor which ticks all the right boxes - 4K, HDMI 2.1, 120hz, Not an obscene price - which might take a while!

5600x, mobo, and RAM all arriving later today! :msgreen:

Feliz Knoyvidad wrote:5600x, mobo, and RAM all arriving later today!

Happy new year!! What GPU you going with?

Anyone got any ideas on safe fixed voltages for 3600x? Internet is all over the place. At stock with PBO on I found the spikes on single cores drive massive temperature spikes on the stock cooler. I found I got better temps (and performance) with all cores at 4.2Ghz (max boost clock is 4.4) and using 1.2-1.25v. I’ve bumped the voltage to 1.3v and I get stable all core 4.3Ghz which is great performance, but not sure worth the advantage over 4.2Ghz and lover voltage.

I've really not bothered with adjusting clocks on my 3700x. Pretty much all the data I've seen (along with my own brief experimentation) shows that there is very little extra to be wrung from them beyond stock settings, AMD really aren't messing around when they say they put these chips out to run well out of the box.

I guess if thermals are what you are interested in specifically then perhaps there's something to be said for adjusting things down from the stock turbo boost but surely just putting a more effective cooler on there would be a better option?

I find Overclocking just isn't worth the effort with modern CPUs. The time spent faffing around with temps, voltages, making tiny adjustments, testing, making more tiny adjustments, testing again, etc, is just time better spent actually using your machine, especially when the performance gains aren't as huge as they once were.

Yeah, the gains the YouTube peeps were getting on the 5600x were about 5%. It's just not worth it for all the faff

Bertie wrote:
Feliz Knoyvidad wrote:5600x, mobo, and RAM all arriving later today!

Happy new year!! What GPU you going with?

Sticking with my RX580 for now, but keeping an eye on the 3060 prices when that's out in the new year. I just really needed to upgrade the CPU before it hit 10 years old. :lol:

Thanks again for the monitor recommendations. I ended up going for a more modest budget and settled for 1080p but with a higher refresh rate and bought this:

https://www.novatech.co.uk/products/aoc ... g2ubk.html

I'll test out a few games on the weekend but first been to know about G-Sync. Apparently this is G-Sync compatible, even though it's not on Nvidia's list. How do I use G-Sync? It seems that I need to enable it and V-Sync in the Nvidia Control Panel but disable V-Sync in game. Is this right?

Looks nice. I’m tempted by an ultra wide monitor, just having a look through and doing a bit of research.

G-sync. I can’t remember exactly how to set it up. But Nvdia control panel does have the settings. Worth a YouTube video to confirm you have it right. V-sync off in game and unlimited frames is also what I use.

On the voltage for Ryzen. I went back to ‘auto’. I switched to fixed voltage when I was hitting 85c with the stock cooler on auto. I did fit an air cooler a few months back, but I was still getting lower temps with a fixed voltage and a locked frequency. However, on a 3600x to get the boost clock on all cores needs a high voltage (which degrades it), or you go lower voltage and lower all core clocks which lowers temps. I’ve taken the suggestion and gone to ‘auto’. I now get a decent all core frequency and boost to max of 4.4Ghz. Just that the voltage bounces around loads and now I get about 70c in game with auto (still 15c better than stock cooler).

It's stupid question time again

.

I thought I'd ask here as I know you guys will know the answer and this doesn't really deserve a dedicated topic so here goes.

I've changed all my modem cables to cat 6 or 7 but I've just realised I'm still using the telephone cable that goes from the wall into the router (please feel free to mock me for my obvious lack of technical knowledge) and wondered if it's actually possible to upgrade that?
I have bog standard BT internet with an ancient router that I can't be arsed to upgrade.
I'm using powerline adapters to get the net from my downstairs hall to my bedroom.

Is this even a thing?

I have no idea to be honest. I use virgin and they come with a custom cable from the wall to the router. I’ve had them round recently to tidy it up and get me a good speed. Wifi is good now (altough we need an extender for the back of the house) and use power line adapters for tv and my PC in the office.

(PCGT VI) It's not just about hardware

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