cragger89

Good multizone amplifiers are not cheap. This will be a project done by someone who wanted the project, or they had money to throw at having everything "tidy" in the bedroom, then they realised "ooh, we can do the patio, too!" - I'd wager. I'd still go with separate receivers as previously suggested. My Denon amp which now has a dead front left amplified channel is a 2 zone amp, but you could only use analogue audio inputs for the second zone. If I wanted to listen to what was running in the main lounge elsewhere and it was an HDMI, coaxial or optical input source, no dice. I now use a slimline marantz av amplifier in my lounge and a separate 1u sized amp to drive kitchen/bathroom ceiling speakers. It's a JBL 2 zone mixer/amp which has RJ45 sockets to connect wall mounted volume plates. Sources are Chromecast audio adapters and a Raspberry Pi which has software on it to work as an Airplay audio receiver. This works WAY better for music control in the bathroom and kitchen than trying to get one AV amplifier to do everything. Watch Linus' videos on his home theatre since the move to show how frustrating the limitations of an additional zone actually is - it seems like a great idea, but the limitations very quickly make it not worth bothering with for me.

I recently spent a week comparing (albeit a different, generation newer desktop) to a new laptop. The desktop is an i7 5820k based system with a GTX 1070 in it. The laptop was an 11th gen i7 with 16GB of memory and I used an eGPU enclosure with the 1070 in it. For gaming, it matched the feel/experience. For other stuff, the older desktop still bested it. Granted, as I said, the desktop is newer than your Sandybridge stuff and in my instance, it has more cores than the laptop. I opted to return the laptop and carry on with my desktop. My goal was to save space, but the eGPU wasn't as reliable when docking/undocking as I needed it to be. I would say, unless you need to save the space, just stick with your desktop and work on replacing it with a new build over time.

So, after much, much faff, I've opted to return the Asus, sell the eGPU and not even upgrade my gaming PC. I tried lots of different setups in a bid to "save space" on my desk. None of them were reliable, including my existing msi gaming laptop which has a 6th gen i7/GTX 1070 in it with my monitors connected up. This morning I turned that on and the HDMI output wouldn't work until I fiddled with it for a few minutes. So, much done with nothing to show for it. What a roller coaster!

My case is a Define R6. The cooler is a fairly small Noctua air cooler, but I have a bigger one I can swap into it from my HTPC case (it's a lower profile design but the actual cooling capacity is bigger). Would you think there's any benefit to upgrading the memory? I'm sure in benchmarks it'd make a difference, but in real life use, I'm not so sure. Interesting re: the limit with what card is worthy of being used in a Thunderbolt 4 setup.

Budget (including currency): Unsure. Country: UK Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: General web browsing, occasional VR, working from home. Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): ... ... So. At the moment, my build is an X99 based i7 5820k (not overclocked), 16GB of memory (it's a 2800Mhz 16GB kit of 4GB modules), in a ROG Rampage V Extreme board. The GPU is a Zotac 1070. Storage is a 2.5" SATA SSD (850 Evo from Samsung) Now, to be clear; at the moment, the system is fine, I don't game all of the time, I use a 4k monitor with 2 1440P monitors either side of it for remote IT support reasons. I remote desktop to my work laptop and otherwise keep my "work machine" entirely separate. Now, I've recently bought myself an Asus Zenbook 14 (UX5400). I have an external GPU enclosure (the Lenovo Legion Booststation). My intent here was, to use the laptop with the eGPU to replace the old desktop machine. The eGPU has a USB 3 controller and a GB NIC in built, so it seemed ideal. However, after actually putting this into use yesterday, I then put the GPU back in the desktop machine and am back on that as my "daily driver" in the office. I experienced a weird issue with the USB controller completely wigging out, when I have my CCTV live view open on one of my monitors. In games, all was well! So, it does serve some purpose, but, realistically, the CCTV thing is a real "no-no" and therefore, I can't use it. (Side note, the laptop is very, very good. I'm very pleased with it - way nicer to use than my MSI with a 1070 in it which is just too heavy to browse from the sofa with). SO: Because I have a bit of the "I wants" in here, is there anything you guys can suggest to get a bit more life out of my existing 5820k build? I'm not really that interested in overclocking the CPU, but I know that would probably help. The modern i7 in the laptop is actually faster, but it has less cores. Would it be worth upgrading the memory for a faster kit? I have m.2 slots on my motherboard, but I think in actual use, I'm not going to see the benefits. Of course, maybe the option is just to downsize to a smaller, but current desktop machine? I am aware that I've already answered my own question in some way, as my PC does everything I need it to do, but because I am in the process of re-organising my home office, it seems like the time to try and combine the projects.

I beg forgiveness, of course, if this HAS been seen elsewhere, but... I've just seen the "best" I think I'm ever going to, screenshots below. This is clearly a spam conversation... Video is a repair of a DAT machine, Dave, who makes the videos, doesn't mention crypto in the video. After watching the WAN show where YouTube's attempt to extinguish spam somewhat recently (removing the special characters or limiting them, etc) - I am impressed by how quickly this has shown in the comments section for a video. Amazing.

I'll stick with the likes of my Parasound HCA 1200 Mk2 and the Sony TA-E80ES/N80ES.

The speakers will only play back what is fed to them. If your decoder is your soundcard, unless you're decoding a surround sound format, the centre channel will be off. There may be an option to enable a pseudo surround effect which will utilise all of the speakers. On a proper AV amplifier, you'd have modes such as Pro Logic II/DTS Neo which takes a stereo signal and sends different sounds to different speakers, the vocals being primarily what are sent to your centre speaker. Check your driver properties, I am fairly sure in the past I had a system where it would allow Pro Logic II, but I may be thinking of a version of PowerDVD I had installed at the time.

Logitech Media Server on a PC, Chromecast Audios connected in each room you want to stream to, install "Squeezer" or its equivalent on your tablets to control the playback. There is a plugin you can install to allow streaming to Chromecasts. LMS has a HTML site you can "visit" for controlling, but the apps are generally better. Fairly sure there are plugins for Pandora and Spotify to work with LMS, but Spotify supports Chromecast natively anyway. I've been using the above setup with 4 Chromecast Audio devices connected to various amps/docks in my home and it is rock solid. I've often experienced issues with Kodi where I've had to reconfigure it after the PC has received windows updates, with LMS, I have never had a reliability issue. I use Spotify/Tidal and Logitech Media Server as sources with mine. I can play different sources in different rooms or I can make groups so that the same music is played all round the house.

Borrow one, try it out, see if you prefer it with it. In all honesty, I am a big hifi fan, the on board audio solutions in most motherboards (Desktop/laptops alike) are usually perfectly fine.

If there aren't drivers available for the storage controller for you to use as the first step after booting into the setup program, you're stuck. I embraced Windows 10 eventually, it isn't really that bad, in all honesty.

Yup.

You can't mix DDR3 and 4. If you want to upgrade your RAM at all, strongly advise to look into whether or not the RAM is soldered.

Beyond just lowering your settings and accepting it for what it is, you aren't going to be able to make it better. Before I bought my msi GV62 7RC, I used to run games at 720p on my Elitebook 8760W, would still be doing that if not for the fact it was so damn heavy to carry around.

Bad luck, hope all goes well from now on.