Raintech

From a useability perspective, I'd honestly not suggest a lavmic, more fragile, more hassle to take on/off, has a bit of a skill ceiling to choose strategic placement points where clothes/collars/limbs wont rustle into the mic, and you might run into compatibility as alot of popular lavs have a TRS connector which isn't designed for plugging into a PC. 

Modmic is a great option if you're happy with your current headphones and just looking to add a microphone to it. It's literally purpose built for you scenario, and has great quality.

For example alot of standalone mic's like the blue snowball retail for around 50~60usd, so depending what issues you're having with the mic, you could consider getting a boomarm or stand for the current mic to upgrade it's useability? Again this depends on what you have and issues you're facing.

As for headsets with decent mic's, for purely gaming and voice chats, you will find the vast majority of headset mics at that price range will be acceptable; It'd honestly be a shorter list to point out the ones with subpar audio quality than the ones with adequate quality. A dedicated mic for gaming has always been pretty overkill in my experience. Generally no one on voice calls notices the difference between a "good" mic, and a simple "average" mic, especially after compression with discord's OPUS codec

Honestly, the best thing for maximising your outgoing Discord/VOIP call quality in my experience is just trying to minimise background audio, as none of your friends will appreciate hearing your keyboard sounds, mouse clicking, or even hearing you breathe into the mic (which happens often with headset mic's). Hence why standalone mic's benefit alot IMHO from boomstands to bring them up and away from your keyboard, and lav mic's could be a bad idea depending on your seating position, as having the lav closer to your keyboard could result in more keyboard noises.

Basically, easiest solution is the modmic. Buy it, slap it on, and you're done. Mic quality is well above average, and like I said above, VOIP's compression will render anything better, or any of the snobby "hi res audio" stuff completely moot. In my experience the modmic sounds alot warmer and breathes more life into your voice after compression, but again, that's my personal opinion, and your friends may think a warmer audio signature of the mic sounds worse to them.

Otherwise, if you need to buy a standalone headset, as long as you're not looking to record audio for hobby/professional media work, don't stress about the quality of the mic too much. As long as reviews generally call the microphone "clear", your discord buddies probably won't notice much difference in quality. Yes your voice may sound different as microphones all have a distinct sound signature, like warmer or cooler, but that doesn't fall within the range of "better or worse". It's just different. Instead think of the other, much more important aspects like comfort(important!), build quality, audio quality of the headphone part itself (VERY important) and other design features of the headset, like close back or open back.

Update on this thread, ended up going to my local store, it's pretty hard to trial headphones right now with all the covid stuff going on, but I listened to the DT880/250's and although I liked it, found the DT990/250's a bit more refreshing. Definitely alot more fun. Boomier base, and suuuuuper sharp were the first things the DT990's threw at me. Perhaps less detailed than the 880's but plenty good enough. I've decided to keep the 6xx's as my daily driver music cans, and to pickup the DT990's for gaming and as a change of pace for music when bored. 

The staging on the DT990's is insane, everything sounds way wider, both music and gaming. Nearby audio sounds alot NEARER, and further audio cues sound alot further than compared to the 6xx. Defnitely alot better on staging is my first impression, the audio feels alot more sidewards. Like music comes from both sides, more than from the 6xx where it feels like everything comes from straight ahead. Probably just the wider staging which I'm not used to yet. Songs with audio elements that rapidly switch from one ear to another (like certain EDM tracks) are really fun on the DT's compared to the sennheisers. Probably also helps that I've been using in-ears alot the past year, they really can't compare to actual cans.
 
The sharp treble makes footsteps a LOT more noticeable in games, and the bass somehow also feels less boomy and echoey, but also punchier at the same time, again, all positives for directional staging. I think I'll really enjoy these for gaming, no issues with treble fatigue so far, but I've gone ahead and applied a slight EQ down on the treble and a slight EQ to raise the mids. Will probably finetune the EQ to my preference over the next few weeks and months.

My store gives me a 30 day change of mind refund so I'll see if any treble fatigue develops with the DT990's and I can always go back to picked the 880's if I prefer, but the 990's were on sale for about 30% off, so I'm happy with the value on these so far. First day of using them has indeed been very comfortable.

Appreciate all the answers and help on the thread, ended up adding the DT990 250ohm PRO to my possession, been using it for a few hours so far.

Yeah I want to stress that your headphone is responsible for the majority of your audio improvement, assuming you're not using absolute garbage audio files.
You'll never experience quite as big of an audio jump as going from cheap gamer headphones, to a audiophile headphone ever again. So keep that in mind as you make all future purchases, to put the audio gains we're talking about into perspective. 
 
If you are not planning on buying other headphones, any gains from a DAC or amp for purely your 58x would be small, so keep in mind the cost to performance gains here have steep diminishing returns. Especially the DAC, many people don't even recommend a DAC until you're above 1000 dollars total invested in the hobby. 
 
The main advantage of getting an amp is that you'll have a lot more choices in the future, as it let's you buy a greater variety of headphones. So from a beginner audio collector perspective, an amp is an investment for the future, whilst giving you peace of mind in the present. There's alot to be said for putting yourself at ease with your current gear and knowing you have a setup that'll work with the majority of future headphones. 
 
In any case, I would experiment with plugging your 58x straight into your motherboard's 3.5mm rear io slot and see if you like the audio from that better than your dongle; And compare the volume; The claims that dongle has an amp in it seems a little far fetched to me, or at the least it's probably only marginally stronger than most PC's motherboards. I personally have an inherant distrust of most portable dongles of that form factor, and wouldn't put it past companies to put this kind of this stuff on their pages as pure marketting BS. Plus, I just don't think it makes much sense to use a cheap, little portable solution like those dongles when your PC has fully fledged, perfectly modern, full sized hardware available.

Honestly, now that you've got yourself a HD58x, which is a true audiophile grade headphone by the way, leagues better than most "gamer headphone" trash on the market, I'd think you'd gain a decent bit of audio quality adding in a desktop dac/amp combo. Not nearly as big of a step as going from non-audiophile headsets to a real audiophile headphone, but it's probably logical next step in your journey towards audiophile-ville. 

I'm not sure if those little dongles are much better than your average PC onboard DAC these days; In fact, I'd honestly try to avoid them. You say they're plugged into a USB-C port? That worries me. You see, that means your PC is outputting a Digital signal (which is what comes out of USB ports, data in the form of 1's and 0's). What that means is the dongle is therefore handling the Digital to Analogue Conversion; Read those again: Digital Analogue Conversion. DAC. Turning those 1's and 0's into a signal for your headphones.

That 100% means you're running off of that tiny dongle's DAC. I wouldn't trust it at ALL. Honestly, PC motherboard DAC's have come a long way in the past couple decades, and chances are your motherboard has a perfectly great DAC on it; A full sized, good chip on the motherboard. To instead rely on a tiny dongle's portable DAC is just incredibly sketchy. Many people report the 58x runs just fine out of their phone or PC's onboard without needing an amp to sound good, or loud. Have you tried just the onboard motherboard?

And as an owner of a phone which doesn't have a 3.5mm jack (thanks apple for starting that trend btw, I have a samsung s20 fe), I can tell you that my usb-c to 3.5mm dongle that I use with my phone sounds NOTICEABLY worse than my desktop's dac/amp setup, like jawdroppingly different; It's like someone's playing music through their phone line, like the awful elevator music companies play when you get placed on hold; but that's comparing a desktop setup to my phone dongle, even with the same IEM's used for both. And this is an expensive dongle advertised as "hifi" and "lossless" which i picked up off amazon for about 35 dollars. Just goes to show amazon pages chuck those catch words on basically any kind of turd these days. I ended up getting myself a fiio BTR5, which is far more expensive than your budget but something you can look at if you want to see what a truly decent protable dac/amp costs; Not those terrible cheapo dongles that they sell on amazon.

Volume doesn't necessarily always mean you're gettting the most out of your headphone either, even without factoring in crappy DAC's. Headphones can sound tinny and lacking bass or clarity out of a weak amp/amp less setup, even if you can push them loud enough. so adding an amp in your scenario might still be a good idea, then just letting your onboard PC motherboard's DAC handle the digital converting.

Just make sure you're never accidentally make a huge mistake with where you plug in your headphones; Like I've seen people plugging 3.5mm cables into their keyboard's RGB passthrough with piss poor shielding where they can legit hear when their RGB lights pulse. Or people who plug into their PC tower's front 3.5mm port, and that 3.5mm port has an extension cable running internally through the whole tower, straight past like 6 tower fans with barely any shielding before plugging into the motherboard. Fans are notorious for causing electrical interferance. 

For that kind of budget, there's not many dac/amp combos I can think of that would be really worth buying and keeping in terms of future proofing. As an audio-nooby myself, I can say I do highly recommend my Objective 2's. Been using it for a bit less than 2 years now; It offers supposedly "truly uncolored" sound output, which I think is really nice for starting out; You can really listen to headphones and music the way those headphones and artists intend and form accurate opinions, then add in EQ to make things fun after the fact if you want, and I totally agree after experiencing it first hand. Like seeing the world through crystal clear glasses, before adding in your own fun tints and shades later.

The Objective 2 SDAC from massdrop is pretty decent value, usually goes for about 150 usd, but it goes on sale really often. And as with most things Massdrop, its only in stock from time to time when a Drop is going on. I remember I got mine during the pre-2019 xmas sales, it was down to 120 USD, and then I got it part of a bundle with my HD6XX's for about 95 usd ontop of the headphones. You could look out for the next drop and see what the price comes to; Usually more signups on the drop the cheaper.

But the Schiit Fulla combo DAC/amp also could be worth looking into. Colors the sound which could throw off the way headphones are meant to sound, and despite being super cheap, most reviewers tend to sound quite snobby with it and say it doesn't compare well with their expensive dac/amp solutions; But obviously this is a scenario you're kind of getting what you're paying for. I personally didn't like the reviews on it, but seems like a useable budget option. Personally I found myself alot more tempted to get the Schiit Magni and Schiit Modi, which are schiit's entry level standalone amp, and standalone DAC respectively. But even a single one of those would already almost blow your whole budget. But the great thing about 2 standalones is the versatility, you could always just buy the Magni standalone amp for 99 usd RRP (according to their site, probably cheaper if you shop around), and add the schiit Modi standalone DAC later if you feel like it, but again, just the standalone amp would already offload DAC duties off to your PC's motherboard, which is probably perfectly good for the job; The idea is to stop relying on that little dongle's DAC asap.

Buying the schiit standalones should also be more future proof in the long run too; I honestly think with just the Magni amp, you would come to a very adequate stopping point where you could live without buying anymore upgrades and be happy with your current sound forever; Unless you decide you've caught the audio bug and get deeper into this expensive hobby; Once you have the schiit magni, or similar entry level amp, your current setup would be plenty decent enough to be a stopping point and you could just live with it, but at the same time, it would also be easy to upgrade and have clear upgrade paths should you decide to spend more.

I bought the components and assembled it myself. I consider myself a fairly experienced system builder and haven't run into these issues before.
 
My computer store is known for having rather long customer service waiting times; They handle a very large amount of orders. On top of that, their closest brick and mortar store to me was recently closed indefinitely during the pandemic pending a relocation somewhere else; it's still closed as of today. The other nearest store to me is a good 30+ minute drive away.
 
I would definitely give it back to them for servicing but they often require us to drop off the computer for servicing, and tehn come back once they call us... perhaps up to days or even a week later.

If the answer was switching from 10900k to 5800x with no external factors: The answer is no, absolutely not worth it. Nope nope nope. Not worth it in any universe.

However, there seems to be 2 possible questions that are actually being asked here, in my interpretation: If your wife refuses to use AMD, a straight switch from her 8700 to her new 5800x with a free motherboard is out of the question

So the real question are these:
1) Are YOU willing to part with your 10900k system and give it to your wife, if yes, then
2) Are YOU willing to pay for a 5800x to replace your wifes old  8700 system (now  your's temporarily for as long as it takes you to swap out the components) given that you have a free motherboard for the 5800x.
 
If you answered no to either, then flip the motherboard and move on ywith your day.
 
Keeping in mind a few things:
-This upgrade ended up not being for yourself, but rather, for you wife (you know what they say, whats yours is hers, and whats hers, is still her's)
-If you give her your 10900k she probably won't have any use for it
-the 5800x is ~20% more framerate in gaming than the 8700 system, but about on par with your 10900k
 
Personal opinion: I think your wife can live without a 10900k, so just sell the motherboard and call it a day.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Kind of. It depends alot on your motherboard and how its RAM modules are laid out. Assuming you have a typical motherboard with 4 total ram slots, (2x dual channels), then you should be fine to run in Flex Mode, in which case the 2 sticks will be treated as completely non-identical ram modules. Just make sure you're using Slot#2 and Slot#4.

Your motherboard will check the 2 sticks and run both at the lower frequency, (in this case its the same frequency), and it will run in dual-channel up until the 2gb capacity on both sticks, (aka 4gb total, 2gb per stick), with the last remaining 2gb running unpaired, and therefore losing about half your memory bandwidth.

Another way of thinking about it is like this: You have 6gb total capacity, 4gb capacity is run at full speed, the last 2gb is run at half speed.

If your motherboard doesn't support flex mode, then you may run into issues like instability, all 6gb being run in single-channel, or one of the sticks not being detected whatsoever. (though these are unlikely with a modern motherboard). In this worse case scenario, you can usually overcome the instabilities by changing which slots your 2 ram stacks are plugged into, ie switching the 4gb stick from Slot#4 to Slot#2, but that's going into non-flex channel territory and proprietary bios behaviours which changes on a brand by brand basis.

Incoming rage. I don't mind that the LTT group is using thumbnails and titles to gain more new viewers, and it's a real grey zone as to what's acceptable vs what brings more profit...
 For honesty's sake though, I think the title should've had a "-With Thumbdrives"  or something similar tacked on at the end to quell some of the clickbait rage.
Very misleading video name, but it was still entertaining all the same.

reserved

Regarding multiple key presses, this depends on the keyboard manufacturer more than the switch itself. The switches are merely the hardware in the keyboard. The issue of pressing too many keys is called "Ghosting" where some of the keys aren't sent to the computer properly, and this has more to do with the Keyboard connector, onboard wiring and possibly drivers.
Considering that most mainsteam mechanical kb's are manufactured for gaming, any decent gaming company understands the issue of ghosting and has failsafes in play for this. Razer for example offers a guaranteed "0-ghosting" feature on specifically their WASD keys, as they know these are the keys most often pressed. I'd say most modern gaming keyboards can also support around 5 simultaneous key presses without ghosting, which is more than you'd ever need in day to day gaming. It should state somewhere in the product features of the kb you wish to purchase.
 
The Cherry MX blues have a very very noticeable activation point, when you start pressing the key, the top part is extremely smooth, with not much resistance. When you depress far enough to get to the actuation point, it's really noticeable, and you can feel some extra resistance, and it makes a loud "CLICK" once you pass the actuation point.

In general, all mechanical keyboards and membrane keyboards (this excludes some laser keyboards which can measure how far down the key is pressed) act the exact same as each other in terms of how they function, keys are pressed as a yes/no statement, and holding down a key works exactly the same regardless of what key switches are used.

Believe me though, first thing to keep in mind about MX blues is they're LOUD! If you don't mind it, and your possible housemates don't mind it, then they are a great switch as you can both feel and hear your key presses for gaming. Cherry reds are an alternative if you might want to consider more quiet keys for gaming. I'd advise staying away from Razer keyboard products as they use Made-In-China knock-off switches, and buying my Razer Blackwidow Ultimate is one of the biggest mistakes I regret in my gaming rig. They advertise their "Razer switches" as superior, but they're exactly what you can expect from copied switches that are manufactured in china, whereas real Cherry switches are manufactured in Germany.
 

Yeah, the keyboards all come in different switches - The difference is for example, the Corsair K70 (same as the K65, except it has a numpad on the right hand side) comes in red switch, blue switch, and brown switch. The difference is what version of the Cherry MX switch they use.

Well said. I'm prepared to leave my fanboyism at the door in the interests of making a well-informed decision here. It's pretty overwhelming to stick my head back into the "Tech-World" after 5+ years and I've gotten swamped with all sorts of new products and things I've never even heard of. And the market is quite different now too it seems. 

 
 
It's sad to see that have so many years such small steps have been made by Intel. Honestly, I was expecting the newest i7 to lap circles around my old hardware by now, but that clearly isn't the case.

I'll have a look into the AMD side now, thanks for your replies

IMPORTANT NOTE: I will be the only forum member messaging the winners of this giveaway. If you receive a message from any other member telling you that you won something, it is NOT legit, and you should NOT respond to that message.
 
 
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