Matthew Musselwhite

Fair enough. I don't really "need" ECC as the NAS's job is to store backups of my work folders on my Elements drive that I can either restore in an event of a failure, or to access them on my laptop for whatever reason. It would just be a "Nice to have"...

The reason the "all new" build has a PRO variant of Ryzen is purely because the TDP of the particular SKU is 35w, and most motherboards I've seen that is as the form-factor I want will only enable ECC support, which is an another "server-grade" feature I'm hoping to use in a build, regardless I go new or secondhand.

Budget (including currency): N/A Country: United Kingdom Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: File/Work Backup, file access across my machines, Jellyfin Server. Other details: So recently I tried to build a NAS (which I called "StoreBox") using a P4 (4GB), a couple of 4TB NAS HDDs, and the Argon EON case. It went alright but died within 4 days with a "motherboard" (the Pi 4 itself) failure. I know these things happen from time to time, but since this is not the first time I've had trouble with "consumer" grade equipment over the years - I'm now weary of trusting the StoreBox with keeping my work and other files backed up and safe, and such turning towards more "server-grade" equipment (and quickly decommisioning the StoreBox). With an entirely new Ryzen PRO build using server grade stuff, it's currently sitting at £1728 with new components, which I'm prepared to save up for... However I'm wondering on what's people's experience with reliability on second hand motherboards in particular that was rated at "server-grade? The cut-off point for me is Skylake-era, so I'm curious how Jellyfin performs as well - but reliability is above all else is a priority for this build. If I can shave that cost down I'll definitely take it!

So last week I built a new workstation to replace my old Hackintosh VW (Visual Workstation) that is getting on now in age at 5.25 years old; obviously for 3D animation, performance got a little long in the tooth. Upgrading was originally on the table when I built that system, but with Apple no longer allowing NVIDIA to push the Web Drivers on newer OSes, so anything newer then Kepler was off the table if I wanted CUDA (which I do), and I simply did not have the funds for an upgrade until now... So instead I decided to build a new Workstation comprarable to a HP Z4 in terms of performance and would run Fedora Linux, as Pixar was running it's professional cousin, Red Hat, and also because litterally all the software I use have Linux ports in some compacity or another. So here are the specs for my rig: AMD Ryzen 7-3700X @ 3.6GHz Patriot Viper Steel RGB DDR4 RAM (32GB, 3200MHz) Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mini (6GB GDDR6, 3x MDP ports) WD Black SN750 NVMe (1TB, Linux Drive) Kingston V300 (120GB, Windows 10 Drive) WD Blue (1TB 7200RPM, Internal Storage Drive) Gigabyte AORUS Elite X570 Cooler Master MASTERAIR MA620M Cooler Master MWE Gold 850W PSU Antec NX230 The price I paid for the GPU was quite egregious at £400, so I'm not too happy with that but what are you gonna do? The only reason I went with a X570 board instead of a B-series one was the USB ports, it's nice to know I have 5 ports still available at the back for future expansion... Speaking of expansion, that and realiabilty were the names of the game, with me not OCing and keeping stock speeds to extend the longevity of the both the CPU and GPU. And despite AM4 is becoming an EoL standard, I still can upgrade this to the 16-core Ryzen 9 without a motherboard swap, which is a nice peace of mind thing, and with MB can take a max of 128GB of RAM, and the skies the limit with GPUs will hopefully mean I can comfortably grow as my projects get more complex without too much issue. The performance gains isn't too surprising considering there is a 5 1/4 year difference between the 2 builds, it's so fascinating the increases for what is/was considered "top of the line consumer" CPUs, that I have to show the benchmark results! The only game I've tried so far is Little Nightmares 2 on Ultra, I can say with the old Hackintosh 40-60FPS, but with New Octane I can get 80+FPS; which is a nice improvement... But I will probably would have to downgrade this to "High" if stream this title, but that is still an improvement over being forced to go "Medium" the last time I streamed the game! Honestly, the Windows drive only exists so I can use SFM if I need to, or occassionally play VR titles - everything else I can do in Fedora! Overall though: I'm chuffed with this system and I cannot wait to finally do some work on it!

Nothing really, it's going be straight new build with 3200MHz DDR4, a more beefier PSU is needed for expansion on that front and maybe a RTX 3060 Ti if I play my cards right when I get the funds to do so... Partly is due to some plans I have for this old machine when space allows, but also it is a nice "fallback" option if the computer dies within a few weeks...

More of a hobby, and I would ideally like this to last 6 years before I need a new build (as that is how old my current workstation is). Hence why I'm so "on the fence" about this.

My question isn't whether Ryzen is a good fit, as I've seen it perform considerably better then my old i7-4790K build straight from the 1st-Gen revision. But rather the 2700X specifically is something I should be considering under a tight budget, or if I should just "suck it up" and save up an additional £300-£400 for a 5th/3rd-Gen Ryzen build...

That's easy as it's going to be identical to what I'm using now: Under Fedora Linux I'll be using software such as Blender (might upgrade to 2.91 over the 2.83 I'm stuck with), Substance Painter 2019, KDENLive for video editing, Natron 2.15 for compositing. The renderer will depend on the nature of the project, but more times then not it'll probably be EEVEE. Usually render times is improved with more cores tackling the problem, but that may also be down to the GPU as well...

This is going to be more concise then my other posts : Ignoring the fact that the 2700X is can only utilise a 400-series chipset and thus limits the upgrade to 3rd-Gen Ryzen in the future, is the aforementioned Ryzen CPU good for a very budget oriented 3D Animation workstation with occasional gaming on the side?

This is something I've been wondering for a while now; what's with the trend of ditching bezels? Did I miss a memo or something because I really don't care how thin the bezels are on a display as long as it meets my requirements for what I want out of said display. I at one point had 2 Dell 3008WFP monitors (now just 1 and a CRT), which you may remember having thick bezels by today's standard, but they had decent colour accuracy for the size and resolution I was after... The bezels between 2 displays didn't bother me. Obviously I feel very similar about laptops, tablets, and phones. So can someone explain to me why bezels have become such a big deal in the past few years? Thank you in advance!

I love MLP as a show (Series-3-6 being my favourite), my profile image was custom drawn by me (I'm a terrible 2D artist, I know. ?), and it is based on the old MLP parody series "Friendship is Witchcraft"... The character in question is called "Sweetie Bot"...

I don't necessary have one, but it is easy enough to get it! Very interesting indeed, I guess I was thinking too digitally on a solution! ? Indeed they do, but I've trained to be an animator, not a sound engineer; the curse of this is that I have a hard time thinking of those interesting solutions they come up with! ?

Hey all, So this is more of a weird question I've had in recent memory, but I'm wondering if there is a way to generating a "whining" noise you get on an AC Traction Motor on something like a BR Class 483 or 322 EMU in a audio program such as Audacity or Audition? Just wondering if it is possible to create this sound virtually or if it has to be recorded live; which is subjucted to unwanted background noise. Thanks in advance!

Hey all, So I want to start off by saying this is just a thought and probably won't come into fruition, but I still want to hear your thoughts on this idea! =P So I've been watching videos of LAN parties of old and I had a thought: what if I built a small gaming lan centre in the house for friends (if I had any nearby) but instead of playing modern games on 'state-of-the-art' systems, it would be a retro gaming LAN centre complete with Voodoo 2 gaming systems and CRTs. Again, probably won't do it because of the cost (and space) involved, but if that wasn't a problem - what would/do you think? ;)

Hello all, I'm planning a retrofit on my entertainment setup for my bedroom (more like a studio with a bed strapped in it) and I stumbled across some CRT Projectors and here's what I've noticed about them: They offer a better contrast ratio and colour compared to LCD and DLP projectors (Like the more modern Laser Projectors/OLED TV) They're highly modular Has a longer operation life, again comparable to more modern Laser Projectors But requires more maintenance according to some people Do you think I should get a CRT Projector; like the Barco Cine 6 or Sony G70? Or should I get a more modern DLP projector? I'm not kidding myself here, I know they're larger/bulkier, heavier and require a ton more energy then their DLP/LCD counterparts, and considering the size of the screen (40", or a viewable size of 90x51cm) and the distance from the pillow of the bed to the screen itself is only around 150cm - I'm really on the fence on this one and I would love to hear what you think on this... unique proposition for a bed theatre thing. Thanks in advance!