The Pikachu Mafia

Yeah, $300 was around what I saved up for a motherboard, maybe slightly more. I have had some pretty awful experiences with super cheap boards in the past.

Okay, thank you both for your help! Do either of you have any specific motherboard in mind that might support my configuration then? (As I understand things it would need a spare x4 slot that run off the chipset?)

That's basically what I feared. If the Elgato runs at x4 off the CPU I'm not sure if it will be compatible with my setup... Also, I know right? I was pretty disappointed when I saw that the 9900k only had 16 lanes. I could in theory upgrade to a 9920x (and I do a fair bit of productivity work outside of gaming so I might be able to justify it), but I really don't want to spend more than twice as much on a CPU/MOBO combo if I can avoid it. =_=

So in the next couple weeks I'm planning on upgrading several components in my desktop. Here are the relevant parts of my current setup: MOBO: Asus x99-A CPU: Intel i7 5820k GPU: 2x 980ti in sli Case: Corsair 760T SSD: Samsung 850 evo (SATA) A few months ago I had issues with a power surge that ended up frying my Motherboard and I've been without a desktop since, so I figured now is a good a time as any to do some upgrades. Right now I'm looking to upgrade the CPU, Motherboard, SSD, and Case. I also want to add in an Elgato 4k60 Pro so I can record/stream console gameplay. Ideally I would like to upgrade my CPU to an i9 9900k and pickup something like a Samsung 970 evo NVMe SSD. However I've never been very good at figuring out whether a component would use the CPU's or the Chipset's PCI lanes. My 5820k has 28 lanes which is more than enough, but the 9900k only supports up to 16 lanes. If I got a 9900k I'm pretty sure that my GPUs would run in x8/x8 off of the CPU, taking up all 16 lanes. I'm also pretty confident that the NVMe SSD would take a lane away from the Chipset instead of the CPU which is fine since the chipset has plenty of spare lanes. What confuses me is the Elgato Capture card, I'm not sure based on my research where it would draw its lanes from - the CPU or the Chipset. Would all this stuff be compatible together? If so, what Motherboard would you recommend me getting? I need something with ample space to plug everything in and space out my graphics cards. Thank you all very much in advance!

Yeah, you'd have to go with some 3rd party solution for more ergonomic joy cons. However I will say that when you're in handheld or even tabletop mode the joy-cons really aren't that bad, as long as you're using both of them. I have a pro-controller for TV mode which is much better (I actually prefer it over the PS4 and XB1 controllers).

The last thing I bought was a cup of coffee. But I paid for it with cash and when they gave me my change I got this little gem. Getting old coins from the cashier is like winning the lottery.

I image at that point ABET accreditation doesn't matter because those schools are prestigious enough in and of themselves. By virtue of graduating from MIT - as opposed to generic university [x] - you'd be put in a class of your own and have already differentiated yourself from your peers. Of course, again, I could be absolutely wrong here since CS isn't really my industry. Personally I agree that work experience beats out a piece of paper saying "I graduated from SnobbyMcSnobs university with high honors," but employers do care about that kind of stuff when weeding out potential candidates.

I would definitely look for an ABET accredited CS major. Sure employers are desperate for developers but from what I've seen they still prefer candidates who have a degree from an accredited school. I would also go for the degree over just "relevant experience." Companies say that they they'll hire based on equivalent experience, but my dad has been working as an IT Director for the past 10-15 years and has trouble applying for different jobs because his bachelors was in Philosophy. Definitely get some internship experience as well, I know a lot of people - myself included - who got job offers from doing Engineering Internship programs over the summer of Sophomore/Junior year. If you can get a part time job on campus that is even somewhat relevant (say working as a student computer technician or at a local radio station part time) that can also help you land an internship. If your credit load is too much you might be able to split it up into a 5 year program, although I know that doesn't sound ideal. Most of my friends and immediate family have CS backgrounds; however my experience may not be nearly as relevant as some of the other members on here (I'm a Senior Aerospace Engineering student working in IT as opposed to Computer Science & Engineering) and I definitely don't know the industry as well as others. So feel free to take what I say with a bucket of salt.

Awesome, thanks for the information! As a final question, I'm looking at gentechPC for thermal repaste since they have a sale going on now. They also list thermal pads as an additional cooling option. Would you recommend adding in thermal pads/would they realistically improve performance ontop of LM? (I'm looking at the MSI right now for reference, I find its lower base price to be somewhat appealing).

Thank you for the response, it was very helpful! With regards to a Liquid Metal thermal repasting, I agree that some kind of custom repaste is a necessity on all of these thin and light laptops given their out of the box temps. However I'm not too well versed in tampering with a laptop's GPU/CPU and I've only ever done a thermal pasting on a desktop, so I would probably get a 3rd party like Xotic PC or HIDevolution to professionally install it (as a side question, do these 3rd parties offer their own warranties since I would likely be invalidating whatever warranty that comes with the laptop?) If you don't mind me asking though, what is the relative risk for using liquid metal over normal thermal paste? I love the idea of chopping my thermals down by 15-20 C, but Liquid Metal is electrically conductive and I would be very mobile with my laptop. So would I have to worry about the liquid metal leaking out at all - even if a conformal coating was applied to protect the laptop? Also would I have to worry about the longevity of the liquid metal (i.e would it need to be repasted after a period of time/will it eventually compromise the integrity of the copper heat pipes? I've seen that liquid metal can bond weirdly to copper and I'm wonder if that's just purely aesthetic or will it affect the integrity of the system after awhile?) Finally, are there any resources I can find that compare the relative performance of Liquid Metal to a normal thermal compound for these laptop models? Again, thank you very much for your time!

Hey everyone, For the past several years I've happily owned a Sager NP8156 (Clevo P650HP6). There were a few things I didn't care for about the laptop - The screen was discolored in some places, it was heavier than I would've liked, it had some software bugs, etc. - but overall it was a great little machine that served my needs well. However my parents recently had a catastrophic electrical failure at their house that fried a bunch of appliances/electronics and unfortunately my laptop was one of the victims. The failure was actually due to the power lines leading to our house not being up to code, and fortunately we were able to make an insurance claim. So here I am, a Senior Engineering Student in need of a new laptop. I figured that since it's been a couple years now is a good a time as any to upgrade my laptop. Here's some information on what I'm looking for: - My budget is tentatively around $2600 USD before taxes, although spending less is always a plus. - I will mainly be using this laptop for school and some gaming. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an Engineering student (mechanical/aerospace), so on the school side I will be using programs such as Solidworks, MATLAB, Python, ANSYS, CAD software, and Microsoft Office. Gaming is not as much of a priority, but I would like to be able to run modern titles in high/ultra settings. (Tomb Raider, Fallout, Overwatch, etc.) - I also do recreational photo/video editing with Adobe Lightroom/Premier Pro/Photoshop. So I would like to have a nice panel on the laptop. - I would like the laptop to have at least a GTX 1060 in it, preferably a 1070 Max-Q - The laptop itself must weigh under 2.2kg (4.8 lbs). I often have to walk in excess of 2-3km a day to get to my classes and I always have my laptop with me. One mistake I made with my Clevo was underestimating how much it would weigh when combined with its power brick. Speaking of which, bonus points for a compact power brick. - I don't need crazy-out-of-this-world battery life, but I would also like to not be always plugged into a wall. I would like to have around 4-6 hours of battery life during productivity tasks or media consumption (Microsoft Office, coding, web browsing, Netflix/Youtube, etc.) - I would need at least a 512GB hard drive. In general more storage is better. - I am willing to purchase a last gen laptop with a 7th gen processor, although an 8th gen Intel processor is ideal. - I'm not too keen on upgrading my laptop very often. Build quality is somewhat important to me and I would like to have a laptop that will last 3-5 years. If I have to spend a little more up front to future-proof it then I'm okay with that. Given my above requirements, I'm leaning towards getting either the MSI GS65, the Gigabyte Aero 15, the Razer 15, or the Clevo P955ER. Any help or insight on any of these laptops would be greatly appreciated. I'm also open to any suggestions that meet my criteria. Thank you all very much for your time and I hope you have a nice day!

Unfortunately the interest cannot be removed, and you can only get the late fee waived if you submit a payment within a certain time frame (they give you around a 2 week grace period to pay up, which is highly unfortunate for people who don't have to cash on hand to pay the DRS immediately).

It is all the same money, but It's not like I'm trying to avoid taxes. I would love to see the use tax abolished after this debacle since it just seems so ridiculous, but as long as It's a law I'm not going to actively try and break it. Amazon offer consumers a much more convienent system. Meanwhile Newegg, while not being entirely guilty, still chose that an increase in the cost of business wasn't worth the integrity of their consumers. Their lack of a covienent system coupled with their disregard and willful forfeiting of private data is why I will not be shopping there in the future, which is a completely valid choice on my part as a consumer. I'll vote with my wallet.

That changes the name of the game significantly in my eyes, somewhat lessening Newegg's culpability and placing it back on the State. I think they're talking about this law that was passed in July (linked below) which is super sketchy. It basically says that CT can fine any out of state company that refuses their data requests. It's not really a request if you threaten every company that says no with heavy fines. https://taxnews.ey.com/news/2017-1203-connecticut-drs-mails-notices-to-out-of-state-online-retailers-demanding-sales-records-legislature-subsequently-enacts-penalty-provisions-for-failure-to-comply

I've spoken to Newegg representatives twice now over this, both times they claimed that Connecticut passed a new law. When I told them that there was no such law and asked them to cite the specific provision which required them to hand over private sales data, the only useful information they gave me was that someone in upper management told them to say it was a new law. (Also not to side track, but yeah CT is in the dumpster, I plan on moving out after graduation myself. :P)

Actually, from my research I found that there was a 1992 Supreme Court case (Quill Corp vs. North Dakota) in which the court ruled to "effectively prevented states from collecting any sales tax from retail purchases made over the Internet or other e-Commerce route unless the seller had a physical presence in the state." In other words, the State of Connecticut could not force Newegg to either collect sales taxes or to hand over user data, and any new law forcing them to do so would have been a violation of the court ruling. Newegg was under no legal obligation to collect taxes, and in the words of Stephan Kranz regarding possible responses that Newegg could have had to the State's request: That's why Newegg's actions are so egregious, they had every option and every obligation to protect their consumer's data but chose not to, and in doing so violated their own privacy policies. What's even worse is that Newegg lied to their customers about it after the fact in an email. Of course, that's not to say that it wasn't a dick move on the State's part to even request the data, but there could not be anything legally binding about what the State did or requested. If there was anything legally binding about what the state did, then they would be equally to blame.

Yes this is correct, there are Amazon pickup and shipping facilities in CT. If I recall correctly, Amazon didn't charge sales tax before 2013 either.

Again, I'm not upset at the mere lack of a disclaimer from Newegg. I'm upset at the lack of a disclaimer in conjunction with Newegg voluntarily surrenderring customer data when they were not legally required to do so. If they are going to be voluntarily giving up private data without a disclaimer alerting the consumer at the time of purchase, then it appears to be in direct violation of their privacy policy.

1) Willingness and intent are synonymous, I was being redundant for emphasis. 2) Can you provide proof of this "in the small print" statement? I've been combing through their terms & agreements and privacy policies. To my knowledge no such disclaimer exists, so no I don't believe that Newegg has notified me of anything at the time of purchase.

That's definitely stretching it, you have to prove intent and willingness for it to constitute tax fraud. For an honor system such as Use Tax, intention can almost never be proven, so you can't say it's tax fraud. Evading taxes, even if intentional, is also not theft in any way shape or form. What and from whom are you stealing, your own money from the government? I've often heard the phrase "taxation is theft" but I've yet to hear in any capacity "avoiding taxation is theft."

I'm aware that they don't maliciously make plans to mess with their consumers years in advance. However it is still a violation of their privacy policy if they were not legally required to hand over the information. If they had a disclaimer saying "We will be handing over your data to the government for yearly tax review, use tax may apply" then that would be fine, but they don't have that disclaimer and so violated their own privacy policy. I reiterate, there was no threat of legal action, court order, or law that required Newegg to compromised consumer data. Handing it over anyways without a disclaimer is a violation of their own policies.

I want to add that the reason they need to have a disclaimer when voluntarily sharing data is because an action otherwise is in violation of their own privacy policy. The section that deals with government reads: Except their rights were never at risk, it was not required by law, there was no legal process, and there was no judicial proceeding. Newegg lied to their consumers saying that there was a law requiring them to share data so they could be in line with their privacy policy.

That's not what I'm saying at all. This is what I'm saying: If Newegg doesn't want to charge sales tax, that's okay. If Newegg doesn't want a disclaimer on their site but will protect consumer data, that's okay. If Newegg was forced by the State to hand over data, That's okay. If Newegg isn't going to charge sales tax and then voluntarily hands over customer data to the government without a disclaimer, that that is very much not okay. If Newegg is going to share data voluntarily with the government for the sole purpose of the government hunting down consumers, then they need to disclose that information to the consumer at the time of purchase. They consciously chose to compromise their client's information, and It's absolutely their responsibility to inform the consumer. And yes, this applies to every out of state online retailer, but Newegg is the only one that's actually exposed private sales data in this manner.

The only points I'm arguing is that Newegg didn't do their due diligence in informing, being honest with, or protecting their customers. It is their responsibility to have proper disclaimers on their site when applicable and they can be held legally accountable. In a very similar fashion to how Coffee shops have to have a "caution: hot" warning on their cups, Newegg ought to have had a "caution, use tax applies" disclaimer. We're not necessarily in disagreement, and any other inference on your side is misguided.

Yeah, again I believe use tax isn't something that most people are aware of. I had no idea of its intricacies or really even its existence before looking into it throughout this week. I'm not sure about other states, but in my opinion the way use tax is implemented in Connecticut is both impractical and absurd. There's a reason why the compliance rate is only 12% beyond just "willful evasion." (Side note; our Governor has among the lowest approval ratings int the country below even Trump and our state has had budget issues for multiple decades now. It doesn't surprise me that they're desperate for extra revenue in the slightest. )