darealsoulless

To keep the backstory short, I had surgery and was driven to my dad's to recover because he was somewhat able to help take care of me while my core muscle healed. Anyway, since being here I've been using an older model MacBook Pro and absolutely love how it integrates with my iMessage, iCloud photos, and overall simplicity of use and attractive and simple user interface. The machine I've been using is a late 2013 Core i5 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM. I know the device is old by today's standard but I'm amazed at how well it runs High Sierra and how well it hides its age. I have a separate Windows PC for computationally heavy tasks and gaming, but like the Mac because of the great standby time, attractiveness, and the experience of using MacOS. My only prior experience with it is from the iMac G3 back when I was in middle school. Anyways, the question is how old of a MacBook Pro could I buy and get several good years of use out of it before I notice any slowdowns or loss of support? I was thinking 2016-2019 models but any input is very welcome. Also, what specs should I look for? I was thinking at least Core i5, preferably i7 and 8 or 16GB of RAM. Please help me choose as I'm a Mac noobie.

This PC started as an HP Envy, completely proprietary pre-built. With about $500 I was able to pull off this upgrade. Swapped mobo, PSU, case and upgraded cooling. And also sold my old graphics card and upgraded. (RX 6600 to RX 6700) I carried over the CPU, RAM and storage from the pre built, saved me a ton of money. Mobo, case, cooling and PSU on the pre built could not be carried over. (propriatary mobo, Flex ATX 2U PSU, etc.) Case is Zalman S2 Temp. Glass CPU is i7 10700 Mobo is TUF Gaming Z590 Plus WiFi PSU is TT Smart 650 BM2 semi-modular GPU is RX 6700 10GB, Sapphire partner card Cooler is ID Cooling SE 214 XT 120mm I feel like this build came together really well. The case is a bit appliance-like, but it cools fantastically and holds my components, which is all I need it to do. Overall to complete this upgrade I spent about $400 USD. The price of the GPU was heavily reduced out of pocket because I sold my old one to help pay for it. It does 1080p max settings 100+ frames per second in the games I play, runs cool & quietly, doesn't consume too much power and is very snappy and stable. Pics below.

@aDoomGuy everything I needed to know, thanks!

Both can be fine under certain circumstances. If a PC is placed on the floor, the power supply may need to be flipped so it's drawing air from inside the system if the floor is carpet. Another complication with putting them on the floor is dust intake is elevated especially if you have pets. But placing it on the floor isn't all disadvantages. If it's under the desk, the solid surface of the desk's top will block a lot of the noises that PC's make. Floor placement can also reduce the amount of heat radiating into your face/torso if the computer is closer to you. Desk placement means the PC will be more audible, lights could be distracting, heat radiation may be annoying and it may take up a bit too much space on the desk. For me, desk placement has less advantages but the main one to me would be the close-up visibility of the components. Like with anything, some people prefer one and some the other option. I reckon a lot of the time the placement is chosen because of the aesthetic. That's how I do it.

I have a buddy who built his PC when the 6000 series Radeon cards came out, and he got the 6700 non-XT 10GB. He has now upgraded and I was able to buy his 6700 for $220 USD. I looked online and these new can be over $400, I feel like I got a really good deal. Also, guy takes good care of his stuff and isn't an overclocker. I haven't used the card yet as it does not fit in my current case. Waiting on my new case and motherboard to come in before I can try it out. Anyone on here who has a 6700, how does it do for you? I'm still using a 1080p display (looks fine to me) and I'm hoping I end up able to get a max settings 75+fps gaming experience at 1080p. My new system will be running 32GB DDR4-3200, an i7 10700k and the RX 6700.

I just ordered components for a brand new PC, everything minus the storage. I have my own 1TB NVMe and another 4TB hard disk. Can I just assemble the new PC and direct swap them? I was wondering if there's anything I needed to do before removing them from my current PC. Do I need to remove all the drivers before swapping the drives in? New PC uses a similar CPU (10700k from 10700, got the CPU for cheap from a friend) but different motherboard, RAM, PSU and GPU. I want to be able to power up my PC and have it work with the copy of Windows and files on my two drives. This is something I've never done before. In the past, when I got a new PC I wouild wipe my drives and install a fresh copy of Windows, however now I'm not trying to spend $100+ on an operating system if I already have it on the drive. I am using Windows 11. As always, thanks for all comments and engagement. The community here on the LTT Forum is fantastic.

For me the effect is opposite. DX11 performs okay but not great and DX12 gives me significantly higher framerates, however performance is unstable at best. Stutters, framedrops, etc. It's unrelated to the rest of my system. Dual channel fast RAM, I know the 10700 is more than adequate for this game as my Ryzen 3 2200U could do it too on one of my old machines, few background processes. I've decided to just stop playing the game. Edit: For clarification, DX11 framerates are equally unstable. Every other game I play runs fine though even when rendered in DX12 mode.

I tend to let my PC ramp up pretty aggressively. It's under the desk, between us is a 1" thick sheet of mahogany so it blocks the sound well. With a headset on or music lightly playing through my speakers, the sound is deafened completely and temps ingame are a cool and collected 70C at the highest. Embrace the noise! For a real answer, most fans can be tuned to allow a zero-RPM mode, and once a component reaches a baseline temperature they can ramp up. I'd try playing with this. Note that you can keep your maximum fan speed low at the cost of temperature for a quieter computing experience. My graphics card for example, spins up its three fans at 60C, at 30% speed and when temp creeps below 60, the fans turn themselves off. It is a constant spinning up and down noise, but to preserve the life of my precious dies I'm more than willing to listen to it. If for whatever reason the temps reach 83C, the fans spin to their max speed because I'm uncomfortable with that temperature running sustained in, for example, an hour long battle royale match. Also lower temps play nicer with overclocks. I find that at max core and memory frequency instability occurs around the 80 mark, if kept below this than I don't experience crashes. I do also use a robust server-type PSU that can send its full wattage down the 12 volt PCI-e rail, so current spikes aren't a cause of instability for me either. Cooling is a complicated game and there are many ways to answer this question, just mess with it and find what works for you. It took me many days of changing a few percent, few degrees' curve here and there to get not only satisfied with my temps, but the stability of my system and ability to sustain an aggressive overclock on both the CPU and GPU.

I have an RX 6600 Pulse from Sapphire, a decent card for what I use it for (1080p, my vision is beyond terrible so I honestly can't tell the difference between full HD and ultra HD, hence negating any reasons for me to spend the extra money on a 1440p or 4k display). My current clocks - Memory 1875MHz, Core 2670MHz. Not a crazy overclock or anything, also plus twenty Watts on the power limit. Performance in games is slightly better with this overclock, an extra handful of FPS, but where I do notice instability and annoying hitches is in Fortnite. I do play that quite a bit and have become a pretty skilled player, but the game reports that my drivers are known to be problematic, but when I roll back and even disable my overclock, the game still crashes often and at random. Is this just an issue with AMD cards or a freak anomaly? No other games exhibit any weird performance except Fortnite. No, I do not run ray tracing. The game is set to render in DX12 mode, as I get an extra 20-30fps just by enabling DX12. Has anyone found a solution to this? Or even experienced this problem? Help would be appreciated. This has become an annoyance to the point where I'm considering just getting a 3060 and calling it a day.

I do understand this point of view and had it set white and numbers, shift and general interaction keys for games highlighted red. Just wanted to change it up and noticed the surprising lack of third party profiles on these specific keyboards. Not a problem for my K95 that no longer works but HyperX doesn't seem to have much third party support, even despite the fact that it is a great keyboard. Nice smooth switches, quality key caps and a mostly metal body and at the sub-$100 USD price point seems to be one of the better mechanical keyboards out there. Only thing I don't care for is the lack of a USB hub and even the lack of a USB-C connection.

I have an Alloy tenkeyless RGB and was just wondering if there are profiles besides the ones they offer on their website. I'd love to see some different ones, possibly even use one. I currently use the Wave setting with white flame upon press. Is there a subreddit or a thread on LTT forum with some different ones? May have posted in the wrong subforum, my apologies if so and please move to the appropriate category. Thanks guys

I had a prebuilt HP system rocking an i7 10700, non-K, 32GB of memory (some guy that did a lot of content creation had this machine before me), 400W server type PSU, and ended up adding a 6600 XT as my gaming card. I loved that thing, temps were actually pretty decent and it ran everything at my choice resolution (1080p, I don't see very well so I get no benefit out of ultra high definition displays, only high refresh rates). 165Hz, at 1080p the 6600 XT is going to allow you to have a great high-fps gaming experience with good thermals, low noise, and fantastic quality settings. The 6600 XT I went with, a Sapphire dual-fan card, pretty typical, using only a single supplemental 8-pin PCI-e connector, worked great. Fit in the case length wise (a lot of these OEM cases are VERY short, no long cards at all) and height was not an issue either. Just a suggestion, but the 6600 XT IMO is a great value if you can get it at MSRP (not too hard these days). Highest temps I've seen (this was with a moderate overclock) were mid to high 70s (C) which is perfectly acceptable, especially seeing how my outgoing HP case was borderline non-consentually asphyxiating my graphics card. The only ventilation whatsoever on that case was the 80mm in the PSU, 92 on rear top of case, and CPU's 92mm "stock-style OEM" downdrafter. CPU did get a bit spicy but nothing crazy, low 80s, maintaining full boost frequency (4.6GHz on my old chip I think) the entire time. Hope that helps a little. The 6600 XT is efficient, fast enough, and offers a degree of future-proofing that you just won't get with a 3050. It's just a faster GPU. I've also seen a buddy of mine's 3050 that was crazy long for an entry level gfx card. You could go nVidia if you wanted to (nostalgic spelling anyone), but finding a good 3060 that'll fit probably won't be as cheap or as easy as it is with the lower tier Radeons, specifically the 6600/6600XT. Yeah, I know the ray tracing performance isn't as good but I don't use RT anyways, it is still a long way (at least the life of a GPU) away from becoming a mainstream feature in games. Also before anyone comes after me, you don't need 32GB of system memory. That's just what my PC was equipped with (it was a retired one-generation-old workstation when I bought it off a friend who owns a computer refurb shop. He had no idea what it was used for before I got it, he just assumed it was a workstation, as did I). 16GB will get you happily by in almost any situation still. HP prebuilts are a good target, I've upgraded a few of them now and have nay had an issue. Even my first gaming PC, (Phenom, 8GB DDR2) came with a really robust power supply and dual-channel RAM. Those are 2 things that are important and often not considered by someone looking for a good candidate PC for a quick GPU upgrade. I got the 10700 system, only one year after 10th gen launched, with everything except graphics card for $430. Not a bad deal at all for a system that only needs a GPU plopped in it. Hope this post answers some of the background thought questions. I can post a link to the specific 6600 XT that I used if interested as well. Just quote me and I will return to the thread. Edited: I still have the same CPU and GPU in my current system, I just bought a case, mobo and PSU for better NVMe support, modular interface, and ability to run a cheap tower cooler. I could also upgrade to 11th gen, though I see no need as the 10700 is still a great midrange CPU.

Check out some products from Dell. I am aware their computers aren't very good but their monitors are EXCEPTIONAL, especially for the price points some of them come in at. For example, I bought the S2422HG, a 24" curved 1080p gaming monitor with 1-3ms average response times, fantastic color accuracy for professional work, 165Hz refresh rate for ultra smooth gaming and content consumption, as well as a buttery smooth animation experience in the Windows user interface. I got my monitor on sale at Best Buy for about $165, and this is by a long shot the best monitor I've ever had. Before this, I had only had cheap 720p or 1080p 60Hz LCD monitors, and before that I used a Dell '97 CRT for six or seven years. So the step up to this curved, high refresh rate, image displaying beast, was a monumental and indescribable upgrade for me. Also, I don't recommend stepping up to the 27" or the ultrawide S series monitors because they use VA panels which respond slower than most gamers want. They do have excellent black levels, don't get me wrong the blacks on the S2422HG are good, but it's an IPS panel so it does not have the ability to shut off individual pixels for those true blacks like you see on VA or OLED panels. The S2422HG is Freesync and G-sync compatible as well. This is all around a fantastic monitor if you don't want that stupid "gamery" aesthetic and RGB and other unnecessary features that take your attention from the screen itself. The S2422HG is also as close to bezel-less as it gets. The bezel around the sides and top of the display is less than one centimeter in width. The chin is about two centimeters. Basically this monitor is the one. HDR is gimmicky and just an extra tax you pay for displays. I recommend against HDR, imo it's more true to life without. All HDR seems to do for me is oversaturate colors and increase the contrast to unnatural levels.

I don't see where else the issue would be coming from. No weirdly high CPU usage, network activity, GPU load, SSD activity, etc. Generally I have quite a few tasks running at any given time. For example, I have OpenShell and RetroBar open at all times. I refuse to use the hilariously terrible taskbar and start screen that comes with Win11. Also, my keyboard software, Radeon software, browser tabs (3-10 open at a time) music playing, and a game open all at the same time. All of this is absolutely necessary for me and instead of getting rid of tasks like RetroBar, I'll just upgrade my RAM because keeping the classic Start menu and taskbar is extremely important to me. I have a decently fast CPU so I never notice those things choking down my CPU, just my 16GB of RAM fills up pretty quick.

Hey guys, I bought a 10th gen system a while ago pre-assembled and it has 16GB of DDR4 memory running at base speed. It's an i7 10700 processor as well. Those of you with 10th gen Intel processors, what's the fastest RAM I can run without instability or any incompatibility issues. I know it does *somewhat* matter from CPU to CPU, I know 10th gen is only about two years old now but I'm still curious about RAM compatibility with these chips. I ask this question because the 16GB in my system is definitely becoming an issue. With three Chrome tabs open and music playing in the background, I'm at 50% RAM usage. Then when I open any newer game my memory usage is pegged at 75-90% which is unacceptable. I want to be able to play God of War at max settings and still have at least 10GB RAM not being utilized so I don't have to close all other programs except my game. I'm thinking of going with any DDR4 that runs at 3200MHz or faster, at a capacity of at least 32GB. It's amazing to me that 16GB is becoming the lowest usable amount of RAM, I remember a time when 2GB was absolutely insane in a PC.