Melodist

I downloaded and purchased the newest version of winrar through win-rar.com instead of rarlab, was that good? In hindsight, I checked the installer of win-rar.com and it is a few kilobytes smaller than the one from rarlab? Left is from win-rar.com and right from rarlab?

How do you feel about selecting English (World) during installation for less built-in bloat and later on correcting the region or will it cause issues with my OS in the long run and I should rather just uninstall everything after a regular installion of which I don't use? Mike

Should I hit "Restore Factory Keys" before I change it from custom to standard and then activate it before installing Windows 10?

So I should freshly install Windows 10 with my Windows 11 bios settings, including secure boot?

Hello there, I've tried Windows 11 but unfortunately, it still has too many compatibility issues for me so I'll revert back to Windows 10. My question is: should I keep my system set to secure boot and TPM 2.0, especially regarding secure boot? Or should I run it back to my bios default with CSM on and secure boot disabled? Or are there benefits having secure boot on?

Any idea what's the difference between standard and custom?

I don't think secure boot is enabled, is it necessary? It says CSM enabled in my latest BIOS default setting.

Hello there, Are there any important settings I have to change for running Windows 11 on my motherboard besides TPM? I'm on a Gigabyte Designare.

Also another question, when I create partitions with the "new" button, do I have to format these or are they already formated? Let's say I split the drive into two partitions.

Hey guys, There are 3 different ways how you could install Windows and I never found any explanation about the differences: 1: Simply selecting unallocated space and pressing next. Will this let it automatically do the partition and formatting of the partition? 2: Pressing new, selecting the main partition and press next. 3: Pressing new, formating the creating partition and then clicking next on the formated partition. I mean, what's the right way to do it? I mean do I really also have to press format once I've created the partition for the Windows install or will Windows do it by itself or will creating a partition already format it? Also, if you are in Windows and create a secondary partition, it will always be formated but in the windows Setup, when creating a partition, it's not formated yet? Would I still have to format it when I boot into Windows. I've never found any explanation for the bootable Windows Setup and all the options.

I felt like it's good to make a seperate thread because googling it I couldn't easily find any info on thickness and experience with users. I hope you don't mind.

Hello there, What thickness of the thermal pad should I use for my 990 Pro installed on my motherboard's NVMe slots? I attached a photo of the pad that came with the motherboard's heatsink.

I know that about isopropyl but I wasn't sure whether it's good for NANDs Are arctic thermal pads fine? Or should I just slap it just like that on the 990 Pro?

Hello there, I'm just swapping out an SSD on my Gigabyte board and noticed that the thermal pad left some residue over the past 2 years of using it, do you know what it is? Also, can I reuse the thermal pad or should I replace it? And if so, what thickness should I use on it? Should I clean that residue away on the 2 TB 970 Evo (replaced by a 990 Pro) which will go into a different slot or should I just leave it like that because cleaning it with isopropyl might damage the NAND? It goes on an NVMe slot on my Z390 Designare.

I wonder whether the 990 Pro would improve the durability compared to the 970 Evo Plus.

I didn't fully understand your last sentence? 990 Pro if I don't need more storage!? Why when I don't need more storage? And in terms of durability, the 970 Evo Plus and 990 Pro have the same durability rating. That's exactly my thought, people didn't seem to be very happy with the 980 Pro generally when it came out and the 990 Pro seems to be an improvement, it also seems to run lower temps due to the new chip they've put on it. Well I guess yeah, I'd upgrade within the next 2 years for sure but you're saying the only advantage is the sequential read and write speed of it? Nothing else? I guess then anyone who's playing games and professionally isn't transferring super big files should actually get the 970 Evo Plus, even in 2 years from now on? Since that won't change in the future I presume. However, I saw a small file improvement on a review which I'll attach here. Found this on XDA. My point is that I want to avoid redundant purchases for the future. I will definitely keep my existing 2 x 2 TB Evo Plus drives for the new system and already add now another 2 TB upgrade since I need the space but do I really benefit from a 990 Pro even in the future?

Howdy fellas, Currently the prices are the following: 970 Evo Plus 2 TB: 97 Euro 980 Pro 2 TB: 128 Euro 990 Pro 2 TB: 158 Euro Which one would you recommend? The thing is, I could get either the 980 Pro or 970 Evo Plus with another storage SSD or just the 990 Pro. This drive will be for now my Avid Pro Tools system. I'm still currently on a PCIe 3.0 system but it feels foolish to buy another 970 Evo Plus (I currently have 2 x 2 TB Evo Plus) and wanted to add another 2 TB. Just don't know whether it's better to buy something future proof that I can also use in my next system? First I thought, if I go PCIe 4.0 drive-wise, the 980 Pro, because the price isn't that far away, but then I read the greatly improved the 990 over the 980 with random read and write speeds which i would even experience in my PCIe 3.0 system? I work mainly in Avid's Pro Tools Ultimate with sessions of about 250 tracks with a size each of roughly between 30 to 150 megs and Gaming with my 3070 Ti. I have different system drives for that purpose. What do you guy's think I should do?

Even when the VCSA / IO is at 1.3? On my manual OC I had them at 1.1 and 1.2 I mean, on my manual OC for 5 GHz, I had a medium LLC and had around 80 degrees package with Cinebench R23, set at 1.35 V and a VRout of 1.2 On Auto at 5 GHz, I am going above 90 degrees in Cinebench and VR Out at 1.27. However, when I switch the ratio from 50 to 49 on the motherboard default, whats why I've asked that, versus your offset thing at 5 GHz (which Id have to test again to find a stable value), I guess the mobo knows the right value and drops at my VRout to 1.2, just like my custom OC, but at 4.9 GHz. Isn't that a more reliable way to keep the BIOS default settings and not risking instability by simply lowering the clock to 4.9 GHz? Because apparently the motherboard automatically by doing that lowers the voltage and gives me 10 more degrees of headroom. I mean it must still choose enough voltage in Auto to give the CPU the right amount? On offset I'd still have to figure out the right offset again. But it's weird that it does that, I didn't know that in default settings, lowering the clock would also lower the voltage the CPU receives.

Sadly it's not documented in the manual, I somehow saw it somewhere else and can't find it anymore....

Hello there, I'd like to use my 9900KS for stable operation in a workstation environment for Audio Post Production. Therefore, I decided to put the BIOS to default and solely activate my Ram's XMP. However, in standard, the 9900KS is still too hot for my taste and I was wondering: Could I simply change the ratio to 49 for 4900 MHz instead of 5000? I've noticed, the voltage automatically goes down when I switch to 4.9 GHz alongside 10 degrees C less on my CPU from 1.27 to 1.2 VR Out without me changing anything on the voltage. Or would that destabilize the default Auto setting? Changing the ratio to 49. Also, should I switch the MCE from Auto to disabled or leave it that way? Could I tweak the VCCIO and VCCSA without endangering stability? Or should I just deactivate XMP Profile 1 from my Trident Z CL14 which will bring down the the SA voltage again? Thanks much in advance for your input. Mike

Back when I bought the Gigabyte Z390 Designare, there was a guide somewhere to tell me which ports share which lanes with each other, can't find that anymore. I just want to optimize the usage I guess for the devices I use. Basically I run 3 x 970 Evo Plus drives on that board, 2 x on the integrated M.2 slots and one on the last PCE Slot at x4 through the PCH (I didn't put it to CPU yet because I did want my GPU to be at x16). My question also is that whether if I deactivate discrete Thunderbolt in the motherboard settings and disable the WiFi adapter, whether that would free up PCH resources for my 3 x drives bandwidth. That document or website I can't find anymore also showed me which USB ports share PCH Lanes with others, wish I could find that.

Sup folks, What's the best Virus / malware scanner out there? I wanted to scan all my storage drives which I've collected over the years before in consolidate them to a new ones and also one of my system drives I use for browsing and various things False flagging is something that can get quite annoying.

And in terms of durability? Also, will I still be able to use them in a PCI E 4 or 5 system?

Currently, I'm on a 9900K system and want to add another 2 TB drive to my existing 2 x 2 TB Evo Plus drives. The price difference between the 970 Evo Plus and 980 Pro is 30 Euro. Which one should I go for? PS: Obviously I'll upgrade in the future to a PCIe 4 system. I work with Avid Pro Tools (Audio Post) and play Games.

Read this guide from Gigabyte, it's confusing as hell! Regarding the cmos clearing, will it be cleared when I update my bios? One new update is missing for me.