Crunchy Dragon

Sounds like you have an extremely convoluted RAID1 spread across 2 systems instead of contained in a single system. Easiest solution I can think of is to set up a single dedicated machine that can hold several hard drives, and configuring that as your NAS, probably with a RAID10 array(RAID0 nested in a RAID1).

Calculators aren't reliable. UserBenchmark can be used to compare performance, but those results are often skewed towards higher performance as a baseline because so many people overclock. An 8600K would only give you a minor frequency increase and overclocking support, it wouldn't be good for much beyond that. If you really wanted to upgrade, I'd look at an i7-8700K. In any case, you're not losing enough performance that it makes a ton of sense to only upgrade one part. An 8700K would certainly mitigate the bottleneck, but you likely won't notice the difference much, if at all(depending on your use cases). I'd suggest holding off on the upgrade, saving up some more money, and doing a full system overhaul in a year or two, possibly a jump to 13th or 14th gen instead of a minor increase on 8th or 9th gen.

How do you know your 1080 is being bottlenecked?

Dang. Last kit I bought was G.Skill Ripjaws V 4x16 DDR4-3200, paid just over $150 USD after taxes and shipping. That lives in my home server, since I could realistically upgrade to 128+GB in the future. Haven't foreseen myself needing more than 64GB in my workstation before changing platforms, and because I found a really good deal on an 8x8GB kit of Corsair Dominator Platinums, I decided to just send it lol

That's fair. How much would it have been for 4x16 or 8x8?

As a quad channel aficionado, this hurts my soul

Still worth mentioning and noting that Sonoma, the latest macOS version to release, is still supported by 2019 Intel-based Macs. Not sure about 2018 and lower, but 2015 Intel Macs can still run Ventura. @baz83: how long do you need your next laptop to last? Intel-based MacBooks have dropped a ton in price on the used market since M1 released, and you can still get quite a bit of bang for buck buying a slightly older 2019 MacBook Pro.

Kinda makes a fella wish quad channel hadn't died out the way it did...

Good enough for me. The barrel I bought was Faxon's Gunner profile, so it's a Government profile near the receiver, and Pencil after the gas journal. Not sure if it comes dimpled or not, but yeah I'd probably just loctite + torque, call it a day. I wasn't planning on a specific suppressor, still need to do research. I guess muzzle devices are fairly easy to swap out so it probably doesn't matter a ton. I'm sure there are plenty of suppressors that give better bang for buck(lol) than Surefire anyway.

Yeah, a basic set of tools are also on my list. I'm not too fussed about obtaining all the tools immediately, since I'll likely be waiting until I have all the parts to start putting things together. Will be needing some lube for the castle nut also, I forget if I need it for the barrel nut too. Fortunately I already have a workbench with a vise mounted to it, so that's something I won't have to buy. Found this nifty Reddit post detailing tools needed, which is more or less what I already had on my list from reading other guides online and watching some videos. Good to know, thanks! What I'll probably do once I have the upper completed is test it on my current lower, and use that to figure out some of the finer details, so I can definitely pick up an H1 buffer to try with it, and then I'll have that on hand for when I build the dedicated lower for this rifle You think any regular gas block will be fine? I was looking at an Aero Precision adjustable block, as a suppressor is on my list of extreme stretch goals for this rifle. Kind of wanting a Surefire Warcomp as my muzzle device, and Surefire doesn't appear to be making flow through suppressors at all.

You probably are wrong. If this was the case, we would've been hearing about i9s blowing up way back in 2017 on X299 when they first became a thing, if not earlier on the higher end Xeon chips with high double digit corecounts on X99. Same for Ryzen and Threadripper, if higher power draw was a clear negative all around, it would've been a problem much earlier. As stated above, you're not very likely to have problems like that on an older Haswell CPU(not sure if you have an i5-4690K or i7-4790K based on your original post). Those chips ran pretty cool and didn't consume a ton of power, even with some higher overclocks. As far as higher power draw for more performance....there's not really a way to increase performance without increasing power draw. There's only so much optimization that can be done on the software side and once a program is as optimized as it can be, the only way to increase performance in said program is to increase your power draw, either by overclocking or upgrading hardware. Higher performance will almost always equal higher power draw, which is why power rating for CPUs and GPUs has only gone up.

I'd be curious to know how much it actually matters to get the highest possible speed out of DDR5, which is already hilariously fast compared to DDR4. I get that it's rated for a certain speed, I'm just wondering how much it matters performance-wise to actually run the rated speed as opposed to whatever the default is for DDR5. Lightroom loves to eat RAM, so I definitely understand wanting more of it.

Higher power draw does not equate faster death. As long as a given part is kept under control with regards to power input and cooling, it should run basically forever. Overvolting usually won't pop off resistors on the bottom of a CPU, but it doesn't sound impossible if the motherboard crapped itself and sent entirely too much voltage to the CPU.

Started my first AR build today. It'll come slowly, but I'm piecing together an upper, paycheck by paycheck. Should have it done by the end of the year, or shortly after the new year. Contrary to what my above post may imply, I'm opting for 5.56 instead of .350 Legend. In terms of price, it should come out to More Expensive Than My Current Rifle, which is partly why I'm not buying all at once. I also like the idea of having a rifle that I picked all the parts of and assembled myself. Should be fun! Today I ordered the barrel from our boys at Faxon Firearms because early holiday sales go hard. Not sure what order I'll buy the rest of the parts in, but I'll figure that out.

Will definitely be making my way to a movie theater again this year. Just when I thought everything I had wanted to see had come out already...

If your PSU and CPU cooler can handle it, I'd upgrade to a 4790K and overclock it a little bit. It shouldn't be super expensive, and will get you some more performance. Extra RAM is nice to have, but you'll have to replace it with DDR4 or 5 when you move to a more modern platform, so I would hold off on that for now, unless you start running out of RAM. +1 on buying a better GPU than your CPU can support and using it with a future upgrade.

It's a decent card and should be fine. I tend to lean towards EVGA because their stuff is the best, and they stopped making GPUs after the 30-series.

Based on what I've heard, 360mm is mostly needed for the newer Core i9 chips. I'm rocking a 280mm still on top of an i7-7820X, and it stays pretty cool for being Skylake-X.

Give me EVGA or give me death

Definitely have to shop around a little. If I'm looking for a good deal on used hardware, it's not uncommon for me to spend as much as 2 weeks searching around before I find something I'm satisfied with.

I've mixed and matched RAM for the last decade, never had any problems. Performance won't be optimal, but I would recommend doing your research. DDR5 is more finicky than DDR3 and 4.

That looks about as good as you can hope for in most cases. I applaud the DVD burner, as a physical media aficionado. I could see it being that much better. GTX 970 to RTX 3060 is a pretty big leap in terms of hardware capability. 4060Ti would likely be the exact same story(with regards to temperatures and utilization)as you're currently having, except the GPU will be bottlenecked by the CPU rather than the CPU keeping up with the GPU.

I agree with your other points, but this is in fact an 11th gen CPU.

If the new GPU is physically larger, it could impact airflow and in turn, temperatures. Your temperatures are within the safe zone still, I'd worry when they start crossing 100 degrees. If you're concerned, you can try buying a new CPU cooler or adding some case fans to improve airflow.