IAmAndre

Yeah I actually decided to wait, considering that there are seemingly better phones arriving as early as January. I'll wait for the reviews but I'm curious about the OnePlus 12 for example, which should cost like half the price and be at very least on par with the S23U. I remember I made that same decision back in 2019 when I chose my OnePlus 7 over the S10 Ultra or whatever it was called back then.

Hi guys, I'm considering buying an S23 Ultra as I'm seeing some good deals online. To give you an idea, I don't upgrade my phones often. I'm still using my OnePlus 7 from 2019, and my general rule is to not spend more than €800 on a smartphone. I'm seeing some good deals online, including one for €915, so I'm considering extending my budget a bit. I'm really tempted. However, I've seen the Qualcomm announcements about the SD 8 gen 3 last month, along with a Xiaomi 14 Pro review. I am now wondering if I should get an S23 Ultra now, or wait until January or so and buy an S24/S24+ for about the same price. The idea is to keep the device for as long as possible, so having an extra year of software updates would be appreciated. With that said, I have many uses for my phone, but the two most important factors are battery life and photo quality (I just went on a safari and got disappointed by the OnePlus 7 picture quality when shooting from distance). Thanks

Hi, I've been using a Logitech Pro headset for a couple years and I am having issues with the both cables it came with. One of them is meant for mobile use (it has a micro on it) while the other one (braided) is meant for desktop use. Both cables are having connection issues and it's a shame that it happened only after a couple years. I was wondering if I could replace them (I'd need recommendations) or if I should just get another headset (in which case I'd like recommendations for something between $100-200, wireless or not, that's more durable so I'd like replaceable foams for example). Thank you.

Again, it would be easier if you had a budget in mind, but quite honestly, I would say, stay away from Galaxy and Apple devices, get a Garmin instead. Garmin has much more experience in terms of tracking devices and the difference with the "tech" brands is just night and day. I'd say go to their website and see what suits you best. I know it might be confusing because they've been releasing tons of models in the past few years, but at least they have something for every budget, from $250-3000+. Even the cheapest models are imo better than the competition i.e more accurate tracking and more importantly, battery life. It's crazy to think that even the most expensive Apple watch can barely last a day with always-on display, while a similarly-priced Garmin would last for days or weeks. And yes, Apple rates the battery life in hours while Garmin uses days on their website. The Garmin software suite is also way better with more features, and that's both a plus and a minus because their user base is made of enthusiasts for the most part.

I'm personally waiting for the S24 but I'd say go for it because it's one of the rare good small smartphones on the market, with premium features and all that jazz, along with long-term software support. You can't go wrong with that one. It's one of the most vanilla (or boring for some) devices on the market. I was initially waiting for the techtober announcements and got very disappointed in the Pixel 8. That's just my opinion but I think that Samsung has more experience making smartphones than Google and it shows here. Google added a lot of gimmicky features (personal opinion again) while skipping on fundamental aspects like battery life. I also hate the fact that many features are software-locked, and I'm a fan of telephoto camera on the Galaxy devices.

So was it a PSU issue?

That's what I thought. I'll be looking for something easy to install. Thanks!

I mean I'm fine with my current temperatures. I've been gaming all afternoon and the CPU hasn't gone above 65°. It's more about whether I should keep this cooler if I upgrade my CPU to a 5950X.

So what should I do then?

That's all I did, really.

Update: I'm actually quite happy with the result. I mostly play Age of Empires 4, and previously the CPU temp would be at around 85° right after I start a game, then of course it would rise as the game goes, and it would eventually get close to 95 and the PC would shut down. As of now, it's at 65% when the game starts and doesn't move. I consider it a (small) success but of course I'm open to improvements.

So that seemed to be (at least part of) the issue. I partially unscrewed the CPU cooler and made sure all four screws were tightened evenly. Right now the CPU temperature is at 50° at idle with the fans running at 2000 RPM. As I said before, it used to be idling at 40 so that's still a bit high, but a huge improvement over the 70° I had this morning. Now I'm not sure if the the difference with the original idle temperature is due to the environment, the weather, or a hardware issue. It's summer where I am, and the room temperature is probably around 25-30°. It's a different apartment so I'm not sure. Is a 20° delta with the ambiant temperature acceptable at idle or should I keep troubleshooting? I didn't remove the CPU cooler entirely, I just evened out the pressure on all 4 screws. However, since I manually pushed on the cooler, I don't this would have helped. I can still do it if you think I should keep on troubleshooting to lose the extra 10°. On another topic, I'm considering upgrading to a 5950X, hopefully in a few months, so I would have to redo the whole thing again, or even purchase a new cooler with it. Assuming that this cooler is working fine and I just mounted it wrong, would you recommend it for a 5950X? Thanks again for your help so far!

Hi, I have a 2600X cooled by a an Arctic Freezer 34 Duo. The temperatures and fan noise have been quite higher than usual the past few months. I assumed something might have moved inside as I moved to a new place, or maybe the thermal paste had dried. It would idle at around 60° and be louder than usual. Today I decided to fix this, so I removed the CPU cooler, cleaned it, reapplied thermal paste and put everything back together. Now the idle temperature is around 70° with the fans running at 1500-2000 RPM. I think there is a contact issue because when I push on the cooler the temperature drops by 10-15°, but even 55° is too high at idle. Could it be an issue with the CPU cooler? I'm considering investing in an aio but I would like to make sure that it's not something else, and ideally fix the issue without having to replace anything. I've been using it for about 5 years now with that CPU and it would usually idle at around 40°. Is it usual to replace coolers after 5 years? Thanks

Hi guys, I've been using an RTX 3070 from Gigabyte for about a year and a half, and it has gradually been making loud noise when playing games. This does not happen while doing anything else, including working on large projects in Premiere and After Effects. I typically play Age of Empires 4. I play in ultra settings and in 3840x1600. Just like my old Vega 56, it used to get loud late in the game, but right now it starts making noises about one minute in. It also happens in the other games I'm playing, which are mostly AAA action games. While the noise is annoying, what's worse is that the PC started crashing today. It happened twice as I was playing online, and while this is the first time it happened in a very long time, I suspect this could be linked. I checked the temperatures and GPU usage during a typical AoE game, but they are usually very normal. GPU utilization is around 60-70%, the temperatures are around 75°C and the fan speed around 3000-4000 RPM vs less than 1500RPM in the menus. I've tried tweaking the fan curves, but I couldn't. I installed Gygabyte Control Center, but for some reason it only detect my Aorus motherboard, not the Gigabyte GPU. I then installed Gygabyte Xtreme Gaming, and while it detects the GPU, it doesn't pick the fan speeds. I've seen many people reporting bugs on these apps, so I reached out to the Gigabyte customer support. Their website is a total mess so I wouldn't be surprised if I never hear back from them. I've also tried cleaning the GPU this morning, but I've lost all my tools recently so I can't take the PC apart for now. However, this is the white card, white fans, but it doesn't look particularly dirty although I've never cleaned it since I bought. With that said, while I'm open to clean the fans by blowing air into them, I'm not taking it apart to repaste it. I'd rather sell it and buy a new one. Anyway, what else can I try to troubleshoot or improve the situation? Thanks!

I haven't played the game since. Partly because I don't have time but also because I've never been really hooked in the game. I started playing Horizon Zero Dawn and I found the story much more interesting. Well I haven't had much time to play that game either.

Interesting. It did disappear for a while for me too as I was scrolling through it.

I haven't. I'll play again tonight so I can check that for you. However, the fact that I'm having so many bugs make me think that all this might be linked so it's maybe not just a graphics issue.

Hi, My internet is bad this weekend so no online games for me. I'm playing Cyberpunk for real for the first time and I'm having all kinds of issues with it. First, I'm having a lot of stuttering/frame drops, especially with ray tracing on. I've been playing on low settings to make the game playable (still looks surprisingly good) but I would like to address the issue because even in low the frame rate would still hover around 30. But that's not all. While I managed to complete the first couple of missions, I still had some bugs from character mouths not moving when they talk to ennemies taking the "neutral" stance for a second (you know, when they stretch their arms to form a T with their body), and the weirdest one: the main character not having an actual gun but pretending to have one. So he'd form a gun with his fingers, but actual bullets would come out of his hand. Reloading to a previous checkpoint would fix that issue but that's so weird. I thought the many bugs on this game were fixed? Could it be EGS being back at it? I tried the repair feature but no issue was found. What else can I try? My PC specs are available on my profile, but it's basically an RTX 3070 and a 2600X with 32GB of RAM. I'm playing in 3840x1600 and I'm happy with anything between 30 and 60 FPS. I typically cap the frame rate at 60 in my games because I don't notice any difference beyond 60Hz and it makes the PC runs more silently. I wish I knew that before investing in a 165Hz monitor! Thanks!

Well I do notice a difference, especially in Word (not as much in Chrome for instance). I also see the difference with online tools made to show the difference between refresh rates. However, I don't find it groundbreaking whatsoever. Like when I go back to my Mac, which has a 60Hz panel, I don't find it any less smooth. Actually with the Zenfone there are still features I won't be using such as wireless charging or the higher refresh rate. The price difference with the ROG Phone 7 is close to zero. The ROG is even slightly cheaper on some websites so it's an attractive option because it has literally everything the Zenfone has for the same price, while offering more features. With that said, the Zenfone is a lot sexier, the ROG looks like a weapon.

Hi guys, Since I'll be traveling quite a lot for work for the next few years, I decided to invest in a ROG Ally. However, I'm also interested in the ROG Phone 7 to replace my aging OnePlus 7. I will leave my gaming setup at my mom's house and will be using the Ally and my Mac for most of my gaming, so I'm not sure if the ROG Phone is worth it. I don't believe in Android gaming: I only play casual games and Nintendo games like Mario Kart or Super Mario Run. In the past, some of the big titles I was really into suddenly disappeared from the Play Store, which makes Android gaming super unreliable for me. On top of that, I don't like the vast majority of the popular/high-grossing premium games. My typical use cases include emailing, taking/editing pictures/videos, scanning documents, web browsing, social media, YouTube/Twitch. I'm a simple man and I'm insensitive to many of the trending features on smartphones that reviewers love for some reason such as: wireless charging: I'd much rather have a large battery and fast charging, which is even more handy when traveling often high screen resolutions: I find anything around 1080p is more than enough on a phone. Even on a TV or a monitor, I don't notice any difference between 1080p and 4K. Actually the only time I do is when I play RTS games because there's more information visible high refresh screens: I'm completely insensitive to this concept. I don't notice any difference in most cases between 60Hz and 165Hz on my gaming monitor. I would definitely use the phone at 60Hz to save battery, that's a no-brainer for me. What I do like on the other hand is the ROG Phone's large battery and headphone jack. In an ideal world, I would want the phone to be smaller. I'm tempted to get the Zenfone 10 but the battery life is worse and it actually doesn't excel anywhere. My dream phone would be a Galaxy S23 with a headphone jack. I have also looked into the recently-released Sony phones, but they are more expensive than the ROG, which can now be found at around $700. So I would like to know if it makes sense to invest in a gaming phone if you are not using it for gaming, and if you have any other recommendations at this price point ($800 or less). Thanks!

Hi, So I have an RTX 3070 and I noticed that when playing demanding games like Cyberpunk, it runs at full speed: GPU utilization is close to 100%, same for GPU memory. The power drawn is around 225W according to GeForce Experience. Now when I work on a complex After Effects project for example, the GPU and GPU memory utilization are also close to 100%, but the power drawn is only around 115W. The fans are also a lot quieter. Why is that?

Amazing. Good to hear that I don't risk anything for now. I'm kind of a lazy person and I'm supposed to move to a new country this summer, so I'll have to take it apart anyway so I think I'll just run it as it is for now and buy a new case when I get there. That's 20kg less to carry. I have a bad history with Thermaltake. I once asked them for a new bracket for my CPU cooler and they agreed to send me a new CPU cooler (not just the CPU bracket) only if I paid the shipping fees from Asia, which were more expensive that the actual CPU cooler. I highly doubt that they will agree to send me a replacement 3kg sheet of glass but I'll try anyway. Hmm how do I clean out the PSU? Do you mean the fans? I thought it was unsafe to open a PSU? It is! It looks very good and premium but I can immediately hear the sound difference with the panel on and off, which should be the opposite.

I guess I learned it the hard way. Would wood have saved it or do I need a carpet?

Good. What do I risk if there are still some shards inside?

I'm so gutted right now. So long story short, I removed the glass side panel of my case because the CPU was overheating (thermal paste replacement is supposed to arrive one of these days) and I wanted to game. I tried to put it back on and it broke in a surprising amount of pieces. I'm hesitant to turn the PC on because there might be some pieces of glass inside. I removed the ones I could but there might still be some tiny pieces inside. Is it risky to turn kt back on? Then I'm just surprised by how fragile the glass panel is. It felt from literally 5cm or less. It was quite a heavy panel though. What should be my takeaway? Is the build quality poor or was it just a premium material designed to break easily for some reason? It is quite heavy. Should I just stay away from glass panels from now on? Thanks