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loculus

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  1. Like
    loculus got a reaction from Tech_Dreamer in What Upgrades did you do on 2019 for your PC?   
    I did a case sidegrade to the MetallicGear Neo Mini V2 to support a kinda-bad-value-and-not-worth-it GTX 1070 -> RTX 2070 upgrade. At least the card itself was only $355 (after tax/shipping; manufacturer refurb) and I netted $165 on the GTX 1070 flip on eBay.
     
    Also added a couple of Noctua NH-P14s redux PWM fans, and an Intel 660P 2TB NVMe (PCIe) SSD because it was like $180 and I couldn't resist. ?
  2. Like
    loculus got a reaction from MSussens in Which Noctua Fans   
    From Noctua's lineup, okay, sure. Especially if you want black fans specifically. If you just want to avoid beige or don't care, and if you don't need all the way up to 2000 rpm on a 14 cm fan (that would be loud), the NH-P14s redux-1500 PWM is considerably cheaper and just a little worse in performance while having better acoustic quality.
     
    Do you need PWM control?
     
    If you're actually planning on running higher RPM and care about the sound, you might want to look at the Corsair ML140 as well. There are a lot of alternatives and brands other than Noctua making competitive fans but it's not like using the Noctuas is a bad idea that you need to be saved from, so you can run with those.
  3. Agree
  4. Agree
    loculus got a reaction from Chuck Comet in Can air flow be predicted using total CFM ratings?   
    Okay, so the point is that the numbers are not right because that's not how much air is going to be going in and out, or through the heatsinks. But nevertheless, it seems like you'd probably get positive pressure from these setups depending on fan speeds, if your interest is just in minimizing air coming in where there aren't filters.
     
    You can't confidently plan these things because of all the reasons previously stated. Though with just three fans it's not that hard to predict, usually.
  5. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from A1Mike_W in Fan recommendations   
    On second thought, if gray is okay, the Noctua redux packaging of the NF-P14 seems actually a pretty decent value in the UK compared to what else I'm seeing. £14 per fan, PWM controlled, on overclockers:
    https://www.overclockers.co.uk/noctua-nf-p14s-redux-pwm-1200rpm-140mm-quiet-case-fan-fg-042-nc.html
     
    The NH-P14 has a relatively good acoustic character (more broadband, flatter, with less spikes is better):

    http://www.silentpcreview.com/140mm_Fan_Roundup1
     
    I guess the be quiet! Silent Wings 3 PWM models would be actually black, and more expensive. The issue is I think this iteration was tuned for a bit better performance against restrictions, at the expense of noise, so maybe not as suitable for what you're asking.
     
    Or wait, at 120 mm Noiseblocker made a black version of the eLoop, the B12-PS black edition with PWM control:
    https://www.overclockers.co.uk/noiseblocker-nb-eloop-fan-b12-ps-black-edition-120mm-pwm-fg-064-nb.html
  6. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from historicalpoultry in Desktop Speakers / Monitors for 100-200$   
    Not the Audioengine A2+ unless you want boosted lower midrange / upper bass and then midbass falling off a cliff (and no subbass of course). They're not tuned remotely neutrally. They're tuned in a way to kind of mask the fact that they're not doing lower bass, which is kind of a necessary sacrifice at that tiny size combined with the price point, allowing it to play a decent volume. Better the Micca MB42X + amp or PB42X, or something larger.
     
    On rare deals you can get a pair of JBL LSR305 for $200. Actually, if you're in the US near a Guitar Center, the special edition red versions might be available for $75 a pop on clearance:
    http://www.guitarcenter.com/JBL/LSR305-5-Inch-Two-Way-Bi-Amplified-Studio-Monitor-Limited-Edition-RED.gc
     
    There are some other options, especially the more bass you're willing to sacrifice, more normally under $200. What kind of extension do you need? If you don't know which frequency (e.g. 70 Hz) corresponds to what, try playing music on your headphones and set a hard high-pass EQ set at certain levels, or maybe just download SineGen and play around with tones.
  7. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from wONKEyeYEs in Turning down the RPM on my fans   
    Fan speed control can be either through a PWM signal on the 4th pin or reducing the nominal +12V voltage to something lower. Both are common on motherboards. Some motherboard headers can do one, both, or neither. Looks like the SYS_FAN header on that mobo does neither.
    That won't help if the header doesn't support fan speed control. This is a relatively old board, being AM3, (back before more fan speed control options were more prevalent) and relatively low in the product stack, so guess what.
     
     
    Yes, you could get a PWM splitter cable (1 to 3), and then run those two fans along with your CPU fan off of the CPU fan header. This would use the same control scheme for all three fans (likely based on CPU temperature), but if the CPU fan is different its fan speed for a given PWM level may be different from your two other Corsair fans.
     
    You could alternatively buy a fan speed controller. There are full units, like those that fit in 5.25" bays, or other options, but on the low end and if you don't need the speed to be adaptive, you could use something like a Zalman Fan Mate 2, which has a knob which sets the +12V to something lower. It's for 3-pin fans but you could plug it into your 4-pin fan splitter and then into the motherboard. You might have to break off the side so you can fit the 4-pin connector into the 3-pin receptacle but it should work.
  8. Like
    loculus got a reaction from LogicalDrm in Turning down the RPM on my fans   
    Fan speed control can be either through a PWM signal on the 4th pin or reducing the nominal +12V voltage to something lower. Both are common on motherboards. Some motherboard headers can do one, both, or neither. Looks like the SYS_FAN header on that mobo does neither.
    That won't help if the header doesn't support fan speed control. This is a relatively old board, being AM3, (back before more fan speed control options were more prevalent) and relatively low in the product stack, so guess what.
     
     
    Yes, you could get a PWM splitter cable (1 to 3), and then run those two fans along with your CPU fan off of the CPU fan header. This would use the same control scheme for all three fans (likely based on CPU temperature), but if the CPU fan is different its fan speed for a given PWM level may be different from your two other Corsair fans.
     
    You could alternatively buy a fan speed controller. There are full units, like those that fit in 5.25" bays, or other options, but on the low end and if you don't need the speed to be adaptive, you could use something like a Zalman Fan Mate 2, which has a knob which sets the +12V to something lower. It's for 3-pin fans but you could plug it into your 4-pin fan splitter and then into the motherboard. You might have to break off the side so you can fit the 4-pin connector into the 3-pin receptacle but it should work.
  9. Agree
    loculus got a reaction from W-L in Fan sound levels 30db   
    At that kind of rpm, actually even a bit above 1000 rpm, these fans have noticeable tonality. It's more than just a whoosh.
     
    Check this video to see sound pressure levels, rpm, cfm, and pressure for different voltage on the NF-A14 IPPC 2000 rpm, and more importantly hear how they sound:
     
    That's for the 24V version, but the 12V variant should be similar at similar rpm. So compare by that rather than the voltage needed to achieve a certain rpm.
     
    Here's the NF-F12 IPPC 3000 rpm (should be fairly similar to the 2000 rpm when operating sub-2000 rpm):
    The channel has a number of other fans for comparison. Obviously the recording process plus your own playback setup will not generate the correct absolute noise levels from these fans for your use case, but they should give an idea of the tonality of the fan (though that can be affected by any dust filters, case, etc. and how they are being used). There are some other reviews out there, and for example SPCR has good quality recordings of fans at lower rpm, including a A14 variant up to 1300 rpm here.
     
    Both these fans are actually not particularly good designs compared to the rest of Noctua's lineup, in terms of how they sound.
  10. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from Krik00 in 3x 120mm or 2x 140mm fans   
    If it's a more restrictive front then generally the 3x 120 mm should probably be slightly better. The 140 mm models tend not to have as good static pressure—to be a little more accurate, more dropoff in airflow when facing restriction as you can see on a P-Q curve—though this will obviously depend on the models and design. The CFM in free air, even if it is an accurate figure (most brands do not give accurate and consistently comparable figures), is not going to be directly applicable when fans are mounted in a case.
     
    Keep in mind that the actual area covered by 2x 140 mm fans is not far from 3x 120 mm fans because you're looking at length x width so the dimension is squared. Obviously you need to account for the fan hub, the fact that the actual area is more like circles or a doughnut than a square, etc. but anyway it comes out relatively similarly.
     
    A completely mesh, open front with decent front-to-back case airflow, and this looks more like a tossup.
  11. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from KyberKylo77 in Will The Jump To Volta Be as Significant as From Maxwell To Pascal?   
    Yes, Pascal was a big improvement.
     
    For example the AMD R9 290 released in late 2013 for $400 (a bit slower than the higher-end 290X) was a bit faster than Nvidia's GTX 780 at the time, and the GTX 780 Ti that edged out the 290X was more expensive than the 290X. With Nvidia's 900 series they got a power efficiency edge on AMD but AMD was competitive in performance, maybe a little better value at different price points.
     
    AMD subsequently did some refreshes than then some expensive cards in the Fury line, first with HBM (hence expensive, and the chips being huge), that were better performers but not incredibly so.
     
    The issue is AMD Polaris products slotting in not too far from the performance of the R9 290 and R9 290X, despite it being that much later... and these Polaris cards are still AMD's best under the expensive Vega line. Polaris didn't gain enough power efficiency for gaming over AMD's previous stuff, while Pascal gained lots for Nvidia over Maxwell (900 series), so AMD is way behind on power efficiency. Also performance per die area. Well, I guess part of the issue is AMD having to run at relatively high clocks/volts for them to not be even further behind on performance. So Nvidia can price things how they want and make more profits.
     
     
    But the design of the architecture is done years in advance of a product launch, so it's not like Nvidia came up with Volta and were designing chips knowing how far ahead they'd be by now. It's just that they're definitely in no rush for the consumer card product launches because they aren't being pressured by competition. And when they do go ahead, they can probably go with relatively small chips and tame configs.
     
    Nvidia's doing just fine shipping Voltas for AI and other compute for a while.
  12. Agree
    loculus got a reaction from PlayStation 2 in 16bit/96khz Microphone+?   
    Well okay, I should clarify that lowering to 32 kHz or lower sample rates actually matter and cut off the audible spectrum because the Nyquist frequency is below what people can hear. CD audio is 44.1 kHz for a reason, and every recording device supports at minimum 48 kHz, which is sufficient for most purposes.
     
    If you're hearing some difference when recording at 96 kHz vs. 48 kHz, it's probably not actually legit but just in your head ("placebo") and differences might go away if you were to test more rigorously, blinded, etc. Or sometimes I guess the hardware is less-than-ideal and may underperform at once settings but not another, which could create actual differences, not just perceived ones. That's less likely to be the case and would be highly implementation specific, and that doesn't mean some device with a max of 48 kHz is necessarily less good for your purposes.
  13. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from KuJoe in Cheap sound card with line-in and line-out needed.   
    I still wouldn't be that surprised if it were grounding related. The way this manifests itself in the signal depends on the design of the electronics.
     
    A microphone is floating and doesn't have its own ground, so cheap audio electronics with a microphone port are designed with this usage in mind and not having to connect to another (electrically) noisy computer.
     
    The Elgato HD60 S expects to be connected to a different computer, so it could make sense that it doesn't exhibit the same issues in this scenario.
  14. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from Trav_X in Help please, I'm a speaker noob   
    To be clear, it's not a feature of Class D amps in general and does not apply to many, even if a number of the chips integrate a charge pump (or maybe something else?) to generate the negative supply. Most are designed for single supply input (hot and ground), though. I mostly just meant earlier that this is what you're dealing with—and it works—on an ultra-cheap budget. Maybe several clean watts, who knows.
     
    Some boards also might generate a negative supply externally from the single positive supply, but you're not going to see this at the sub-$20 level. You can't expect miracles fishing in junkland.
     
    Regardless, this seems to be a moot point for the OP anyway.
  15. Like
    loculus got a reaction from Matapatapa in Phantom power into PC   
    That's what some kind of mic preamp would help with (boosting the level, with adjustable gain to get to a proper volume), whether something standalone, part of a mixer, or part of an audio interface. A lot of these provide phantom power themselves.
  16. Agree
    loculus got a reaction from unknownmiscreant in Help please, I'm a speaker noob   
    To be clear, it's not a feature of Class D amps in general and does not apply to many, even if a number of the chips integrate a charge pump (or maybe something else?) to generate the negative supply. Most are designed for single supply input (hot and ground), though. I mostly just meant earlier that this is what you're dealing with—and it works—on an ultra-cheap budget. Maybe several clean watts, who knows.
     
    Some boards also might generate a negative supply externally from the single positive supply, but you're not going to see this at the sub-$20 level. You can't expect miracles fishing in junkland.
     
    Regardless, this seems to be a moot point for the OP anyway.
  17. Like
    loculus got a reaction from unknownmiscreant in Speaker filler   
    My comment was a brief aside (my comment being largely outside of what is relevant for his discussion, which is your point about generally not messing with ports that aren't designed to be tuned), as in not disagreeing with the substance of anything prior, that tunable subs exist far below the high end of the market. It's an arbitrary distinction but maybe some have seen these.
     
    It was supposed to be a clarifying example of exceptions to the generalized statements about high vs. low end subs and which features they might have, but apparently nobody took it that way so nevermind.
  18. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from Shiv78 in What is the best panel type for a gaming monitor.   
    People frequently go with this formulation, but it's not actually right, as VA is the slowest, especially on dark transitions. That is, VA as in vertical alignment, not to be confused with Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle (AHVA), which is AUO's IPS-like tech in the way that PLS is Samsung's IPS-like tech. With VA you also get better contrast ratios (deeper blacks for a given brightness level of whites/etc.) than the other two, and many IPS monitors can have notable IPS glow (cloudy brightness that can be seen off-angle when showing dark content). Though with VA you can also have black crush, with near-black levels too low and close to true black, among other things.
     
    And "better colors" really means something more like "better color consistency" especially at different angles—notably, angle from your eye to the top of the screen is different from the angle to the bottom of the screen, and same for left/right, so this is an issue even if you're sitting in front of the screen and not just some kind of curiosity about still being okay if you're sitting on the floor. And even then, it's not necessarily just color but gamma shift as well that's an issue. Arguably that's "color" but maybe could be more precise.
     
    There are also a range of behaviors within each panel type, and other potential wrinkles.
     
    So it really depends. For a game with a lot of dark scenes especially, there's a case for VA being most appropriate, though others may hate some of the blurring.
     
    Most of the times the 1 ms response time monitors will be TN, unless they're really being optimistic with another panel tech, so if the OP is going with that then I think all this is moot.
  19. Agree
    loculus reacted to anothertom in Great budget mic for content creation and gaming?   
    And are also not their entry level products. There are plenty of less expensive wired and wireless options which would be suitable.
     
    @WhatComesAround Suggesting a mic for production use is difficult without knowing exactly how you're intending to use it. Are you going to be in front or behind a camera? if you're in front how close? are you going to be in public places or in a studio setting? or are you just streaming/screen recording?
     
    Depending on the answers I could recommend anything from a wireless lavalier mic to a shotgun mic to a LDC, and which would be unsuitable (or not ideal) if you answered differently.
  20. Agree
    loculus reacted to xtroria in Can't decide between open over ear headphones for gaming. Budget is ~200$.   
    Get a DT880. It's comfortable, sounds great and more over it's really good for metal music
  21. Like
    loculus got a reaction from Mayh3M in Best component for speaker clarity?   
    The speakers themselves. Positioning and room acoustics can make a pretty significant difference too. The rest is relatively less important by a good degree unless something is broken or way underspec'd.
     
    Could you perhaps find room around your desk? You could mount new speakers on stands or on the wall or something like that, if necessary.
     
    If you're running a typical soundbar then there's not much you can expect (these make the tradeoff of sound quality to fit the form factor, all else equal, and unless you're looking at a high-end model you need to keep expectations reasonable), but you may be able to do a little better by adjusting the positioning, maybe tilting it up, elevating it a little off the surface of the desk if you're doing that (ideally also mechanically decoupling it from the surface too).
  22. Like
    loculus got a reaction from Mayh3M in Best component for speaker clarity?   
    Check out the IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Montior (£229). Here is a review, for example.
     
    Before anybody mentions the Audioengine A2+, a popular option for mini speakers that would fit under your 20 cm requirement, do note that these are tuned in a way that is not really conducive for clarity in the mids or in the bass, and you said you wanted clarity. They made the decision here to artificially boost the upper bass to low mids above other frequencies to try to mask the fact that there's not much extension into the mid bass (i.e. it doesn't play that low, with steep dropoff below 100 Hz, but tries to pretend it does). It kind of works on some music and sounds but you don't have to make this compromise. Without a sub or some huge bookshelves or towers you can't reasonably expect deep bass, but it doesn't have to be like this. In a lot of music (not just talking movie explosions or some organ music) there's legit actual bass lines lower than 100 Hz.
  23. Agree
    loculus got a reaction from Daringpear in Chipset Architecture vs CPU Architecture   
    The chipset is not a x86 (or x86-64) processor. The question doesn't really make sense.
     
    If you mean manufacturing process, it depends, but usually the chipset is manufactured on an older and less expensive process. For Intel for example, it's part of how they keep a lot of their older fabs working.
  24. Agree
    loculus got a reaction from DJ46 in Parts for a quiet build?   
    That was all things considered, starting from a typical build and working down. Coil whine (though not at high levels that may be successfully RMA'd depending on brand) and fan acoustic quality and differences when runnning low rpms is relatively less important when compared to a typical 7200 rpm hard drive vibrating a whole case, or the average video card running the default fan curve. You have a point with some of the old Noctuas and on many of the other issues, though.
     
    "Most people might not be able to tell the difference" is kind of exactly the point.
     
    Once you get down to builds going way under 20 dB SPL @ 1m and demand quieter then you have to pay more attention to a lot of the things that concern you more.
     
    I guess more attention should be paid to the OP's expectations, which are not given. Or even just preferences with respect to load and idle. Some need virtual silence at idle while others are more focused at reducing noise at load.
  25. Informative
    loculus got a reaction from Justin_ in ASUS Z170I Pro Gaming + 6700K crashes "Overclock Failed" without overclock   
    That's... interesting. I actually have the same CPU and mobo and have had intermittent stability issues, with occasional crashes running heavy mixed workloads like video processing + encoding with x265 (which makes decent use of AVX2). That was both running overclocked as well as stock to test that. It doesn't tend to crash in synthetics, or maybe I never ran those long enough to get them to trip it up.
     
    With slightly higher voltage and/or maybe higher load-line calibration setting it doesn't happen. I don't know if it's the CPU that's borderline bad or the mobo running a realtively low voltage, too low for the chip at stock, or what. Notably the 4.0+ GHz was relatively high for Skylake.
     
    My memory tested fine, before you ask about that.
     
    You could try updating BIOS but I don't know if that actually helps.
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