bmichaels556

Bump.

Thanks so much for these suggestions! My monitor is an MSI Optix (forget model) 1080p 144hz and I've been pretty happy with it. Can't get a ton more performance than that with my setup anyway lol. Mouse is looking like a good contender but wired will be a pain with my corner desk setup and my tower being a good distance on my side with a complicated path between. However, I think the CyberPowerPC keyboards you mentioned are TOO good to pass up IMO. What switch type should I be looking at? If I'm used to using membrane, would red (linear?) switches be best for me? Just if you had to give quick and dirty recommendation without me having hands on experience with the different types.. (Edit: I'm thinking Brown seems like best for me overall, but not sure.) My mousepad is a good size (as much as I can fit in my setup comfortably) and doesn't seem to really need upgrading IMO. For mic, the Seiren Mini actually seems really good... I'd definitely get that over the mousepad and mouse overall and just use M20x for audio. That seems like a pretty sick setup actually. And then with the keyboard, that ends me up just a little over, which is totally fine...

Seems like the issue is... With what's out, the 4070Ti is the "best" option for price to performance. The problem is, everything that's out is WORSE than shite and should be hundreds cheaper, and so it's sort of the shiniest of the turds. On the other hand, price to performance has never really scaled totally linearly in the product lineup, where you might get like... I dunno, 60-80% more performance from a 1080 vs a 1060 6GB, but you'd pay more than double. Here, the 4070Ti is priced above where it should be in the lineup no matter what, whereas we already kinda' knew there was going to be a big premium on the "Titan" type 4090 or something like that. But correct me if I'm wrong, folks. I've been out of the loop for a while, but it looks like they're going to pass of a bottom-tier card for a 4060/Ti and not even get any performance increases lmao, or they'll be so small as to be an insult for a ridiculous price tag. It's bonkers. In fact, the 4070Ti is PROBABLY really a 4060/Ti that they moved up the stack because of big gains.

To be honest, in my experience, the 1060 6GB was a downgrade to my RX 480 8GB. It just so happened I got a 1060 6GB for SUPER cheap and made a little money on selling off my other card. The number of games you can comfortably play on either is shrinking, and fast. I really wouldn't be looking at ANYTHING under the sort of 2060 Super / RX 6600 non-XT level, like at all. A lot of times, even my 2070 Super feels completely gimped in a lot of new games coming out, although DLSS helps in some cases, but that depends. FSR 2.0 is half-decent as well. I am curious how FSR 3.0 is going to do just as far as framerate, it won't really help latency... I just feel like you're chasing performance that is simply already too far behind the 8-ball to ever justify if you don't already have one of these cards, OR if you're doing something purpose-built eg an emulation rig or something that has fairly reasonable GPU requirements even to run games at like 4K60 w/ anti-aliasing etc etc. But for general purpose? I'd advise against it.

TLDR: I have $50 to burn at GameStop (gift card) and want to make the best overall upgrades to my setup for the money. Priority is a half-decent headset for Tarkov (or anything else, but Tarkov is the biggest deal obviously for that kind of item). Also thinking about keyboard and mouse upgrades. My keyboard right now is Amazon Basics poopy low-profile one, but I have a much nicer (older) also membrane keyboard I could just use a PS/2 adapter with, and something like Razer Cynoza V2 may not be ALL that much of an upgrade. Same issue with mouse - I'm on a Logitech M170 and extra side buttons would be nice and all, but at GameStop, the cheapest wireless gaming mice are still very expensive, and even at Amazon, who knows how decent a cheaper wireless one will even be... My desk setup just isn't conducive to properly using a wireless mouse tbh. Help me spend this $50 wisely! It's find if I spend a little more, but I definitely don't want to match it and spend $100 either. Help me out, folks! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Got a $50 Gamestop gift card for my birthday and I'm looking to upgrade the old battlestation. Right now, I'm looking at trying to get a "good but cheap" gaming headset. A friend of mine is obsessed with Tarkov and it's cool and all, but my current setup is NOT conducive to a good experience. Solo? Yeah, fine. But then I use my phone as a mic but then can't hear him because of the damn headphones! Even if I use Discord on PC, it won't matter because it kicks me out on my phone anyway, so I can't even use my phone as my mic. It's too complicated and I think it's time for a proper all-in-one headset. My only requirement is they sound "decent enough" and the mic is decent enough if I want to do maybe commentary or anything IF I decide to do that. Not gonna' be listening to music or anything, although I will say that my current main proper headphones are Audio Technica M20X's. Not the best, but certainly decent. I don't want to get anything and it's a muffled mess, defeating the purpose of the headset in the first place. I'm looking at the Turtle Beach Recon series, but a lot of the low-priced ones look like they're refurb, although some of them were under $30 and not showing refurb, unless GameStop is lying to me, which I fully expect LMAO. The mic on the PDP LVL40 isn't all that great, but for the price, it's hard to complain too much, as it's similar to other cheap headsets I've had in the past. Corsair HS50 would be great, EXCEPT... I kind of wonder if I should also look at changing keyboards. After my new PC, I didn't have any PS/2 ports or anything for my old (but gold) office-style keyboard from god knows when (probably late 90's, early 2000's). Even though it was membrane, it was a pleasure to use. Now I'm back on my Amazon Basics low-profile keyboard and I'm not a huge fan. It's fine, and the shortcuts I need are there unlike my old HP keyboard, although I could probably set that stuff up and all. Was looking at Razer Cynoza V2 which I don't mind TOO much getting refurbished, but then I have to ask "Is this really even a proper upgrade?" It's also membrane. Maybe a better upgrade would be a better mouse. I have a Logitech M170 and it's also fine, but side buttons and a few extra things like that would be great. But since I'm stuck at GameStop.com, the wireless mice you're going to get there are ALL expensive. And who knows how decent an individual cheaper wireless mouse is at Amazon anyway... I'm trying to spend this $50 in the best way possible lol.

Sorry to revive this dead thread, but I'll say this... I went with the JLAB Go Air Pop at Amazon. Just went ahead and ordered something else I needed anyway to take advantage of the free shipping, since they don't quite hit the $25 requirement. After a few days of using them, I'm quite satisfied. They sound quite good, aren't insanely expensive, touch controls etc are decent, all that good stuff. They're SLIGHTLY bassy, but not by a ton, and overall sound fairly flat and accurate w/ the "signature" equalizer setting. "Balanced" is okay, but it seems to have just a bit TOO little bass, so I'm kind of thinking signature is overall where it's at. Seals against my ear well and all that for good sound and "noise canceling". Or well, you know, dB reduction. I guess that's passive noise canceling? It does well. I was going to go with the Skullcandy Dime but based on research, including the very helpful info at RTings.com, while they may actually have better, more accurate sound by a slim margin, they suffer on battery life. Badly, apparently. The choice became clear to me. Thanks so much for your guys' help!

And so the hunt begins.

Yeah, that's a great point... Proper fit unfortunately seems to be such a big part of earbuds...

Nice. But where do I get them? AliExpress? Walmart? I see Walmart having TWS products on their site, so not totally sure. Any way you could link me to either the same pair, or maybe the closest ones if they've done any kind of rebrand maybe?

Right, so... Okay, so maybe there's extra latency in one of those steps by changing resolution? Which is why I'm pointing to it probably being the display having to scale and process things, whereas the input latency is fine. Well... I will say that in games where I can do it, borderless windowed mode where I simply go up to 4K that way, doesn't seem to have the same increased latency, as say, dedicated fullscreen 4K at equivalent framerate and/or refresh rate. Like, assuming I'm always limiting to 60, it's still higher in 4K dedicated fullscreen, but not higher (noticeably) in 4K borderless windowed. I suspect the latter is being scaled via GPU, and the former by display or both, adding latency..?

TLDR: Looking for great and accurate sounding true wireless earbuds, for a reasonable price. No extra blasting bass, and I think people who do hate that will get me the best recommendation here. They don't need the best looks, and don't need to have insane battery life. Just sound great and accurate at a low price! I'm thinking $30, maybe even less? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I've used a good few pairs of headphones over the years. From absolute junk, the kind of stuff you get in Dollar General and the like, to Audio Technica M40x's and even a BIT of experience with Sony 7506's, which I hear is basically the absolute best there is at its price, though my ears can't tell much difference between say, the M40x's with the exception of they may be just a little bassier, but not too bad. HOWEVER... Over the years, I've also been pleasantly surprised with more reasonably-priced options that I won't cry about losing. An absolute winner in my opinion? - Those cheap Panasonic Ergo-Fit earbuds. They're literally NINE DOLLARS and they sound impossibly good for the price. They're warmer-sounding than is ideal for me, and their wires are super thin, but they get about 80-90% of the way there to MUCH more expensive earbuds and I've had multiple pairs last me multiple years each. No resources wasted into fancy packaging, no fancy wires etc. Same with some old no-name black and green earbuds I got from Cricket back in the day for like $12. Wish I knew what they were also, EXCEPT... I'm on a Galaxy S20 FE and I need something wireless. Man, I miss those things. Still have 'em, just can't really use 'em. - And also, the absolute best of all time for CHEAP was this one pair of $10 bluetooth earbuds I got from Walmart in like 2018. They looked goofy as hell and were the "semi-wireless" kind that have fallen out of style, but they also sounded VERY good, much better than their price would suggest. I truly don't know how they packed that much value into a $10 pair of headphones, I just don't understand. Battery life just wasn't as good, maybe I got like 3.5 to 5 hours which honestly, was fine for me. But they fell between the seats and got all crusted up somehow, so I think I ended up throwing them out. What a mistake. Nowadays, I'm looking for a pair of true wireless earbuds that really capture extreme value. Don't have to be anything too fancy, and don't need insane battery life. They have to be "good enough" in those areas, and sound great while doing it! But man, it's so hard to know what you're looking for. I simply can't trust what sounds good to others' ears because I want something flat and accurate, and NOT something that has a bunch of bass etc. So anything say, Skull Candy, is pretty much out of the question. And that's honestly the trend I've always HATED with a lot of these products. Bass for the sake of bass, and mids and highs often just sound muffled, whereas I want to hear much closer to what the artist put out from the studio. That's always my ideal and the way I've gotten a lot more pleasure from music overall. Sorry for the rant, and thanks so much for your suggestions!

I think I confused the names. Yeah, I used DSR and didn't fully understand it, and honestly, it didn't seem to look very good, at least in my limited testing. It's also not 100% clear to me how I know if I'm using "4K Regular", vs 4K DSR and downscaling to 1080p. Also if I'm recording, would Nvidia GeForce Experience be recording the native 4K before it's scaled, or would it be recording the 1080p downscaled that I'm getting on my monitor? I would think it's the former, but not entirely sure. Will look deeper into this though. Maybe I'll just delete any custom resolutions for 4K and see how that goes, which is how I remember trying it and it not looking good. Maybe I gotta' play with the smoothing %.

The latency is higher than the input latency difference of using 60fps vs a higher frame/refresh rate.

Hey folks, I'm on an MSI 1080p 144hz monitor. "Optix" line, but forget model number. Have been quite happy with it! I'm almost always playing at 1080p for higher framerates, but often times, especially for older games, I like to play at 1440p or even 4K. Especially for just messing around and extra supersampling detail, or even recording etc. One thing I've noticed is that when running non-native, especially at 4K (but also at 1440p), I'm getting a LOT of extra input latency. One issue was that I had vsync (maybe was fast sync?) on in Nvidia control panel, so I turned that off and that helped. I think what happened was... When I'm running monitor at 144hz, it was letting framerate run mostly free, but when I would change to 1440p or 4K, it was limiting monitor to 60fps, which sort of forced vsync to work, which was adding latency if that makes sense? I also made custom resolutions in Nvidia control panel for 1440p120 and 4K120 to make sure it wasn't limiting framerates and monitor seems to be fine with it. Everyone knows the deal with vsync adding latency, no big deal, so these steps seemed to help. But there's still extra latency. Greater than with say running 1080p at a locked 60fps, so it's more than just the input latency of a lower framerate. Like, 1080p60 still feels relatively smooth. Not buttery like running higher at even 90fps, but DOES feel RESPONSIVE, just not as visually smooth if that makes sense. Not the case with 1440p, but even worse at 4K. I assume it's from the monitor first having to convert the image down to 1080p and then display it, adding whatever amount of latency. Is there any way to fix or at least alleviate this more than I've already been able to? Letting framerate run free and THEN using MSI Afterburner / Rivatuner to 60fps to cut down on any choppiness etc (or just run at 120 fps if it's a much older game for double 60 for recording..?), but there's still the extra latency. I've also tried Nvidia image sharpening or whatever it's called, and honestly... It didn't look good to me, and I didn't even fully understand it. I dunno, it was weird. Any ideas? Thanks so much for your help!

True, great points. I think if you can get a 4070Ti at that price (shockingly reasonable from what I hear about much of European GPU market and other factors), that really ain't bad at all. Also, I don't think any normal person would be disappointed with performance of a 4070Ti. Price? Sure, maybe, but obviously we both kinda' know how that is. I do agree with trying to buy and sell, that's just extra labor, and that does cost $ when you really think about it... Honestly, I'd say if you simply look at performance in the most demanding games right now, like Plague Tale: Requiem as an example and that amount of horsepower is looking good for you, I think you'll be very satisfied with a 4070Ti and shouldn't look back! And hey, if it suddenly drops $100 and you take even 4 years to upgrade, you "lost out" on 25 Euros per year but you've got a good working card in your hand, and that still counts for a lot. Or if you're interested in 5000 series after getting 4070Ti, you could wait 3 years (2 for initial release, and another year waiting for potential price drop or whatever the case, and it's still 33 Euros a year...)

Tbh, if you can get a 4080 ACTUALLY in-hand for 100 Euro more, I'd probably prefer it over the 7900 XTX. DLSS and better ray-tracing are nice to have, plus already having DLSS 3 frame generation (Not a fan from what I've seen but I have zero experience with it). It's just nice to have overall better support in various productivity apps etc and (a little) more driver stability, though as someone who has used both AMD and Nvidia for years, AMD's driver issues for me at least, have not been much of an issue and I've had issues with Nvidia as well. Plus, you'll get access to FSR in limited places where maybe DLSS isn't there, and ALSO have access to FSR 3 when it comes out, on whatever games it comes out for. But that would probably be if you could get an aftermarket 7900 XTX for that price, it would be a bit more compelling. If that's the reference model with fairly likely vapor chamber issues and the difference is 100 Euros, IMO I have to vote for the 4080, and it PAINS me to say that, but I think overall it'll be better, even if it's slightly behind in performance overall. DLSS looks a bit better and you'll probably like to utilize it as high resolutions anyway for some extra horses and so on. Obviously at pinnacle of performance, 4090 is your only choice. It's cool but I don't know if in my case it gives me enough more for the money, since the 4080 is already quite impressive. The 4070Ti seems have (I think?) better price per frame than both the 4080 and 4090, but I also feel that if you're going this high on a system, why not jump another step up with GPU? But even the 4070Ti is NO SLOUCH even at 4K in fairly demanding games. Obviously Nvidia advantages for the 4070Ti still stand over the 7900XT in my opinion. Controversial suggestion: MAYBE consider something last-gen, or heck, even an RTX 2000 series and maybe wait for a significant price-drop and sell of the older card? Although it may even out, because if the newer cards drop in price, the older ones will too... That's up to you, and that's more involved.

TRUE, good catch. Maybe I can do some kind of jumper or whatever..? I remember hearing this somewhere, so thanks for giving me the heads up on the card reader. Actually, I've heard the front panel in general might be a bit of a monkey wrench in the whole thing. Gonna' have to check more into it before I 100% go for case swap. Also, thanks for letting me know about deshroud. My main hope is that it'll just run much cooler in the new case, I think it'll definitely help. But if not, that might be the best option, I'll see how it goes. Although I think just controlling fans that way in general seems like a pain.

Shockingly, it appears to. Maybe one of the few good things they've done in a long time, at least on this line of PC's.

In another thread, I was discussing some headache with my Dell 8930 w/ i7 8700 and a 2070 Super (Zotac Mini with lackluster cooling). A combo of heat, but more than anything NOISE with Dell's terrible CPU cooler and top case fan, along with both being obstructed by the swing-out PSU etc. Thankfully, it looks like these models use standard ATX power supplies. Shocking, I know! That means if a couple little fixes I'm going to try for the current case don't work, transplanting should be fairly easy and I do have a better PSU I'll stick in the new case as well. My question to you guys us, what would be your picks for the best all-around case - I'm talking price, looks and function (cooling/temps)? In a roundup about a month ago from Gamer's Nexus, they did a really great chart with temps from like a TON of different cases. I was immediately looking at the cheap NZXT's price-wise. They look clean and functional and I dig them, but I noticed they were toward the bottom of the performance charts at GN. I mean, I'm probably gonna' have to replace this CPU cooler anyway unless all the extra airflow manages to slow down the jet engine fan they have on these, so maybe it won't matter. On the other hand, there were other cheap options higher in the stack. Some other options I'm looking at... #1 Choice: MUSETEX mATX (Model "Y3-N2"?) - This thing is GORGEOUS and exactly my style. Also comes with two RGB front fans, which is plenty for me. I have the fans for an extra on the back and top etc. It does look like the Dell motherboard will fix, but not 100%. THE BIG CON!? - It's tiny, and has limited length for a big boi GPU. On one hand, the shite Dell case seems to have more clearance. On the other hand, if I'm going to get something high-end and expensive, a better case could easily go along with it. I doubt I'll upgrade to anything higher than a "4060 Ti", which I suspect will fit just fine. Other Considerations... Bgears "b-Voguish" - It's a nice-looking case and seems to have tempered glass side panel, BUT... Comes with NO fans. I have some Arctic P12's coming in and the case looks good enough, but with no potential for RGB out of the box, I like the looks of the two-tone NZXT H500/510(?) if I'm "forced" to go with a cleaner-looking case as opposed to something like the Musetex above. Coming with fans is MUCH more expensive and doesn't pay for me. Rosewill PRISM S500 - It's cool, sort of. But maybe a bit too excessive. I suspect it will be more breezy than the NZXT's though, so there's that. I'm just not the BIGGEST fan of the way the RGB fans look. They have their charm, but I'm also not super excited about a case being totally lined with RGB, which is why I like the Musetex more. Of course, I have the Arctic fans coming, so I could always replace a couple to my liking. The RGB strip on the front is kind of cool I suppose. Zalman I3, Zalman S7 - Both are lookin' HOT and still come in at nice pricepoint, but looks-wise, that Musetex still REALLY does it for me, especially coming from the Dell 8930 silver case, which I actually kind of like. For no flashy nonsense, the Zalman S2 seems fine too. ASUS TUF GT310 - Looks great and has a lot more GPU clearance, but as I said with the Musetex, I'm not sure that TOTALLY matters, and $15 more for a "useless feature" is still useless. IN CLOSING... I think that Musetex is my favorite so far, but I want to hear if you guys have any other unknown recommendations. For context, my old rig quite a number of years ago was an FX-8350 in a Thermaltake Chaser MK-1, which was WAY excessive for what I had in the case lmao. Didn't take even CLOSE to advantage of the drive bays etc. Shoulda' went with that Corsair

I wonder... Do you have another PC you could potentially try to clone with? Plug both drives in and try that? Maybe some weird interference with being booted into Windows on current drive and trying to clone over? Alternatively, maybe try Macrium Reflect? Not much to lose here. I've cloned over a few drives over the years, and plugging them in to another PC rather than cloning from current drive I'm using fixed it, but it was only that one time, the other times everything worked fine...

Yep I did. But thanks for the heads up!

Man, I just realized I messed up in title, it's actually the 8930. The 8920 has Intel 7000 series from what I can tell. Other than that, seems similar. Actually, the first pic below is awfully close to my setup except for GPU, and an 8TB HDD down below. Second pic is the PSU, seems relatively normal. And finally, apparently this thing (SHOCKINGLY) supports standard ATX psu, shown at linked part of the video. If none of this pans out, should I maybe go with one of the cheap NZXT cases? I guess it seems like the absolute biggest downfall of this Dell case is using shite cooling, in which case, I'd need a new cooler anyway which would fix the problem, and so why spend $60 extra for a case other than aesthetics and upgradability, but no real reason to get a new case now for what I might use it for in two years..? That's just my thought process..

Well that sucks... But wait, the PSU seems to be pretty standard with motherboard and CPU cables, so maybe this is the exception? I have seen others where things like fan headers are non-standard like Spooky mentioned.

Yeah, it just so happens the fan headers are standard, thankfully. So my understanding is that the cooler has a backplate and uses "M3" screws, whatever that means... So it looks like something along the lines of CoolerMaster i30. In fact, I THINK it's a drop-in replacement. But looks like the i30, while it will probably be much quieter, may only cool marginally better. Which is still a big improvement I guess. But then it makes me wonder, why not just find a quieter fan to strap to the Dell heatsink, although that's a little TOO shite for my taste. Dell's K-series cooler seems to be MUCH better, but is like $55+, compared to the i30's $15, for doing "the same thing" for my situation. I guess my only wonder would be if there's anything better that is still low-profile. That dude who did the crazy weather-stripping stuff on the Dell forum used an Arctic 11P which looks like it'll cool MUUUCH better, but then I have to figure out exactly what screws work, and good luck with that... also $6 more expensive, not much, but a lot more hassle. But then also, the cooler is gonna' go one way or another. But then there's that issue of if the CPU still gets hot, the top case fan is also going to be noisy as hell, hence trying to get the Arctic P12 into there. I wonder... If you were to recommend to me a nice but cheap case, the absolute max for the cheapest amount in your opinion... What would it be? I'm not even close to up to date on cases nowadays.

TLDR: Cooling SUCKS with Dell's design putting PSU right up against the cpu cooler which is already a bad cooler, AND top case fan is also crappy, and both are LOUD. GPU also doesn't have a lot of headroom and is wasting performance (Zotac Mini 2070 Super). I kind of like the case and want to try to make it work. Where should I stick my coming Arctic P12's? Should I take out Dell's smaller top fan bracket thing and use the 120, although the P12 actually has lower CFM than the current fan, AND stick a fan in the front bottom area and hope they're enough? Bottom fan may also be obstructing GPU airflow in side vent. What are your suggestions? Most of all..? - Cheap drop-in replacement for Dell stock cooler? Cooler temps are better if possible, but the NOISE. OH MY GOD. ------------------------------------------ So a while back I got a Dell XPS 8920 for a killer deal. I knew being a pre-built would bring certain headaches, but for the money, I accepted it and planned for it. I made a couple other moves at the time, like selling my RX 6800 while it was higher-priced, and a little later getting a killer deal on a 2070 Super (even cheaper than they're going for now, typically). So I dunno, maybe I'll eventually upgrade my GPU, but it's whatever for now. Anyway, everything has been fine EXCEPT the cooling in this thing. It's got an i7 8700 non-K, so it comes with Dell's crappy stock cooler. That means heat (ALWAYS hits 100C), and maybe worst of all, NOISE. A LOT. And the top case fan (the only one), isn't much better. Actually, it might even be worse since it's not enclosed as much and really screams. A couple options - Just get a new case (which I dunno, maybe I'll do). Or mess with things a little 'til it cools down. However, it appears the Dell stock cooler isn't going to get much less noisy, even if I cool it down significantly. In fact, it feels like Dell's cooler SHOULD perform much better than it does, but combine the PSU being pressed up right against the fan and all that, the odds are against it. I ordered a 5-pack of Arctic P12's BOTH for the option of sticking one in the front fan area for this unit (and maybe finessing one somewhere else as well (maybe take off the top fan bracket for the 90-ish mm and replace with the 120mm), or having an extra couple fans in a new case if needed. I had some random little fan on my shelf and stuck it into a weird place where a top hard drive should be, and it actually has cooled things down a little CPU-side. Not much, only a handful of C, but it's not QUITE as noisy, and doesn't hit 100C so quick. I've tried a few other things. Changing things in XTU - limiting to 65 and 80w Turbo has actually INCREASED performance a little. It goes to crazy temps a little slower, but still gets there and obviously still gets loud. But there is objectively an improvement, and it's not even mounted correctly or pulling air in how it should. Literally a random fan stuck into the top HDD slot with a garbage tie. I guess I could but a couple holes in the little vents in front of the case, or just dremmel it? On The GPU Side It's a Zotac Mini 2070 Super, which means a smaller cooler, and means high temps. The card could probably push 20% more performance if not limited thermally. A little underclocking core and overclocking memory (-75 and +150) has cooled it down a lot. I've also tried that extra crappy fan in the lower section where it likely belongs, but I think it obstructs the GPU's airflow from the case's side vent. Tried fitting it there, but didn't work, just a bit too obstructed by the GPU. I want to give this boi some room to run, but it can't. I did see a guy do a bunch of weather stripping and adding a 120mm fan into the front bottom of the case, but he didn't really give temps. Would blocking off a couple areas and manipulating airflow in such a way actually help? It feels like it aught to, but honestly, things get damn hot even with the case open. But I've also had experiences where good airflow can actually make things cooler than an open case, but only once have I seen it..