TheAlmightyOS

And I have an i3 laptop that fails at that task. "browsing" seems to be looked down on as a low-impact use case but it really isn't. Sure, it doesn't tax a system like gaming does, but you can FEEL the difference browsing on an older, slower system compared to a newer one. Not to mention many apps have been moved online such as office and communication suites and ticketing systems used for peoples work. So, yes, "browsing" is a very valid use case.

I agree with the CPU part, but if my Father-in-law is any indication when it comes to stock trading then the OP's modest dual screen setup is only a starting point. It's all about getting the most information in front of you at one time. Think Tank's setup in "The Matrix", only stock prices and news... kinda trippy to look at. While you don't necessarily need a discrete GPU for that, having 3+ ports to plug those monitors into is a plus.

My gaming rig specs are, in my honest and unfortunately somewhat bias opinion, respectable. A Ryzen 3700X paired with a G.SKILL TridentZ 16GB 3200 kit in dual channel and accompanied by a EVGA 2070 Super on an ASRock x370 Taichi Motherboard. It plays the games I like (single player titles) at a smooth enough framerate at my preferred resolution (1920x1080). I do have a plan in the works to move up to a 5000 series (or should I just wait for 6000 at this point? Anyway) when they are more readily available with a mobo and ram upgrade to boot for some casual streaming. But then again I don't feel any real NEED to upgrade this machine. It works fine when I power it on to play some games. This is not, however, my daily driver. It hasn't been for more than a month. Which, when I finally realized this a few days ago, came as a bit of a shock to me. I am currently typing this from my thrown-together linux box from parts I had in the closet from previous builds. An AMD FX-8320 "Eight" core processor, Two kits of Corsair 8GB for a total of 16GB using up all four slots (unsure of the speed). This is on an ASUS Sabertooth 990FX mobo and topped off with an Gigabyte R9 280X. This is, by all specs, a vastly inferior system to my gaming rig yet I am finding myself preferring it. Now I don't want to turn this into a Linux Vs Windows debate. I like Windows 10. I am not a linux advocate proclaiming that you need to dump 'windoze' right now and boot up the current popular linux distro. Hell, as a long time linux user I would advise against doing just that. Linux takes a good long while to get the hang of and no one should ever do a cold switch IMO (besides most of the popular distros are garbage *coughcoughUBUNTUcough*). Windows 10 is still my first choice for gaming and I doubt that will change anytime soon. No, I am writing this more out of my surprise at just how well this system is running. This system is just shy of a decade old, most of the parts being bought in the first quarter of 2012 (besides the graphics card). But as far as basic desktop use goes (browsing, writing, watching videos) and can not detect a difference between this system and my gaming rig in responsiveness. Hell, the added graphical eyecandy seems to give this system a smoother feel to it than the obviously faster gaming rig. I know that if I slapped windows on this machine (or linux on the other) and ran comparable benchmarks, this system would handedly lose and by a severe margin. But with its ultra-quick boot (power on to desktop in less that five seconds) and snappy desktop, I feel as if I don't care. Anyone else out there with old-hardware daily drivers that get more use than your top-of-the-line gaming rigs? Share your specs!

I have to laugh at this. My current address was entered into their system 6 years ago. Several orders from them were shipped to this address. Then, suddenly, they ship to the wrong zip code and that is MY fault? I had not touched my profile in years. Glitches happen. I ain't going to take the blame for which I am not at fault. I just ain't. Secondly, most of the communications (happening in chat) were quite pleasant along the lines of "Checking on my order. Here is the number" and a reply from them. They were not impolite to me and I was not impolite to them. The issue is that they LIED TO ME several times and told me false information CONSTANTLY as they failed to look into my situation one iota. This isn't about 'being nice'. This is about incompetence. But go ahead. Stand up for your corporate overloads. To be blatantly honest, that you accused me of an 'attitude problem' after being treated like trash speaks more about you than it does about me.

Yeah, as I as said I was not mad at this. I got exactly what I paid back. Logically speaking I get it. It was more the feeling at the time. After screwing up so much and wasting so much of my time the only thing they offered to try and retain me as a customer was $25 after-the-fact 'discount' that I would once again have to fight their brain dead customer service drones in order to receive. Leaving the courtesy refund would have been a nice gesture. BTW, Shipping was only $10. So when they gave me that $35, $25 of it was "on the top". But again, not mad. I broke even which is more than I can say for some people who deal with them.

I figured it was something like that. Thanks for the info. As for the situation itself, I don't consider it to be 'malice' per say either. I agree that it's straight up incompetence like you said. However the FEELING from the customer perspective was like a slap to the face. Any customer service department, whether in retail or technical support, has to be aware of how they are coming across. That they failed so spectacularly means they either are so disorganized that they can not control their employees or they just don't care.

It was mentioned in the next paragraph:

The following I do not write out of malice or anger. Sure, I did get quite heated while dealing with the situation but the scope of this Retailer Review is to share my experience in hopes others can avoid what is quite possibly the worst customer service in the electronics retail space. I am going to write this as a story: My journey though their customer service department. On the morning of December 1st, I ordered a monitor from NewEgg. It was not an expensive gaming monitor or even that impressive of one. It was to be the third of a three monitor setup for writing, research, and general work. An ASUS Model VE278Q selected for it's size, price, and number and type of display inputs. I opted for 3 day shipping and expected my monitor to arrive that Friday. I had bought from NewEgg countless times in the past. I didn't think this purchase would be any different. I went about my business, purchasing some cables, cable ties, other various cable management items, and articulating arm mount from Amazon in preparation of finally finishing my home office setup. Friday came and went. The items I ordered from Amazon had arrived the day after I had ordered them. Checking my tracking number, I found that UPS had not even received the package yet. Angry as they charged me for 3 day shipping, I contacted NewEgg support. They claimed the delay was UPS's fault. That made no sense to me as how can UPS deliver a package that has not been given to them yet. When I pointed this out, they closed the chat on me. Maybe I was being impatient. I chilled out, took a breath, and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally on December 10th, UPS finally received the package and started shipping it to me. Now, while this is a gripe and I think NewEgg's entire process for handling shipments is laughable, this is not the crux of my problem with this retailer. Could they have had a dust up with UPS that caused delays? Sure, I buy that. Lot's of retailers were having issues around that time. That I can forgive. What came after, though, lies solely at the feet of NewEgg. I did not notice it at first. How could I? I checked out just as I have always done and had done no less than a month prior. I didn't make any changes to my payment options or select a different billing or shipping address. Yet somewhere in their system, my zip code changed from 78##4 to 78##8. This was enough for UPS to go bonkers. By December 13th, the package made it all the way down to my city but they could not deliver it. You know what? No problem. I can drive to the distribution center and pick it up myself. In fact I had to do this previously with a card from EVGA a while back when there was an RMA mix up (I had moved and they mistakenly used my old address. I caught it in time and we worked together to fix. Example of good customer service and communication). It's not too bad of a process. The shipper contacts UPS and releases it to you in their service center. NewEgg refused to release the package to me. In fact, the first person I got a hold of hung up on me. When I finally did talk to a manager, they claimed their system did not allow them to MAKE A PHONE CALL to a UPS service center. Let that sink in. Their SYSTEM: most likely a ticketing system on their computer... DID NOT ALLOW THEM TO MAKE A PHONE CALL. Now, you could argue that maybe it was against their POLICY. But that is still bullshit. You have identified the customer that is supposed to receive this package is on the other end of the line. They are the one that gave you money. There should be nothing preventing you as a customer service representative of your company from making a, at most, two minute phone call and and jotting down a note of your actions in the ticket. If there is, well that is just piss-poor foresight for a company that deals exclusively in sales where the product is shipped. I am sure this situation has happened before and that nothing had been put in place to fix it speaks volumes. Oh, but we are not done yet. It gets worse. So much worse. The Customer Service Manager (or so she claimed to be) Said the only way to correct my address was to put in an RMA. That's right. Put in an RMA for a product I had not even received and put in the notes to send the replacement to the correct address. This is insanity. But whatever. She put in for the RMA and apologized for the issue, and offered a $35 refund for shipping and inconvenience. At the time I thought this was a nice gesture. She said to check back once the package had been returned to them. On December 17th, that day came. I figured it would take them a while to process the RMA and ship it back out. After not receiving any communication from NewEgg, I contacted them again on the 21st. They said they had changed the RMA from a return to a refund (Which was a lie) and that I should just wait three more days to get it. Fine. I waited three more days and did not see anything in my account. Figuring it was due to the holidays, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them one more full week. By January 6th I still did not have my monitor nor my money. I contacted them and was told the refund was on it's way. At first they told me to wait three MORE days but after getting an earful from me finally said they would investigate and that I should contact them the next day. The very next day I contacted them and I got an angry response. They 'confirmed' that I received my refund and had the Paypal transaction number to prove it. They gave me the transaction number for the $35 courtesy refund that the very first customer service representative had given me at the start of this whole thing. At this point, I am going to pause the story to go over some complicated subjects. Now, I am sorry and do apologize. I did not warn you there would be maths but please try to follow along. Is $35 greater than or equal to $200? Is it close? Is it even in the ****ing ballpark? If you were looking at a ticket for a customer that is complaining they did not receive their product or refund on a $200 order and you found a refund for $35, would you not, IDK, INVESTIGATE A BIT INSTEAD OF ASSUMING THAT THE $35 WAS SOMEHOW THE ENTIRE REFUND FOR A $200 PURCHASE?! What do you need to be smoking to make that logic work?! So it turns out the whole time I had been contacting them and telling them I had not received my product and/or refund yet, they were assuming the $35 courtesy refund they saw on my account was the refund in question then assumed the RMA was changed to a refund (IT WASN'T) and that if I just waited a few more days the 'refund' would show up in my account. I can not express how ass backwards this all is. I have worked in technical support for quite a long time. I have worked with a lot of different ticketing systems and dealt with all sorts of end users. In EACH AND EVERY CASE, you need to investigate. You need to dig. You have to pull up all the information and take a look and identify any issues. Even issues and details that the guy before you missed. My ticket had been handled by no less than five different representatives at this point and they STILL missed the most BASIC of information concerning my situation. This isn't just bad customer service at this point. This is incompetence. Once it was not-so-calmly explained that $35 != $200 and that I would like ever so kindly for them to do their ****ing job, they got back to me and informed me 1) That the $35 was a courtesy refund (you know, the thing I just told them moments ago) and 2) that they never received the package so they could not start RMA process. That they never received the package so they could not start RMA process. That they never received the package so they could not start RMA process. <screaming into the void> I knew they received the package. Why? The UPS Tracking number. UPS had diligently returned the package to sender and I had a proof of delivery. The package I had never touched was back in their hands and I knew it before they did. Told them this. I demanded some sort of action. They had the product AND my money. I wanted one or the other ASAP. The rep said he changed the RMA from replace to refund (ANOTHER LIE!) and started an investigation as to where the package was. He said I should get my refund in three days. Narrator: He did not get his refund in three days Finally, on January 11th I had enough. I contacted them and demanded a supervisor or manager. It took nearly two hours, but finally I was able to speak to someone that fixed this mess. After explaining everything and demanding that they carefully read over my entire ticket, results happened. A refund would be sent immediately. I voiced my grand displeasure with their company and let it be done. They offered $25 off my next purchase with the caveat that I would have to make the purchase first then contact customer support to get my the refund. I gave them a hard pass. With as 'organized' as their customer support had proven to be over this month and a half, I doubted that I would ever see that 'discount'. I got a message later that day from paypal letting me know that I had received a refund from NewEgg which would turn out to be the very last backhanded slap they could muster to a customer of over a decade. $165. That's right. They had subtracted the so called 'courtesy' refund from the final refund. Sure, I am not out any money. I ain't "mad" that they refunded me exactly what I paid. At this point it is the principle of the thing. NewEgg wasted several hours of my time on the phone and in chats, mismanaged my service ticket and lied to me at blatantly at least twice and countless more through omission and delayed my refund several times by instructing me to "just wait". I received terrible customer service and their response at the end was to basically 'take back' their initial act of polite courtesy. It felt like they had just flipped me off. As I mentioned, I had been a loyal customer for over a decade. My first order was in 2009 for hard drives. Then in 2012, I built a whole system from parts I purchased from them. In 2017 I got the mobo, ram, SSD, and CPU for my current gaming rig. And there were countless small purchases in between. This was the first time something like this happened. But it was so severe, so insanely out of touch with reality that I cut ties with them completely. I ordered the monitor from B&H and got it two days later. I have since scrubbed NewEgg from the approved retailers in my PCPartPicker profile and purchased other parts at higher prices from their competitors (including a 3700X I just ordered today). I refuse to give them another dime, no mater what deals they have. I hope this tale of woe saves others from my fate. NewEgg used to be a great place to pick up PC parts. Hell, it used to be THE place to order parts online. But something happened. Something changed. They are no longer the NewEgg we once knew and, sadly, I don't think they ever will be.

The goal is to start streaming, which means the current titles. As of late I had been playing AC:Valhalla, CyberPunk 2077, Horizon ZD, The Outer Worlds... all of which I wanted to stream and give commentary on but I just could not. I also have older games like Deux Ex, Fallout 4, Witcher 3 etc that I want to make video documentary style commentary on and I can't get good recordings as the frame rate jumps all over the place whenever I try. Currently I play at 1920x1080 but can barely if ever hit a smooth FPS of 60. Too much for my 1700X to handle. Being that I most likely will want to record at 4k to get a clearer image to work with, a beefier processor is better. I know I will need a GPU upgrade down the line, but that is out of the scope of this current conundrum. Whatever I decide, I will end up buying two chips as I will need to flash the bios of the new mobo before I use a 5000 series chip in it. (YES I know there are boards out there that can flash without a chip and YES I know there are boards out there that come with bios' that can support 5000 series. I want THIS board). The question is, will a 3700X be a good purchase or should I spend more?

Hi all. I am looking to upgrade as my 1700X as it is severely bottle-necking my 2070 Super FTW3. Before I get into this as it is a bit confusing, I use two systems. The first is my gaming rig. It runs Windows 10 and is the primary focus of this post. My second is my linux desktop rig which I use both for learning and general use. There is also the theoretical 'third' next-gen build. The specs are below. "Gaming Rig - Current" ASRock X370 Tachi AMD Ryzen 1700X G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 2 x 8 GB DDR4-3200 EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB FTW3 ULTRA+ "Linux Rig - Current" Asus Sabertooth 990FX AMD FX-8320 Corsair Vengeance 4 x 4 GB DDR3-1600 Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3 GB WINDFORCE "Gaming and Streaming - Proposed Next Gen Build" Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS AMD Ryzen 5700/5800/5900 (have not decided yet) Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 4 x 8 DDR4-3600 **GPU from Current Gaming Rig** The original plan was to get a Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS and a 5700 or 5800 (or even 5900) chip and upgrade my gaming rig to a gaming and streaming rig. My current Gaming rig would then become my Linux Rig. You may notice a flaw already: That mobo does not accept a 5000 series chip out of the box without a bios update, nor will it accept an old 1700x. Even if I got that mobo, I would have to get another chip in order to upgrade the bios. Thus I hatched Plan B. Plan B has two stages. First, I replace my 1700X with a 3000 series chip that is supported by both my current X370 and the proposed X570 motherboard. In the second stage when I get my hands on a 5000 series chip, I would retire my old FX-8320 and the X370/3000 series would take over as my Linux Rig with the X570/5000 series taking its place as my Gaming/Streaming Rig. Got all that? Now comes to the bit where I am seeking some guidance. I got my sights on a 3700X. I have the money for it (~$350 w/tax) and I am ready to pull the trigger... but I am having doubts. This new chip will be my gaming rig for a short while and then it will power my linux desktop possibly for the next decade. Will this be a noticeable upgrade to my 1700X? Or should I hold back and aim higher? Maybe spend the extra $80 bucks for the 3800X or "Go Big or Go Home" with a $180 uptick to a 3900X? Having a beefier CPU in my linux rig WOULD be nice, especially with the multitasking I do (running a SQL server, VM emulation, and coding for example). But would a 3700X do just as well? Would a 3800 or 3900 be overkill? At that point would the GPU (Remember the Linux Rig uses an R9 280X) be the bottleneck in that system? And while I am waiting for a 58/59 to come down in price and become available, would the 3700 give me a noticeable difference in my gaming rig? I am sure I won't be able to stream like I want (will have to wait for the 57/58/59 for that) but will I get a noticeable FPS boost out of my games? All of this is very first-world-problemy. Do I drop more money now or later is basically what it comes down to. Is the 3700X a good choice? Will I regret this purchase and wish I went with a more robust chip?

This might fit in the Storage Devices subforum, but thought I would try here first. My system currently has an ASRock x370 Taichi which has two M.2 slots. One is PCIe Gen3 + SATA (labeled 'ULTRA' because it's fast I guess) and the other is PCIe Gen2. One is occupied (the so called "Ultra" slot) with the other one open and tempting me as I am seeing some good deals on M.2 SSD's. However... will any M.2 drive work in that slot? Or do I need to be more choosy with what I get? Can that slot even work for storage? Thanks in advance.

Liking the IO on that board. Might be the first gigabyte product I have bought in... how long? 16 years? 17? Yep, not helping with that feeling old part lol Now could someone tell me a bit about RAM timings? Is 3200 'Good Enough' or am I leaving a lot of performance on the table? Looking for the sweet spot between price and performance cause some of these kits are insane

Holy shit. I remember the days when you needed a god damn floppy drive to flash a BIOS. Now you can do it with without the CPU. I feel old now.

Can these boards enter/flash the BIOS without a supported chip? I mean, downloading and having the BIOS on hand before one starts is always good practice but the question here is if I need to add another chip to my basket at checkout? Contacting support is a good idea. But if this turns out anything like the Sabertooth 990FX debacle I had to deal with nearly a decade ago, they might have many BIOS versions out there in the wild and don't have the boxes labeled... Hell, I am sure I can find a used 3000 series that I can turn into a media center or something. The current board is still viable for turning into something else.

So, to repeat a question I made in my OP, do I need to buy a chip to upgrade the BIOS on these boards? I notice that the 1700 is not supported by the ASUS option and though the 5000 series is, I am sure that requires a BIOS update. Edit: not sure why it copied my last post