M.Laz

Concerning furniture, my wife and I have decided that for certain things, we need to find woodworkers and order directly to them. Our current issue is a dining room set we thought was reasonably high end but it's not holding up and we believe we could have gone to a woodworker for something we know would be well built for not too much more. The media cabinet in this video seems like the build quality is on par with the not quite Ikea flat pack stuff you get from other big box stores. Maybe some smart designers can add channels for air that can also help keep noise away from users, add pockets for things like fan controllers, and integrate other electronics for improving the experience. Some cool accessories to go with it might be retractable cords for charging, maybe something like a drag chain or other cable guide that can work for the drawers, and other things to help with cable management beyond what LTT is working on. This video also makes me want to get back to creating a custom fan controller that speaks MQTTI figure I could have something built with some defaults and can store updated user provided ones in non-volatile storage but it could also integrate with things like Node-Red or Home Assistant to better take things like room ambient temperatures into account and allow for more external control such as via a smartphone. Maybe that's going a bit over the top in the home automation realm though. And this video also makes we wonder about using the ESP32 as the foundation for a universal remote system to fill the void by Logitech when they discontinued the Harmony system. Getting the software right for a project like that would be a fair bit of effort though.

Can you guys look into a video on firmware security? I see you guys have made contact with Zach Bobroff at AMI from the recent Techquickie video. He's a good contact for this topic. On the Intel side, you might consider seeing if Brian Richardson is willing to speak with LMG if he is still involved in firmware security or if he can direct you to other people at Intel. Between them, they might also help you identify people at other major tech companies like Microsoft and AMD who can help build a bigger picture. What would probably be of most benefit to LTT viewers would be understanding SecureBoot, what types of security it provides, how OSes work with SecureBoot, how Trusted Computing and TPMs fit into the picture, and then perhaps how proprietary solutions like those from Intel and AMD try to fill in the gap. If someone there is really ambitious, I think some additional background on how consumes can help drive security without giving up software and hardware freedom. Some people from the OSS community might be good for that but it may be a challenge to find people willing to work with tech companies with what we have today rather than rely on their own bespoke solutions.

One thing I liked on the servers that I saw a similar feature on is that it logged power over time without any additional test equipment connected to the system. So you could see the impact of changing or adding hardware like hard drives, PCIe cards, or even just running a different mix of workloads. Fans could even factor into that, but then, this was a server As a consumer, I was thinking it could give me input on tweaks to make a system more efficient (funny because I've gone with an Intel 10th gen chip which are not the most efficient). Beyond that, it could give me some insight into my system usage and power bills. If there is Linux software for them, then there might be some other possibilities when paired with a RasPi like more reliable data logging that doesn't impact the host. But I don't know if this is possible.

Thanks for the info, I'll do some hunting on Monday and see what I can find.

I'm looking for a PSU for my new build and I was trying to look into a PSU that allows for power monitoring. After working with some server gear that can do something similar, I thought it might be interesting to look for something similar for my personal system. But it seems like there isn't much new out there that I can find. Was this really a gimmick that is dead now, or is it just that I'm not looking for the right thing? I want to do a bit more research on these before I pull the trigger on a PSU and this is one of the avenues I wanted to check into.

Do you have a recommendation for the CPU that supports DDR5, will have good midrange performance and costs about $250? If not, the extra cash is just spent on 'future proofing' which I've tried to do enough times in the past to decide I can't be bothered chasing the while whale named "future proof" now.

I think many of you have presented enough options for me to look over, burt I don't think there are any huge gaps in what I was looking into (I think I mentioned that I was concerned that ignoring 11th gen core would be a mistake but that doesn't seem to be the case, the pricing is still too high). Can we stop the flaming, alpha nerding, and fanboying? It's really not adding to the discussion of what can be purchased near my somewhat arbitrary price point and will offer solid performance for the next few years with the additional consideration that the CPU, mainboard, and RAM will all be switched out to take advantage of the innovations we are just starting to see coming to fruition right now.

That's my point. I just don't think it makes financial sense to be an early adopter and I've been a PC enthusiast long enough that I'm not up to chase the idea of 'future proofing' at this point. Right now, I think going with something second hand and last gen (or even 2 gens old in Intel's case) and saving as much money with plans to do a CPU/mainboard/RAM upgrade in a few years when the tech is more mature and what I'm putting together now starts to chug. DDR5 has a lot of potential for sure, but potential isn't in my budget.

I'm a little convened about its power consumption, but you make a good point about undervolting. I'd like to see if I can come on closer to $500 but considering my current rig is an opportunistic build that is reminiscent of a season of Scrapyard Wars, I can't complain about prices too much since it's been quite a while since I've paid to build something entirely new. Part of my reason for posting here is hoping to find some hidden gems. I was wondering if the largely negative reviews of the 11th gen Intel Core CPUs might have devalued them in the second hand market but a quick look doesn't support that hypothesis. At this point, I have a couple 10th gen Core CPUs that look nice and price will be the deciding factor if I go that route. I'm also trying to do a more serious read over Ryzen 3000 series to see how things look there. But the generational compatibility and the semiconductor fab capacity shortage both seemed to be keeping prices of AMD's CPUs pretty high even on the second hand market which may tank that plan. The upgrade after this will probably be after DDR5 is established so no matter what, and upgrade is likely to require a new board unless the performance promises for it don't pan out.

I hear you. I'm an old fart in computer terms and recall a few sockets that got more than a couple generations of upgrades . When they started moving things on die is when things really went downhill. For Intel, there was a ray of hope with QPI and the one generation they had what was called an IOH (tylersburg was that chip's codename IIRC). But Intel's games with PCIe lanes killed that (I have to wonder if part of the reason Intel kept Thunderbolt around was they thought it might lead to a solution for this). Their antics have pretty much killed hope for drop in upgrades. But then, their mediocre showing for nearly the past decade has meant an old system stays relevant for longer.

I've recently gotten a new 30 series GPU and it's time to build a new system as nothing I currently have can be carried forward. I'm starting with the CPU as the rest of the build really stems from that. I'm open with used CPUs for this build. What I have to spend seems to put me in mid-tier 10th gen Core or midrange Ryzen 3000 series territory, does this sound right? The reviews of 11th gen Core were underwhelming, does this mean there might be some deals there I'm overlooking Are there any specific models that would be good to zero in on? The reviews of 11th gen Core were underwhelming, does this mean there might be some deals there I'm overlooking? I'd like the build to be somewhat efficient, is there a clear advantage to AMI or Intel over this? I expect to upgrade in a couple years now that competition in the CPU space means we are actually starting to see more than incremental improvements each generation, and DDR5 has just hit the scene. So I'm trying to budget this with an upgrade planned in that timeframe.

Edited for clarifying budget Budget (including currency): ~$600USD (there is wiggle room) Country: USA Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: No Man's Sky, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 5, Minecraft, retro console emulation, then anything newer I've skipped over Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): GeForce 3070 TI founders edition, a pair of 1080P monitors (one high refresh rate), 1tb SATA SSD. Basically I'm building a brand new gaming PC. Almost nothing is usable from my current system is built around a pair of Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2 processors on a Supermicro X9DR3-F in a Supermicro super chassis running a P6000 as its GPU. I was able to land a 3070 TI founders' edition at MSRP so I now have a reason to build something that can put the GPU to use. My current thinking is to pick the CPU and the rest should be a lot easier to figure out. With Alder Lake having just launched I'm hoping that will mean some deals for other CPUs. Looking at the Alder Lake reviews, I don't think it makes a ton of sense to go that route. The power consumption is high, DDR5 needs more time to really show its capabilities, and outside of Windows 11, the e-cores don't seem to be a huge benefit I'd like to focus on efficiency while being able to handle the AAA tiles released over the past few years, and being able to jump to 1440p once monitor prices start to recover (I might try to use the 4K TV at home if I can compete with my wife and child for time ). I figure there will be a mainboard and CPU swap a few years down the line when I eventually do want to jump to DDR5. Hopefully the 3070ti will still be effective at that time. I'm just starting the check out the i9 10900K, the I7 10700KF, the R7 5800x and the R7 3800x. What else should I be looking into?

Pop over to reddit.com/r/egpu or egou.io. There is definitely interest out there. With the chip shortage, it's making a lot more sense to try and extend the capabilities of a laptop rather than trying to build a dedicated gaming PC. It's still nice, but that niche is bigger than it used to be. There are so many questions about performance like what cards are optimal for the limited PCIe bandwidth, what titles will be problematic (because they are PCIe bandwidth heavy), etc. It should be possible to test various types of GPU connections with different cards to build the definitive reference for those interested in eGPUs. But it would take a LOT of hardware to accomplish this.

I honestly don't see LTT doing a comprehensive eGPU video based on their previous videos. The problem is that there is an inverse relationship between tech reviewers interested in eGPUs and those that have the hardware and software to do comprehensive testing.

I'm interested in eGPUs and the recetn LTT video on weird motherboards got me thinking about if there is an article or video with a deep dive on GPU vs eGPU performance. Ideally, there would be a test done on a board that supports a mobile CPU, has a TB3 or TB4 port, and has a PCIex16 slot. The test would have data on the range of Turing, Ampere, RDNA, RDNA 2 cards. I'd like to see data for the card connected at x16, optionally connected at x4 to that same slot, and connected as an eGPU. I haven't found anything this extensive yet, is there such a video or article out there? It would be a pretty big undertaking and for a product that's still pretty niche, I would not be surprised to find that no one has decided to commit the resources for something this extensive. What I hope the data would show is that the GPU 'sweet spot' is for someone whose upgrade path is an eGPU. Does it make any sense to get something like a 3080 or 6800xt for an eGPU if there are n plans to transfer it to a desktop in the future? Does AMD or Nvidia have an advantage over the other in the eGPU space? It would also be good to have that kind of date for someone planning to get a specific notebook and assume they can just throw an eGPU at it and expect to game to better understand if they should consider an alternative.