Burnmaester

Well I don’t know how I missed it… steam deck is not for sale at Best Buy. Or at least it is not coming up when I search for it

Budget (including currency): $500 USD Best Buy only. Willing to go over for tax and shipping. Prefer getting a travel case/ protectors in the budget. Going over for those must be worth it. $700 hard stop can’t go over. Country: USA DFW Texas Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: casual convenience gaming on the go. PS4 remote play is a must. RPG and FPS only to enjoy the story line. 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): I was lucky and won a $500 Best Buy gift card at the office Christmas party. I’m looking to get something that I can game while traveling. I travel 13+ weeks a year for work. When I’m home would like something I can easily pickup and put down. Upgrading from a gaming laptop I never touch and don’t want to carry a second laptop traveling. I would like to buy in the next month or so. I’m open to resolution and fps. I’m leaning toward a stream deck, ROG Ally, or something similar. I already carry a laptop for work, I don’t want to carry a second. I like the idea of a protective case or protectors to help survive in a backpack full of stuff. Nothing in my bag is particularly brutal, like tools, but I travel. What do you think? edit. I can’t find steam deck for sale at Best Buy

Yeah more work is being done even without more voltage, more amps/watts are being drawn. I do have a question about CPU voltages. I understand part of the answer is "it depends" because like the frequency the voltages can change depending on cpu needs. In bios Vcore is set to 1.120V I assume this is the default max voltage? it has not changed even when I defaulted the bios. What do all the other core voltages mean and are there other ones I should be paying attention to? Currently at 5.1Ghz OC 4.7Ghz AVX At idle CPUz says Core Voltage: 0.672V HWMonitor say VCORE: 0.672V IA: 1.331V LCC/Ring: 1.331V VID#0-#1: variable between 1.331V and 1.338V under load CPUZ stress CPUz says Core Voltage: 0.664V or 0.672V HWMonitor say VCORE: 0.664V or 0.672V IA: 1.331V LCC/Ring: 1.331V VID#0-#1: variable between 1.320V and 1.327V under load OCCT AVX stress CPUz says Core Voltage: 0.640V or 0.672V HWMonitor say VCORE: 0.664V or 0.672V IA: 1.331V LCC/Ring: 1.331V VID#0-#1: variable between 1.252V and 1.369V So I guess My question is what voltage is my CPU actually getting? 1.2V ish or 0.6V ish? I don't have the actual Asus Motherboard software installed because it is one of the few software listed to directly conflict with Steam VR

Well I opened the door to 5Ghz in a way. I figured "why not" plus I was curios what asus considered the "extreme tuning" preset. No change to voltage. VCore is still 1.12 Still my manual Fan curves that pretty much hit 100% at 65C BCLK 100 Multiplier 51 DRAM 2666 Sync all and "Asus Multicore Enhancement" Although I overrode it and set the AVX offset to 4.7Ghz Just finished a quick 5 min CPUZ stress and had Max temp 71C, Max power 63.1W I did notice quick drops to 4.7Ghz which must have been the AVX code. I know its not a major test but I figured it was an easy start. Next up is OCCT for a while. I figure if one of these is deemed unstable then no need to do the other benchmarks.

I don't know about memory only. Wow it hits the CPU like a hammer. I'm seeing peaks up to 89C! and that is when I pull the case fan filter out of an abundance of caution. Could that be just because of the AVX?!?! Maybe I should set some AVX offset?

What is Linpack in OCCT? Thank you I will look into a few more programs. I'll check back in tomorrow. Out of time for today.

Thank you very much, I respect that. I will probably not go through that 5Ghz door but I will take another look at my temps. Currently still at stock voltage. Currently I had been doing my temperature bench by using CPUZ to stress the cpu for 5 minutes and take the highest CPU temp and CPU power during that time. Reading more articles I found that OCCT is a better temp stress. As I'm in the middle of my process I don't want do step back to get more data, I will list what I have. Step 1: CPUZ 5 min stress, max temp 52C max power 31.7W Step 2: CPUZ 5 min stress, max temp 52C max power 31.8W Step 3: CPUZ 5 min stress, max temp 52C max power 33.6W Step 4: CPUZ 5 min stress, max temp 63C max power 47.7W still step 4: OCCT 15 min stress, max temp 82C max power 80W I had set a more aggressive fan profile for steps 1-3 but I got lazy having to always put in my manual profile. Step 4 is the "turbo" fan profile. I'm going to change up the fan curves and see what the temps do.

Thanks! I'm honesty taking the slow easy way. I'll update the OP with the basic specs. I just found a guide from Asus that if I want to push it, meaning voltage, I may be able to hit 5Ghz! I don't know if I want to push that hard though. https://edgeup.asus.com/2017/kaby-lake-overclocking-guide/

I have another thread in here where I asked about updating my system. I decided to let it run instead of buying new equipment. So I decided to overclock. My strategy for this overclock is letting the components go faster without pushing hard. If that makes sense. I'm also trying to gather as much quantifiable data as possible to see that it is actually doing something. I will be primarily trying the "easy button" over clocks in the motherboard bios and see how they fair, and what they do. I'm not aiming for bleeding edge speed, just letting the components go a bit faster. Also by turning up all the fan speeds. First round of results looks like I may be able to get 10% increase without to much effort! Let me know your thoughts. Here is my current old build: MB: Asus TUF X299 Mark 2 CPU: Intel Core i5-7640X Kaby Lake-X GPU: Nvidia GTX1080 Founders Edition RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2800 SSD: WD Black 256GB NVMe SSHD: Seagate Firecuda 1TB 7200rpm CPU Cooler: Cooler Master RR-212X-20PM-R1 PS: Corsair CX750 i5-7640X 4C/4T 4.0Ghz base 4.2Ghz Boost I'll post results as they come in: All tests ran 5x times and averaged Its all in a big spreadsheet. I may post it at the end. There are also other benchmarks in the sheet. I'll just post some of them here. Step one: Baseline benchmarks only memory XMP PCmark 8 Demo: 5650 Cinebench R20: 1656 Unigen Superpostion 1080p high: 10678 Step 2: small GPU step, CPU default Changes: Nvidia Control Panel set to high performance MSI Afterburner set power percentage and temperature to max, voltage and clock speeds all left at default PCmark 8 Demo: 5680 +0.5% Cinebench R20: 1654.8 -0.07% Unigen Superpostion 1080p high: 3645.6 +7.35% Step 3: small CPU step, GPU default Changes: Motherboard Bios "EZ Tuning Wizard" Gaming and Tower Air Cooler Resulted in a CPU overclock to 4.5 Ghz, Bclk 103, Multiplier 44, all core, default voltage, Dram 2746 PCmark 8 Demo: 5870 +3.89% Cinebench R20: 1787.2 +7.9% Unigen Superpostion 1080p high: 3630.4 +6.9% Step 4: medium CPU step, GPU default Changes: Motherboard Bios "EZ System Tuning" set to Fast Tuning... this is different from the "EZ Tuning Wizard" Resulted in a CPU Overclock to 4.8 Ghz, Bclk 100, Multiplier 48, all core, Asus multicore enhancement, default voltage, dram 2666 PCmark 8 Demo: 6010 +6.37% Cinebench R20: 1841.4 +11.19% Unigen Superposition 1080p high: 3609.6 +6.2% Step 5: I'm debating the "EZ System Tuning" set to "Extreme Tuning" or calling it good and applying XMP or GPU to see what happens then

I had not realized the price for performance had come down so far! I will definitely look into those as an option.

Budget (including currency): $500-$1000 USD, I really prefer to keep the budget lower than higher Country: United States Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Primarily HTPC with casual VR, HTC Vive, although I prefer quality visuals over frame rates, as long as the frame rates are reasonable. Primary gaming is in VR, Fallout4 VR. Other details Monitors: Currently plugged into my 1080p 60hz 55" TV through my home theater surround sound. Also have my HTC Vive plugged in. Overclocking: I have never delved into overclocking. Primarily because I would not have the funds to replace anything I broke. Time frame for decision: I prefer to make a decision during Summer 2020 Original build from 2017 Original build intent was to build a budget VR rig with the most graphics horsepower I could afford. At the time with coupons, sales, and reusing case etc. I was able to build it for under $1700 including the cost of the HTC Vive. MB: Asus TUF X299 Mark 2 CPU: Intel Core i5-7640X Kaby Lake-X GPU: Nvidia GTX1080 Founders Edition RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2800 SSD: WD Black 256GB NVMe SSHD: Seagate Firecuda 1TB 7200rpm CPU Cooler: Cooler Master RR-212X-20PM-R1 PS: Corsair CX750 The Issue In VR I have always had consistent "Frame Timing Spikes", finally decided time to do something about it. It seems the internet consensus is the primary cause is CPU performance. At the time I though the Kaby Lake i5 was a great budget build. Now I know it was a bit of a compromise. The options So my options are upgrade, replace, or keep it as it is and wait another few years. Keep it as is is certainly the cheapest option. Upgrade: The "best part" about my older x299 is that my motherboard can support new processors? I could replace my i5-7640x with an i9-10900x I could also find an old used or new old stock i7-7740x New build for same price I have not been keeping up to date with the new processor, motherboard and performance standards over the past few years. If you think I could new build and reuse as much hardware as possible to keep the price down. Let me know. What are your thoughts?