jimm_eh

Most of it, I'd say (at least as far as the CPU side goes).  Intel sort of leveled off after Sandy Bridge and coasted until Zen finally forced its hand.

I just retired a 2012-built 3770k setup (with OC to 4.2GHz) in January, that was "enough" for a VERY long time (with GPU upgrades from a 460 to 660, 760 (4GB), 970 and finally 1080). Being originally built as a workstation, it had 32GB from the start.  It only started to seem a bit long in the tooth by 8th gen when Zen's arrival finally freed consumer chips from Intel's 4c8t holding pen, and even then, my games didn't start noticing or wanting more CPU/cores for a while after that (in part because I wasn't playing big AAA titles).

 

@Queen Chrysalis  Thank you so much for taking the time.  Among other things, you've confirmed that PcPartPicker has a Canadian-specific option I can use (easy to recognize because of all the parts with no prices because they aren't carried here 😞  )

I'm in BC, so a run for the border would be in Washington rather than Minnesota.  I have been to the Microcenter there, back in 2003 when I took a freelance gig in town.

In any case, I'll definitely use your lists as a starting point, though it'll be a bit later than I was planning on account of having done my taxes this weekend and owing enough to temporarily clobber my budget 😛

The 5800x3d will do absolutely nothing for you at 4k.
 
I think you'll like this:
the case has a single 140mm fan on the front for intake, the ffan in the parts list would be your exhaust.  the GPU draws cold air from underneath the case.  It also has a nice white PSU shroud so a black PSU won't stand out.  The Deepcool AG400 in white would be $7 less, but the Assassin King has an extra heat pipe, so it's up to you I guess.  The AG400 in plain chrome with a black fan is only $25, but the CPU cooler is kinda at the center of the build, so it carries a lot of aesthetic weight.  And white with an RGB fan would look really nice.
 
Either of these could also take a 12400f instead of a 13400f to save about $50, but those extra cores might be nice to have later on.
 
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: Intel Core i5-13400F 2.5 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($275.95 @ shopRBC) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin King SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($47.35 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: ASRock B760M-ITX/D4 WiFi Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($169.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($76.98 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: Kingston NV2 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($126.99 @ iSanek) 
Video Card: Zotac GAMING Trinity OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card  ($1087.99 @ Best Buy Canada) 
Case: Fractal Design Torrent Nano Mini ITX Tower Case  ($119.99 @ Memory Express) 
Power Supply: MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($177.98 @ Newegg Canada) 
Case Fan: Fractal Design Aspect 12 RGB 32 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($17.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $2101.21
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-04-20 21:17 EDT-0400
 
You could go with a 7900xt and get better performance at 4k for the same price.  You would also get to use a similar quality PSU that would cost $30 less (no need for PCIe 5.0 connector).  I think the 4070ti I used in the first parts list looks cooler with the aesthetic of the build, but the 7900xt would be a little bit faster.
 
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: Intel Core i5-13400F 2.5 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($275.95 @ shopRBC) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin King SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($47.35 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: ASRock B760M-ITX/D4 WiFi Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($169.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($76.98 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: Kingston NV2 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($126.99 @ iSanek) 
Video Card: ASRock Phantom Gaming OC Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card  ($1133.77 @ iSanek) 
Case: Fractal Design Torrent Nano Mini ITX Tower Case  ($119.99 @ Memory Express) 
Power Supply: ADATA XPG CORE Reactor 850 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($149.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Case Fan: Fractal Design Aspect 12 RGB 32 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($17.99 @ Memory Express) 
Total: $2119.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-04-20 21:21 EDT-0400
 
Note that both of these have slightly overkill PSUs, but that's only because I saw significantly higher end units available than sufficient ones for like $10 more each.  I didn't really splurge on anything for aesthetics or ITX.  I did this list before I read that part of your post, and it was a difference of like $70 at most.
 
If you actually wanna come down to Minnesota for the day you could get something faster and cheaper, but the exchange rate might just fuck it up anyway.
 

EDIT:  Swapping this motherboard into either build might be worth it if you wanna use the USB Type-C port on the front of the case. 
ASRock H670M-ITX/ax Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard (H670M-ITX/ax) - PCPartPicker
 
It also has way more ports and a somewhat better chipset.

Progressive Peripherals 68040 Zeus board for the Amiga 2000.

Yes, I'm likely the oldest to post on this thread so far.

If "PC" is restricted to DOS/Windows, then I'd have to say my first one, a Pentium Pro 180MHz.  That CPU rendered enough of my demo reel to launch my current VFX career.

Honorable mentions: 
 
DPS Personal Animation Recorder ISA (that's how I recorded the PPro 180's output to VHS)

Athlon 1.4gHz (from the last time AMD was king of the hill)

Nvidia GTX 460 1GB graphics card (ran that thing for four years)

Core 2 quad Q6600 - got that box for free in lieu of overtime on a gig in 2007.  Couldn't believe how fast Intel went from 2 to 4 cores.

The two 1080tis I ran Redshift on from 2017 to 2020.  Those things rocked, and still see duty in other machines now despite being replaced by 3090's for work.
 

Progressive Peripherals 68040 Zeus board for the Amiga 2000.

Yes, I'm likely the oldest to post on this thread so far.

If "PC" is restricted to DOS/Windows, then I'd have to say my first one, a Pentium Pro 180MHz.  That CPU rendered enough of my demo reel to launch my current VFX career.

Honorable mentions: 
 
DPS Personal Animation Recorder ISA (that's how I recorded the PPro 180's output to VHS)

Athlon 1.4gHz (from the last time AMD was king of the hill)

Nvidia GTX 460 1GB graphics card (ran that thing for four years)

Core 2 quad Q6600 - got that box for free in lieu of overtime on a gig in 2007.  Couldn't believe how fast Intel went from 2 to 4 cores.

The two 1080tis I ran Redshift on from 2017 to 2020.  Those things rocked, and still see duty in other machines now despite being replaced by 3090's for work.
 

Heh,
 
I work for the gov't. My job (in IT) is classified as "mission critical" and as such, I *cannot* be fired.
For anything short of murder (I know, I looked into it. And as an "amusing" aside, the guy I replaced was because he had murdered his wife, so he lost his job. Make of that what you will.)
 

It's really tempting to label the kind of person who could fall for something like this to be an idiot, but, like, are we forgetting that even experienced people can make mistakes and have lapses in judgement?
 
I mean, seriously. There's more than one way a vulnerability can exploit a user, and I remember this plausible anecdote from a YouTuber doing an ad spot for a password manager -- he received a login notification after a long day from an unknown location and was going to "log in" to the site, but realized it was a phishing site when said manager didn't suggest to fill in the login fields. Whether that story was real or not, it's something that literally could happen to anybody. And I don't think anybody here can honestly say that they've never made a mistake or had a lapse in judgement, no matter how experienced or disciplined you are. You don't become an expert by never making mistakes.
 
So can we please collectively stop equating "scam victim" with "idiot"?

Vortex Radar has responded to the LTT video. they're a great channel in the Sumas Washington area. LTT should reach out to them for more details on dashcams and radar detectors 😉
 
 
 

Are you talking about rechargeable AA or AAA type cells (NiMH, nickel metal hydride)?

There's a possibility that the controller is (badly) designed to consider the batteries dead at 1.2V.  That's relatively pooped out for alkalines (though not completely), but is just getting started for NiMH cells (and NiCad, nickel cadmiums, as well).

If so, your cells are fine, but won't run the controller well.

Try running a set of fresh alkalines to make sure the controller works, then use a meter like in TetraSky's video to check the voltage on them once the controller quits.  If they voltage of each cell is around 1.2V or more when "empty", the controller won't like rechargeables.

You can do that, but definitely either way, I recommend looking at SteamVR performance charts, especially frametime, and seeing how many milliseconds are caused by your cpu, and how many by gpu. 
Because by modern standards, your cpu is really weak, and that could cause problems in certain VR games. You could easily upgrade it by either 12th gen i5, or amd r5 5600, but first see how it will perform, tuesday is only 2 days away.
If you have the 1080ti at hand, yeah throw it in the case, every little bit of performance helps in vr, especially in high res headsets like quest 2.

If you have those cards, slap one of them in and call it a day. You don't really need much more than a 1080Ti for basically every VR game out. If performance isn't up to snuff with that card, odds are you're CPU bound and should upgrade to a 12100F or 12400F to go with the 1080 Ti. 

My recently acquired 1990s era Keytronic keyboard.  Membrane/rubberdome type, not mechanical.

I acquired this because for the past half decade I have been trying to figure out what it was about this one keyboard I had at work in 1995 and 1996, that had the odd effect of really boosting my typing speed by about 10 wpm vs anything else.  I remembered only that it had this look.
 
Of course, that look is that of the IBM Model M.  So, in 2014 when I started googling around, the Model M immediately popped up, and I grabbed one.  While I do love it and its history, it wasn't "the one".  Since then, I've gone down the rabbit hole of mechanical boards, including recently putting together a board with MX Blues and the Drop "Jukebox" keycaps with the Matt3o tty profile, which does look and feel great - but no, that wasn't it either.

Upon reflection, I realized that the board I was seeking wasn't actually a mechanical board, but had to have been a regular rubber dome.  I am also a "pounder" when I type, and this mythical board had a firm instead of hard bottom-out like the mechs (even with damping rings - though I have not yet tried the so-called "gasket mounted" type). The brands I remembered from back then were Keytronic and Chicony.  As only the Keytronic ones had the right look, I picked this one up off Ebay - and it's "the one". Bonus - it has the 1U backspace and big-ass Enter key I learned on with my Coleco Adam and multiple Amigas.
 
It *still* gives me that 10wpm speed boost on typemonkey vs. my other boards. I'm thinking of picking up a few more as backup.

 

My Amiga 1200 in a selfmade tower build... inside a Quantum Lightning 512 MB 3,5 HDD, several IBM 1 GB HDD, 10 mb ram, cpus  a 68020, a 68030 and a copro 68882 with mmu and fpu. 
 
That monster is still going for over 28 years...

My recently acquired 1990s era Keytronic keyboard.  Membrane/rubberdome type, not mechanical.

I acquired this because for the past half decade I have been trying to figure out what it was about this one keyboard I had at work in 1995 and 1996, that had the odd effect of really boosting my typing speed by about 10 wpm vs anything else.  I remembered only that it had this look.
 
Of course, that look is that of the IBM Model M.  So, in 2014 when I started googling around, the Model M immediately popped up, and I grabbed one.  While I do love it and its history, it wasn't "the one".  Since then, I've gone down the rabbit hole of mechanical boards, including recently putting together a board with MX Blues and the Drop "Jukebox" keycaps with the Matt3o tty profile, which does look and feel great - but no, that wasn't it either.

Upon reflection, I realized that the board I was seeking wasn't actually a mechanical board, but had to have been a regular rubber dome.  I am also a "pounder" when I type, and this mythical board had a firm instead of hard bottom-out like the mechs (even with damping rings - though I have not yet tried the so-called "gasket mounted" type). The brands I remembered from back then were Keytronic and Chicony.  As only the Keytronic ones had the right look, I picked this one up off Ebay - and it's "the one". Bonus - it has the 1U backspace and big-ass Enter key I learned on with my Coleco Adam and multiple Amigas.
 
It *still* gives me that 10wpm speed boost on typemonkey vs. my other boards. I'm thinking of picking up a few more as backup.

 

My recently acquired 1990s era Keytronic keyboard.  Membrane/rubberdome type, not mechanical.

I acquired this because for the past half decade I have been trying to figure out what it was about this one keyboard I had at work in 1995 and 1996, that had the odd effect of really boosting my typing speed by about 10 wpm vs anything else.  I remembered only that it had this look.
 
Of course, that look is that of the IBM Model M.  So, in 2014 when I started googling around, the Model M immediately popped up, and I grabbed one.  While I do love it and its history, it wasn't "the one".  Since then, I've gone down the rabbit hole of mechanical boards, including recently putting together a board with MX Blues and the Drop "Jukebox" keycaps with the Matt3o tty profile, which does look and feel great - but no, that wasn't it either.

Upon reflection, I realized that the board I was seeking wasn't actually a mechanical board, but had to have been a regular rubber dome.  I am also a "pounder" when I type, and this mythical board had a firm instead of hard bottom-out like the mechs (even with damping rings - though I have not yet tried the so-called "gasket mounted" type). The brands I remembered from back then were Keytronic and Chicony.  As only the Keytronic ones had the right look, I picked this one up off Ebay - and it's "the one". Bonus - it has the 1U backspace and big-ass Enter key I learned on with my Coleco Adam and multiple Amigas.
 
It *still* gives me that 10wpm speed boost on typemonkey vs. my other boards. I'm thinking of picking up a few more as backup.

 

This would bypass 2FA. These aren't simply stealing the passwords, they're stealing the session cookies that exist after the user has logged in.
 
Steam actually checks when you change browsers, but not ISP's. But most game launchers don't check anything at all.
 
To tell you a short story, one MMORPG I played, their launcher was rather broken (it kept connecting to CDN's that were missing the patch files) for what had to be a few months, and the way around it? the first time you used it successfully, you grabbed the authenticated session cookie from the executable process. If you keep running that commandline exactly the same way every time, it will work until there is a client version mismatch. Remember the launcher only does two things in nearly all games, verifying the file integrity, and downloading/patching. Modders use this strategy for basically preventing the launcher from removing their unauthorized mods.
 
Unless the server is whitelisting IP addresses at an account level, the "token passed via command line" will always work, and thus stealing it will always work this way as well. Quite frankly I'm surprised it took 15 years for malware to do it, and I'm sure there were other malwares doing it before, just not such a credential goblin such as this.

The BIOS on my still-in-use HP laptop (Pavilion dv6, circa 2012), on the other hand, is so barebones it might as well not be there.
 

Actually if you read that page, it can't handle Gigabit under normal usage.  It can route Gigabit with no extra features enabled but it can only handle 656Mbit as a firewall, which I assume means NAT.  It then says 74Mbit over IPsec which is REALLY low considering it needs less resources than OpenVPN.
 
If you're looking for a low-power appliance then something around an Intel 7th Gen Core i5-7200U seems to be the best bet as it should handle even OpenVPN at Gigabit if you need it to.  Mine is the Kettop Mi7200L6 although I don't have Gigabit yet to give it a full test.

Several times. 

In the about 30 years that I've played around with PCs: not once.

Only one time. I couldn't get one of my sticks to show up and it turned out there was a small piece of debris in the slot of the used motherboard I had purchased. I did a full spray-off with canned air in all the slots on the board, everything worked fine after that.

Quite often, from laptops to desktops
 
- my core 2 duo system wouldn't post, reseating the RAM twice worked (I probably knocked it loose while fiddling something else)
- my laptop has fiddly RAM occasionally, reseating helps
- my friends desktop only showed 8gb RAM, reseating his RAM made it show all 16gb

Id say probably not worth it. SSD caching norally don't have a. huge impact when eiditing as its built more for raming io than things like video playbac
 
What network Speeds are you working with? Whats the specs on the rest of the system?
 
If you want the best performance, id just put the ssd into the workstations, and edit off the ssd directly. 

Indeed.  Discrete audio cards disappeared because audio applications hit a "ceiling of perfection" where more bits/samples give no perceptible improvement.

GPU's in their various applications are a long way off from hitting any such ceiling.