brostenen wrote on 2022-07-05, 21:11:

My old Lenovo X220's CPU fan gave up the ghost. So I had to get a new machine as a replacement for my daily driver. 9 out of 10 times it refused to boot and was stuck at fan error. So I found this HP Probook 6460b as a replacement. Nearly same spec's, refurbished and at an affordable price. That said. As it is from 2011, then I really do not know if the HP is retro yet. I am running Linux and to my surprise, it booted the harddrive from my Lenovo without any issue at all. Everything worked, and I only had to re-enter the wifi password. It came with two 4gb stick's of ram, a total of 8gb. I had one stick of 8gb in my Lenovo. Both machine with the same type of memory. So it was a no brainer, swapping out one of the 4gb with the 8gb stick. Now I am running with 12gb of ram. Nice. And the best part, is that I did not have to move any data. Though I have done a full backup just in case.

You cannot replace a ThinkPad with an HP 😁

Bought an A1466 display assembly since the one the iSight camera was broken due to a busted cable had broken the glass when I was trying to take the damn thing apart to replace the camera.

I also bought 1TB M.2 MacBook Air A1466 drives and got those recently, a dual monitor swivel stand, a mount for the portable monitor, a 128GB USB/USB-C flash drive, and screen protectors for the A1466 MacBook Air 2015 13" systems.

SteveC wrote on 2022-07-23, 22:07:

brostenen wrote on 2022-07-05, 21:11:

My old Lenovo X220's CPU fan gave up the ghost. So I had to get a new machine as a replacement for my daily driver. 9 out of 10 times it refused to boot and was stuck at fan error. So I found this HP Probook 6460b as a replacement. Nearly same spec's, refurbished and at an affordable price. That said. As it is from 2011, then I really do not know if the HP is retro yet. I am running Linux and to my surprise, it booted the harddrive from my Lenovo without any issue at all. Everything worked, and I only had to re-enter the wifi password. It came with two 4gb stick's of ram, a total of 8gb. I had one stick of 8gb in my Lenovo. Both machine with the same type of memory. So it was a no brainer, swapping out one of the 4gb with the 8gb stick. Now I am running with 12gb of ram. Nice. And the best part, is that I did not have to move any data. Though I have done a full backup just in case.

You cannot replace a ThinkPad with an HP 😁

Sure I can. And I did. The HP Probook 6460b is a nice machine. Actually better than the Lenovo X220. And way easier to swap components in.

Picked up this crud during EVGA's last sale. The card is a BIG BOY, but it stands up on it's own! No sag at all. I tossed my saggy Asus 3090 in the closet. It drove my OCD crazy having to use a GPU brace.

I also grabbed a bunch more GTX Titan Blacks, a couple more GTX 690s, and some Haswell processors (4790K, 4690K, 4690, 4770K). Someday these near final SLI era machines will be really neat, I think.

It's Haswell day!

Heh, finally managed to score something half decent, stuff gets listed Sunday, I see it late, pin it for Mon or Tues evening, stuff gets cray-cray, check it Weds and it's sold, but not todayyyyy!!! Dragged home a Thinkcenter M83 minitower, i7-4770, 16GB RAM. No HDD, should do me for a bit, still as fast as Ryzen 3 and a lot of the cheaper 10 and 11G. Also has the optional HD7450, which is the warmed over 6450. It's probably, maybe, certainly gonna get a K620 in it. Got a 256GB SSD and a Terrabyte or two of real HDD to fling into it.

Another local dude seems to be offering a i7-4790k for trade, I'm wondering if it will really do me much good in this. Or just be about 10 or 15% faster in the barely feel it zone. There's also a motherboard going real cheap that might be for one of these, maybe I could use these bits to test it, get a PSU upgrade for this one, then with loose board, old PSU, orig CPU cobble it into another box.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-25, 01:05:

It's Haswell day!

Heh, finally managed to score something half decent, stuff gets listed Sunday, I see it late, pin it for Mon or Tues evening, stuff gets cray-cray, check it Weds and it's sold, but not todayyyyy!!! Dragged home a Thinkcenter M83 minitower, i7-4770, 16GB RAM. No HDD, should do me for a bit, still as fast as Ryzen 3 and a lot of the cheaper 10 and 11G. Also has the optional HD7450, which is the warmed over 6450. It's probably, maybe, certainly gonna get a K620 in it. Got a 256GB SSD and a Terrabyte or two of real HDD to fling into it.

Another local dude seems to be offering a i7-4790k for trade, I'm wondering if it will really do me much good in this. Or just be about 10 or 15% faster in the barely feel it zone. There's also a motherboard going real cheap that might be for one of these, maybe I could use these bits to test it, get a PSU upgrade for this one, then with loose board, old PSU, orig CPU cobble it into another box.

The 4790k is a rock solid CPU, had one for ages and its still going strong in my brothers PC, it does need a decent cooler as their code name Devils Canyon is appropriate, heat aside it did overclock really well and overall was a nice upgrade over stock Haswell.

That said if you have a 4770 then unless you can get the 4790k cheap or as part of a better deal its not worth buying, the only thing the "k" gets you is unlocked multipliers which I suspect you dont need.

Yeah think it needs a much better board to be worth it, it will be basic digital biyatch in this one.

I was sure about the K620, then wait a sec, I just got a HD7750 OC... which is 10% faster than base 7750 so should be level with K620, and this case has the height for it, whereas the K620s are low pro, and should be saved for low pro if poss... but then waitasecwaitasec.... I have a 650TI I keep forgetting... was given to me because "weird occasional lockups" but research said there was a bug in the fan speed changing... so I figure nail it to 80% and should be good... but I haven't had much test time on it. Maybe this where I find out if it's really crap or useable. Needs moar power, one 6 pin, but I can bodge that. On the other, other hand, I also have external power bricks, with 2x6pin... hmmm... anyone ever seen an R9 Fury installed in a Thinkcenter minitower? heheh. .... probably not wise, be super tight, and super hot, and super loud.

So I guess, try 650TI and use until I'm extra pissed off with nVidia, then run the HD7750 for a bit unless I find anything real nVidia specific to do and forgive them enough to bung the K620 in instead.

Finally got my G4560/H170 8gb DDR4 ITX setup complete for my step dad to replace his XPS 2nd gen i5 desktop. A fraction of the size, more efficient, has TPM for Windows 11 and waaay faster. M.2 would be nice, but his 1tb Crucial Sata SSD will transfer over nicely for free.

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-24, 22:42:

Picked up this crud during EVGA's last sale. The card is a BIG BOY, but it stands up on it's own! No sag at all. I tossed my saggy Asus 3090 in the closet. It drove my OCD crazy having to use a GPU brace.

I also grabbed a bunch more GTX Titan Blacks, a couple more GTX 690s, and some Haswell processors (4790K, 4690K, 4690, 4770K). Someday these near final SLI era machines will be really neat, I think.

Mmmm... crud. I had to buy some crud myself with leftover EVGA bucks since their bucks program is ending in September.

liqmat wrote on 2022-07-25, 23:59:

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-24, 22:42:

Picked up this crud during EVGA's last sale. The card is a BIG BOY, but it stands up on it's own! No sag at all. I tossed my saggy Asus 3090 in the closet. It drove my OCD crazy having to use a GPU brace.

I also grabbed a bunch more GTX Titan Blacks, a couple more GTX 690s, and some Haswell processors (4790K, 4690K, 4690, 4770K). Someday these near final SLI era machines will be really neat, I think.

Mmmm... crud. I had to buy some crud myself with leftover EVGA bucks since their bucks program is ending in September.

What kind of crud did you end up with?

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-26, 00:10:

liqmat wrote on 2022-07-25, 23:59:

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-24, 22:42:

Picked up this crud during EVGA's last sale. The card is a BIG BOY, but it stands up on it's own! No sag at all. I tossed my saggy Asus 3090 in the closet. It drove my OCD crazy having to use a GPU brace.

I also grabbed a bunch more GTX Titan Blacks, a couple more GTX 690s, and some Haswell processors (4790K, 4690K, 4690, 4770K). Someday these near final SLI era machines will be really neat, I think.

Mmmm... crud. I had to buy some crud myself with leftover EVGA bucks since their bucks program is ending in September.

What kind of crud did you end up with?

Not much. I only had about 75 EVGA bucks left. I had picked up a 3090 FTW3 for my ITX build (the Ti was just a tad too tight for my Lian Li ITX case). Almost a week later EVGA dropped the price on their 3090s by $200 so I asked for a refund on the difference. They gave me EVGA bucks with which I bought their beefiest 850W SFX PSU. Still had those leftover EVGA bucks so I picked up a GT 730. It's a good little card for testing motherboards and performs at about an 8800 GTX level. Not bad for its low profile size. Also got a free 20th Anniversary EVGA t-shirt! Woohoo! They forced size small on me even though I am most definitely medium, but hey... free is free. My wife can wear it.

liqmat wrote on 2022-07-26, 00:23:

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-26, 00:10:

liqmat wrote on 2022-07-25, 23:59:

Mmmm... crud. I had to buy some crud myself with leftover EVGA bucks since their bucks program is ending in September.

What kind of crud did you end up with?

Not much. I only had about 75 EVGA bucks left. I had picked up a 3090 FTW3 for my ITX build (the Ti was just a tad too tight for my Lian Li ITX case). Almost a week later EVGA dropped the price on their 3090s by $200 so I asked for a refund on the difference. They gave me EVGA bucks with which I bought their beefiest 850W SFX PSU. Still had those leftover EVGA bucks so I picked up a 730 GT. It's a good little card for testing motherboards and performs at about an 8800 GTX level. Not bad for its low profile size. Also got a free 20th Anniversary EVGA t-shirt! Woohoo! They forced size small on me even though I am most definitely medium, but hey... free is free. My wife can wear it.

Heyyyyy! Low profile 730 GT! I didn't even know they still had those kicking around! Gonna grab one right now.

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-26, 00:30:

liqmat wrote on 2022-07-26, 00:23:

Yawnald wrote on 2022-07-26, 00:10:

What kind of crud did you end up with?

Not much. I only had about 75 EVGA bucks left. I had picked up a 3090 FTW3 for my ITX build (the Ti was just a tad too tight for my Lian Li ITX case). Almost a week later EVGA dropped the price on their 3090s by $200 so I asked for a refund on the difference. They gave me EVGA bucks with which I bought their beefiest 850W SFX PSU. Still had those leftover EVGA bucks so I picked up a 730 GT. It's a good little card for testing motherboards and performs at about an 8800 GTX level. Not bad for its low profile size. Also got a free 20th Anniversary EVGA t-shirt! Woohoo! They forced size small on me even though I am most definitely medium, but hey... free is free. My wife can wear it.

Heyyyyy! Low profile 730 GT! I didn't even know they still had those kicking around! Gonna grab one right now.

Nice! Meant to type GT 730. I always get these model names/numbers backwards. Yeah cute little cards (with a decent punch) for a very fair price imo.

I finally have a modern GPU tot talk about, though I had to make a deal with the devil. Actually, it just managed to cost $666 after tax.

I don't mean to second guess your choice but why would you buy that for that price when the RX 6800XT is on sale for even less than that on Amazon?

Mind share is a huge force to overcome. The last time team red was competitive was the 7970. That was a great card...

luckybob wrote on 2022-07-26, 06:56:

Mind share is a huge force to overcome. The last time team red was competitive was the 7970. That was a great card...

Yeah but this is just painful for me to see!

The RX 6800XT is not even in the same league as RTX 3070, even at 4K it trades blows with the RTX 3080 (matches it in 1440p and beats it in 1080p): RTX 3080 vs RX 6800XT

RX 6800XT has better raster performance, more VRAM, comparable RT, and FSR 2.x vs DLSS 3.x (which is basically a wash). It also costs less than even an RTX 3070 and that is what got bought.. I just can't wrap my head around the decision.

Well, amazon.com prices seem to be without/pre any VAT/sales tax, so....
While these 6800XT's still cost the same as the (absolutely) cheapest RTX3080's here in northern Europe - $950 after taxes for cheapest 6800XT I could find.

And are offered in a very limited number (single digits) of models as well. While I could've easily gotten an RTX3070Ti for $699 (Asus TUF OC) just a few weeks ago (costs $800 now), and nvidia models/variants are more plentiful in general.
So I guess it also depends on where you are located, and local tax etc.

bestemor wrote on 2022-07-26, 09:30:

Well, amazon.com prices seem to be without/pre any VAT/sales tax, so.... While these 6800XT's still cost the same as the (absol […]
Show full quote

Well, amazon.com prices seem to be without/pre any VAT/sales tax, so....
While these 6800XT's still cost the same as the (absolutely) cheapest RTX3080's here in northern Europe - $950 after taxes for cheapest 6800XT I could find.

And are offered in a very limited number (single digits) of models as well. While I could've easily gotten an RTX3070Ti for $699 (Asus TUF OC) just a few weeks ago (costs $800 now), and nvidia models/variants are more plentiful in general.
So I guess it also depends on where you are located, and local tax etc.

I am seeing a PowerColor Red Dragon RX 6800 XT for $669 and a Sapphire 11304-03-20G Pulse for $699. Both on Amazon here in the U.S. Nice to see the prices falling through the floor regardless.

Yeah with prices plummeting as they are I'm mighty tempted to sell my 3070 and get a 6800XT or greater.