clueless1 wrote on 2025-12-21, 17:58:

Munx wrote on 2025-12-20, 12:09:

Wanted to wait one more generation before upgrading, but the way things are headed with the whole memory shortage, I don't think other components will be far behind, so I pulled the trigger on a new GPU while the prices are still below MSRP.

I just did the same thing. I've been running an RTX 2080 8GB for the past couple of years (I game at only 1080p) while my son is running an RTX 4070 12GB with a 1440p monitor. With a budget of ~$400, I had narrowed my upgrade down to either the RX 9600XT 16GB or RTX 5060Ti 16GB. Then I had the idea to go in with my son. Talked with him about it, and he agreed. So now I'm buying an RTX 5070Ti for $750 (~814 with tax). My son will give me his RTX 4070 plus $407, and he will get the 5070Ti. He gets a 50% bump in performance (RTX 4070 to RTX 5070Ti) for $407 while I get a 50% bump in performance (RTX 2080 to RTX 4070) for $407.

The best part is we're each getting a huge upgrade for significantly less $$ than if we each upgraded separately.

Nice. That 2080 should also fetch a big pile of pocket change too.

Munx wrote on 2025-12-21, 18:23:

Nice. That 2080 should also fetch a big pile of pocket change too.

I suppose it could. Going for >$150 on ebay. I also have an RTX 2060KO, GTX1650 Super, GTX1060, and GTX750Ti. I don't sell on ebay though. If I could find a local buyer, I'd get rid of them all for $400.

Looks like I'm putting together a 5800x, 32gb ddr4 3600mhz, rtx 4060 PC for cheap to upgrade a coworker from his melting older gaming laptop. The Zalman T8 case is not my favorite pickup ever, but for $40 NIB can't complain much. I'll make $80 and he should have a lot less issues.

clueless1 wrote on 2025-12-21, 17:58:

Munx wrote on 2025-12-20, 12:09:

Wanted to wait one more generation before upgrading, but the way things are headed with the whole memory shortage, I don't think other components will be far behind, so I pulled the trigger on a new GPU while the prices are still below MSRP.

I just did the same thing. I've been running an RTX 2080 8GB for the past couple of years (I game at only 1080p) while my son is running an RTX 4070 12GB with a 1440p monitor. With a budget of ~$400, I had narrowed my upgrade down to either the RX 9600XT 16GB or RTX 5060Ti 16GB. Then I had the idea to go in with my son. Talked with him about it, and he agreed. So now I'm buying an RTX 5070Ti for $750 (~814 with tax). My son will give me his RTX 4070 plus $407, and he will get the 5070Ti. He gets a 50% bump in performance (RTX 4070 to RTX 5070Ti) for $407 while I get a 50% bump in performance (RTX 2080 to RTX 4070) for $407.

The best part is we're each getting a huge upgrade for significantly less $$ than if we each upgraded separately.

The 5070Ti finally arrived yesterday. I have temporarily set it up in my system for a few hours to mess with until my son is ready to install it in his system. Considering I have a 1080p monitor, it is nothing to run any game at the maximum settings and get >100fps. So far I have tried KCD2 on Experimental graphics settings, Sniper Elite 5 and Hogwarts Legacy on Ultra. 100-200fps is pretty much all I saw. Of course, with the old graphics settings from my RTX2080 (generally the notch below maximum), the 5070Ti was pushing >300fps.

I guess I bought this GPU just in time. Got it for MSRP and now that I'm looking at pricing again, this particular model is now $100 over MSRP and the cheapest model I see is $80 over MSRP.

Hogwarts Legacy, what a workout, better check how it does on Sims 4, GTA 3. 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-11, 16:04:

Hogwarts Legacy, what a workout, better check how it does on Sims 4, GTA 3. 🤣

Okay....

Seems like a decently demanding game. Enough so that many review sites still use it in their gaming benchmark suites. So what are you going on about?

Yeah shit I was confusing it with that crappy Hogwarts Mystery which did't even go onto PC or an earlier HP game.

I did a little benchmark of the 5070 Ti in my system before it goes to son's computer.
Game: Sniper Elite V
Settings: Ultra (highest setting in game)
Resolution: 1080p

Default GPU settings: 157 fps, 270Watts (GPU has a TDP of 300W), GPU temp 67C
Undervolt 1 (0.95v, 2.95Ghz) : 164 fps, 237Watts, 62C
Undervolt 2 (0.85v, 2.65Ghz): 153 fps, 192Watts, 56C

Okay, now that the 5070 Ti is in my son's PC, I've had the RTX 4070 in my system for a couple of days now. Here's some numbers from Sniper Elite V, Ultra, 1080p:

Default GPU settings: 106 fps, 196Watts (GPU has a TDP of 200W), GPU temp 65C
Overclock (Core+225, Mem+1500): 114 fps, 195Watts, 64C. Frames went up a few percent but I didn't see an increase in power or temps.
Undervolt 1 (0.95v, 2.75Ghz): 107 fps, 163Watts, 60C
Undervolt 2 (0.91v, 2.70Ghz): 106 fps, 148Watts, 57C
Undervolt 3 (0.90v, 2.55Ghz): 104 fps, 145Watts, 57C

I'd rather undervolt than overclock for hardware longevity. Probably will stick with Undervolt 2.

Getting ready to set up my home lab / LLM cluster / retro and not-so-retro web server / retro workstation.

Decided to search for a quieter switch solution instead of running a Cisco Nexus 93128TX that I got a while ago for cheap.

Bought a Mellanox 32-port 40Gb switch and a Dell 48-port 10Gb switch (S4810P) as well as some ConnectX-3 dual port 40Gb nics and dac cables.

Also got another Cisco Nexus switch just for the SFPs it was shown to come with because it was really cheap and a huge savings over buying the SFPs by themselves.

This gonna be sweet once I get it up and running.

Will be hosting a bunch of stuff on the web server. My current Wi-Fi router supports dynamic DNS so I don't even have to get a static IP address.

clueless1 wrote on 2026-01-14, 00:58:

Okay, now that the 5070 Ti is in my son's PC, I've had the RTX 4070 in my system for a couple of days now. Here's some numbers from Sniper Elite V, Ultra, 1080p:

Default GPU settings: 106 fps, 196Watts (GPU has a TDP of 200W)

2080 - 215W
4070 - 200W
5070ti - 300W
how is the noise of 5070ti vs 4070 and 2080?

robertmo3 wrote on 2026-01-14, 16:02:

2080 - 215W 4070 - 200W 5070ti - 300W how is the noise of 5070ti vs 4070 and 2080? […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote on 2026-01-14, 00:58:

Okay, now that the 5070 Ti is in my son's PC, I've had the RTX 4070 in my system for a couple of days now. Here's some numbers from Sniper Elite V, Ultra, 1080p:

Default GPU settings: 106 fps, 196Watts (GPU has a TDP of 200W)

2080 - 215W
4070 - 200W
5070ti - 300W
how is the noise of 5070ti vs 4070 and 2080?

Undervolted they are all about the same. But at stock settings the 5070ti is a bit louder when running at 100% GPU. The 2080 is also a little louder than the 4070. The 4070 is quietest whether at stock settings or undervolted. I'm a little disappointed that the 4070 won't undervolt as well as the 5070ti. You get much more reduction in power for the same fps loss with the 5070ti. It's actually really impressive.

clueless1 wrote on 2026-01-11, 14:40:

clueless1 wrote on 2025-12-21, 17:58:

Munx wrote on 2025-12-20, 12:09:

Wanted to wait one more generation before upgrading, but the way things are headed with the whole memory shortage, I don't think other components will be far behind, so I pulled the trigger on a new GPU while the prices are still below MSRP.

I just did the same thing. I've been running an RTX 2080 8GB for the past couple of years (I game at only 1080p) while my son is running an RTX 4070 12GB with a 1440p monitor. With a budget of ~$400, I had narrowed my upgrade down to either the RX 9600XT 16GB or RTX 5060Ti 16GB. Then I had the idea to go in with my son. Talked with him about it, and he agreed. So now I'm buying an RTX 5070Ti for $750 (~814 with tax). My son will give me his RTX 4070 plus $407, and he will get the 5070Ti. He gets a 50% bump in performance (RTX 4070 to RTX 5070Ti) for $407 while I get a 50% bump in performance (RTX 2080 to RTX 4070) for $407.

The best part is we're each getting a huge upgrade for significantly less $$ than if we each upgraded separately.

The 5070Ti finally arrived yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteN21aJEvE
Looks like you got yours just in time.

Meanwhile the 9070XT I bought is now 100EUR more expensive than it was a month ago.

What a great market our tech overlords brought us.

Munx wrote on 2026-01-15, 10:29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteN21aJEvE Looks like you got yours just in time. […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote on 2026-01-11, 14:40:

clueless1 wrote on 2025-12-21, 17:58:

I just did the same thing. I've been running an RTX 2080 8GB for the past couple of years (I game at only 1080p) while my son is running an RTX 4070 12GB with a 1440p monitor. With a budget of ~$400, I had narrowed my upgrade down to either the RX 9600XT 16GB or RTX 5060Ti 16GB. Then I had the idea to go in with my son. Talked with him about it, and he agreed. So now I'm buying an RTX 5070Ti for $750 (~814 with tax). My son will give me his RTX 4070 plus $407, and he will get the 5070Ti. He gets a 50% bump in performance (RTX 4070 to RTX 5070Ti) for $407 while I get a 50% bump in performance (RTX 2080 to RTX 4070) for $407.

The best part is we're each getting a huge upgrade for significantly less $$ than if we each upgraded separately.

The 5070Ti finally arrived yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteN21aJEvE
Looks like you got yours just in time.

Meanwhile the 9070XT I bought is now 100EUR more expensive than it was a month ago.

What a great market our tech overlords brought us.

Yikes! Wow. I knew prices were going up right after I bought mine. I didn't imagine the card would be EOL so quickly though. We'll see if that actually happens.

EVGA PD03 PCoIP Zero Client:

While waiting for the corresponding Teradici Tera 2240 interface card to arrive, to be mounted on the LLM workstation, I was meanwhile delivered the small EVGA client specifically for this remote management protocol:

This is it The Teradici Tera PCoIP board, still on its way:

I wasn't familiar with this protocol; I stumbled upon it by chance and want to try using it for my project, where it appears to have excellent remote control potential. The interface board will handle this. redirect the video output of the remote GPU (the workstation will operate headless, obviously) and then "broadcast" it over the network to be received and managed by specific software, or more quickly by low-power PCoIP clients, as in my case, without being tied to the main PC being turned on.

This particular thin client is a compact and energy-efficient device designed for VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) environments. It delivers a full desktop experience from a centralized host over standard IP networks using PCoIP (PC over Internet Protocol) technology. With no integrated GPU and a passive cooling design, it operates quietly and consumes less than 15 W, making it ideal for space-constrained and power-efficient deployments.

Key features include support for dual DVI-I displays with resolutions up to 1920x1200, four USB 2.0 ports, HD audio, and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. It uses the PCoIP TERA1100 processor and includes 128 MB of XDR RAM. The device is fully manageable via a centralized management console.

Technical Specifications:

Processor: TERA1100 PCoIP Zero Client Processor (300 MHz MIPS)
Memory: 128 MB XDR RAM at 400 MHz
Display Outputs: Two single-link DVI-I ports (maximum resolution: 1920 x 1200 at 60 Hz per display)
USB Ports: 4 x USB 2.0
Audio: 1/8" stereo headphone/line out, 1/8" microphone input
Networking: Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Base-T, IPv6 support
Power Consumption: Average 12 W, <15 W max
Dimensions: 129.5mm x 119.4mm x 61mm
Weight: 1.16 kg

AES-128-GCM and Salsa-256 encryption.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2025-08-28, 13:11:

Steve Jobs quote: “Build the Best computer and don’t settle for anything less” […]
Show full quote

Steve Jobs quote:
“Build the Best computer and don’t settle for anything less”

Guys, I am Upgrading my HP z440 computers again. I don’t want to buy a new computer
until they come out with better Computer designs . And costs come down on mass storage.
I currently have 104tb of hard drive , SSD, and Nvme storage

I have a new CPU ( Xeon e5-2697 v4 16-core version ) and hard drive cables.

Large and above all *robust* work machines, these: I'm working on the smaller brother of your model, for local LLM experiments, maybe 24/7 with Xeon model in the photo, 128GB RDIMM and RTX 3060 12GB:

Munx wrote on 2026-01-15, 10:29:

clueless1 wrote on 2026-01-11, 14:40:

clueless1 wrote on 2025-12-21, 17:58:

I just did the same thing. I've been running an RTX 2080 8GB for the past couple of years (I game at only 1080p) while my son is running an RTX 4070 12GB with a 1440p monitor. With a budget of ~$400, I had narrowed my upgrade down to either the RX 9600XT 16GB or RTX 5060Ti 16GB. Then I had the idea to go in with my son. Talked with him about it, and he agreed. So now I'm buying an RTX 5070Ti for $750 (~814 with tax). My son will give me his RTX 4070 plus $407, and he will get the 5070Ti. He gets a 50% bump in performance (RTX 4070 to RTX 5070Ti) for $407 while I get a 50% bump in performance (RTX 2080 to RTX 4070) for $407.

The best part is we're each getting a huge upgrade for significantly less $$ than if we each upgraded separately.

The 5070Ti finally arrived yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteN21aJEvE
Looks like you got yours just in time.

Crikey that's insane! I mean, I knew the situation was dire, but not 'let's not only cancel the 50 Super cards, but also sunset the 5070 Ti and the only decent version of the 5060 TI' bad. 😳

Munx wrote on 2026-01-15, 10:29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteN21aJEvE Looks like you got yours just in time. […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote on 2026-01-11, 14:40:

clueless1 wrote on 2025-12-21, 17:58:

I just did the same thing. I've been running an RTX 2080 8GB for the past couple of years (I game at only 1080p) while my son is running an RTX 4070 12GB with a 1440p monitor. With a budget of ~$400, I had narrowed my upgrade down to either the RX 9600XT 16GB or RTX 5060Ti 16GB. Then I had the idea to go in with my son. Talked with him about it, and he agreed. So now I'm buying an RTX 5070Ti for $750 (~814 with tax). My son will give me his RTX 4070 plus $407, and he will get the 5070Ti. He gets a 50% bump in performance (RTX 4070 to RTX 5070Ti) for $407 while I get a 50% bump in performance (RTX 2080 to RTX 4070) for $407.

The best part is we're each getting a huge upgrade for significantly less $$ than if we each upgraded separately.

The 5070Ti finally arrived yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteN21aJEvE
Looks like you got yours just in time.

Meanwhile the 9070XT I bought is now 100EUR more expensive than it was a month ago.

What a great market our tech overlords brought us.

Whelp... I think I made the right choice. Even though I told myself recently that I wasn't going to get a GPU, I couldn't pass up an Open Box Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Super Amp Holo about a month ago. Got it for $595 ($615 after tax and cashback) straight from Zotac and it has a 2 year warranty. At the time I bought it these exact cards were selling for $800+ on ebay, and all of the internet rumblings told me that this could be the last opportunity to get a decent deal on a card like this for an extremely long time.

I know that going with this versus a new 5070 Ti or 9070\XT is probably a little controversial, but I am comfortable in the Nvidia ecosystem, and the price difference is significantly larger than the average performance difference compared to the 5070 Ti. Also, since I frequently play older games and tinker with forced anisotropic filtering, the quirks that the 5000 series' drivers have had were a turn off for me. If they'd have been the same price I would have probably gone with the new 5070 Ti, but for 30% more money it definitely wasn't going to happen. Either way, going into the DRAM + GPU madness that has been predicted told me that I should snag a 16GB GPU for the long haul.

It took a while to be delivered but I've had it for a couple weeks and so far I've been really happy with it. I haven't gone too crazy with the tuning but I have settled on an undervolt curve that peaks at 2715Mhz at 935mV, with a +1500Mhz memory overclock (tested stable using Memtest Vulkan). The power consumption is down about 50-60 watts from stock and between the undervolt and memory overclock performance is actually up around 5%! In the 3dmark Speedway test I scored 6820 at these settings, topped out between 227-236 watts and only hit 58C while the GPU fans don't even have to spin up much past idle due to the huge cooler. It idles at 18 watts too... which just seems crazy.

I have been really surprised at how much of a difference there has been in performance and efficiency vs the Asus 3080 TUF 10GB I was using. That card will be going into the living room PC since it can also undervolt to the point of barely even being audible under load... a massive upgrade from the 3050 in that machine and still idles down enough for power consumption to not be too wasteful if we use it to watch a show or something.

I think the only complaint I have about the Zotac Amp Holo card at all is that the firmware has the fans permanently set to jump from 0 RPM to 30% (around 900RPM) and there is no way to smooth that out, even with firmware based fan curves (which don't seem to work well on this card at all and don't seem to even allow the fans to turn off). Thankfully, when using the "Silent" BIOS setting (it has dual BIOS) it seems to usually keep the fans off while the GPU temp is idling around 45C. It will kind of randomly turn them on at 30% which is audible if my office is dead silent, but it isn't that bad and I can't hear it at all if I'm watching a video or doing anything else. If the fans ever crap out I am prepared to slap some 120mm case fans on it. This is yet another reason I love not having a case window... I can always choose functionality over looks. 🤣

The Asus TUF was a lot easier to get a smooth and unnoticeable fan curve, but I guess that just makes it a better fit for the living room.

So, yeah... I'm in full-on popcorn eating mode on this one. I've got GPUs for my computers that will be more than sufficient for a very long time, and I have a couple of decent spares (EVGA GTX 1080 FTW and EVGA RTX 3050 8GB) in case a relative needs one or we suffer a hardware catastrophe. With 64GB of DDR4-3600, a 5800X3D and two 2TB NVMe drives all picked up near their bottom prices over the past few years, it almost feels like I was upgrading in anticipation of this all going down, but I was actually just wanted to maximize this particular build. Being able to keep everything comfortably running on my 650W Seasonic platinum PSU has also been nice.

Now I'm just going to keep my head down and try not to go crazy watching the second hand prices of all this stuff do strange things in the coming months\years.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-16, 08:16:

Whelp... I think I made the right choice. Even though I told myself recently that I wasn't going to get a GPU, I couldn't pass up an Open Box Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Super Amp Holo about a month ago. Got it for $595 ($615 after tax and cashback) straight from Zotac and it has a 2 year warranty. At the time I bought it these exact cards were selling for $800+ on ebay, and all of the internet rumblings told me that this could be the last opportunity to get a decent deal on a card like this for an extremely long time.

I know that going with this versus a new 5070 Ti or 9070\XT is probably a little controversial, but I am comfortable in the Nvidia ecosystem, and the price difference is significantly larger than the average performance difference compared to the 5070 Ti. Also, since I frequently play older games and tinker with forced anisotropic filtering, the quirks that the 5000 series' drivers have had were a turn off for me. If they'd have been the same price I would have probably gone with the new 5070 Ti, but for 30% more money it definitely wasn't going to happen. Either way, going into the DRAM + GPU madness that has been predicted told me that I should snag a 16GB GPU for the long haul.

I completely agree with your decision. That was actually a pretty good deal at $595. 16GB and is within 10% of a 5070 Ti and 4% of a 9070XT based on average FPS from techpowerup.com:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asrock-rad … edition/29.html

You and I are sitting pretty.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-16, 08:16:

[ I haven't gone too crazy with the tuning but I have settled on an undervolt curve that peaks at 2715Mhz at 935mV, with a +1500Mhz memory overclock (tested stable using Memtest Vulkan). The power consumption is down about 50-60 watts from stock and between the undervolt and memory overclock performance is actually up around 5%! In the 3dmark Speedway test I scored 6820 at these settings, topped out between 227-236 watts and only hit 58C while the GPU fans don't even have to spin up much past idle due to the huge cooler. It idles at 18 watts too... which just seems crazy.

What frequency is your monitor? Are you vsyncing or not? I used to have a 144Hz monitor but it started dying (wigging out at 144Hz, but acting normal when I drop to 60Hz). So currently I've got a 60Hz monitor and I just tried vsyncing everything in Nvidia Settings. Two things:
1) power draw is even lower. I'm seeing 40-150 watts depending on the complexity of the scene with the majority of the time being <100 watts. All the while, frames are locked at 60 fps.
2) gameplay feels even smoother when locked at 60 than when unlocked and running up above 100.

I was able to get even more aggressive with my overclock/undervolt, knowing that the vsync will still keep the power in check. I feel like increased power on the bottom end (in the most framerate-taxing scenarios) will be of more help to the glass smooth feeling. My current settings are: overclock core by 150Mhz and mem by 1200Mhz. Then flatten the curve at 995mv to 2880Mhz. Doing the overclock first raises the entire curve between 0 and 995mv by 150Mhz. Honestly, 995mv was already at 2700 at stock, so I only raised the 995mv spot from 2850 to 2880 after the 150Mhz o/c.

edit: just plugged my old 144Hz monitor in and I could run it at 120Hz or 100Hz. Tried both, but there were too many instances of game framerates dipping below those two numbers and it ended up feeling less smooth when locking vsync to 120Hz or 100Hz. I actually like locking it at 60Hz best. I can easily run any game at a setting that will *never* dip below 60fps, and it seems to me that when the monitor is locked at a single refresh rate that never deviates from the game's framerate, the experience of fluidity is at its peak.