Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-08, 23:41:

liqmat wrote on 2022-09-08, 23:18:

Hmmm... I've been in the market for a new monitor that will switch between 4:3 and HD modes. I see it has a VGA port as well. Does the menu system have a way to force 4:3 aspect ratio? Reason I ask is my Acer LCD I have currently will auto switch between the different aspect ratios in Windows, but in MS-DOS it defaults to stretch and there is no way to adjust it which completely sucks.

Edit: I see it says in the manual "4:3 is only available when input source is in 4:3 format. OverScan is only available for the HDMI input source.". So how does that translate with MS-DOS via the VGA port?

It doesn't force 4:3. As you noted, it needs to have a 4:3 signal.

I haven't tried it in DOS or with a VGA cable yet. From what I've read, it won't do 4:3 in modes like 320x200 since that is technically not a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Makes sense. I'll keep looking. Nice looking monitor though.

Bought a USB-C board for my MB Air 2020 Intel since 1 port is picky at times and the other isn't too far behind.

Asus Z590-A motherboard. LGA1200. A bit yesterday"s news. Bit a whopping 110$ in discounts from Newegg. I couldn't resist.

The i9s in that family are like damned xeons. They hum along from 1.1ghz, but turbo up. So strange.

AM5 brought the Ryzen 5000 series prices about as low as I expect them to be for at least 23H1 so I grabbed myself a CPU upgrade. It's about 50% faster than my 2600 and about as fast as a Zen2 octacore which is pretty fascinating. My computer is a lot snappier than it used to be.

I'll switch over to AM5 after the platform and DDR5 matures, likely with Zen5. For now, I'll just be watching out for some good DDR4 RAM to double mine to 32GB.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-09-11, 20:46:

I'll switch over to AM5 after the platform and DDR5 matures, likely with Zen5. For now, I'll just be watching out for some good DDR4 RAM to double mine to 32GB.

I was pretty bummed to find out the Zen 7000 CPUs will require a new platform. A little over a year ago I went all out and built a powerhouse 5950X based system, but now it looks like I won't be able to just bump up the CPU. Oh well, I'll just build a new one in another few years.

Brawndo wrote on 2022-09-12, 23:32:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-09-11, 20:46:

I'll switch over to AM5 after the platform and DDR5 matures, likely with Zen5. For now, I'll just be watching out for some good DDR4 RAM to double mine to 32GB.

I was pretty bummed to find out the Zen 7000 CPUs will require a new platform. A little over a year ago I went all out and built a powerhouse 5950X based system, but now it looks like I won't be able to just bump up the CPU. Oh well, I'll just build a new one in another few years.

My
While yes the 7000 series does require a new socket your not at the end of the road yet. Dr. Lisa Su said that socket AM4 is not end of life and they will continue to tweak and launch new CPUs for a few more years. And it they did promise back when Ryzen launched that they would support the AM4 socket for at least 5 years and they have definitely made good on that promise. Even after the 7000 series launches your 5950x is still going to be a great cpu and will stay relevent for quite a long time to come. Just because a new product launches doesn't make what you have no good and "obsolete". I'm looking forward to what future holds for both AM4 and AM5.

I set out to build a pc I think it was late 2017. I had only built 2 as I recall, and those were at least 15 years earlier. My inclination was to go with AMD, as someone discovered Intel embedded.serial numbers or some such in their cpu's in 2003 as I recall. I think now all cpu's likely have that. So I began buying components, a lot of which I wound up selling off, bought too much. Then I got bit by the server bug. Intel servers that is. And as affordable serverboards that were a few years old usually came in the e-atx form factor, which is actually a meaningless statement, make that the ssi-eeb form factor (12" x 13"), a new case had to be sourced. I found a beauty for the price, and the rest is history. But been sticking with Intel ever since. Seems lile they're.coming around in terms of advancement. I still lean towards server builds. But the consumer buggies nibble at me now and again. Where the heck is my mobo anyway! I'm getting antsy!

With the higher IPC of the Zen architecture it can just brute Force those types of work loads. Look at the Thread ripper as well as mainstream Zen CPUs cinebench scores vs any Intel cpu with avx they get crushed by ZEN.

Did some ugprades to my gaming PC over the summer.

Replaced the i5-10600K CPU with an i7-11700KF and the GTX1080 with an RTX2080.

what matters for us dosbox/qemu users:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
no, that's not just intel and apple benchmark,
scroll way down to find some amd results too 🤣

June 2022 updated Top500 top 10 supercomputer list has 6 systems using AMD Epyc, 2 using IBM power PC chip and 1 using intel, which is only just holding a place due to having 5 million cores, having been built in 2018, the systems bracketing it have mere hundreds of thousands. I would guess the hardware people in charge of those multi million dollar machines know what the hell they are doing.

There's lots of intel stuff "around" and they get that benefit of that superstition they managed to have rub off when they were leg humping IBM back in the day "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM", but it don't mean they're on top right now.

I'll admit I'm more of an AMD man overall, but I'm a price point buyer, grabbed an i7-4770 system for $100 Canadian because even the lowest end Ryzens it can just match are getting $150 locally for just the CPU. Usually it's the other way round.

I don't own any supercomputers. I'll bet no one on this list does either. I don't even own a server, technically. I have serverboards awaiting deployment. A xeon based workstation, technically a server I guess. Few people on this list own them either. Yes say 5 years ago the use of xeon boards as gamers became popularized, because they were cheap. People who are fascinated by dual and quad processor serverboards will likely opt for an Intel product. Plentiful and sometimes even cheap (even more or less curremt server/ws products occasionally. But admittedly rarely). Servers are superior products and tend to be on the pricey side. Being that over 3/4 of servers the worldwide are Intel bases, it's a lot easier to scam something a few years old still with plenty of life.

Remember a big sale on Threadrippers, an older generation I guess, 1 - 2 years ago at newegg. Some were.so darned cheap, a little over 100$ US, I was tempted. But didn't even get to the point of pricing motherboards, I'm thinking prices may have been off putting, but simply can't say. I haven't seen any big sales on amd server products since. Really havem't been looking TBH.

Computers interest me. I have no reason to favor one company or another. I'm partial to stuff that's doable, affordable. If I see a big sale, I may very well jump on it.

At the (consumer) low end AMD isn't terribly attractive. The A series chips have abyssmal performance. I've owned several in cheap laptops. Ok you get what you pay for. But even an Athlon chip is aroumd a 100$ or so (3000g). It's faster then, but coasts 4 times a celeron. In deciding where I want to go with a mobo, as I just bougjt 1, I can and did buy a celeron chip for 24$ US! New with the fan. You don't seem to have such an option with an AMD boatd. And certain i9s for my new mobo, being an lga1200, are surprisingly affordable. It's all about options.

Supercomputers mostly use commodity chips these days, with core architectures shared with server and desktop.

I understand that celeron is a placeholder, but it does not seem a particularly great choice to me, G59x0 seem to be performing at the level of top half of Phenom II X4 chips, 12 years their senior. I would have gone for the sub $100 i3 10xxxx 4 core, which seems to get into Ryzen level oomph. I actually pursued one locally but missed out.

There are Athlon X4 AM4 chips booting around that go cheapy cheap in other markets than US. But yeah, $100 up is what you get in the current retail market for AM4

Contemplating buying an i9.-11900k. 100$ for an i3 seems too much initially. If I buy anything else for this board (ROG STRIX Z590-A) it'll be within a month. Don't want an i3. May settle for an i5, i7. No sense in spening too much initially. After initially discount and rebate mobo is 108$ all said. I don't need any more computers. It was a good deal and just hard to pass up. The last time I saw such a deal.was 3 yeats ago and I regretted not jumping on it. Also passed up an lga2066 boardbtjat was 50$ after discounts! That really sucked.

Asus Rog Strix Z690-A mobo ~ 341$ US

Asus Rog Strix Z590-A (mine) - 108$ US

Intel I9- 12900k ~ 620$ US

I9-11900k ~ 299$ ... All prices to my door

Bought a pair of Fractal Design Focus G cases.

Been using one on my Windows XP build and really like it, especially the amount of airflow in more modern cases.

Decided to get a couple more for my current Windows 98 and planned K6-2 500 DOS builds.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-16, 19:57:

Bought a pair of Fractal Design Focus G cases.

Been using one on my Windows XP build and really like it, especially the amount of airflow in more modern cases.

Decided to get a couple more for my current Windows 98 and planned K6-2 500 DOS builds.

Very nice they are great looking and performing cases.

Some Apple goodies from the PowerBook G4 to an unknown MacBook from about 2016-2019-ish.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-09-16, 19:57:

Bought a pair of Fractal Design Focus G cases.

Been using one on my Windows XP build and really like it, especially the amount of airflow in more modern cases.

Decided to get a couple more for my current Windows 98 and planned K6-2 500 DOS builds.

Seems like they even come in nice red or blue colours (as well as white/grey/black), and even the price is quite reasonable(15euro more than the cheapest/crappiest ATX towers available), hmmm... Strange how the red one cost so much more than the others though... 🤨

The Bitfenix Aegis came in every color of the rainbow. They were selling them out 3 yeats ago and I balked. At least it saved me the trouble of deciding which one to buy.

https://www.techspot.com/review/974-bitfenix-aegis-core/