General computer talk/advice

I think it would be cool if IBM got back into the domestic CPU business, imagine a shiny new IBM Cyrix CPU. I'd buy one.

 

everyone is naysaying on the ZEN chips. i wont upgrade until i see it in action. those who think its going to be a 20 percent increase are going to be pleasantly disappointed. also, screw Nvidia for their apple like "we only do things good for our closed proprietary ecosystem of products".
The father of linux said it better than anyone else.

 

AMD say Zen is going to be a 40% increase in instructions per clock over the Bulldozer and Excavator, honestly I wouldn't be suprised if it was, they are both quite old and dated architectures at this point and even with that 40% boost its still not the fastest CPU around by any means. But we'll have to see.

 

My dad had a W510 once. Then an X230. Then a T440.

 

well, i think my 4? year old ram just died. Was the first ram i ever bought, kinston hyper x blue. My desktop just gave a bsod, and then upon starting up windows again, windows froze. Lucky me, i had some brand new ram i ordered for nas sitting around, and that seems to work fine.

 

How much RAM was it?

 

2x4gb. So 8gb.

 

Oh, okay.

Anyway, after realising that 0 of the games I play are optimised for AMD, my belief in the R7 370 has wavered. Should I go back to the red team or get another Nvidia GPU?

 

Get the 370. Or wait for Polaris, it's coming out in 3 months. AMD is much better at DX12, few games use GameWorks for anything important, and you'll get better long term support with AMD - Nvidia seem to forget about their older cards as soon as the new gen comes out.

 

This is now my 3rd Slot 1 processor, but I have no use for them. Might frame it and put it on a wall.

Spoiler: Pentium III

 

Yeah, probably not fastest, but probably enough to compete against Intel at the top end. I hope they don't just pump power into the CPU to get more performance like with their high end FX-series CPUs. IMO, 220W TDP (with power consumption with OC reaching over 300W) for any CPU is insane.

 

Lol, same here, I go around buying old laptops for cheap at garage sales. Got an Asus eee PC (atom n270, upgraded to 2 gigs of ram, 160 gb hdd) for 3 bucks, and also an acer aspire one with that same cpu for bucks.

Also, is it worth the effort to flash a custom gpu bios if my gpu overclocks to the max without reaching anywhere close to unsafe temps? And if so, I really don't understand how to do it, the online guides are kind of confusing.

 

If you're finding the guides confusing I would honestly recommend you dont even attempt it. You can brick the card easily.

 

The 8 core Zen chip coming in April is supposed to be only 95W, according to the internet.

http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-8-core-summit-ridge-launching-october/

 

Nope not at all, never try to flash your card unless you absolutely have to. Flashing your GPU's bios isn't something for average computer builders let alone someone who find's the online guides confusing. Like SixSixSevenSeven said, you can brick your card easily, for instance, if you flash your card with a bios for a card that has hynix VRAM and your card has Samsung VRAM chips. Just don't. Even the big techie youtubers like Jayztwocents say not to, especially if you're not very technically inclined.

 

XFX is releasing a blower cooler 390X and it looks amazing. Probably loud too, but hey, it looks nice.

Spoiler: large picture

 

I'd take a leaf blower if it means I can do sleeper PC's without case temperatures climbing too much. I'm guessing, judging by the picture, it's just a reference card with XFX branding. Everything right down to the AMD logo printed on the PCB just screams "reference", but that's quite alright, actually. I wonder if it cools any better than the 290/290x's reference solution, which wasn't near enough.

 

I doubt it cools any better. But I think the card will also run cooler, so it won't matter too much. I do like the rubbery looking top. Looks like the Fury X.

 

XFX guy said it does cool better than the reference 290X. Card also has a lower TDP so should run much cooler.

Also yes, it's a reference card.

 

Youtube recommended me this earlier, I think its a really good run down of Zen. Explains a lot about why Bulldozer is so terrible compared to Intel and how its been improved. Actually made me quite interested in Zen now