Desktop Computers

fris said:

the opposite? i'm less concerned w/ price, more performance and size/sound. my thought was a pc would work better. it's a pain to switch between services or search for shows, despite amazon having voice search and nav. every time i go back to a show, it randomly puts me back at s1e1, despite being half way through season n+1.

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I use a SFF windows pc for streaming, it's been fine and a keyboard and mouse are just better input devices and it's easy to run adblock. The more recent the CPU the better because the more formats they support decoding in hardware.

Dunno about HDR, my TV doesn't support it but in any case, if you have to check each box on every possible feature you will be buying new hardware and new TVs forever. Suppose you could just test it with your current PC, if it looks fine to you I wouldn't put any more thought into it.

Decoding formats per cpu gen

Jovec said:

Gen 4 drives can throttle without one but the built-in heat sink most decent motherboards use for NVMe drives is more than enough (and better than gimmicky aftermarket ones). Current Gen 5 drives would need a good mobo heatsink or good aftermarket one. Throttling mainly occurs during long windows of sustained usage - normal usage, even gaming, probably won't throttle a Gen 4 without one but may throttle a Gen 5.

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mkopec said:

No heatsink, none on my mobo and none came with the chip 980 pro

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I have a 990 on the back of the mobo for extra storage. The thing never gets hot, and I seriously doubt that the 980 gets any hotter. Make sure you've done your firmware updates, though.

As for the Gen 5 slot, mine raises temps during a steam installation like Mist said - but it never gets to a temperature that would cause it to throttle. It came with this big monster of a heat shield (for its size) but I took it off because of the gen 5 slots location. Maybe a demanding load that is continuous and long (longer than a 160 gig installation I guess?) might cause it to eventually peak in temperature? But my gen 5 is in the same case as a strix 4090 and a 13900k. My case has 11 fans with an AIO, and maybe thats enough air flow over that area to keep it from getting ridiculous. There could also be a possibility that the motherboards that share the Gen 5's bandwidth with the Graphics Card could be causing the rise in temperatures? But I went with a slightly more expensive board so I wouldnt have to deal with that. We've talked about it before in this thread, but I personally think the over heating of Gen 5's is a bit over exaggerated.

Mist said:

Most web-based streaming services will not output true 4K HDR on Windows PCs.

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I .. should have known that, but didnt. Thats interesting and makes me regret some shit, now.

As far as Windows goes, from what I've heard you can mostly make everything work if you use Edge to stream in 4K HDR. Netflix app works well on Windows too, but most of the other streaming services have shit that's completely half-assed. Also, if you're after Dolby Vision/Atmos you can expect hours of troubleshooting and headaches.

fris said:

the opposite? i'm less concerned w/ price, more performance and size/sound. my thought was a pc would work better. it's a pain to switch between services or search for shows, despite amazon having voice search and nav. every time i go back to a show, it randomly puts me back at s1e1, despite being half way through season n+1.

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Just buy a Shield TV Pro then, it even just went on sale for Black Friday:

Amazon product ASIN B07YP9FBMM
The key to Shield TV is to either never update it (past 8.2.3) or get the updates but replace the default launcher with something like Projectivy and use Button Remapper to make the Home button open it instead of the default.

You could also try a Chromecast with Google TV. It has the same issues as a fully-updated Shield TV (ads all over the place) but the solution is the same: Projectivy/FLauncher and Button Remapper. I actually have one of each; I use the Shield TV for local streaming from Jellyfin because I need fully Dolby Vision support and I occasionally use it for GeForce Now game streaming, and I used to use it as my primary Plex server before moving to Jellyfin on dedicated hardware. On my mother's TV there's a Chromecast because all she watches is TV shows streamed from Hulu, PBS, etc. and the CCwGTV is more than adequate for that. Getting around the UI feels more sluggish than a Shield TV Pro however.

Mist said:

Wish they'd come out with a new one.

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Doesn't sound like that's ever going to happen. Or at least it won't be made by Nvidia when it does.

That Nvidia box has been in my "items for latter" for at least a year. My gaming PC is mostly used for streaming to another 4k cheap HDR tv but no receiver. Occasionally I'll game on an actual gaming monitor and still have something streaming on the tv. I've never had issues with anything streaming, maybe I don't notice that stuff is being reduced in quality?

Net net, Nvidia shield for stand alone box, only missing out on add blocker or mini PC probably fine or might have drm/hd issues

slippery said:

If you where trying to build a $500ish pc for a kid (12ish? years old) would you do anything different here?

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KQK228

This is the other option I gave them if they decide to spend more

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CLwkjH

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For the $500 build, is laptop an option? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-vic...512gb-ssd-mica-silver/6541840.p?skuId=6541840 seems to be a really good Black Friday deal, and all it really needs is a second SODIMM. Just find it hard to picture a 12yo being happy with anything using integrated graphics.

For the "more" build I'd wait for actual BF deals on desktop hardware to drop. The only thing discounted so far seems to be SSDs.

slippery said:

The 5600g is actually reasonably decent for onboard. Especially considering the cost of video cards these days

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It's decent for onboard, but it's not even in the ballpark of the RTX2050.

Anyone know if Bing Rewards work on GPUs?


(Not sure what they mean by "Gaming" as an exclusion...)

This is what I'm looking at for blackfriday/monday. Hoping for deals on aspects of it. or similar parts, if anyone sees a great deal. any thoughts? The vid card seems to be the biggest?? I was bouncing between radeon 7900xt and intel 4070 ti. I'd kindof rather intel. but, is that 12gb going to be an issue in the years coming?

Caliane said:

This is what I'm looking at for blackfriday/monday. Hoping for deals on aspects of it. or similar parts, if anyone sees a great deal. any thoughts? The vid card seems to be the biggest?? I was bouncing between radeon 7900 and intel 4070. I'd kindof rather intel. but, is that 12gb going to be an issue in the years coming?

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192-bit bus at 504Gb/s makes it bad at 4K and horribly overpriced at 1440p. People bashed it a year ago for having a xx60 level bus and 12GB on top will not do it any favors in the future.

Malakriss said:

192-bit bus at 504Gb/s makes it bad at 4K and horribly overpriced at 1440p. People bashed it a year ago for having a xx60 level bus and 12GB on top will not do it any favors in the future.

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Alright.
they both atm are about the same price. 720-750.
another site had them closer. gamersnexus's most recent has the 7900xt winning, with the 4070ti gaining with raytracing.

Then of course should I be watching the 7900xtx, or 4080 for price drops?

Added the other vid cards to see price comparisons.

nexus is showing a 20% increase on average for 7900xtx over 7900xt
looking at their specs, both 7900xt and xtx are beating the 4080 looks like. so, I guess 7900 it is. just cross fingers, and price watch to see if either gets a nice deal over the weekend.

Caliane said:

Alright.
they both atm are about the same price. 720-750.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT vs. RTX 4070 Ti Revisit in 2023: Benchmarks & Price Drops | GamersNexus

GPUs AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT vs. RTX 4070 Ti Revisit in 2023: Benchmarks & Price Drops October 31, 2023 Last Updated: 2024-02-09 Less than a year from launch, the RX 7900 XT’s lower price point makes it a more compelling GPU in 2023 The Highlights When the RX 7900 XT first launched, we called the...

gamersnexus.net

another site had them closer. gamersnexus's most recent has the 7900xt winning, with the 4070ti gaining with raytracing.

Then of course should I be watching the 7900xtx, or 4080 for price drops?

Added the other vid cards to see price comparisons.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/

nexus is showing a 20% increase on average for 7900xtx over 7900xt
looking at their specs, both 7900xt and xtx are beating the 4080 looks like. so, I guess 7900 it is. just cross fingers, and price watch to see if either gets a nice deal over the weekend.

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AMD figured it out last gen and the 6800xt, 6900xt, and 7800xt all have 16GB + 256-bit bus. Hell, Nvidia at least slapped 256-bit on the 3060 Ti but knowingly gimped their mid tier 40xx.

7800xt are priced reasonably, we may even see some price drops / deals on 7900 xt(x) but Nvidia is still holding high on the price tags for flawed cards. Either you can justify the expense of a 4090 or people are seeking alternatives like AMD.

7900XT hit $700 on prime day so there will probably be something similar whenever the real Black Friday shit starts.

I don't care enough about PC gaming to go above a 7800XT (and even that is a really hard sell) so I grabbed an Asrock Phantom Gaming yesterday from Newegg. Should get $80 back whenever the MS Cashback thing processes and given how new the 7800XT is I decided it was a safe bet that any upcoming deals won't drop the good models below $450.

Platters don't belong anywhere but in a NAS imo. Hell, at this point (when top tier 4TB NVMEs are $200) I wouldn't even put a SATA SSD in my gaming PC. Just making the cable management so much easier is enough of a reason.

I also wish they made SATA power cables with a single connector. Only thing I use one for is a fan controller and I hate having to bundle up an extra 12-18" of cable.