What's your latest tech purchase?

[potato580+]

Yes, it's rare in Croatia as well. I was aiming for GTX 1080 Ti (Palit Game Rock or Gainward Phoenix), but couldn't lower the prices to the acceptable level. One guy over here is selling 6 Palit GTX 1080 Ti Game Rock's for 3000 kn (405 €) each, but these are mining GPU's so I stayed away from them. Another seller asked 520 € + delivery costs for the same GPU with expired warranty - I managed to lower the asking price to approx. 495€ + delivery costs, but that was still too high for my taste. Than some guy with Gainward Phoenix GTX 1080 Ti GLH asking ~485 € + delivery costs - I couldn't lower the price not even for a single €... I always try to lower the prices and hardly ever settle for the asking price, even if it is among the lowest for a certain group/type of a product.

that phoneix you mentioned is about $800 for the non ti here somehow, ive no idea why is so expensive, becouse gainward usually cheapest brand among the other, except for this 1080 model, its special i guess

 

[kurosagi01]

And it's alive.

 

[Komshija]

@kurosagi01 I like your CPU fan a lot.

 

[kurosagi01]

@kurosagi01 I like your CPU fan a lot.

Ha great minds think alike, I also used MX-4 thermal paste too.

 

[E-curbi]

This isn't supercool but it's kinda ok.

Just wanted someplace to keep my PC tools, something nicer than throwing them into the toolbox in the garage.

They call it a tactical admin pouch. Only $16 USD on Amazon, by a company called Savior Equipment. lol I grabbed their play on words - just fine.

10 x 8 Tactical Admin Pouch

Expand your storage capacity with our tactical admin pouch. A slim alternative to the typical pouch, this admin pouch holds more and gives you the ability to organize gear to your liking. Main Features Edge-to-Edge Elastic Bands Removable Transparent Sleeve Internal Adjustable Paracord Support...

www.saviorequipment.com

Also, the Logitech MX Master 3 mouse finally arrived after waiting over 30days, got 20% ($20) off buying direct, so it took forever.

 

[Rahnak]

Bought a new wireless xbox one controller to replace my old wired 360 one only to find out the onboard bluetooth on the b450 carbon is utterly useless. So until I buy a stupid dongle, I remain wired. The controller itself is a nice improvement though, which is nice.

Today I learned that the antennas that came with the motherboard aren't just for Wi-Fi. So the bluetooth works just fine. Glad I googled about it before buying a dongle.

 

[potato580+]

its here now, condition is not bad, but having a scartch dent on blackpanel, also it seem heavy used, looks like one of thermal pad melted, overall not bad for a cheap price

 

[GreiverBlade]

Picked her up for $130 used, right fan seems to be busted.
Either accelero it or just get new fan off ali.
Worth AF
View attachment 136739
View attachment 136740

ahahah ... i have the exact same card (and the box) at the present moment .... except that i paid 526chf at the time ... huuuu ... i feel a little sick ...


BEST REMEDY! : overnight delivery .... one of my fav etailer do a "pre black friday" sale ...

so alongside a boatload of coffee capsules (since caffeine is an essential component of any computer enthusiast ...)

i got myself a Adata XPG Gammix S11 Pro 512gb NVMe SSD... 3.5k MB/s read 2.3k MB/s write HERE I COME! (well mostly ... still blazing fast ... )
with an average of 4.5/5 rating on all reviews i read i can't go wrong ...

and if it perform as good as it look ... definitely worth the 70chf price tag (i do not need more than 512gb for now and it will be used in the next build, for now it's a good step up , as i still haven't changed the slow ass WD green SSD i have in the 3 2.5" i have atm ... i think i keep the OCZ Vertex III 120gb as boot drive and i will get a second Toshiba TR200 which is also OCZ but in 512gb/1tb as replacement for the 240gb WD green ) and i have good faith that S11 Pro will be good since the Adata XPG SD700X 512gb ext SSD i have is fantastic (second to the Seagate Fast SSD 500gb i have and use with USB-C 3.1)

wait wait wait.... 70chf is "normal'ish" pricetag not really "black friday'ish" price... well indeed but here's the twist, one of the offer is, "above 50chf shipping free plus one gift of a value of 60chf or less"

so i waited for the confirmation mail to see what was the gift (yeah ... stupid to reveal the gift before the delivery is here ... but, eh... whatever)
and i got for a value of around 60chf :

a Xiaomi Mi Box S 8gb

oh well since it has practically the same hardware as my Odroid C2 in my Kodi Box ... (minus ethernet and 3 USB port ... nothing that a well placed hub will not solve and i use a 32gb uSD card in it but only 4gb used in reality, kinda a waste ... ) i know what i will be replacing
on the actual streaming box i assembled i need 2 USB 1 for the SD700X and 1 for the Minix A2 Lite , the SSD is a must for media storage and although that Mi Box S has a remote ... it has no keyboard on the back side a little angled USB cable some management and hiding and next buy will be a Icybox 4 port active USB hub (with on/off switches on each port)

 

[biffzinker]

i got myself a Adata XPG Gammix S11 Pro 512gb NVMe SSD... 3.5k MB/s read 3k MB/s write HERE I COME!
with an average of 4.5/5 rating on all reviews i read i can't go wrong ...

Took you long enough to finally move up to high performance storage. So the Xiaomi Mi Box S doesn't have 8 GB of LPDDR4 but 8 GB of flash. A bit tight with only 2 GB of RAM.

Not even LPDDR4 (2GB DDR3 RAM)

 

[GreiverBlade]

Took you long enough to finally move up to high performance storage. So the Xiaomi Mi Box S doesn't have 8 GB of LPDDR4 but 8 GB of flash. A bit tight with only 2 GB of RAM.

Not even LPDDR4 (2GB DDR3 RAM)

did i mention 8gb ram? naaahhhh i was meaning storage indeed (no one ever mention the RAM instead of the storage in the model name ... otherwise my Huawei Mediapad M5 32gb would... ah, well whatever ) ... and 2gb DDR3 is fine it's a android TV box which do exactly what i do with my current Kodi Box but free xD (well i didn't paid for it ... )

basically it has the same hardware as the Odroid C2 minus the specs in bold
* Amlogic ARM® Cortex®-A53(ARMv8) 1.5Ghz quad core CPUs
* Mali™-450 GPU (3 Pixel-processors + 2 Vertex shader processors)
* 2Gbyte DDR3 SDRAM
* Gigabit Ethernet
* HDMI 2.0 4K/60Hz display
* H.265 4K/60FPS and H.264 4K/30FPS capable VPU
* 40pin GPIOs + 7pin I2S
* eMMC5.0 HS400 Flash Storage slot / UHS-1 SDR50 MicroSD Card slot 8gb eMMC is enough for now also
* USB 2.0 Host x 4, USB OTG x 1 (power + data capable) (1 port which is enough atm i only need my SD700X hooked on and it can be reconfigured as main storage if i decide to format it )
* Infrared(IR) Receiver
* Ubuntu 16.04 or Android 6.0 Marshmallow based on Kernel 3.14LTS
* We guarantee the production of C2 to the end of 2020.

and she's here (obviously installing VLCright now ... and Kodi later)

google assistant is fun to use and chromecast is neat (4K is unwanted since i use it on my side 27" 1080p screen until i get a second 1440p screen for the computer when the Erazer X58222 will go for the box)

high performance storage? naahhh will probably not put it right now ... my SSD's are enough atm, aside the WD green but i use that one only for media, and i have yet to experiment issues with my SSHD and 2x 7.2k HDD's (heck even my USB 3.1 seagate ext SSD is fast enough)
NVMe are still overkill for my use ... although i still took that one for one reason, out of the 2 M2 slot on my mobo 1 share with SATA port (all of them are occupied) and the second is PCIe M2H_32G which share lines with the 4x wired 16x physical PCIe slot (but that W/R speeds are useful, present and future .... unlike 4K and RTRT, at last for me ... 1440/1620p FTW )

and he's here


funny enough most etailer put it as a 3.5/3k W/R (hence my correction above about the crystaldiskmark screenshot )

 

[sepheronx]

Picked her up for $130 used, right fan seems to be busted.
Either accelero it or just get new fan off ali.
Worth AF
View attachment 136739
View attachment 136740

Sweet deal! I just fixed a GTX 1070 for my cousin's fiance with a dead fan on it by zip tying two 80mm fans to it (it was a Zotac Mini) and it worked out great. You could do probably two 92mm noctua fans instead and it would work great.

 

[GreiverBlade]

Sweet deal! I just fixed a GTX 1070 for my cousin's fiance with a dead fan on it by zip tying two 80mm fans to it (it was a Zotac Mini) and it worked out great. You could do probably two 92mm noctua fans instead and it would work great.

well ghetto modding is good, just use something else than Noctua ... (80/92mm on the cheap and just as reliable as Noctua's one ... i recommend Arctic and BeQuiet rather )

although ... he will need more help now ...

(i hope the cap issue will be solved fast )

nonetheless i wonder how someone busted a fan on that card ... mine is running since late 2016 pretty much 8hrs a day 7 days a week ... and for now, no issues either for fan or anywhere else

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

It finally here! You might have heard custom cable for psu but this is a whole another level. What about a totally custom psu? Here it is made by the legend of the small form factor Pc world named Guryhwa. It took me over 4 months of giving my stated order to it arriving on my doorstep today. It is taking way too long! But I believe its worth it. This is basically a super external AC to DC brick. It puts laptop bricks to shame. My G-brick is build for 500w. A solid brick of rather lightweight aluminium housing. Two low noise 40mm panasonic fans on brick. It have a very chunky yellow xt90 connector and connector a cable which shockingly thick and heavy. I guess it got when you 12V and at least a shocking 40 amps at the wire at full tilt. The brick is then connector with a pico dc-dc converter named archdaemon shown below. I have requested for the limited edition version with more tantalum capacitors which is over 40. Request for 4 sata wire to soldered and two 6x2 pcie wires in red.

Comparison between between my corsair sf450 platinum with the g-brick. Its alot slimmer though its longer. It is actually pretty light weight than it looks due to its aluminium housing vs the sfx steel housing. Gonna start testing now! My first custom psu and also a pico. The picture don't do justice to this handmade marvel.

 

[kapone32]

ahahah ... i have the exact same card (and the box) at the present moment .... except that i paid 526chf at the time ... huuuu ... i feel a little sick ...


BEST REMEDY! : overnight delivery .... one of my fav etailer do a "pre black friday" sale ...

so alongside a boatload of coffee capsules (since caffeine is an essential component of any computer enthusiast ...)

i got myself a Adata XPG Gammix S11 Pro 512gb NVMe SSD... 3.5k MB/s read 2.3k MB/s write HERE I COME! (well mostly ... still blazing fast ... )
with an average of 4.5/5 rating on all reviews i read i can't go wrong ...
View attachment 137124View attachment 137125
and if it perform as good as it look ... definitely worth the 70chf price tag (i do not need more than 512gb for now and it will be used in the next build, for now it's a good step up , as i still haven't changed the slow ass WD green SSD i have in the 3 2.5" i have atm ... i think i keep the OCZ Vertex III 120gb as boot drive and i will get a second Toshiba TR200 which is also OCZ but in 512gb/1tb as replacement for the 240gb WD green ) and i have good faith that S11 Pro will be good since the Adata XPG SD700X 512gb ext SSD i have is fantastic (second to the Seagate Fast SSD 500gb i have and use with USB-C 3.1)

wait wait wait.... 70chf is "normal'ish" pricetag not really "black friday'ish" price... well indeed but here's the twist, one of the offer is, "above 50chf shipping free plus one gift of a value of 60chf or less"

so i waited for the confirmation mail to see what was the gift (yeah ... stupid to reveal the gift before the delivery is here ... but, eh... whatever)
and i got for a value of around 60chf :
View attachment 137126
a Xiaomi Mi Box S 8gb

oh well since it has practically the same hardware as my Odroid C2 in my Kodi Box ... (minus ethernet and 3 USB port ... nothing that a well placed hub will not solve and i use a 32gb uSD card in it but only 4gb used in reality, kinda a waste ... ) i know what i will be replacing
on the actual streaming box i assembled i need 2 USB 1 for the SD700X and 1 for the Minix A2 Lite , the SSD is a must for media storage and although that Mi Box S has a remote ... it has no keyboard on the back side a little angled USB cable some management and hiding and next buy will be a Icybox 4 port active USB hub (with on/off switches on each port)

You will like that S11

 

[Ruru]

Damn, forgot to take pics before unboxing (and tearing the not-so-important packages open) two weeks ago, when I bought some stuff.

-Asus TUF B450-Plus Gaming
-Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3 128GB USB3.0 drive
-1.5m USB-C cable
-some cheap but ok earplug-earphones

Well, tomorrow some more stuff, I must remember to take photos of what we're getting tomorrow

 

[GreiverBlade]

You will like that S11

i confess i am more playing fiddling tinkering with the Mi Box S atm ...

but i noticed most of my storage in the computer are almost full (i always keep 30/50gb free on a HDD due to border effect, although the SSD's are around 95% full, aside the OS SSD who has about 1/3rd of free space ) thus i might install that S11 and transfer the more textures heavy games on it (well ... i tested them on all drives and from HDD to SSHD to SSD to ExtSSD i rarely noticed any big issues ...)

i think i will switch the media drive duty to the 2 1tb Toshiba DT01ACA1000 get another Toshiba Tr200 (or two) to replace the WD green 240gb and replace the 1tb SSHD later, probably in 1tb or more if i can find a sweet deal.

well i am impressed with the 2 Ext SSD i have, they are equally fast to a good Sata3 SSD and league above the WD green, the Seagate Fast SSD 500gb has my mobile STEAM library on it and work like a charm, interestingly enough the XPG SD700X can be taken apart and has a full fledged Adata SU800 in it that connect to a SATA to 3.1 USB Micro B SS bridge... i could guts the WD green and transplant the SU800 ... gaining more than double the capacity and loosing nothing since a 240gb slow ass write SSD would be enough as media storage to replace the SD700X.


buuuut ... priority : get rid of the Intel platform in my main rig, find a suitable acceptable replacement for my GTX 1070 and get a good 32" 1440/1620p second screen is first on the liste ...

Damn, forgot to take pics before unboxing (and tearing the not-so-important packages open)

package are adequately as important as pictures are ... you always need 'em .... i keep all the boxes in case of reselling or just to make a pile of stuff i like in front of a white wall (what? poster, pictures frames? clock? wallpaper? ... humpffff has been!)


proof (in thumbnail, because full images is annoying )... :

(yes .... that's a Tifa Lockhart gel mousepad... better as a wall deco than a mousepad i reckon )

 

[Ruru]

package are adequately as important as pictures are ... you always need 'em .... i keep all the boxes in case of reselling or just to make a pile of stuff i like in front of a white wall (what? poster, pictures frames? clock? wallpaper? ... humpffff has been!)


proof (in thumbnail, because full images is annoying )... :
View attachment 137210
(yes .... that's a Tifa Lockhart gel mousepad... better as a wall deco than a mousepad i reckon )

Oh hell yeah I keep the boxes from "more important" stuff, in my case I put the MB box to my shelf of course

Damn, love that Tifa mousepad!

 

[kapone32]

i confess i am more playing fiddling tinkering with the Mi Box S atm ...

but i noticed most of my storage in the computer are almost full (i always keep 30/50gb free on a HDD due to border effect, although the SSD's are around 95% full, aside the OS SSD who has about 1/3rd of free space ) thus i might install that S11 and transfer the more textures heavy games on it (well ... i tested them on all drives and from HDD to SSHD to SSD to ExtSSD i rarely noticed any big issues ...)

i think i will switch the media drive duty to the 2 1tb Toshiba DT01ACA1000 get another Toshiba Tr200 (or two) to replace the WD green 240gb and replace the 1tb SSHD later, probably in 1tb or more if i can find a sweet deal.

well i am impressed with the 2 Ext SSD i have, they are equally fast to a good Sata3 SSD and league above the WD green, the Seagate Fast SSD 500gb has my mobile STEAM library on it and work like a charm, interestingly enough the XPG SD700X can be taken apart and has a full fledged Adata SU800 in it that connect to a SATA to 3.1 USB Micro B SS bridge... i could guts the WD green and transplant the SU800 ... gaining more than double the capacity and loosing nothing since a 240gb slow ass write SSD would be enough as media storage to replace the SD700X.


buuuut ... priority : get rid of the Intel platform in my main rig, find a suitable acceptable replacement for my GTX 1070 and get a good 32" 1440/1620p second screen is first on the liste ...


package are adequately as important as pictures are ... you always need 'em .... i keep all the boxes in case of reselling or just to make a pile of stuff i like in front of a white wall (what? poster, pictures frames? clock? wallpaper? ... humpffff has been!)


proof (in thumbnail, because full images is annoying )... :
View attachment 137210
(yes .... that's a Tifa Lockhart gel mousepad... better as a wall deco than a mousepad i reckon )

That looks just like my room but the closet is where all the boxes are.

 

[Ruru]

About the boxes

Spoiler

That X470 board and XFX R9 290 died some time ago. :/

 

[Solaris17]

Nothing as cool as some of this the last few pages. Today I got my replacement usb to serial ftdi chip.

I got other adapters coming in today but I need to replace this little guy.

was thinking about a guide on how to access UART for everyday people. We will see.

Spoiler

 

[GreiverBlade]

About the boxes

Spoiler

That X470 board and XFX R9 290 died some time ago. :/

well the last pic was just the left side of the sofa ... but you probably have already seen my shelf ... you can see books behind, but it's the "Mobo-CPU-GC" collection shelf (and each side of it is also taken by boxes and other "piece of collection" ... not that i need access to these books often ... the one i read are bottom left side sofa under the stuff on the right side of the previous picture xD (and on that shelf ... i keep the original reference cooler of a Asus R9 290 i used with watercooling and resold as it quite some time ago )

That looks just like my room but the closet is where all the boxes are.

did you already saw the LTT video about tech hoarder? .... i am kinda like that ... just a little less

(also, it's my living room ... the bedroom is a tad worse ... )

 

[Ruru]

What sucks is that I buy about half of my stuff used, and often receive the stuff in basic cardboard boxes, so not every component has their original box :/

 

[Splinterdog]

ASUS BIOS is candy land for tweakers. There are SOOOOO many more options than MSI BIOS (which deteriorated in quality after AGESA Combo 1.0.0.3 with that barebones ClickBIOS Lite setup program).

During a recent build with an MSI B450, I was having problems with IOLO memory so I updated the BIOS. Big mistake, as it went to that awful ClickBIOS Lite. What were they thinking?
I thought the whole idea of UEFI was so that you could see at a glance, details such as temps etc.
Have they thrust that on all B450 boards and others? If so, remind me to steer clear of their mobos.

 

[LittleKonae]

I bought a $13 LED strip for 65 Inch 4K trashed picked tv i seen outside. I know own a fully working 4k Smart tv. for the sum of $13

 

[oobymach]

Finally tracked down a scale to weigh the modded G502 Hero, 114.53 grams down from the 121 listed on the box, not too shabby.

Wasn't satisfied with the weight given the cable so I retook 2 pictures to show the exact weight loss. Both the original G502 wheel and the G900 wheel weighed and the G900 is 6.47 grams lighter.