majestic

With the recent upgrades: Corsair 4000D Airflow black Intel Core i7-13700K ASUS ROG STRIX B660-A 32 GB DDR5-6800 CL34* Corsair Vengeance ZOTAC GAMING Trinity RTX 4070 Ti 2 TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO be quiet! Silent Loop 2 280mm Thermal Grizzly Intel 12th/13h gen CPU frame 4x be quiet Pure Wings 2 *Actually DDR5-7200 CL34, but not stable at 7200 MT/s

Except for the dream sequences with the little kid that died, the ridiculous deus ex machina way to solve the plot and the entire ending fiasco. I really don't get the hate for Kai Leng. Wait, no, I do, because he's a terribly written character, but it seems so minor compared to the real problems of the game that show up five minutes after the introduction is over. That's like ordering your steak bloody rare with a side of corn and fries, and you get it well done with a side of corn and potato wedges and then you go on complaining to everyone that the steak place mixed up your potato side dishes. Sure that's annoying, but it's not worse than a well done steak. Sheesh.

Nothing like Sunday, close to 3am, running into a Windows bug where booting Windows Server 2019 takes an hour instead of the usual two minutes. GETTING WINDOWS READY DON'T TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER Why thank you Microsoft. It's not really critical that this system is up and running soon. Not at all. Well, luckily it is the weekend and on Sunday I could actually just let the batch jobs run on the user server if push comes to shove, but I'd rather not shove a push somewhere at all. *sigh*

Well, what do you know, the current used car market has its advantages, while the repairs will run around 7 to 8k, it's still below what I could sell it for. Supply shortage and supply chain interruptions are still a thing too though, so it'll take a bit until all the replacement parts come in. Win some, lose some, I guess.

I was toying with the idea of getting a Z790 AERO. So, what now? Asus and MSI have crap service. Going ASRock of all things?

No, not yet. Getting the car trashed around public holidays is not the best time to get the insurance companies working on it. Everyone's out of office and all that. Although it is getting ridiculous. Guess I should call them to see what's what.

A while ago, at NVIDIA headquarter: Random person in meeting: "Hey, people made fun weird keynote presentations recently, perhaps we should..." Jensen: "Hold by beer!" What the hell.

Martyrs (2008). A wholesome movie for the entire family. Highly recommended. Gather your loved ones and have fun. It is a film about two girls, Anna and Lucie, visiting a happy family and spending some time together. So, one might ask, what was the point of the film? Well, as the above wall of text suggests there's a lot to think about. Curiously enough, the film seems to have the potential to be a transcendent experience if thought about it, as the audiences journey with the film mirrors that of Anna, and it does give rise to the answer whether or not the content of the film is justified. It certainly is. If nothing else, it is thought-provoking, and how often can we say that about a film?

Cross post to keep things in their own threads, from: Heads up, because I just checked the specs, the RX 7600 is no better in that regard. It also only uses 8 PCIE 4.0 lanes. Score one for cards that were supposed to be mid-range upgrade paths for older computers. As if anyone needed another reason to just get a cheaper 6650 XT instead, or spend a bit more on a 6700 (XT) to have a card that'll last a bit longer. Eh, perhaps you should really look at an ARC card if you have ReBAR support.

TL;DR: The performance difference between a 3060 Ti and a 4060 Ti goes away completely if used with PCIE 3.0. Hilarious.

I do. Watched the entire run of the new Outer Limits series. Loved it for the most part - also had the best arc welding clip show episodes in the history of arc welding clip show episodes. That ending episode of season one was just an absolute banger.

Just watched the entire video. I find myself being able to relate as I have also worked on a b-project nobody but a select few people took seriously, and when it turned out to be really successful people who fought its introduction tooth and nail congratulated themselves on the added revenue and suddenly wanted us to take their input seriously, and they wanted a say in service development. Big difference is that our team got the recognition we were due in our bank accounts, so no one quit. Strange how that goes.

Pored over my account and realized that I managed to spend a stupid amount on eating out and having food delivered this month. Eh, a little indulgence every now and then isn't going to kill me. Edit: No update on the car situation yet. Insurance companies aren't the quickest and all, especially when it comes to payouts. Nothing new there.

Well, nVidia's Q1 earnings call sure was something. Certainly not what gamers were hoping for though.

Well, I'm not someone who needs compelling gameplay to stick with a game, heck, I really enjoyed Planescape: Torment, for instance, a game I cannot blame anyone for not liking because the game part of it is terrible, but there was nothing that appealed to me in Bloodlines. I did not like the characters, and while I really like the setting, I did not care for either the plot or playing a vampire. It also probably did not help that Jeanette...

Well, this just in: I really am the only person on the planet who has Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines, did not mind the jank and yet did not find joy in it.

The RX 7600 reference models apparently cannot be used with some of the 6+2 PCI-E cables. They can still be plugged in enough to work, but not fully. Yeah, they'll probably not burn off like not properly pluged in 12VHPWR cables, but it is something to keep in mind if someone would want to buy one. Not sure why anyone would want that, though - the 6650 XT is clearly better in price/performance, and getting a decent deal on a 6700 (XT) will last a good while longer.

Well, just to expand that a little, having "issues" with older games basically just means sub-par performance in certain titles while it can match or surpass much pricier cards (including the RX 7600) in others, but we're almost always talking about more than playable performance in 1080p. Well, outside of turning on every bell and whistle in current console ports, but those choke an RX 7600 to death just as much. There are some really strange outliers like Rainbow Six: Siege where the RX 7600 pulls 60% ahead of the ARC 750, but we're talking about 230 vs. 400fps here. Kinda pointless. Edit: Intel's first attempt at ray tracing also beats even RDNA3's capabilities. Not that this in particular would matter in your use cases, but it just adds to the Intel outing being a pretty good first attempt, majorly hamstrung by software.

Nope, looking at generational increases, actual mid-range perfomance moved to the $600 point with the RXT 4070, a card that should cost $400 and be called RTX 4060 (maybe TI) and would be an amazing deal for that prize. Although, with nVidia's and AMD's marketing campaign for the Intel ARC kicking into full gear, perhaps Intel can convince their shareholders to let them continue making discrete graphics cards. If, uhm, it is not too late already. So perhaps that'll come down in the future. Even so, the A750 for $199 looks like a decent enough deal, but it does still have driver issues with older games.

Yeah, comparing the RX 6650 XT's Navi 23 with the Navi 33 configuration of the RX 7600, they're pretty similar outside of Navi 33 clocking slightly slower and having a little more memory bandwith. That's not exactly impressive. The generational boost over the RX 6600 seems to come from adding shaders and compute units more than improvements in the architecture. Basically just what they did with the 6650 XT anyway, to similar results. Guess those additional TFLOPS AMD boasts on the spec sheet over the 6650 XT were all stuffed into the AI accelerators. Level1Tech put the reference model RX 7600 into a small form factor case, which results in the hotspot of the card getting to a toasty 103° C. The reference coolers are, again, not really good. Nothing new here though.

Well, as nobody else posted it: Yeah, do not buy Jensen another leather jacket. Sounds ridiculous coming from someone who bought an RTX 4070 TI, but that card was actually pretty okay deal for the price it was selling when I grabbed one. It is less so now that vendors are no longer trying to sell the 7900 XT for 4080 prices. Makes me sad because I originally wanted to get one of those for my nephew, but he's just going to have to tough it out with the RTX 3050 for the time being. Perhaps the RTX 4060 is going to be a decent deal, at least. Yeah, who am I kidding, right?

JayzTwoCents is really weird recently. Yesterday they pulled their 4060 TI review because they did not get the memo that the card needs to be trashed and whoever reviewed it (as Jay himself is recovering from surgery) actually thought it was a fine card and had a video thumbnail saying "The new mid-range king?" - which was hilarious, because there's no way to justify that 399$ price point for the 4060 TI - and today they released an RX 7600 review video called "AMD slams nVidia" with the thumbnail reading "AMD's tiny powerhouse". That review video has been since renamed to Another GPU you'll probably just hate on anyway. I'm finding that really hilarious. The other cards in their charts were picked to make the 7600 look better than it is by virtue of only comparing it to the RTX 3060, the RTX 3050, the ARC 750 and the RX 6750 XT. Now they're getting dunked on in the comments too, and probably don't quite understand why, I mean, why... change the title to something that petulant. Also, not sure why I am doing this: The RX 7600 is a joke, and outside of a view outliers that seems to be the consensus among reviewers, although somewhat tempered by the fact that it is less of a joke than the RTX 4060 TI. It does have a decent price to performance ratio, but that is because it is the only new generation card below $400. That this card could even be considered mid-range just shows how ridiculous pricing has become. Remember, it was supposed to launch at 299 dollars until AMD panicked in the face of not being able to fight off the upcoming RTX 4060* at the same price point. Hardware Unboxed said it plainly, the only reason he's not ripping AMD as big a new one as nVidia is because the RX 7600 has an MSRP of 269 dollars. Which, as they state over and over again, does not make the card good value. It is just better value than an RTX 4060 TI. Heh. Congratulations. So, nothing has changed. nVidia doesn't want to compete, and AMD apparently can't. Man, if Intel could just get their sh*t together... While this is certainly true for the entire generation, it is better AMD's offerings than for nVidia's, outside of the 4090, which while overpriced is also a flagship product. Looking at the launch MSRPs, yeah, no, but at their current going rates the 7900 XT is actually a pretty decent card, but here it was pricier than the RTX 4070 TI for a long time (they're both equal in price now) - although the 7900 XT comes with more VRAM, it is not really worth shelling out signficantly more than what an RTX 4070 TI costs. On the flip side the power draw of the 7900 XT is ridiculous for the performance it offers, and if you have more than one screen the idle power draw of the card is going to cost you an arm and a leg at the current energy prices here. *Speculation, but based on the same leaks that predicted the 7600 to be at or around a 6650 XT level of performance, and lo, it is exactly that. An RDNA3 variant of a 6650 XT.

That went about as well as expected, as the leaks were pretty much on spot. The price drop semi-justifies the card, but Steve's recommendation is right. Either get a 6700 (XT) now while they're still available, or wait how the 4060 turns out. Last minute price drop seem to give credence to the rumors of the RTX 4060 being on par with the RX 7600 for what was possibly the same targeted MSRP. Well, the other recommendation would be to roll the dice and get an ARC for considerably less than the 7600. When it works well it's on par or better, but Intel still has some driver issues, but Intel dropped the ARC 750 to 200$, so if it a budget card you're after with only 8 GB of VRAM, then that should be the go-to one, really. On a purely technical side the specs on the 7600 once again show that RDNA3 isn't performing as expected, or the specs are just wrong. Also, a 90° hot spot on a card like that? Really? Good job. 7600 will probably end up in low end computers with bad thermals, so that's going to be toasty.

Yeah, luckily no real headache, already organized a towing for tomorrow and contacted the insurance, the shop will organize everything else. Turns out the police exaggerated a fair bit when they talked to me. I mean, yeah, the damage looks pretty wild but is mostly the plastic around the front of the car. Everything else seems largely intact, also no visible damage to the engine compartment or the axles, and absolutely no scratches anywhere outside of the impact area. The truck seems to have ripped my left front fender and with it the front bumper off - stuff that's pretty much just lightweight plastic on modern cars. Will know more once the shop's and insurance's assessment of the damage is done, but it looks like the car isn't totalled. Well, on the bright side, I can now stop agonizing over dropping the comprehensive insurance plan I have. No real point in paying a premium for full coverage after the repair. Or anything, in case it's a goner.

The day is off to a really good start when the police knocks at your door and tells you a truck just plowed through your parked car.