BF2S Forums What tech did you buy today?

SuperJail Warden wrote:

External blue ray drive. $99. Why are these things still so expensive?

Licensing for Sony. As I recall Microsoft actually pays a bit to Sony for every Xbox they make though not necessarily directly.

Hittin' switches in your black sixty-fo'(k)?

I almost bought a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro in order to help a friend convert something for students to use. Then I saw the $450 price tag for the one time license and said no thanks. I was expecting like $200 tops and was willing to pay that since it is actual useful software. But that is just too much money. It actually makes the $150 Microsoft Office seem like a good deal. That is pretty ridiculous considering there is nothing MS Word can do for me that the free Google Docs can't.

So does anyone have an Adobe Acrobat alternative? I don't mind paying for a license. I would actually prefer to pay for a license and get features and support than relying on some open source software.

it’s been a while.
https://imgur.com/a/wYUrmtA

first build in ... 11 years?!

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-22 07:46:57)

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I almost bought a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro in order to help a friend convert something for students to use. Then I saw the $450 price tag for the one time license and said no thanks. I was expecting like $200 tops and was willing to pay that since it is actual useful software. But that is just too much money. It actually makes the $150 Microsoft Office seem like a good deal. That is pretty ridiculous considering there is nothing MS Word can do for me that the free Google Docs can't.

So does anyone have an Adobe Acrobat alternative? I don't mind paying for a license. I would actually prefer to pay for a license and get features and support than relying on some open source software.

Isn't there a monthly option for Acrobat Pro? Except you have to sign up for a year...
After two years you might as well have bought it.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-03-22 15:12:20)

Dilbert_X wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I almost bought a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro in order to help a friend convert something for students to use. Then I saw the $450 price tag for the one time license and said no thanks. I was expecting like $200 tops and was willing to pay that since it is actual useful software. But that is just too much money. It actually makes the $150 Microsoft Office seem like a good deal. That is pretty ridiculous considering there is nothing MS Word can do for me that the free Google Docs can't.

So does anyone have an Adobe Acrobat alternative? I don't mind paying for a license. I would actually prefer to pay for a license and get features and support than relying on some open source software.

Isn't there a monthly option for Acrobat Pro? Except you have to sign up for a year...
After two years you might as well have bought it.

I absolutely refuse to rent productivity software. Office, Photoshop, etc.

AMD ryzen are the clear winner for mid-range gear now. they are leagues ahead of intel. it's my first AMD chip since an early-days-of-BF2 AMD-64 chip i had. they have a few new chips in the <$250 range that are just as good, if not better, than the intel chips that cost >$500 for everyday tasks and gaming (i don't stream or do heavy video/rendering work so i don't need >8 cores, either).

it's a mini-ITX case with a gigantic 3-slot GPU/cooler and a full-sized CPU cooler in it, too (pretty unusual to get tower CPU heatsinks into mITX). it took me most of a day to shimmy things around and get it all in. cable management is a luxury, whereas i preferred having a much smaller case. to be fair, all the cables are pretty neatly tucked around the sides. the rest of the guts you can see comes from the fact that the mini-ITX case is built so that the PSU can only go in one way. there's actually a lot of spare/long cables routed up through the roof of the case. there just isn't any room for bundling and tying stuff off in the main working area. it's about 15 x 20 cm, all in all.

i've bought 3 top-end noctua fans that are rated pretty much the best on the market for static pressure, to push air through it. temps are good. i've got another two slim ones coming next week to mount in the bottom mesh to feed more air to the GPU. i was really pushing it going for a fancy variant of the 5700XT rather than the regular 2/2.5 slot variants.

i'll definitely try and tie some stuff off when i finish off the cooling system.

the hard drives are just carry-overs from my last build. i didn't want to lose a load of work data/couldn't be bothered to clone or migrate all the apps. the 2.5" SSD is essentially just my work disk.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-22 16:45:26)

i think intel are still the best processor, it's just that for a nice intel bundle you're looking at $750 before you even talk about graphics, PSU, case, etc. AMD have carved out the mid-range really nice, sort of ideal gaming/media machines, really. i'm pretty sure that 'enthusiast' level gamers are still on the i7's and i9's. but ryzen is best price:performance and i didn't want to spend a lot.

Why didn't you use the stock cooler?

because the case is tiny and the GPU will vent a huge amount of hot air into it. it doesn't have a grille or mesh top so that hot air can't just rise out through a big 140mm fan exhaust or whatever,  so. i wanted a simple front intake -> vertical heatsink -> rear exhaust set-up to keep a good airflow through it. the stock coolers are the tiny horizontal things. also: loads of horrendous RGB as standard. but you're right that the stock coolers are perfectly decent. it's not like it was in 2008 where anybody even half-serious had to go after-market.

no ryzen chip really overclocks that well. it's something i had to get my head around. it's not like an intel where you get the best mobo, stack it full of cooling equipment, then boost up your base clocks by 35%. the mid-range ryzens might go from 3.6ghz to 4.2Ghz, if you're really pushing the voltages, get lucky with the binning, and give them plenty of air. it's not really worth it to me to spend 2x as much on a premium mobo for an extra 250Mhz. plus the mini-ITX form factor costs more to do it.

ryzen has a couple weird chipset features where it will pretty much constantly smart boost up to a thermal/power limit. hence making sure the CPU is cool. it idles at like 33 deg/3.6Ghz and will go to about 56-60 deg in a game at 4.2Ghz. it's also tied to the frequency of the DDR4 RAM for reasons i am too dumb and uninterested to explain.

i do like cable management, but on my full-size towers in the past i've pulled all the slack through to the backplate area and been able to bundle it all. that wasn't really an option on this case. the most tidying i could do are with the GPU's PCI-E cables, which go all of 5cm, or to bundle a few of the front chassis header cables together. meh. i'm just nuking the case pressure with lots of fans, instead. it gives the added bonus of making it quiet.

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-22 17:02:29)

i got an AMD because my monitor supports their freesync. and my MBP has an AMD GPU chipset, too, so i could always repurpose the card in an eGPU set-up, after the coronavirus plague is sorted and i don't need a desktop PC.

also better coolers aren't just for thrashing your gear with heat and high frequencies. bigger, better coolers = quieter case. they're more efficient and less noisy than stock options. and your nicely cooled equipment will be a lot happier for it in terms of product lifetime (although i'm sure overclocked and non-overclocked gear has a shelf life way beyond its actual technical use, anyway; i've never had a processor die due to overclocking before it died due to, er, being massively out of date).

Last edited by uziq (2020-03-23 02:36:01)

here you go macb. tidied the cables as best as i could in the space.

all i have to do now is put the 120mm matching exhaust fan on, when the 2-way splitter cable turns up. i'll share it with the CPU-fan header to set-up a push/pull combo. job done.

GPU gets to about 65 under load and is still quiet, fans at 30-40%.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Nice work. Looks clean.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Are blue LEDs still a thing?

What rock were you living under that you wouldn't notice? They're ubiquitous in consumer electronics.