re: PC Discussion - Gaming, Performance and Enthusiasts

Yea and it's Gold Rated

I just installed it. So much more room in that little build now and shite isn't all bunched up.

Thanks. You are correct on both accounts of the problem area and the loop order. I'll admit the pump/res was much larger than anticipated when I ordered it, but it will work, I just need those fittings. I ordered them this morning around 2am as soon as I exhausted all other options and I already have a tracking number, so hopefully by Wednesday they will be in hand.

Sorry, I misunderstood the decoupling, but the pump/res came with some 1/4" foam pads for the back, so those are between the mount and the case; for the opposite side I went and bought new hardware for mounting with rubber grommets so it should absorb noise/vibrations well enough.

As far as the mounting location that's definitely the best/only place I could get it to go. I won't be using an optical drive, but I do have a bay adapter there that is housing both my SSD and HDD.

I use a single wireless router -- AC68R like yours, which supports 3x3 MIMO. My house is only 1600 sq ft so range/coverage has not been a problem. But my router is also in the living room on the TV stand, so it's a pretty central location to where I use my devices.

I only have two MIMO devices -- the Nexus 6 (2x2) and my ASUS laptop (3x3 after I changed out the wireless card and ran a third antenna behind the LCD panel). Pretty sure all of the other wifi devices in the house are single spatial stream only -- Chromecast, Officejet printer, wife's iPhone 6, and Samsung smart TV.

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I'm wondering if upgrading my main wireless router with a MIMO supported device wouldn't provide my nVidia Shields with a more consistent and stable connection.

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The AC68R/U is already supporting 3x3 MIMO, and the shield tablet is only 2x2. Adding more spatial streams to the router won't yield any improvements there. If you're having weak spots in the house, I'd move the router. Elevated and in a central location if at all possible. You need range for higher throughput, and that's achieved only by lowering attenuation or increasing antenna power. It's also worth mentioning that smallnetbuilder ranks the AC68 #3 in range for AC1900 devices, and the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 is #1, so an upgrade there may help if you have a huge house.

I haven't bought a sound card in years, on board does a good job if you have good speakers. I have some OLD Labtech LCS-2020 speakers that still sound great.

What do you think happened to it? Overheated?

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Are sound cards really worth it?

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Didn't you buy a $300 motherboard and cite the premium onboard audio as one of the reasons?

I wouldn't bother with a sound card. Depending on your headphone choice, you may want an amp/dac combo. Most of us here are using mid to high end headphone setups primarily, but I do have a cheap 5.1 logitech speaker setup. Might've been $80 new. Not particularly good or bad, but serviceable when I don't feel like wearing headphones. They're connected to onboard audio. My headphones (AKG Q701) are connected to my Schiit magni/modi stack. Headphones were $200 and the amp and dac were $100 each.

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Was just curious if dedicated sound cards are that much better than onboard audio.

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Opinions are divided on this. For headphones, the most educated side believes that if you aren't going to use onboard, you should get an external standalone DAC and headphone amplifier instead of a sound card. And even then, it's only if you're using "good" headphones.

With sound cards and speakers, it's a similar vague and divided opinion. High end speakers may sound better with a sound card, but the definition of high end is broad. Where's the line between "onboard just as good" and "noticeable fidelity increase with dedicated sound"? And for that matter, how much would you have to spend on a dedicated sound card in order for it to have a noticeable advantage with X quality speakers? How will X brand/quality speakers sound on the onboard audio chipset vs. the $40 card with the C-Media CMI8786 vs. the $200 Xonar with the AV100 chip?

Those are questions I can't even begin to answer. The audiophile world has too many subjective variables, and high-end equipment has a point of diminishing return that even the expert audiophile community can't agree upon. Too much of it's left up to preference, as well as what I suspect is placebo effect from having spent a ridiculous amount of money on high-end equipment.

Try minitool partition wizard. Should let you do a lot more than Windows allows and disallows arbitrarily. You should be able to just wipe it and partition the whole thing as GPT.

On a related note, my 3TB Seagate external backup drive shite the bed today.

Replacing it with this:


and this enclosure/dock:

Supports 3.5 and 2.5