Something I have no business getting into. Special thoughts.

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Using the Old Standard or a Shiny New Rival

How did we get here?

I guess the first thing I should do is explain a bit further. Specifically, we are talking about the RTX 3050 6GB version mentioned in a blog here, and the GTX 1660. Typically, a good test would be the current card versus the next model up from the previous generation. That would mean testing the RTX 3050 against the RTX2060, but there is an issue with that.

The first issue is that the new card is the cut down version of the standard RTX 3050 with roughly 75 percent of the memory graphics processing and speed. It probably deserves an entirely different name, but NVidia enjoys confusing the consumer. It’s not the first time they’ve create a different product with the same name. Nomenclature doesn’t count as one the issues, though. For this example, we will only be talking about the current 6GB version.

The second issue is that we aren’t actually comparing cards with like characteristics. The GTX 1660 lacks the ability to Ray Trace and to use NVidia’s upscaling DLSS process. We won’t be looking at Ray Tracing and AMD has provided an answer to performance comparison, by offering Fidelity FX. Still, both of these cards do have 6GB of video memory.

There is one, very important difference that may give the newer card an edge.

More Power

The GTX 1660 requires external power. Modern motherboards are designed to offer 75 watts of power though the PCI Express slot. Most modern video cards use that and need additional resources provided by an additional dedicated cable. That also means that typically, the power supply needs to be a bit stouter. The last fact tends to limit some older PCs from being good candidates for without extra work.

Finding older Optiplexes or ThinkStations is pretty easy these days with older office PCs selling for pennies on the original dollar. Working PCs can often be found for less than fifty US dollars. They are often good candidates for some easy upgrades, but a few are more difficult. Things like power supplies and front panel connectors are often proprietary, making upgrading the graphics card or changing the case more difficult.

This is also the case for the GTX 1660. It’s not that it uses a lot of power, actually about 20% less than similar cards from AMD, the RX 480 and 580, but it does need external power. One option is using adapter cables, but that can introduce heat and other issues, not to mention a fire hazard. Still, its an option and can be a good one, if done properly. The 1660, and its ‘Super’ and ‘Ti’ versions are great options, even five plus years after their release.

The RTX 3050 has no such limitation because of its seventy-watt power draw. This, and the size could make it ideal to give some of these older office machines a new life as a gaming PC. It still won’t fit in the single low-profile slot that the RX6400 will, but that’s a different comparison.

So, which is better?

As it turns out, both of these cards are very well matched. The GTX 1660 performs slightly better on older titles and E-sports, and the 3050 doing slightly better on newer titles. The full video of this comparison with benchmarks can be found here, but there is one very important thing to discuss; the price.

Used GTX 1660’s and the sibling models range from 90 to 110 US dollars, while the RTX 3050 6GB cost another 40-60 bucks. You can save that on the rest of the hardware that won’t need a bigger PSU or adapters, but what that means to you may come down to what is available when you try to buy parts. The GTX 1660 is more than a worthy opponent, but the RTX 3050 definitely deserves part of the conversation.

The one thing left to talk about is why this card takes on a name that already exists. There seems to be no other reason NVidia does this except to confuse the consumer, and they do it often. They tend not to differentiate between laptop and desktop models and even cards with different memory or die configurations sharing names. Some more recent, blatant examples are the GT 1030 with both DDR4 and DDR5 being available with almost no markings, the GTX 1060 3GB and 6GB models and RTX 3060 available in 8 and 12GB.

It’s certainly confusing, and I, like others, have no idea, why they would do it. I will tell you what isn’t confusing, though, the 3050 6Gb is a decent card that has a valid use case. I may take a lot of flak for writing that, but except for the price, it’s as good or better than many of the other options available, especially options from Intel and AMD.

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Is the RTX3050 a great option for Budget Gaming?

How did we get here?

The simple answer is yes, but this question doesn’t have a simple answer. The target I usually set for a low budget gamer is between two hundred fifty and three hundred dollars. This video card will eat over half of that budget immediately. At between one hundred sixty and one seventy nine, this card is not a budget buy. What it does offer, however is great performance for its architecture. In particular, I’m talking about the 6GB version.

You see, NVidia in their infinite wisdom, has introduced another combination of different cards wit the same name. They have done this for years, like the GT1030 which came in DDR5, then DDR4. The GTX 1060 had a 6GB version and a 3GB. The RTX 3060 which had the standard 12GB, a Low Hash Version to prohibit crypto mining, and an 8GB version. They have even done it more recently by changing from DDR6x to DDR6 in some cards.

The RTX 3050 comes in two versions, or flavors if you prefer. The standard RTX3050 comes with 8GB of video memory, 256 more Cuda cores for processing, and a 1.78 GHz clock speed. The 6GB version runs with two less GB of video memory, the before mentioned shortage in processing power, and runs at 1.47 GHz. So, why would anyone buy the step-sibling?

Why I did it

The RTX3050 6GB version offers an advantage that the base version doesn’t. It has no need for external power. It is the closest thing NVidia has to a budget video card right now, placing it with the Arc A380 and the RX6400, though both are much cheaper. The offers from Intel and AMD respectively, also run on much less power and don’t need an external source, meaning a smaller power supply. Any of these cards can get by with a 300W power supply, maybe a little smaller, which means that Optiplex you picked up for 40 bucks, doesn’t need an upgrade and adapters.

In my case, I have a number of those old Dell PCs, some having 300W PSU’s or less. Until now, I have had to try the A380 or RX6400. Each of those has their own issue. The Arc A380 needs resizable bar, a configuration allowing data to flow more efficiently. Older gen hardware doesn’t support it, so performance suffers, horribly. The RX6400 runs on a four lane by PCIe 4.0 standard. Video cards of that era, all ran on 16 lanes. For comparison, NVMe SSDs run on four lanes. It is a sever limitation.

Some testing

The RTX 3050 6GB version runs on eight lanes, twice the bandwidth of the RX6400. It shows in testing, too. The RTX3050 consistently out performed the two other cards, sometimes by as much as double. In all cases, it was at least twenty percent better. But that was with a 12700KF, a recent CPU with PCIe 4.0 and resized bar, what about older stuff? I ran that too.

Running with a 4 core, 8 thread XEON E3-1270v3 from the $300 build , the results were all over the place with the RTX 3050 still outperforming overall, but with inconsistent numbers. I lead, sometimes by a few frames and other times by over twice as much. In all cases, it’s performance was predictable and replicable.

So, what’s next for the RTX3050?

This card will make the rounds on my testing bench for several weeks, then become part of a build. I’m not sure if that will be a budget build or something I would have put the GTX 1660 in, but I’m sure something like a micro ITX build will be very much to it’s liking and the small power requirement will also help keep the build cool. It’s not the cheapest card I’ve purchased, and it certainly isn’t the most expensive, so I’m not upset by the price, but this card really does need to retail for about twenty five dollars less than it does.

The reason it may not, is that it has a use case, like the RX6400. The AMD card is a single slot low profile that fits where other cards won’t, and although the performance suffers in older boxes, it’s still better than some alternatives. The 3050 has it’s place as well, with older machines that have the room, and it does perform well for it’s specs.

So, is it a budget card? No. Is it a card for a budget build? I’m saying yes and standing by my answer. It’s definitely a solid option for a budget minded build .

If you would like to read my other blogs, you can find them here. The video for the RTX 3050 can be found here.

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A great gaming PC on a hundred dollar budget

How did we get here?

My effort to find older budget PC’s and upgrade them has almost become a quest. I find an old prebuilt, or a motherboard/CPU combo then match the rest of the components, to get the best result per dollar. Often, this is a process that is tedious and frustrating. Occasionally, this turns out better than it has any right to.

One such example of success was the three hundred dollar Xeon build, here. There are too many failures to actually list, most recently, many of the yard sale PCs that are here. Of course there are others that fall somewhere between, but sometimes the effort matches the result. You start with a solid foundation, and there is room for improvement, at a reasonable price, Price in this case, being not just the cost, but the work.

One such example is the HP Z440 Workstation. These can be found all over for a range of prices, but the trick is to find one at a low cost, that comes with components like memory or maybe even a hard drive. These machines are capable of using an NVMe drive on an adapter card, and come with a quite capable processor. The one I purchased was on eBay with modest tax and shipping, for one hundred two dollars.

The Workstation

This came included with an E5 1650 v3, six core, twelve thread processor, 16GB of DDR4 error correcting memory, a seven hundred watt power supply, and a Quadro K4200 video card. It was clean and exactly as described in the listing. This was almost ready out of the box. And, let’s spend a moment on the box.

Sometimes, despite the best effort of the seller, they are at the mercy of the delivery company. In my case, FedEx physically moved a previously delivered package, and put both directly in the rain. I know they moved the other package, because it was Amazon, who sent a picture of that package on the other side of the doorstep, dry. Still, the PC was packaged well, and was dry on the inside.

Tests with the SSD in the Amazon package revealed a post and very strong testing in pr5oductivity applications. Less impressive were gaming tests, but The Quadro, with 4GB of VRAM, is not a gaming card. I do have gaming cards, though. Among them is a GTX 1660, the workhorse. Low power draw and good performance promise to make this Z440 a solid gaming option for under two hundred dollars. The previously tested Xeon E3 1270, with all new components, ran about three hundred.

Put an NVMe drive and a better GPU like an RTX 3060ti, or RX 6600XT, and the gains improve even more. Increase the memory, and we get a serious gaming PC that still doesn’t cost everything on the farm. Each of these will get their own video and blog, but suffice to say, this PC may return every ounce of effort I put in it.

The video for this blog is found here.

Back to the blog page here

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In a hurry to waste time.

How did we get here?

It started simple enough, find an older PC online and upgrade it into a budget gaming PC. This can be done a variety of ways, but one of the most effective is buying an older PC and adding a video card. This can also be one of the most difficult. Don’t get in a hurry, I’ll explain.

Older office PCs usually have a processor, memory, power supply, and a case. They will occasionally have storage media and maybe even a video card. Even without a discrete or separate video card, the processor will usually have integrated graphics. Computers for offices and schools didn’t need to have power graphics rendering, but they may need high compute power. These are the PCs most useful for upgrade later.

Here comes the conundrum. There are a lot more mid range or low compute capable machines than powerful ones. If the PC was used on a network, it might not have storage, but those may also be small form factor(SFF). Counter intuitive to more modern machines, it’s cheaper to buy an older SFF than a full size, regardless of the processor. Many will also have weak power supplies. A full size graphics card won’t fit.

What does that have to do with being in a hurry?

I’m getting there, trust me.

The effort to try to find a full size PC with a powerful enough processor led me to not one, but two different PCs. One with an Intel i7 processor, and a small amount of memory. The other sold as non working, but a better case and motherboard. Both for the same price.

The non-working one included one very important piece of information that let me know it was a perfect fit, a picture of the current Basic Input/Output System, or BIOS. This PC worked, but didn’t have a storage drive. If I could combine the best of both, I would be very well off for a relatively small price. All I would need to add would be a graphics card. ( I would also need a better power supply, but that’s a different blog).

Armed with the best parts of the two boxes, I closed up the leftovers and tucked them away. I could always use them later. There was my mistake.

Instead of making sure all parts and pieces were secure, I shoved it off to the side and went about testing my ‘better’ PC. A short time later it occurred to me that I may be able to get parts on the cheap to make a second PC. When I went to pick up the parts machine, I knew my mistake. The heatsink for the processor had been allowed to freely smash the pins on the exposed CPU socket. My haste would now be costly. At the very least it would take hours to fix, at worst it would be ruined.

Can I salvage it?

As it turns out. It was able to be repaired. It took a razor, a staple, jeweler’s screwdriver, flashlight, and several hours of painstaking patience. Having already hurried through part of this project and fouled things up, it was time to be careful. Section by section I used the flashlight and another tool, reading glasses, to very carefully bend the tiny pins back to what I hoped were close enough to the correct positions. Many of the 1151 pins were correct, but a number of them were bent, some severely.

Section by section, row by row, pin by pin, I bent tiny contacts back, then very carefully installed a new CPU, and held my breath. The system posted and correctly identified the new processor, along with it’s specs, showing me that the five or ten minutes at the very beginning of this had been made up for after several hours.

I could have very well, just tossed all of it aside and taken the loss, but there was a lesson to learn. And now, a lesson to share. Sometimes, trying to save a few minutes, or in this case, being paired with carelessness, can be extremely costly. It’s a lesson I won’t soon forget.

The YouTube video for this will be published soon, but feel free to check out the channel, here.

Back to the blog, here

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Are a dozen old PCs better than one new one?

How did we get here?

Your first question might be “How old are the old PCs?” The next question might then be “How new?” I’ll answer both, then I will explain a bit.

The twelve in question are Dell Optiplexes from 2008 through 2010, while the new one is pretty much anything from the past few years. Its a silly question with an obvious answer, but maybe it should be how I got them? They are the result of a yard sale find that cost ten dollars for the lot.

They range from Core 2 Duos and Pentiums to one PC that has an E8400 running with DDR3 memory. A quick test showed most of them booting up with four failing. Next will be to take the ones that didn’t, and see if things like a new CMOS battery will help. Most had low battery messages, and I suspect it to be a common them among them.

Are old PCs even worth the trouble?

Of course there will be more experiments and tests. I have a Q6600 Core 2 Quad with higher capacity DDR3 to try, but I may have to swap other parts to get at least one working. None of the machines has a power supply over 320W, so any GPU tinkering will keep that in mind. All will need thorough cleaning and new thermal paste.

Overall, it will be fun to find out which can be saved, if one can be my new server, and which can be turned into a more modern sleeper build with newer parts. That’s where the second question comes in. As it turns out, I have a few ways I can set up a sleeper with either intel or AMD. I might also be able to use AMD, Nvidia, or Intel as a video solution. It may look like a machine from 2010, but it certainly won’t behave like one.

What will I do with the others?

Many of the old PCs only have 2GB or 4GB of DDR2 memory, so I may sell the memory as a lot. I may also sell all of the processors as a lot with all of them being socket 775. The leftover parts will be set aside for recycling. The shipping might cost me a bit, but I should still stand to make more than the ten bucks it cost for the entire batch.

The other thing it definitely provides is content for multiple YouTube videos that will eventually find their way here. I’m also quite sure that if I can continue to commit to this blog again, some of the tests and experiments will end up being written about, so check back here soon. I’m sure it will be hours of entertainment, and if I can get a few working PCs, that will be a bonus.

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Buying a better graphics card for the same price.

How did we get here?

Recently, I found a deal on an older Xeon combo, and thought it would be good to do a theme build. The build works great, I used a GTX 1660, available for about a hundred bucks used. It’s a solid graphics card and a solid price. New, however, is a different story.

This card is available for around 200USD new, and widely available, but it’s not the only one available for that. In fact, several cards are in that range. Better ones, in fact. One of those is the Arc A750 from Intel. I opted for the 1660 because it’s better than the AMD offer of an RX580 2048sp version. Granted, the 580 is a new card, but it’s more of a refurb, than a brand new option. We’ll touch on that soon.

To test these I used my editing rig with a 12th Gen i7, the newest CPU I have. Matched up with 32 GB of DDR4 memory and a list of games, I ran some benchmarks. The 1660 is about four years old, the A750 about a year, but again, prices are the same for the new cards and both are available with driver support. The refurb 580s may be new, but driver support ended a few months ago. For that matter, the 1660 is no longer in production, but still available.

Well, what were the results?

Not surprisingly, the A750 performed better. The difference, however, surprised me. I ran two DX 11 titles and a handful of DX12 games and the difference was noticeable. DX11 titles were reasonably close, but in some cases DX12 titles had twice the framerate. The improvement in DX11 titles shows just how much Intel continues to improve the driver support for their new GPUs.

This ARC series of graphics card keeps getting better and the price makes it a great value. AMD cards like the RX580, RX5700, and even RX6600 all have continued to drop at a reasonable rate, but not so with the Green Team. The GTX 1660, an RTX 2060 without Ray Tracing, just isn’t worth the money trying to buy it new.

I bought the Arc A750 for more than it sells now, but AMD’s RX6600 has similar performance to the ARC card, and both are better than the 1660 at the same price. NVidia’s comparable card brand new runs almost a hundred USD more (The RTX 3060). The green team still does lead in Ray Tracing and the NVenc encoder is outstanding, but the ARC does have the AV1 encoder and that has been a huge leap forward.

So, why use the older graphics card?

That part is simple. It’s still a solid card. The price used is great, and it’s perfect for the build it’s in. Matched up with the Xeon, from Intel’s forth gen chips, the balance of CPU to GPU is almost a perfect match. Everything in that build seems to compliment everything else, and it ends up being a great gaming PC for 1080p resolution.

For that matter, the A750 ends up being a great compliment to the i7 12700 in the editing rig. I didn’t think that would be the case when I put it in there. The driver effort from Intel has been that good.

The YT video on the comparison is here, while the video on the build itself is here. There wasn’t a blog post on the Xeon/1660 pairing, but there is a blog about matching older and newer hardware in a ‘broken’ PC here.

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Was it a great idea to test old processers? No

How did we get here?

In this case, it was simple. I saw a few videos with people tinkering with old FX series processors, and though, sure. Two different people on two different continents were testing cheap 83xx processors and I thought, hey, I have an old motherboard for that.

I should have left it at that. Buying a similar chip here in the States turns out to be four times the price, and I don’t even know if the board works. I can also buy two intel MB/CPU combos that definitely work for the same money. Still, I wanted to try, so I found a cheaper CPU to order and test. Keep in mind, its been several years since I have even tried to test this MB and I stopped using it in 2015 because I thought I bricked it.

I ordered the CPU, it came quicker than I expected, thank you eBay seller, and I was excited to test. I gathered everything I would need, looked at the CPU and it had bent pins. Great. AM type processors have pins on the CPU instead of the motherboard and sometimes they bend. I didn’t panic. It was very slight and I could use a razor. Problem solved.

My next issue was the cooler. AM3+ and AM4 are different sized brackets, and have different mounting holes. Luckily I have a few different coolers and chose a tower cooler that is far more than that processor should need. I grabbed known good working parts from another system, and installed them. It was time to start it up.

Hmmm

Everything started, but nothing posted. No HDMI cable in the Graphics card. That was the last good feeling I had about this set up. I connected the HDMI, started it again, and waited, nothing. No post, no beeping, no nothing. Okay, I can’t say nothing. The CPU fan was running, the GPU leds were on (no spinning fans), and leds on the motherboard lit up. There is nothing fancy about the leds on the mobo, it’s just to show they have power.

I tried one stick of ram in each slot. No post on any combination. An hour or so of troubleshooting produced the same result. This was not working.

I faced a bit of a conundrum. I have a ‘tested good’ CPU, and a questionable motherboard. Do I count my twenty bucks as a loss, or do I look for a different mobo? How important is this video? How deep do I go in the rabbit hole? Used motherboards for this series are running from 40USD to 100USD. What? Are you serious? They’re 8-10 years old.

There is no reason I can think of that this platform should be so expensive eight years later. It wasn’t a high performer and it was inexpensive to start with, yet it’s holding it’s value and people are buying them. AMD was my preferred platform for a long time based on price to performance, but it didn’t age well. Pricing is very different here than the rest of the world evidently.

So what’s next for this set up?

First, I’m not upset spending 20 bucks testing an older board. I am not 100% sure it’s the problem, but the odds are high. The CPU tested good from a reputable seller, so I am okay with that. The issue is whether to sink more money into a used board just for the sake of a video. I don’t dare get something ‘high’ end just to check the CPU, but if it is good, what’s my next step? Yep, to buy a better board and a better CPU. This can’t end well. And it can’t end cheap. I have a lot of thinking to do.

There’s no video on this, yet, because the story isn’t over, but it may be time to hit the used market and find the next rung in this impossibly high later to nowhere. Wish me luck.

Here’s a link to my other videos, and a link back to the blogs.

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How old does a budget PC have to be?

How did we get here?

The term budget PC can actually be a bit misleading. It’s very possible to have an extremely high budget, where financial constraints don’t matter, but most of us think of budget as spending less money. Budgets are typically associated with financial management, and living within your means. Corporations and Governments also have to adhere to budgets, though the latter doesn’t seem to think they have to. (Different subject, altogether).

If you are a PC enthusiast at all, you are typically trying to get the best performance for the lowest price. This may come in the form of buying a part used, or in some cases, refurbished. It may also come in the form of buying a less expensive part, seeking to upgrade later. This works well for newer parts, but it becomes more difficult with older ones. But what if your PC has a mix of both?

Can a new graphics card do well with an older processor. Is it even practical? In some cases, yes. Pairing a newer RX 6400 graphics card with a sixth generation Intel i5 in a PC sold as ‘broken or parts only’ is an example. I planned to put a mid tier graphics card in it, but the case was small, and I needed a low profile option. Older low profile cards just don’t do the trick, but I took the risk and was able to fix it. With a graphics card and a few other things, we had a two hundred dollars gaming PC. I used both newer and older parts.

Well, there’s your answer. New and Old.

Well, yes and no. Obviously mixing the age of components isn’t our only option. Using a different case, allows for a better graphics card and for a bit more, we can have a better PC. Our challenge there is to have the money we spend, show in the performance. Does going from spending two hundred to three, give us at least fifty percent better gaming? Chances are that it won’t.

Now, in most cases, one of the easiest upgrades will be to use a solid state drive instead of the hard disk drive, so yes we are mixing old and new. The memory modules can be new, but built on the older technology, reliable, but for this argument, old. There is also an influx of remanufactured older technology emerge in graphics cards and motherboards. That’s a harder one to call, but I have to group that with the memory, old.

What about our budget PC?

It actually gets more complicated. Some newer platform parts are available for the same prices as newer remanufactured ones. Both Intel and AMD have options for CPUs and motherboards for a hundred USD or less, each. That makes the core of the platform not too much more expensive than older systems, with better performance. So, maybe the way to go is new parts.

The honest truth is, older parts don’t give much of an upgrade path, but finding an old workstation or a PC that is ‘broken or parts only’, could be a great find, if you are careful. In my case, I saw a few things in the photos that helped me diagnose the issue before I bought it, and a twenty dollar SSD made my starting price 60 USD. If the case were bigger, the whole gaming PC could have been less than 175 USD, and done quite well. The only problem I have now is what to do with it.

I am finding the more I buy to tinker with, the less shelf room I have. I don’t seem to sell them as quickly as I buy, test and shelve them. Maybe that’s a different blog. We are getting to a point where PCs from even a few years ago, though, might outlive their operating systems, presenting a different problem. These systems are still solid and can perform well. I guess to answer this question, we may have to wait to see how long the software itself is supported.

The video that prompted all of this is here, but here are others and I will have to make a playlist.

There is also more written on the 40 dollar PC here.

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Why are some gaming benchmarks better than others?

How did we get here?

In PC gaming, and often in general, if you upgrade something or build new, you want to see how it performs. The goal being to make sure what you have done is an improvement, or if it works at all. One way it to use a comparison tool or set of tools to test the components. In software, we use benchmarks.

This is anything from an application to test how long it takes to complete a task, say rendering, to stressing the CPU or GPU, to see when they reach a power limit or throttle back performance. Different tests give different results for testing different things. There are a slew of these type of tests for PC, many of them are free, some require a license or purchase. Being paid or free isn’t the focus here. The actual focus is Gaming Performance.

Most gaming performance benchmarks are purchased. You have to buy for the game to test it. You can use the trial version to do some play testing, but this has varying results. For that matter, the best way to actually test a game is actually play it, but many come with built in benchmark tools of one type or another. And, yes, some are better than others.

What about gaming benchmarks? – The catch up

In-game benchmarks usually test a scenario or group of scenes, with what should be typical gameplay, or an example of it, to see how the graphics and processing stress the system. Many are aware of this, but for those that aren’t, it’s a chance to test your game using different settings to find the best overall experience. Some games are graphically intensive, so rendering scenes and objects take priority. Some games have several things happening at one time, or an open world, and need processing power. Esports titles often fall into this category.

Coincidentally, many Esports titles don’t have built in benchmarks. It all comes down to what you are willing to sacrifice to get extra performance. The game doesn’t have to look as good, as long as you can score first, or find a target quickly. Esports titles are usually very fast paced and the details on the screen don’t have to be in 4K. These games prioritize speed over immersion.

But you said some are better than others.

I did, and here’s why. If a tool is too difficult to use, is it effective?

Think about this. Do you drive a manual transmission vehicle or automatic? Many will say, automatic because it’s easier to drive. Many people don’t even know how to drive a stick. Some of you just said in you head “I don’t”, some said “yes, I do!” , and the rest said “I wonder if I remember how”. Do you remember at least three telephone numbers? See where I’m going?

There are games that have excellent tools for testing. They can be found on a settings screen, usually in the graphics settings, and are very intuitive. You can change the resolution, and texture quality from the same area or adjacent areas, and the test will run. Others are not as good, but still rather easy to figure out and do make sense for what they are. Some, however, are buried in different menus, require resetting the game, and take a long time to run. It doesn’t matter how good the tool is, if it’s too difficult to use, it’s not effective.

In many cases, using gaming benchmarks helps find the best set up for your situation, and may require multiple runs. Other cases are for people testing different equipment and again, multiple runs. Benchmark tools that don’t let you adjust settings, are buried deep in a menu somewhere, and take five minutes to run, just aren’t effective tools. Yes, I’m talking about you Red Dead Redemption, and Assassins Creed Valhalla.

Utter Frustration

If you are ever watching one of my videos and wonder why I don’t test certain games, it’s most certainly for this reason. Both of these games have stunning benchmarks, but both are very difficult to run for different reasons. The good just doesn’t outweigh the bad, here. In the last video I made mention of some of the drawbacks with RDR2, but I ended up cutting the part about Assassins Creed. It was another three minutes when the video was already twenty minutes long.

RDR2 takes a while to run and will not let you choose settings outside the normal parameters of your equipment. Yes, I said normal settings. I can’t choose a higher quality setting that tries to borrow resources such as system memory, the tool turns other settings down. That’s great if I am playing the game casually, but not if I’m trying to test. The length of time and the different settings in the first part of the benchmark makes it seem like I chose the wrong tool for the job.

AC Valhalla is different because it’s hidden, and you have to start the game over each time. I should clarify. You have to start the game over each time you change the graphics settings, for example, high to medium, medium to low, etc.. This is a pain on it’s own, but to have to do this for five different settings on each resolution is tedious and overshadows how good the benchmark actually is. It gives great information and the scene is gorgeous, but it takes far longer to run than should be necessary. There needs to be a better way.

Benchmarks worth mentioning.

Other games, including a game by the publisher of The Witcher Series, CD Projekt Red, with CyberPunk 2077, have reworked their benchmark to not only make it easier, but to give more accurate results for each run, which should be applauded. This benchmark used to be a hot mess. Still, other games don’t have tools at all, which is fine, I just don’t have all day to do playthroughs, being a solo act. So, I have to find the best balance I can. It’s an ongoing process to find the best way to give an accurate comparison, and because there are no perfect tools for the job, I will have to keep choosing the best available. I guess that’s what makes all of this fun.

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Can a Forty Dollar Bust become a great gaming PC

How did we get here?

In recent weeks I purchased a forty dollar, non-working PC from eBay, then cleaned it up and fixed it. That was actually the easy part. The more difficult part is to see if that can’t become a budget gaming pc. It is a sixth generation i5 6500 with four cores and four threads, which is solid, but the case doesn’t leave room for a graphics card. It also has a low wattage power supply, so the graphics solution has to be efficient.

A low power, low profile card is the best choice, but that leaves us only a few options. Low profile cards are expensive even if they are older and not great. Cards with no external power also retain their value, and getting one with good performance is a challenge. We do get left with a few choices, but some are better than others for our use case.

Nvidia makes a great option with the RTX A2000. It’s not actually a mainstream gaming card, but it’s power efficient and low profile. The pairing of that and the i5 6500 is a bit unbalanced, but definitely a gaming PC. The problem? It cost 150% more than the budget for this project. At three hundred to three hundred fifty dollars, it’s just not a good choice.

Likewise, with the older GTX 1050 low profile. Believe it or not, this card, though older, still goes sometimes for around two hundred fifty dollars. Yes, you read that right, 250. It’s not because it’s an outstanding product, (though it is solid), it’s because it is a product that remains in demand. To go cheaper in this generation of graphics cards, you have to settle for a GT1030.

Isn’t there anything cheaper?

As mentioned a moment ago, you can go with a GT1030, but that also has problems, and a twist. The 1030 comes with half of the memory of the 1050 models AND there are two different models, one with DDR4 instead of DDR5 memory. This combination actually makes it worse than integrated graphics on more modern CPUs. Yes, worse.

AMD does have a pair of options in a similar price range (less than $80). The RX550 and RX560 can be found very reasonably, but they suffer from the same problem the GT1030 does. They lack memory and they just aren’t high performers, at all. They are usually a bit easier to find, though, with the RX550 still available brand new.

There isn’t going to be a forty dollar graphics card to match with the deal found on the PC. One of the main reasons is that it is much easier to diagnose a PC with a set of pictures and tell what doesn’t work than its components. At best, you may be able to find something described as ‘running hot’ and take a chance on replacing thermal paste. With a PC, if they post pictures, there are things to look for that give an indication of the problem may be.

What about my forty dollar investment?

It’s in great shape. It may be a slim line PC, but there is at least one option to keep the total investment under two bills. The AMD RX6400 low profile has entered the chat.

Originally sold for around two hundred fifty dollars, the same price as the Arc A750, this card has come down and can be found used for about one thirty. It sells for a bit more brand new, but we are on a budget, here. A budget that sees us spend twenty bucks for a 256 GB SSD and twelve dollars for another stick of memory. That gives us a total of two hundred, two dollars. The price is slightly more using a site for a discount windows key, but sacrificing the additional 8GB of memory keeps the price at 200.

How does it perform, though? Actually, quite well, for what it is. Or, more accurately, what it was, broken. Benchmarks will be in the YouTube video coming up, but 60 fames per second can be hit in many triple A titles at 1080p. One issue is that the PCI bus speed is 3.0 instead of 4.0 . That’s important because the card uses the same number of lanes as an NVMe drive. Most cards use sixteen lanes instead of the four that the RX6400 has. It is an impact to performance, but it still outperforms other options. That means on a newer platform, performance is better. Still, we are on a budget.

So, can you build a gaming PC for two hundred dollars? Yes. Will it be enough to rival spending only one hundred more? That will be the next subject. Next we look at a two hundred dollar build versus a three hundred dollar. Come back soon to find out.

The video for this is live here.

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