mike7877

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My name's Mike (obviously lol) and I'm new to the forum!
Since my BlackBerry 9900 in 2012/13, I've only had Android phones. I didn't buy flagships until in 2017, when I got an S9. I loved that phone - it was so fast. So sleek. The perfect size with the perfect fingerprint sensor (performance and location). Unfortunately for me, that was stolen and I had to get an S10 which had a wider screen which I didn't like as much. Its fingerprint sensor was garbage compared to the S9, and its location didn't make logging in easy!

Now I have an S22, which I like a lot!
Hopefully, it doesn't get stolen or broken like my last two phones! Lol

I'm also interested in computers and music and bicycles and hot chicks with pleasant temperaments
 
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Kizzy Catwoman

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Hi Mike. Welcome to the forums. I have an S10+ which I keep as a backup phone. Beautiful screen but the microphone is spotty. Can’t rely on it as a phone any more.

I use Pixels now exclusively on Android.

I also enjoy computers.

I hope you enjoy the forums. Here for a chat or to problem solve.
 

Golfdriver97

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My name's Mike (obviously lol) and I'm new to the forum!
Since my BlackBerry 9900 in 2012/13, I've only had Android phones. I didn't buy flagships until in 2017, when I got an S9. I loved that phone - it was so fast. So sleek. The perfect size with the perfect fingerprint sensor (performance and location). Unfortunately for me, that was stolen and I had to get an S10 which had a wider screen which I didn't like as much. Its fingerprint sensor was garbage compared to the S9, and its location didn't make logging in easy!

Now I have an S22, which I like a lot!
Hopefully, it doesn't get stolen or broken like my last two phones! Lol

I'm also interested in computers and music and bicycles and hot chicks with pleasant temperaments
Welcome to the forums! What interest do you have in computers? Software or hardware?
 

gendo667

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My name's Mike (obviously lol) and I'm new to the forum!
Since my BlackBerry 9900 in 2012/13, I've only had Android phones. I didn't buy flagships until in 2017, when I got an S9. I loved that phone - it was so fast. So sleek. The perfect size with the perfect fingerprint sensor (performance and location). Unfortunately for me, that was stolen and I had to get an S10 which had a wider screen which I didn't like as much. Its fingerprint sensor was garbage compared to the S9, and its location didn't make logging in easy!

Now I have an S22, which I like a lot!
Hopefully, it doesn't get stolen or broken like my last two phones! Lol

I'm also interested in computers and music and bicycles and hot chicks with pleasant temperaments
Welcome to the forums!
 
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mike7877

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Hi Mike. Welcome to the forums. I have an S10+ which I keep as a backup phone. Beautiful screen but the microphone is spotty. Can’t rely on it as a phone any more.

I use Pixels now exclusively on Android.

I also enjoy computers.

I hope you enjoy the forums. Here for a chat or to problem solve.
Haha yeah, the microphone is a pretty necessary part of a phone!
 
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mike7877

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Welcome to the forums! What interest do you have in computers? Software or hardware?

More hardware than software, but both. I like following new developments in CPUs/GPUs, and overclocking. I particularly like finding the maximum CPU frequency with reasonable voltages, making it 100% stable. Then overclicking RAM and optimizing all the timings (primary, secondary, tertiary). GPUs I just make efficient by slowing them to 90% and dropping voltage 25% - they then work almost as well and take 40% less power.

Do you have interest in computers?
 
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Golfdriver97

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More hardware than software, but both. I like following new developments in CPUs/GPUs, and overclocking. I particularly like finding the maximum CPU frequency with reasonable voltages, making it 100% stable. Then overclicking RAM and optimizing all the timings (primary, secondary, tertiary). GPUs I just make efficient by slowing them to 90% and dropping voltage 25% - they then work almost as well and take 40% less power.

Do you have interest in computers?
Not to the point of overclocking, but yes. I've built several, and play PC games. My current rig is a R5 3600, with an RTX 3080. I was on pins and needles for the new Ryzen 7 series, but after I saw how they went in a strange direction of holding 95C, I'm like....I should either upgrade to the 5 series or wait to see what's going on.
I did overclock my RAM a little, but that's more because I know AMD likes higher-clocked RAM, and I only went from 2166 to 29XX (can't remember the frequency I put it at).
 

Laura Knotek

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More hardware than software, but both. I like following new developments in CPUs/GPUs, and overclocking. I particularly like finding the maximum CPU frequency with reasonable voltages, making it 100% stable. Then overclicking RAM and optimizing all the timings (primary, secondary, tertiary). GPUs I just make efficient by slowing them to 90% and dropping voltage 25% - they then work almost as well and take 40% less power.

Do you have interest in computers?
Welcome to Android Central. What's in your rig now? I have a Ryzen 7 5700X and a Radeon RX 6600XT. I'm running the GPU stock, but I undervolted the CPU -15 all cores.
 

mike7877

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Welcome to Android Central. What's in your rig now? I have a Ryzen 7 5700X and a Radeon RX 6600XT. I'm running the GPU stock, but I undervolted the CPU -15 all cores.
I've got a couple,
5800X3D with 1933/3866 (RAM, timings 14:14:14 CR1) with my 3080 I got on release, Sept 2020 :cool:

Obv that video card predates the 5800X3D. At the time I had a 9600K which I OC'd to 5.2Ghz all core, with RAM at 3900 (timings 14:15:15 CR2).

Coincidentally to yours, I bought a 6600XT for my older 9600K, but right now it's in my 2500K (such a good, now old, but still so fast, processor) running at 4.9Ghz, 16GB 2133 RAM (10:12:11 CR2)
 
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mike7877

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Not to the point of overclocking, but yes. I've built several, and play PC games. My current rig is a R5 3600, with an RTX 3080. I was on pins and needles for the new Ryzen 7 series, but after I saw how they went in a strange direction of holding 95C, I'm like....I should either upgrade to the 5 series or wait to see what's going on.
I did overclock my RAM a little, but that's more because I know AMD likes higher-clocked RAM, and I only went from 2166 to 29XX (can't remember the frequency I put it at).

Which resolution do you game at? Unless 1080p, you're likely good to wait on upgrading. I got the 5800X3D for my 3080 because I use a 240Hz monitor that's 1080p.
If I were you, I'd wait to see what's after Zen 4 or Intel's 13th gen.

Zen 4 is literally exactly Zen 3 with a few hundred mhz + DDR5 support, and Intel's 13th is the same as 12th with minor core count differences.

IF I were you I'd definitely wait to see. Unless you need more cores for a non gaming reason in the mean time
 
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Golfdriver97

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Which resolution do you game at? Unless 1080p, you're likely good to wait on upgrading. I got the 5800X3D for my 3080 because I use a 240Hz monitor that's 1080p.
If I were you, I'd wait to see what's after Zen 4 or Intel's 13th gen.

Zen 4 is literally exactly Zen 3 with a few hundred mhz + DDR5 support, and Intel's 13th is the same as 12th with minor core count differences.

IF I were you I'd definitely wait to see. Unless you need more cores for a non gaming reason in the mean time
1440. For me, right now that is good enough. The resolution is high enough that anything more is just a bonus, but I do try to shoot for at least 120 fps.

Edit for clarification: The more I see on Zen4 the more I do want to wait. Either that or just hold off on 4 and get a 5th gen Ryzen and be good for a bit. I'll admit, you are right, I don't really need to. Everything is fine as it is.
 

mike7877

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1440. For me, right now that is good enough. The resolution is high enough that anything more is just a bonus, but I do try to shoot for at least 120 fps.

Edit for clarification: The more I see on Zen4 the more I do want to wait. Either that or just hold off on 4 and get a 5th gen Ryzen and be good for a bit. I'll admit, you are right, I don't really need to. Everything is fine as it is.

Question for you - is your RAM 2133 stock and 2933 XMP, or does your RAM just run stock 2133 and you OC'd it to 2933?
Asking because a lot of RAM is 2133 or 2400 with XMP (authorized overclocking profiles) which are much faster. The RAM I run at 3866 - its stock speed is 2133 C14 with XMP of 4400 C19. I wanted tighter timings than 19, and my CPUs couldn't run 4400, so I lowered it to as fast as possible (each time ~3900), and then tightened the timings as far as they'd go (at the end I gave a bit of a voltage bump as well, to get from C15 to 14 - I'm pretty invested into overclocking lol)

There's a 95+ % chance your CPU's maximum supported RAM speed (while running the memory controller in sync with the RAM, which you definitely want to do), is between 3466 and 3733. I did a lot of reading about Zen 2 at launch, and (when talking about new builds) it was said performance increased pretty linearly up to 3600, and past that was very diminished returns. When they talked about performance, it was regarding programs heavily dependent on memory bandwidth or latency. Most things are unaffected by RAM speed. Even the average FPS of most games are only very loosely related to RAM speed. But average isn't the only metric of FPS that matters. 1% and 0.1% lows are probably equally important. An average FPS of 170 and 0.1% lows of 40fps is much MUCH much much worse than FPS of 100 and 0.1% lows of 75fps for example.

So back in mid 2020, DDR4 3200 was the speed to buy. If you wanted 3600 you'd be paying 50% more, and anything slower at the same size only saved you up to 10-15% (and that was going allllll th way down).

Why I'm telling you all this (if it's something you already know, I'm sorry lol) is to maximize your performance in the mean time while you wait for Zen 5 or Intel's 14th gen (if you're open to Intel).
Intel's 14th gen is a complete overhaul, and from everything I can tell, it should be really good. It's possible Zen 5 is the same as Zen 4 (or at least even more similar than the difference between Zen 3 and Zen 4), so if you always go with AMD, you might be waiting til Zen 6 (or whatever comes after Zen). Zen 5 could also be very different, but suck. A lot could happen lol.
Important: the newest consoles aren't going anywhere soon. Games made in the next few years will not demand anything more than they can give. If your PC is doing games made in the past two years perfectly fine, it'll continue to do games made in the next 4-5 just as well!
For optimizing your CPU's performance, at the beginning, you set your RAM voltage to 1.53V (don't worry, it won't stay there - once you've found the highest speed your CPU can handle, you then reduce this to 0.03V above what's stable.)
First, you aim for 3200/1600, then increase to 3333/1666, then 3466/1733, then 3600/1800, then 3733/1866. Your limit's the last one you hit!
Unless you've done RAM overclocking before, you should leave all the timings Auto. If you want I can give you more detailed instructions - I don't want to get too in depth because I don't know either if you already know everything I'd say, or if you even want to OC further.
So yeah.. for stability testing (backing down the voltage) you run Prime95 large FFT (easy) or MemTest5 (more complicated). When P95 can run for 4-6 hours without giving you an error, that's a stable voltage. So you find where you get an error, then increase RAM voltage by 0.03

If your average FPS is fine, but sometimes things get really choppy when things get busy (lots of people etc moving on screen), increasing your RAM speed can alleviate this.
You can run a program (I forget what it's called) that'll tell you what your average, 1%, and 0.1% FPS are to see if you've got an issue. If you're happy with gameplay, then I wouldn't even look into anything I just wrote about lol
 

Golfdriver97

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Question for you - is your RAM 2133 stock and 2933 XMP, or does your RAM just run stock 2133 and you OC'd it to 2933?
Asking because a lot of RAM is 2133 or 2400 with XMP (authorized overclocking profiles) which are much faster. The RAM I run at 3866 - its stock speed is 2133 C14 with XMP of 4400 C19. I wanted tighter timings than 19, and my CPUs couldn't run 4400, so I lowered it to as fast as possible (each time ~3900), and then tightened the timings as far as they'd go (at the end I gave a bit of a voltage bump as well, to get from C15 to 14 - I'm pretty invested into overclocking lol)

There's a 95+ % chance your CPU's maximum supported RAM speed (while running the memory controller in sync with the RAM, which you definitely want to do), is between 3466 and 3733. I did a lot of reading about Zen 2 at launch, and (when talking about new builds) it was said performance increased pretty linearly up to 3600, and past that was very diminished returns. When they talked about performance, it was regarding programs heavily dependent on memory bandwidth or latency. Most things are unaffected by RAM speed. Even the average FPS of most games are only very loosely related to RAM speed. But average isn't the only metric of FPS that matters. 1% and 0.1% lows are probably equally important. An average FPS of 170 and 0.1% lows of 40fps is much MUCH much much worse than FPS of 100 and 0.1% lows of 75fps for example.

So back in mid 2020, DDR4 3200 was the speed to buy. If you wanted 3600 you'd be paying 50% more, and anything slower at the same size only saved you up to 10-15% (and that was going allllll th way down).

Why I'm telling you all this (if it's something you already know, I'm sorry lol) is to maximize your performance in the mean time while you wait for Zen 5 or Intel's 14th gen (if you're open to Intel).
Intel's 14th gen is a complete overhaul, and from everything I can tell, it should be really good. It's possible Zen 5 is the same as Zen 4 (or at least even more similar than the difference between Zen 3 and Zen 4), so if you always go with AMD, you might be waiting til Zen 6 (or whatever comes after Zen). Zen 5 could also be very different, but suck. A lot could happen lol.
Important: the newest consoles aren't going anywhere soon. Games made in the next few years will not demand anything more than they can give. If your PC is doing games made in the past two years perfectly fine, it'll continue to do games made in the next 4-5 just as well!
For optimizing your CPU's performance, at the beginning, you set your RAM voltage to 1.53V (don't worry, it won't stay there - once you've found the highest speed your CPU can handle, you then reduce this to 0.03V above what's stable.)
First, you aim for 3200/1600, then increase to 3333/1666, then 3466/1733, then 3600/1800, then 3733/1866. Your limit's the last one you hit!
Unless you've done RAM overclocking before, you should leave all the timings Auto. If you want I can give you more detailed instructions - I don't want to get too in depth because I don't know either if you already know everything I'd say, or if you even want to OC further.
So yeah.. for stability testing (backing down the voltage) you run Prime95 large FFT (easy) or MemTest5 (more complicated). When P95 can run for 4-6 hours without giving you an error, that's a stable voltage. So you find where you get an error, then increase RAM voltage by 0.03

If your average FPS is fine, but sometimes things get really choppy when things get busy (lots of people etc moving on screen), increasing your RAM speed can alleviate this.
You can run a program (I forget what it's called) that'll tell you what your average, 1%, and 0.1% FPS are to see if you've got an issue. If you're happy with gameplay, then I wouldn't even look into anything I just wrote about lol
I'm going to admit...a lot of what you wrote went over my head. I'm pretty sure I just OC the RAM to what I set it to. I don't recall about XMP...If I had to guess I think it was already on. I know for certain I left the timings alone/what the BIOS/UEFI had preset.

I don't really notice a choppiness in my gameplay. For the most part, my rig can handle just about anything I have thrown at it.

The 3600 that I have is the first AMD I have used in a while. The last AMD I had was a laptop CPU and long before ZEN came about.

I'll admit, I'm glad you have found a place here in the forums. Hope to see you around in the discussions.
 
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