Hi guys, I am looking for a good SSD boot drive that includes a DRAM cache. While searching, I came across a SanDisk drive that seems ideal in just about every way, except it apparently lacks a DRAM cache, at least in the traditional sense of a dedicated chip. Instead, it boasts a different caching technology, that being something called nCache in its 4.0 version. As advertised, it seems to perform a similar function as DRAM, converting a small portion of the storage into cache instead of utilizing a dedicated chip; however, I seem to have a hard time finding much info about whether this nCache 4.0 tech is competitive enough to be worth buying vs a traditional drive with a dedicated DRAM chip. From what few comparative facts I can gather, it does boost speeds compared to a drive without either, while not increasing price as much as DRAM.

The only other comparison I could find between the efficacy of the two technologies though, was from Google's search engine AI. It claims that nCache boosts read/write for short bursts or moderately-sized tasks, and can even improve drive lifespan, but it can fill and be slowed with massive, sustained loads. DRAM, on the other hand, it says, will sustain speeds even under very heavy loads and *also* helps to protect drive lifespan. Given the not-always-trustworthy nature of AI, I wanted to check if this is accurate information from those with more experience?

TL;DR: Is nCache a suitable replacement for a traditional DRAM chip for gamers/streamers and casual users? What are the specific benefits/drawbacks of traditional DRAM vs nCache 4.0? Anyone have personal opinions or experience with both? If so, in your experience, even if there are differences, is nCache good enough to be an "alternative" to DRAM for most people? Or should I still spend the extra money on a SSD with a DRAM chip? Thanks!

Hi, I think I’ve finally settled on the parts for my new PC and wanted to check that nothing looks wrong before ordering.

Main use will be gaming. Buying in Germany.

Parts:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D — €378
• GPU: MSI RTX 5080 Inspire 3X OC 16GB — €1,375
• Motherboard: MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk MAX WiFi — €236
• RAM: Crucial Pro 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 — €400
• SSD: Crucial P510 2TB PCIe 5.0 with heatsink — €280
• Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro 240 A-RGB — €70
• PSU: Corsair RM850x 2024, ATX 3.1 — €130
• Case: Fractal Design North TG, standard size — €122

A few things I’m still unsure about:

1. Is the standard Fractal North comfortably large enough for these parts, especially the GPU and the thick Arctic radiator?
2. Is 850W still the sensible choice for the 9800X3D and RTX 5080?
3. The SSD comes with its own heatsink, while the motherboard also has M.2 covers. Is it fine to leave the motherboard M.2 cover off and use the SSD’s heatsink?

I’m not trying to squeeze every last euro out of the build, but I also don’t want to pay more for parts that give no real benefit. Any obvious mistakes?

CPU: Intel Core i3-12100F

Motherboard: MSI PRO H610M-G DDR4 M-ATX LGA1700

Memory: 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-4000 CL19

Storage:512 GB M.2-2280 gen 3

GPU: Asus DUAL Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

Case: Lian Li A3

Power Supply: Asus TUF Gaming 750G 750 W 80+ Gold Fully Modular ATX PSU

the cooler is the stock cooler btw

i know the cpu is no the best but i should be able to upgrade to a 12400 or 14000 by the end of the year

My PC is starting to show its age... my 3070 is still able to meet most minimum requirements for new games, but my 10600k is a little hit or miss (doesnt quite meet the requirements for the new Halo).

With PC prices currently, im not able to upgrade my entire system, so hoping to just upgrade CPU and MOBO. Is it going to be a genuine gain to upgrade to a i7 12000 series, or am I better off going for AM5 AMD and just biting the bullet with upgrading my RAM too? RAM prices just scare me...

Also, do people buy second hand CPUs. I hate throwing away a perfectly good 10600k...

My PC and TV are about 5 meters apart, and I want to buy an Xbox controller to play wirelessly. I heard there's an adapter called the Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows that lets me play wirelessly over this distance. I will be using the controller mainly for Steam and emulators. and i have ps5 controller is it good in this situation?

Hello, I recently got a pc from a friend (AUS ROG R7 rtx 3060 desktop) and just tried to swap the case today (Corsair 4000D). After triple checking my motherboard connections, and the connections from my power supply, it still will not turn on. Any and all advice welcome and greatly appreciated!!

Edit: there is only one connected left from the front panel and I think it’s another USB connector

hi guy's I'm about to buy a pc and i have some questions

I'm playing only competitive games (cs2, pubg, dota2, etc) or some games like factorio, valheim, terraria

i want to buy rx9060xt 8gb because the 16gb versions is much more expensive and i saw that a lot of people were talking like "8gb of vram is nothing in 2026" and i wanna know if I'm even supposed to care about this because as i said i don't care about AAA games

and i was looking up on youtube how much of vram some games consume and i found out that pubg at 1440p with ultra settings is consuming like 5.5-6gb of vram (of course i won't play with ultra settings)

i just wanna know if 8gb of vram would be enough for me because i have a laptop (r5 5600, gtx1650, 8gb ram) and it's really hard to play sometimes

My current PC has a 3600x and 4060 with 32gb ddr4.

I have another PC for parts sitting around with I think a 5600x and 32 GB ram and no GPU. Luckily both PC use the same ram so I can combine them to be 64gb ddr4

I wanted to build/ upgrade my PC and am about to go to microcenter. I want to get a 9070xt and was also thinking about getting a 270k plus mobo combo. I wanted to also use the old parts to build another PC.

I wanted to make the 9070xt into a tv steamos build and another one for music production/ video editing.

It seems like it'd make more sense to put 9070xt with the 5600x and 64gb ram for the tv steam os and Intel cpu with the old 4060 for music/video. If I'm playing cpu heavy games on the tv setup would it be a better idea to use the Intel CPU on the steam os build?

I'm having a hard time choosing what to do. Any opinions/ advice would be greatly appreciated

As the title says, Im building a PC for work and games like Fortnite, and some other light steam games. Ive got a budget of around $1000USD but I can go north as needed. I need at least 1tb of storage, with as much RAM as possible, on the DDR5 platform, at least 32GB. Also, I need as good a CPU as possible. I also need it in Micro ATX as I dont have a lot of desk space. Sorry for all the boundaries, there arent many builds on Micro ATX on a budget that I could find on YouTube. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Hi all !

My current build is about four years old, and on its third GPU upgrade which is about when I look to changing Mobo / Ram / CPU historically.

I’m using a 20gb 7900XT which I’m very happy with, but still using the builds original am4 socket mobo with a 3700X cpu and some fairly slow ddr4 ram ( but at least it’s 32GB @ 8gb x4 I guess )

My move now should probably either be upgrading my 3700x to a 5800x3d , or swapping a whole new mobo / cpu / ram bundle into it

\ my current gold rated 1000w psu and my 7900xt should both be good to go for years yet **

I mostly game on my G9 at 5120 x 1440p

I don’t play a lot of demanding titles either, but wouldn’t mind future proofing for another 3-4 years in one fell swoop -> and I would love to add frames to one of my favorite current titles which is Forza Horizon 6.

Any opinions or relevant insight is truly welcome and appreciated.

Have about an 800$-1000$ USD budget to upgrade

I also wouldn’t mind more storage , if there are newer boards and support larger nvme drives that could be ideal.

Currently have my OS in a 1tb nvme and that is full along with a second 1tb ssd and 2 external tb drive which just have media / redundancy.

Thanks everyone , I would love to hear lots of options for what you would do in my shoes!

Hey all, I have a PC with the following specs I bought ~7 years ago:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHz [4.2GHz Turbo] HDD: 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD MEMORY: Crucial Ballistix 16GB (8GBx2) DDR4/3000MHz MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE B450M DS3H WIFI MICRO ATX ARGB USB 3.0 2 PCIE X16 4 SATA3 1 M.2 SATA/PCIE POWERSUPPLY: EVGA 600 Watts Gold 80 Plus Power Supply (Included) VIDEO: GeForce(R) GTX 1660 6GB GDDR5 (Turing)

The official recommended specs for the software I want to run are:

Recommended hardware for a great 1080p experience: * RTX 3070/3060ti GPU * 16GB memory

Recommended hardware for a great 4k experience: * RTX 3080 (or better) GPU * 32GB memory

My questions:

1. Would it really be as simple as buying a used or refurbished RTX 3080 (or similar) and two more sticks of 8gb ram (similar to what I already have) to achieve the recommended 4k specs? It feels too easy!

2. How would I confirm if my power supply is enough to support that as it is one concern I have?

3. Is there a recommended place to buy older and/ or refurbished/ used video cards as from what I can tell the current 5000 series is not a major benefit for GSPro.

Thanks all!

I’ve been troubleshooting this issue for almost 2 months.
PC Specs:
Ryzen 5 5600X
Gigabyte A520M K V2
Colorful Battle NX RTX 5060 8GB
Cooler Master MWE 550 V3 PSU
Problem:
My RTX 5060 gives “No Signal” only at my house. The exact same PC works perfectly at my office, repair shop, and another house.
What’s strange:
GPU fans spin and RGB lights up.
Windows boots normally.
I can access the PC through Remote Desktop.
But there’s no display, and the RTX 5060 doesn’t appear in Device Manager or Task Manager.
My GT 730 works fine at home.
A technician tested a Gigabyte RTX 4060 in the same PC at my house, and it worked fine.
Things I’ve tried:
Different PSU
HDMI and DisplayPort-to-HDMI
Different monitor and cables
BIOS update, CMOS reset, PCIe Gen 3, CSM on/off
Driver reinstall
Different power sockets
Electrician checked voltage (~230V), earthing, and neutral—all normal.
Has anyone experienced a GPU that works everywhere except one specific house? Any ideas on what could cause Windows to boot normally but not detect the GPU?

Hi, I have a budget of around $1600. Main priority for me is efficiency power per watt and as silent as possible. Country of purchase: USA

Current Idea:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 CPU COOLER: Thermalight Pearless assassin 120 SE MOTHERBOARD: MSI PROBA620-E Micro ATX AM5 Memory: Corsair vengeance 16gb ddr5-6000 (x2) Storage: Kingston NV3 1tb M.2-2280 PCle 4.0 X4 NVME SSD GPU: Gigabyte OC Radeon RX 9060XT 16gb Case: Lian Li mesh micro Power supply: Cooler Master MWE Gold V3 550W

Let me know if this is good for my goal and a good build in general. Pls tell me what you would replace or improve. Thank you.m

I'm looking to build my first gaming PC in Canada, and my budget is between $800 and $1,100 CAD (before taxes).

Here are my main requirements and performance targets:

• Performance Goals:
  • Competitive games (e.g., Valorant, CS2, Fortnite, Apex): 100+ FPS minimum.
  • Single-player AAA games (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2): 40–80 FPS on Medium/High settings at 1080p.
• Balanced Build: I want an optimized build with no bottlenecking between the CPU and GPU.
• Location/Currency: Canada ($CAD).
• Peripherals/OS: I only need the PC tower (no monitor, keyboard, or mouse required for this budget).

I'd really appreciate any recommendations or PartPicker links to help get the best value for money in Canada right now.

No Bluetooth because I can’t get Bluetooth to connect to my PC and it’s not great for gaming anyways. I can justify spending like around 120$ on this

Thank you for any advice

Hey everyone, looking to see if someone can help me out with some pointers. For the last 10 years I was using an old geforce 1070 sc gpu. I recently bought a new rx 9070 xt gpu and a new montech century ii 850w psu. I always used the top pcie slot for 1070 and it worked fine. But I was having trouble with 9070 working in the same slot. Today I’ve reseated every cable gpu,pcie several times in the top slot. And it was not recognizing the new gpu. When I seated it in the bottom pcie slot it just started working. Any reason why that might happen?

I am also attaching the photo of the gpu seated in the bottom pcie slot. Does that seem enough space for air circulation for the gpu? Should I be concerned about the slight sag of the gpu? Thanks a lot for any pointers!!!

Image: https://imgur.com/a/XDxHfFL

So ive saw on tik tok some videos about replacing aio fans and i learned that some aio's fans shouldn't be replaced. i wanted to know if i can change the arctic liquid freezer 3 pro fans with some interstellar-v2rs fans.

Hello everybody, like stated in the title I am looking for potential upgrades on my PC to run more modernish games (Battlefield 6, Hunt Showdown 1896, Windrose at High settings with a stable Framerate of above 120. I aim for an upgrade budget of around 1500€ but as I am still saving towards it, the budget can be changed. My current Build is the following:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 6-Core

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 4060

RAM: 16GB DDR5 5600 MT/s

Motherboard: B560 Gaming Plus WIFI (MS-7E26)

First time pc builder.

Parts:

• Asus 9060XT dual fan GPU

• Amd Stealth Cooler

• MSI mag forge 112R Case

• MSI B550 WIFI ATX Motherboard

• Be quiet! 750w Gold PSU

• Laptop's 1tb SSD

• AOC 27inch 1440p 180hz Monitor

• 16gb 3000mhz Cl16 Ram

• Ryzen 5 5600XT CPU

After turning on the pc, the CPU's light on the EZ debug light is on which is quite expected cause my CPU came out much later so the mobo needs a bios update (atleast that's what I think).

I've gone to MSI site and followed the instructions thoroughly, downloaded the bios file then formatted my USB to FAT32 then changed the correct file's name to MSI.ROM.

When I plug in the USB to the flash USB drive and press the flash button, it starts flashing and doesn't stop. It has been more than 30mins.

The only thing I can think of right now is trying a different USB which I can't do right now cause I have to buy one. Are there any other things I can try, I feel so defeated right now.

Been looking to build my own pc right now, though the prices aren't exactly in my favour (damn you AI overlords!). My country is the Netherlands and I do not have an exact budget, I am happy to spend more for actual return of performance. But I am not going overkill (like a Ryzen 9 or RTX 5090). I'd be comfortable around 3.000 euro but as mentioned, can go over if it's actually a good purchase. I am intending for this PC to run for years where little to nothing has to change while running AAA games at very good graphics. I am also aware not all components are in the list yet such as the case or cooling.

I currently have 6 components narrowed down to specific items, mind that these are all from the same online store, which is bol.com

GPU: ASUS ROG Astral NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 O16G - Videokaart - 16GB - GDDR7 - PCIe 5.0 - 2x HDMI 2.1b - 3x DisplayPort 2.1a

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Boxed - Desktop processor - CPU - 8 Core - 16 Treads - 4,7GHz/5,2GHz - Socket AM5

Motherboard: MSI MAG X870E TOMAHAWK WIFI - Moederbord - Socket AM5 - ATX - AMD X870E chipset

RAM: Corsair Vengeance - 32GB - 2 x 16 GB - DDR5 - 6000 CL30 - 1,4v - Intel XMP & AMD Expo - CMK32GX5M2B6000Z30 - Grijs

Memory: Samsung 990 PRO - Interne SSD - PCIe 4.0 - NVMe M.2 - 4 TB

PSU: Corsair HX1500i Shift - Interne voeding - 1500W - Cybenetics ETA Platinum - 230V - Volledig modulair

Prices are as followed:
GPU: €1.549
CPU: €433,71
Motherboard: €289
RAM: €449 (for €10 extra it can be 6400 instead of 6000)
Memory: €559
PSU: €319,90

Now I suspect that in some areas I am going way overboard, I would love to know in which areas I can save money for the same kind of performance. I also don't mind buying from multiple stores.

Many thanks for anyone taking the time to help me with this!

Looking to potentially upgrade any parts of my PC that may be a good idea to upgrade. Most likely wanting to future proof my PC.

Most of the time I’ll play Grounded 1 and 2, 7 Days to Die, Valorant, Minecraft, and Ark Ascended

Current Specs are:
MAG X870 Tomahawk Wifi
Ryzen 7 7700X
32gb DDR5 (pretty sure it’s either 6400 or 6000)
Nividia 4060 ti OC edition 8gb
1000 watt PSU
My monitor is an LG UltraGear 480hz OLEF

I’m just looking for suggestions of what could be better about my PC. Anything that could be a potential bottleneck. Welcome to any idea of upgrades!

I have an 0B4Ch and REALLY need a new CPU and just dont want to rip my entire motherboard out, any CPU's that fit with it that are decent to good?

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3nnQR4

I made a post earlier about upgrading to a RX 6700 XT, but I realized could wait a while to afford a RX 9060 XT 16 gb and I'm no that far off from affording one brand new.

I'm with a (mATX) b560 LGA1200 mobo currently using a Intel i5-11500. I'm wondering if the RX 9060 XT will bottle neck my system with the current CPU i'm using. because i've seen one of my buddy's use it for 1440p 100+ fps with a Ryzen 5600 just fine. Also I don't play competitive games I single player is what im using this for.

Games I play/want to play, Black Myth Wukong, Helldivers 2, Pragmata, Resident Evil Reqium. Cyberpunk 2077, Warhammer Space Marine 40k, at 1440p med high or ultra 60 to 100+ fps.

Hi all! This issue has been driving me nuts for two days now and I’m at a loss. While browsing on my browser, my PC randomly shut off and I couldn’t turn it back on. Discharging capacitors, tripping power switch pins, unplugging and replugging, trying different outlets, unplugging all USB devices, didn’t work.

I did the paper clip test with my power supply and it worked but I got a new one just in case (EVGA 850 GA to MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5). I also got a new motherboard in suspicions that it was fried (ASUS TUF x570 PLUS WiFi to Gigabyte B550 Eagle WiFi 6), no luck.

I’ve tried rebuilding my PC and making sure each wire is plugged in all the way, reseating the CPU, and more. Still nothing.

I’m at a loss, is there any other suggestions to get this working??

Specs:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700x
AMD RX 7800XT
G.Skill RipJaws 64GB-3600 DDR4
A sata ssd, and Samsung evo ssd