shmups.system11.org

I'm using what I think is a standard Verizon router with a fiber optic connection, I would guess the limited speed over wired has to do with the fact I'm using a random ethernet cable I found in the closet behind the cat's litter box daisy chained to the ethernet cable that came with the Xbox 360.

I guess I could just get longer, better quality cables...

It's more about getting a cable capable of transmitting the data at the speeds you want, but yeah, it sounds like you need a different one.

This thread had me investigating any updates for my x470 board regarding AMDs initial claim the x470 chipset wouldn't support Zen-3 due to bios limitations.
If you were slightly outta the loop as I was, they've reversed** that decision and now say Zen-3 support will be available via a beta-bios.

** it falls on the manufacturers. it's speculative at this point, but the presumption is the zen (ryzen 1000) instruction set will have to be removed to make room.
additionally, the majority of the images/graphics are removed/simplified; MSI already did this for several of their x470 boards with 16mb bios' when they added support for Zen-2.

Well, I got up early this morning, and camped out on Nvidia's shop page for 3 hours, waiting for 9 am est to roll around so I could purchase the literal second the RTX 3080 became available. Surely that was overkill right? Well apparently refreshing every minute 5 minutes before 9 am wasn't good enough, because the cards immediately went from "coming soon" to "sold out" in less than a minute.

Fuck Nvidia, I'm buying Big Navi instead.

It was obvious for a while only the lucky ones* would get a card at launch. I'm happy I placed my order early, so when the retailer I purchased from gets more I'm early in the queue (the retailer expects more cards for sale 1 November, but expects my order to ship 30 September. Both are probably made up numbers, but it gives some idea where I am in the queue). That and I won't be affected if they try to raise price due to demand.

* Or unlucky ones if it turns out to be a bad purchase for some reason. Some hardware flaw yet unnoticed, AMD coming out with something revolutionary soon.

Gamers Nexus claims this wasn't a paper launch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHogHMvZscM
I'm not sure they're trustworthy, they do want to stay close to the companies in question, but they're at least more trustworthy than Nvidia.

Also, unsurprisingly PCIe 3.0 vs 4.0 makes little difference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DKVVtirNM8
I've read another review that gives similar results, I'm not strictly trusting Gamers Nexus on this. Obviously if you're buying today, PCIe 3.0 vs 4.0 is decided by if you want an AMD processor or Intel processor, but if you have an older system, no reason to avoid the 3080 if you're going 4K (I consider 3080 overkill for 1440p. You could definitely benefit from it, I just wouldn't waste the money).

I'd be amazed if there's more than a handful of cards that fully utilize PCIe 3.0 32GB/s bandwidth. The little bit I've read on PCIe 4.0 points to it's real benefits being with storage, and unsurprisingly they're throwing theoretical limits around (with large files).

on the X570 boards. been awhile since i've seen active cooling.... maybe ~'05 or '06 when evga still manufactured boards. anyways, the bearings in those little fans are often prone to an early death.

Yeah, originally I was planning on getting a X570 board since they were the fanciest and I was under the mistaken impression that chipset lanes = all the lanes, and X570 was the only board type with PCIE 4.0 chipset lanes. I was later informed that B550 was a better choice since it was more recent, supports PCIE 4.0 over CPU lanes, the X570 was apparently rushed to market, and the X570 fans are apparently more trouble than they're worth.

I spent the last 5 days sitting at my PC, staring at my shop auto refresher and intently reading a Discord channel dedicated to tracking RTX 3080 stock. Whenever stock went up, generally either the site would go down from the massive spike in traffic (after which the graphic cards sell out while I'm struggling to access the site), or the cards go out of stock just as I'm finalizing payment. Despite receiving immediate alerts whenever stock went live, I was still unable to secure a RTX 3080. Until yesterday that is. See Zotac randomly put up stock on their website for a second time, and everybody immediately crashed the site. Again. While everyone else was busy trying to get onto Zotac's website, I had already given up on Zotac and randomly decided to check Amazon. They had suddenly gotten a small shipment of EVGA XC3 Ultra RTX 3080 cards at that moment. First attempt to check out, it returned an error. I tried a second time, it went through. Amazon sold out of the card about a minute afterwards. Amazon gave me a delivery estimate of October 17th.

Fast forward to today, my Amazon order was not voided (as had been experienced by people ordering on Newegg and during an earlier Amazon restock), and the delivery date had in fact been moved up to October 7th. Looks like I managed to secure the RTX 3080. And I won't have to worry about debating whether to wait for Zen 3, since my graphics card will be delivered right before the Zen 3 announcement.

Of course, I wonder whether I'll have to repeat this nightmare to get a Zen 3 CPU during that launch... I'm thinking if I can't get a Zen 3 CPU after a week of trying, I'll just go with a (most likely discounted at that point) Ryzen 3900X.

Probably a wise choice on the B550. I've read nothing but problem about the X570, all of which pertain to heat. But,what do I know.... I thought evga hadn't manufactured a board in almost 15 years.
I presumed they called it quits after the chipset I mentioned (nforce 680sli) was marred with problems. anyways....

Regarding the Zen 3: I expect the 4300|4350 will be difficult to find if 3300X is any indication.