That's me in the middle of course 

Sold out now anyway, it's like trying to buy a ticket for Kate Bush. The GPU market is virtually non-existent at the moment, apart from used and scalpers.

I've been trying to buy a new card for about 3 months now and pricing is going to be horrible when they do become available again, well over MSRP. I would like an RTX 3060 Ti, but I'm not holding my breath!

And so it begins. 

I thought I might as well start populating the case.  I slammed a few disk drives in without incident, and one of these below the optical drive.  It's often handy to have everything in one place like that.



My first problem came when attempting to install the extra case fans I'd bought.  They didn't come with screws, and the screws that came with the mobo are about 50mm too short.

A packet of these is arriving tomorrow.



It's a bit like solving a puzzle, starting a build.  Some things are easier to place before the mobo is fitted, and some things are better fitted to the mobo before it's attached to the case. 

I've now ordered three decent fans to replace the cheap ones I'm not exactly overjoyed with.  The old ones have red LEDs to match the case fan that was already fitted, however, the thought of them permanently on has rather palled over time, so I've ordered three that adhere to the mobo's "MSI Mystic Light," protocol, which means if I'm on my own they can all be turned off, but if I want to show off to the grandchildren I can make them do all sorts of lighting tricks.  Yeah, I know, little things... 

That'll do for tonight.  Hopefully when my little rubber doo-dads arrive tomorrow I can get all of the fans in place, prior to setting up the mobo and installing it.  Then it's in with the PSU and the liquid cooler for the CPU.

I've used them before. In fact, if I knew where to look, there are probably a few knocking around in a box somewhere. 

I really should have tried this "relaxed" approach to system building years ago.  It's far less frustrating, and much better for (what's left of) one's mental health.    It's also brilliant having Amazon Prime to fall back on.  Anything missing?  It'll be here tomorrow.  Love it.

I've heard of bleeding a car, but bleeding a computer?

There's a bit more news on NVIDIA's new RTX 3060 card, including some interesting (or frightening) specs.  Bear in mind that the basic model is to be priced at $329.00 on launch.


The RTX 3060’s key specifications include:



13 shader-TFLOPs

25 RT-TFLOPs for ray tracing

101 tensor-TFLOPs to power NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling)

192-bit memory interface

12GB of GDDR6 memory

NVIDIA Broadcast is a suite of audio and video AI enhancements, including virtual backgrounds, motion capture and advanced noise removal, that users can apply to chats, Skype calls and video conferences.

One-click automatic GPU Tuning: GeForce Experience now supports GPU Tuning, which can automatically create overclocking profiles by using an advanced scanning algorithm.

Enhanced in-game monitoring overlay: GeForce Experience’s already robust in-game overlay now adds performance stats, temperatures and latency metrics, including NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer stats.

Powered by dedicated AI processors on GeForce RTX GPUs called Tensor Cores, NVIDIA DLSS boosts frame rates while generating beautiful, crisp game images and gives gamers the performance headroom to maximize ray-tracing settings and increase output resolutions.

There's more. like being able to handle the top-of-the-line games at 60 fps in full 4K if you've got the monitor to cope with it.

This is their entry level card in the range, and to say it could revolutionise low-end gaming machines is, possibly, an understatement.  The card I'm using now cost me just over £250.00 three-and-a-bit years ago.  For the extra hundred quid the GeForce RTX 3060 has twice the raster performance and 10x the ray-tracing performance of that card just for starters, and it's the baby of the range.

My GTX 1060 is still fairly decent, as far as actually running games goes, not that I'm a huge gamer. I really want the ray-tracing power for rendering 3D models, as I think I've mentioned, but having something that will do the business for games too does appeal to me. Every so often I see a  game that looks interesting, and it would be nice not to have to wonder if my machine is up to it.
I'm still sort of hoping that the cards higher up the range will attract the nutcases who are crypto-mining or the hard-core gamers, and that will boost the availability of the low-end RTX 3060. It's a pretty slim chance, I know.   I'm not rushing the build just yet. 

I had to look it up, but now I know.

How are you doing, Tim ?

Haha, 5 months ago I would have said the same - virtual Lego! I think it's a very clever game, especially for nerds. The game mechanics are pretty unique on the Java Edition, which is the version I play. I'm not a gamer really, only played a handful in total and nothing for over 20 years, but it's kept me amused over the winter. I like it's open nature and that you decide where the game goes rather than having to follow a set path . . . . keeps me out of trouble anyway along with the 100+ million other players! Supposedly the worlds most popular game. 

I'm doing OK, still keeping my head down and looking forward to some kind of normality returning, it's not easy being totally isolated, but then a lot easier than some people are finding it, so can't complain. My whisky stash has taken a hit mind you. I've taken the view of cutting out the news and social media, which is pretty easy without a TV, so I'm isolated in more ways than one, which I prefer.

Slinger;

Haha yes Paul, flight sim game controls indeed . . . . 100 quid for the game, then thousands for the controllers. Unlikely I'll get that involved, but I'd like to give it a go. Mind you once I get out of lockdown I doubt I'll be in front of the PC that much, but for now it's been a life saver and thank goodness I upgraded before sourcing parts became so hard and costly. 

I'll probably end up with a 3060 too, as I think the others will either be impossible to find or too expensive - I certainly won't be buying from an eBay scalper, so until Scan can get me one, I'll have to wait . . . . . . . and wait . . . . and wait