Custom PC

[Sal]

While all of you fancy cats are enjoying your brand new builds with the latest technology I'm still over here stuck in 2010 (literally built this in 2011 w/ Antec 1200 v3 and CP-1000 PSU) 😆

 

[Fox]

@Sal  I've never bought a sound card, they were always just included with the PC in some way, whether internal or PCI. But I did find a cool Sound Blaster card once (2004-ish, after a tenant was evicted from their apartment and I was helping out with repairs / renovations) with a 5 1/4 slot interface with fancy adapters and whatnot, but I never found a reason to use it as sound cards were being phased out even back then.

 

Also, I'm stuck with a GTX1060 which is slightly worse than yours... so you're not alone with outdated hardware. I was able to upgrade everything else though. I just refuse to submit to scalpers.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Fox (see edit history)

[BioFringe]

@Sal

 

Thanks for insights. They're much appreciated.

 

In a perfect world or even just a pre-pandemic world I could have pieced this together to be more perfect but there were many constraints that I had to work with so ultimately I'm lucky to be getting what I got let alone anything at all.

[BioFringe]

Got the GPU today. Everything looks legit. Gigabyte won't confirm anything so I'm left to wonder but I'm 99% certain that it's an actual new card. What do you think...New, Used, Fake?

 

I haven't taken any other pictures yet but visually speaking the card looks like you'd expect a new card to look. I don't see any red flags that would be obvious to me but if anyone has any suggestion on anything important to look for please let me know.

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by BioFringe (see edit history)

[JCrook1028]

15 hours ago, BioFringe said:

Got the GPU today. Everything looks legit. Gigabyte won't confirm anything so I'm left to wonder but I'm 99% certain that it's an actual new card. What do you think...New, Used, Fake?

 

I haven't taken any other pictures yet but visually speaking the card looks like you'd expect a new card to look. I don't see any red flags that would be obvious to me but if anyone has any suggestion on anything important to look for please let me know.

 

Sometimes "rebuilt" etc products are simply put thru the process because of damaged packaging.

[doughphunghus]

4 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:

if anyone has any suggestion on anything important to look for please let me know.

sort of "small scratch marks" on the metal pads that insert into the card slot, and maybe "finger marks" on shiny surfaces, I can't think of any. Of course, if the card was "tested" at the factory and inserted into a slot it might have a little bit of scratching on the pads.

 

Long ago I got a "used" card (cheap) and there were a few small surface mount resistors/capacitors broken off on it.  I suspect it was dropped/damaged before being opened/used (the box was damaged) and someone just resold it.  I'm glad I noticed the little specks in the static bag before I opened it as I was able to find where they were supposed to be connected ( and they looked identical) and I soldered them back on and the card worked.  Long story short: maybe shake the bag a bit and see if anything else is flating around in there before opening, but that's hopefully an incredibly rare occurrence.

 

EDIT: The yellow sticker looks a bit weird to me ( and the static bag...looseness").  I don't know gigabytes's products or how they ship stuff *at all* but there's lots of internet discussion over this sticker and if it means anything.  Here's a few links when searching: "Gigabyte Qualified" static bag

 

https://forum.gigabyte.us/thread/7456/gigabyte-qualified-yellow-tape-refurbished

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[BioFringe]

Thanks for the insights. I was able to confirm that everything was good to go via a Gigabyte rep. The thing that kinda sealed it for me after posting about this here but before contacting the rep was that the gold bars (as mentioned above) were pristine. Now I'm wondering if they even tested this card

 

All the parts are in my possession as of this afternoon so the build begins at dawn. I should probably research what needs to be done right after the build as I haven't done a fresh system configuration in over a decade. Wouldn't hurt to brush up on some things.

 

Thanks again.

 

EDIT: So with A20 right around the corner it seems that this build couldn't have been timed better. Finally going to get back into some good old fashioned zombie killin. Awesome!

Edited December 4, 2021 by BioFringe (see edit history)

[Fox]

These days, the amount of effort the scammers are willing to go through in order to rip ppl off is impressive. You could have a card that looks in every single way a new RTX card with a fake Gygabyte sticker and everything... but as soon as you benchmark it or check it out in hwinfo you find out they swapped out the core or it's a previous generation card with a new cooler and backplate on it.

 

So you're not out of the woods yet. Which is why I would never take that risk in buying something like that from a scalper.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Fox (see edit history)

[BioFringe]

@Fox...Yeah, the benchmarks will tell the whole story for sure. Those will be coming in the next day or two. The system is built, Windows is updated and the graphics drivers are installed. Now I just need to set up a custom fan profile and I can start the tests. I was a bit nervous when I first booted the system because I wasn't aware of Idle Fan Stop on the newer GPUs so I thought that the card was busted right out of the gate. I'll know if the fans are properly working or not once the fan curve is setup. Trying to figure out what games from my library would be good stress testers. No Man's Sky, Subnautica, Doom and Prey all come to mind since I had problems with those at 30 FPS on my other system. I'll need Red Dead Redemption II of course and once 7D2D A20 releases to the public I'll be all over that.

 

Very stressful weekend, and I didn't even run into any major issues, but I think good times are coming up soon.

Edited December 6, 2021 by BioFringe (see edit history)