*Official* NBR Desktop Overclocker's Lounge [laptop owners welcome, too]

I just did some more testing to try to work out the rough size of the SLC cache on my Sabrent Rocket 1TB. You know that dummy file creator program I used to create a file containing random incompressible data, well when it's actually creating the file and writing it to disk I can see the speed of write - at the start it's the typical 2.2GB/s write speed, and then it slows to about 1GB/s write speed after a short period of time. I used HWInfo to work out the size of the SLC cache. See following screenshot, I pressed the print screen button as soon as the write performance slowed, and then found the difference between two numbers I've circled in red - which is how much data has been written to the drive during the test at that point in time - turns out it's 25GB! I tried different file sizes, and it always slows down after 25GB written.

I got the same 25GB SLC cache result when I asked the program to create a file that didn't contain random data, so I'm a bit puzzled about my earlier 2.3GB/s file transfer speeds of a 170GB file that contained only zeros (dummy file created by fsutil command) which we thought was due to writing highly compressible data. Unless this dummy file creator program I'm using for the testing in this post is limited by the RAM size of my PC maybe somehow (16GB RAM) - maybe some one else can test what sustained write speeds they get when creating a large file of say 40GB using this program (https://www.mynikko.com/dummy/)? The 25GB SLC cache figure is a figure I've seen in a few obscure REDDIT posts regarding Phison E12 drives, so it tallies.

(I've had a look at the text files that the program creates, and if you select random incompressible data, then the file is composed of random Chinese symbols, if you don't tick that box in the program, then it just contains an empty text file, nothing written in it.)

Might be interesting for some folks with NVMe drives to do the same testing I've done here using that program I linked? I'd be curious to see what kind of SLC cache sizes you've calculated based on it, as it would help to confirm my testing and place more weight on my observations. (Just before you start the test, you obviously have to press the Reset button in HWInfo to reset min & max write totals, otherwise you won't be calculating the amount of data written during the test, it would include data written before the test too, which would be innaccurate).

 

Hey guys, any reason Mini DP port would stop working after VBIOS Flash? Any fix? I went from 80w rtx 2060 notebook to 90w 2060 notebook and lost mini do functionality.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

im guessing u flashed a vbios for a different machine? so stuff like that is to be expected...

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

Yeah I assume the one I flashed to probably doesn't have a DP.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

Getting bored with my gt83, considering getting a desktop or the gt76 titan. I want to re-use my so-dimms. Can anyone point me to a high end desktop mobo for overclocking that takes so-dimms(intel of course)?.

 

You'll want to not limit yourself to such a small selection of choices by setting SODIMM's as a requirement, there's just a small number available. On newegg just now I checked and only 2xSODIMM was available in power search, and nothing came up as being available for LGA1151, only older sockets:
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?Submit=Property&N=100007627 4814 600077295

I also did a search within LGA1151 (7 pages) and searching for SODIMM found nothing:
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?Submit=Property&N=100007627 600567584 4814

When you sell the laptop you can use those $ to get something awesome as a desktop, like a new Ryzen 3xxx x570 with PCIE 4.0 NVME SSD's.

The GT8x series is / was awesome, I hope MSI brings it back in a new more powerful form with 18"+ high FPS / res screen.

 

I want to repurpose my 4x8gb 4000mhz so-dimms ;/ instead of having to buy new desktop ram. Only thing I could find was an x299 motherboard by asrock but it only uses skylake-x chips. Is skylake-x any more complicated than a 6700k/6820hk/7700k/7820hk etc?

Ya the gt8x series is fantastic. I'm just so in love with the chassis/mech keyboard/removable hood etc. I'm just ready for something more advanced now that i've got a little bit of oc experience under my belt. Also looking for something completely silent so i'mma go with liquid cooling.

 

Is this the motherboard? https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X299E-ITXac/index.asp

Here's a build article, and it mentions:

"Now that we know we have one choice for the motherboard let's talk about how we have many choices for SO-DIMMs, and since ASRock added great OC capabilities to the memory DIMMs, G.Skill decided to up the ante and sent over their unreleased 3800MHz quad channel SO-DIMM kit. While some notebooks have four SO-DIMM slots and support memory overclocking, ASRock's motherboard only supports CPUs that can support up to quad channel, so the kit is basically designed for the motherboard. Intel's X299 CPUs can run 3800MHz, at least most of them can, and this guide will go getting the memory up to speed and even tweaking it a little bit. It's an amazing kit, to say the least, and it should launch later this year."

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/8426/asrock-x299-mini-itx-dimm-oc-build-guide/index.html

Here are the supported CPU options:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X299E-ITXac/index.asp#CPU

There are so many cool new options coming that limiting yourself to something that will support 4xSODIMM's - a motherboard that is 2 years old, and looks like it's currently $500+!

Maybe sell the SODIMM's for a little loss as compared to what you paid for them at the height of the DRAM bubble, and save money on new DDR4 desktop RAM?

I'd at least wait until the Ryzen 3 models are released as the rumored performance - and demonstrated performance by AMD - shows the 3xxx CPU's beating the 9900K, and with the 16c/32t 3950x outperforming the top x299 CPU the 9980XE.

 

The thing about the new options outside of the new 2080 super(it's going to be a monster for 240hz), is they don't offermuch in terms of improvement for the gaming experience. A 6700k overclocked to the max can play any game maxed out at 144hz in 1080p when paired with the right gpu. A 9900k overclocked to the max can play any game maxed out at 240hz in 1080p when paired with the incoming 2080 super(unless it is some terribly terribly optimized game but even then...). Outside of the 2080 super coming out, What can the new equipment bring to the table that will improve my gaming experience? Like, I don't mind spending the money on top end stuff, its just that it needs to bring something to the table that I couldn't already experience with say a 9900k or a 7820x paired with the 2080 super that is coming out. Like, how much more is loading speed when launching a game going to improve with pcie 4.0 nvmes over pcie3.0? 5 seconds? PCIe 3.0 nvme ssds in raid0 are already lightning fast.

As far the so-dimms, I paid 400 for the 4 sticks. Bought these when ram came down. original MSRP was like 575 or something when they were first released. They ended up going up again in price after i bought them by 10% to 430 or 440 on newegg but still 475 on corsair website. Hate to sell them but if I had good reason to I'd go that route. Maybe i'll sell them if anything new makes sense.

Currently thinking about a 9900k or 7820x to save money on ram with the new 2080 super or maybe the gt76 from hid.

 

I think @hmscott is right here and if you're going to build a desktop, it doesn't make good sense to limit yourself to a motherboard that can use your SODIMM sticks. I think you'd end up regretting doing so. Best to go with everything possible in a common desktop form factor and SODIMMs were not designed with desktops in mind.