Intel® Core™ i9-7960X X-series Processor

PCUser said:

The problem is all consumers ultimately end up footing the bill with higher prices, which hurts an economy. Add to that already existing inflation, supply chain issues, price gouging and more, and it's a recipe for economic disaster such as a double digit inflation, recession or depression.

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Yes. And nobody wants it. So now governments are snapping to attention and complacency is drying up because who wants to pay tariffs?

Speaking of processing power, has anyone here managed to OC the 7960X?

Scannerman said:

Yes. And nobody wants it. So now governments are snapping to attention and complacency is drying up because who wants to pay tariffs?

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I don't think China will fold. Also the "de minimis" provision is gone, which exempted $800 or less from tariffs, which means all the past tariffs will now apply, plus the new ones. So no way around higher prices. Rich people need more yachts so time to pay up!

Win711 said:

I don't think China will fold. Also the "de minimis" provision is gone, which exempted $800 or less from tariffs, which means all the past tariffs will now apply, plus the new ones. So no way around higher prices. Rich people need more yachts so time to pay up!

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Well, I ordered a high end CPU and a system board so I'm doing my part. Perhaps some rich people might be persuaded to donate to this poor man's cause. This is about as close as I'll get to a yacht. lol

Scannerman said:

Well, I ordered a high end CPU and a system board so I'm doing my part. Perhaps some rich people might be persuaded to donate to this poor man's cause. This is about as close as I'll get to a yacht. lol

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I bought mine last year before the tariffs so they will get no help from me So how does this beast you're meticulously building compare to what I slapped together? Are you putting win7 on it?

Win711 said:

I bought mine last year before the tariffs so they will get no help from me So how does this beast you're meticulously building compare to what I slapped together? Are you putting win7 on it?

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Comparatively speaking, what I plan on building when the parts finally get here is like putting apples alongside oranges. I'm building a semi-tractor trailer and you're flying a Lear jet with leg room for passengers. Apples and oranges. So many people don't really grasp the concept behind Intel's X series work station boards and Z series platforms. The main difference is bandwidth. Of course, with advanced innovations in technology high performance Z series boards can also boast good bandwidth as compared to older work station boards like the one I ordered BUT I've yet to see a Z series board with as many PCIe lanes in it as a serious EATX work station board houses. The CPU I purchased for this build (if it ever comes in) boasts 44 lanes and although I know your CPU is faster, leaner, and meaner it likely supports less than half as many PCIe lanes. In fact, I can guarantee it does. It's always that way with Z series. Another interesting feature that EATX work station boards designed for Intel processors have is that they can house Xeon CPUs if need be. This is likely not a feature that I would use, but it would be there if I ever needed it. For servers, networking, multiple RAID arrays, and over all flexibility an X series platform is a better way to go. You can even game on these builds if that's what you want and many people do, but if all you ever plan to do is basic domestic tasks and pursue high end gaming a Z series board would be a better choice. (It might even be less costly.)

I love populating my board with cards. I have cards for everything: USB, RAID, Thunderbolt, Graphics, NVMe, even sound. No PCIe slot goes neglected by the time I'm finished with my build. This can be very limiting if one only has 20 lanes to play with. Again, it's really a personal preference and not everyone is into having a PC running more drives than there are letters in the alphabet. I just happen to be one of those geeks who does. So I imagine it will take me years to build this as it did for me to build the one I'm using. By that time Windows will probably be telling me that my PC is obsolete again and it won't matter as I will be too old and stubborn to care.

Scannerman said:

I love populating my board with cards. I have cards for everything: USB, RAID, Thunderbolt, Graphics, NVMe, even sound.

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I know a guy who likes to fill every slot and expand a pc with every add on even though there's no chance he'd ever use it. All he's done since he was a kid is play with computers and he's not really using the computer to accomplish anything, he just likes building computers. It's like art I guess. He's always talking xeons and whatnot like you, and he has a storage garage plum filled with old computers. I could get into that but I have too many other things I have to do, so I need a pc that works that I don't have to figure out how to fix, so I'm trying to keep it simple. I'm glad not to have even one card installed and all the slots on my case are taped over to keep the dust out lol

On that Iwill dual cpu board I posted a few days I ago, which I think is a workstation board btw, I had every slot filled with a voodoo 3dfx, sound blaster sound card, BNC networking card, and some IDE card that I don't even remember what it was for, maybe because I had a stack of drives outside the case, plus a couple cd reader/writers inside. It even had 2 power supplies (to run all those drives). The sound card was cool because it came with a box that went into the one of the 5 inch bays on the front for plugging in all sorts of mics and whatever. But everything that is onboard now is better than all those cards I used to have, so I'm happy to get by cardless nowadays. And I wanted it to be airtight, other than the filters, because there's a wood stove on one side and a litterbox on the other. The dust is insane.

But I could get into what you're doing if I had more time and knew a little more. You and my friend would really get along.

Win711 said:

But I could get into what you're doing if I had more time and knew a little more. You and my friend would really get along.

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Yeah, we probably would. I'd probably annoy him though, like I annoyed my other geek buddy when I asked him what he planned on doing with his builds. "Do you plan on using it for writing a book? Do you use it for coding? Is it for business?" Judging by how red his ears were getting I backed off. He doesn't talk to me much anymore. It's too bad because 25 years ago that guy was my inspiration. No, I actually use my PC. I have all this connectivity for a reason. I serve my community with my PC(s). I document a lot of things. I social network. I maintain my family archives. I make videos. I'm addicted to audio books. I do a little writing myself and I'm looking for a good publisher. My entire house is networked. I also used to build PCs for money but there's no money in it anymore. Your friend should get all those old PCs running and just give them to kids. That's another thing I do. Giving a youngster a PC fosters their interest in PCs and learning how they work. It also helps to keep the garage/basement uncluttered.

Scannerman said:

Yeah, we probably would. I'd probably annoy him though, like I annoyed my other geek buddy when I asked him what he planned on doing with his builds. "Do you plan on using it for writing a book? Do you use it for coding? Is it for business?" Judging by how red his ears were getting I backed off. He doesn't talk to me much anymore. It's too bad because 25 years ago that guy was my inspiration. No, I actually use my PC. I have all this connectivity for a reason. I serve my community with my PC(s). I document a lot of things. I social network. I maintain my family archives. I make videos. I'm addicted to audio books. I do a little writing myself and I'm looking for a good publisher. My entire house is networked. I also used to build PCs for money but there's no money in it anymore. Your friend should get all those old PCs running and just give them to kids. That's another thing I do. Giving a youngster a PC fosters their interest in PCs and learning how they work. It also helps to keep the garage/basement uncluttered.

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No way you'd annoy him. Not possible. Unless you smell like potpourri or any strong fragrance, he hates that lol. He's the one who annoys everyone else with ADD or whatever. He's basically still a kid. He's never really worked for anything so everything he has was a gift from someone or he found it, so I doubt he'd give it away. He hoards and clings to everything. I used to joke with him asking him if he's done downloading the internet yet lol. He buys lots of big drives and just seems to download the internet onto them. I really don't know what... old software or something online he wants to keep. The problem is he has so much that he can't find anything and it's easier to find it again online lol. But with tech he goes all-out in all ways. He has routers everywhere, antennas, wifi cameras, a bunch of phones, tablets, car stereo that's basically a phone. He knows all about android, apple, pc, linux. He may even know about the setup you want, and if he doesn't then he'd probably want to. He has xeon stuff. It's really shame he hasn't found a way to monetize all that knowledge. He helps everyone for free.

Scannerman said:

I have all this connectivity for a reason. I serve my community with my PC(s). I document a lot of things. I social network. I maintain my family archives. I make videos. I'm addicted to audio books. I do a little writing myself and I'm looking for a good publisher. My entire house is networked.

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I don't see how your system would do that any differently than mine. Are you sure you're not just wanting to build for fun?

Win711 said:

No way you'd annoy him. Not possible. Unless you smell like potpourri or any strong fragrance, he hates that lol. He's the one who annoys everyone else with ADD or whatever. He's basically still a kid. He's never really worked for anything so everything he has was a gift from someone or he found it, so I doubt he'd give it away. He hoards and clings to everything. I used to joke with him asking him if he's done downloading the internet yet lol. He buys lots of big drives and just seems to download the internet onto them. I really don't know what... old software or something online he wants to keep. The problem is he has so much that he can't find anything and it's easier to find it again online lol. But with tech he goes all-out in all ways. He has routers everywhere, antennas, wifi cameras, a bunch of phones, tablets, car stereo that's basically a phone. He knows all about android, apple, pc, linux. He may even know about the setup you want, and if he doesn't then he'd probably want to. He has xeon stuff. It's really shame he hasn't found a way to monetize all that knowledge. He helps everyone for free.

I don't see how your system would do that any differently than mine. Are you sure you're not just wanting to build for fun?

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He really does remind me of that friend I told you about. It's a shame he has a hoarding fetish. Best way to deal with that is to build PCs for people for free, especially if he likes to help people for free. Sounds like he also likes to hoard data. I don't have that luxury. He probably could have made a killing in bit coin if he wanted to. Evidently he loves knowledge and learning. Sure, I'd friend him. I love eccentrics. I wouldn't condemn the guy just because he has obvious issues. These days practically everyone has issues. That said, we are both very different people. I don't love all tech. I don't use a cell. I don't have a smart phone. I don't even own a television. I don't use WiFi. I don't even own a vehicle that uses GPS. We are similar in that in my old age I get to be a kid again and I like helping people for free.

It would be interesting to see you run as many RAID arrays and drives on your PC as I do on mine. I'm not saying it would be impossible but it could make for a challenging project. I already know you can't put a Xeon in that platform but so what. I don't plan on running a Xeon either. (Although I'm starting to think perhaps I should have gone that route.) Build for fun? Ha! I already have a whole bunch of hardware to put together to make a new build that will be my ROGUE build, my illegitimate maverick machine. TBH I would not have bothered to get this replacement platform if my X99 could actually run a legit Win 11 OS. But I will concede that building a new PC can be fun.

Scannerman said:

These days practically everyone has issues.

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Everyone has issues, even those well-adjusted to a sick world are no measure of health.

Scannerman said:

He probably could have made a killing in bit coin if he wanted to.

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He couldn't open a coinbase account. HE should have been teaching ME about crypto and not the other way around, but if there's any potential utility to knowledge he seems to run, preferring to embrace the frivolous instead. It's frustrating.

Scannerman said:

It would be interesting to see you run as many RAID arrays and drives on your PC as I do on mine.

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That's terrifying to think about. The older I get the more I want to declutter and I doubt I have the neural plasticity to remember what's on so many drives lol. One reason for the beast cpu is to make videos smaller to take up less space so I need less drives, and another is hopefully this is the last pc I have to build because I doubt I will be able to figure out windows 15 and all the new hardware, unless I make a hobby of building pcs in order to keep up. I don't know... maybe it will always be a part of me. One thing I know about me is you can never predict.

I still can't figure out why you want so many drives if it's not for fun. A pc savvy person with no interest in tech is an uncommon coincidence I'd think lol. Kinda begs explanation.

Win711 said:

I still can't figure out why you want so many drives if it's not for fun. A pc savvy person with no interest in tech is an uncommon coincidence I'd think lol. Kinda begs explanation.

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A PC savvy person with no interest in tech strikes me as a bit of a contradiction. I like to think of myself as a PC enthusiast but the social engineering crews of this era may have different terminology and nomenclature for people like me. At the risk of being politically incorrect I have four tech savvy females in my house and they all like to use their PCs in different ways. I'm the chief grunt. Over half of my storage is used for backing up data. I make videos and I like documentaries. I use my PCs for many things but I'm not obligated to tell people what I use them for.

I'm not a minimalist. I'm not opposed to minimalism. I just happen to like my options. I'm from a time when RAID 0 actually had real value. Does an element of fun run through all this? A: Certainly. What a grievous chore PC building would be if it wasn't fun. I can think of worse hobbies.

Scannerman said:

Sounds like he also likes to hoard data. I don't have that luxury.

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Scannerman said:

Over half of my storage is used for backing up data. I make videos and I like documentaries.

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You don't have the luxury to hoard data, but then you have more drives than letters. I can't make sense of that lol.

Scannerman said:

I'm not a minimalist.

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Scannerman said:

I don't love all tech. I don't use a cell. I don't have a smart phone. I don't even own a television. I don't use WiFi. I don't even own a vehicle that uses GPS.

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You're not a minimalist but keep your tech to a minimum. I'm having trouble here too, man.

Scannerman said:

What a grievous chore PC building would be if it wasn't fun. I can think of worse hobbies.

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I'm starting to want to build one just for playing around with so I know how to set this one up. Don't want to spend $3k just for that though.

Win711 said:

You don't have the luxury to hoard data, but then you have more drives than letters. I can't make sense of that lol.

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I would imagine that you can't. According to Cambridge to hoard is to be "a person or organization that collects a lot of money or objects, sometimes secretly: hoarders of gold and silver" Websters has an even more positive definition of the word. So hoarding is a good thing, we are told. If I had zeta bytes of data I might consider myself a hoarder. Having more data drives than there are letters in the alphabet is hardly hoarding. This is so easy to do if you're into RAID. That started out as a family project because I was tired of losing important data, family and home videos, pictures, compositions, documents etc. Over time I got more familiar with other kinds of RAID and the need for speed brought my attention to striping. This was long before the days of SSDs and NVMe. Later, I discovered that SSDs in RAID 0 was crazy fast; but I'll spare you the history. RAID 10 will cost you 4 drives per array. Is it fun? Well, I suppose so, but preserving my data physically, in my own home (instead of up on some megalomaniac CLOUD) is something I find appealing.

Win711 said:

You're not a minimalist but keep your tech to a minimum. I'm having trouble here too, man.

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Indeed. I am a bit of a paradox am I not? This is typical of the human condition. Call me a specialist. Call me what you like. My wife will attest that I'm not nearly a minimalist. I despise cell phones and I have never owned one much less a brick phone. (What do they call them these days? "Smart" phones??) I like having conversations with my family at the dinner table. The fact that I broke down and purchased tablets for my daughters is still all the rave here, on the home front. I will likely never own one. I hate television. I disposed of my last one back in 1989 and resorted to reading and building my music library instead. Just because I love listening to various sorts of music does not make me a hoarder either. In this respect I am hardly a specialist. I still refuse to use WiFi in my home. I still don't use GPS. My land line is suffice. I have internet now that I could only dream of having 20 years ago. It is enough.

Win711 said:

I'm starting to want to build one just for playing around with so I know how to set this one up. Don't want to spend $3k just for that though.

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Hunt around on Ebay for deals. Ebay is pretty good on customer return policies. In fact, that's where I purchased my CPU for my X299 system board. As Petty says, waiting is the hardest part. If you're not familiar with PC building this is a good start. Get your friend to fork over some of his hoard so you can practice. If you're not proud you can pull PCs from dumpsters and garage sales (like I do) rebuild them, and give them away free to kids. This is one way to keep them out of land fills and children can learn about PCs so it's educational. Where I live I have a reputation as 'the computer guy'. Parents are humoured by this and they know I won't give their child a PC until I have a hand written note from them granting me permission to give them a free PC. Interestingly, nobody hates me for this. I may be old, but I know how to stay busy.