I've posted this stuff before, but hopefully you'll find some of it useful. I'm on mobile so I'll trim it down later based on you requirements.

Also avoid EIG hosting providers like the plague. If you need more help, feel free to DM me!

First, get a domain:

• I use Google Domains.
  
• Namecheap is also super great.
  
• If you use shared hosting (see below), they often offer included domain names with your purchase.
  
  Second, find hosting:
  
  
• Github Pages offers great static site hosting. Free.
  
• Shared hosting like DreamHost is great if you aren't comfortable managing your own server but want access to databases (they also give you email addresses with webmail access). Costs a monthly fee.
  
• Use a combination of PaaS like Heroku and Firebase. Free (can pay for more features/performance).
  
• Your own VPS (virtual private server) like Digital Ocean lets you configure just about everything if you're okay with system administration. Costs a monthly fee.
  
• Buy a Raspberry Pi and hook it up to your router (assuming your ISP gives you a public IP address). This is essentially setting up your own server. One time cost.
  
  Third, figure out how you want to make the site:
  
  
• Use a CMS like WordPress, BoltCMS, Grav, DjangoCMS, etc...
  
• Use a static site generator like Hugo or Hexo.
  
• Write everything yourself (too many options out there to link, depends on your language/technology preference).
  
  Other stuff:
  
  
• You can get free SSL certs for your site (especially important if people are going to be entering information) from Let's Encrypt.
  
• CloudFlare acts as a CDN and IPS/IDS to help protect and optimize your site (they have a free plan).
  
• A good option for students is to grab the Github Student Developer Pack, which includes a bunch of free goodies.
  
  A few more things you can play with:
  
  
• C9 is cool for prototyping and playing around in a VPS playground with a nice built-in editor. It has a free plan, but last I checked it still requires a payment card for verification.
  
• HyperDev is another cool Node-specific playground.
  
• Forestry.io is a new service that gives you CMS-like functionality with Github Pages. I have not used it.
  
• Prose is an editor application for managing Github content.

/u/paulatreides0, /u/jetjaguar124, u/WeAreAwful

This is not my best guide, but it is a guide. Refinements welcome.
I wish I knew where to post the refined version, because it seems wasted
on the ephemeral DT.

PC building notes, 2019 Q3

Introduction

This post is a a "guide" to PC building in late 2019. It is incomplete
in two senses. First, I make no special claims to authority or objectivity.
I'm just an enthusiast. I have only personally tested a fraction of the parts
listed below. Second, I am writing this before the Intel 10th-gen refresh
and before the release AMD's flagship 3950X. Those new parts may impact some
of the advice given below.

This guide is extremely opinionated. I will simplify and exaggerate to
keep things simple.

This post was written while drinking whisky and listening to
enka.

Internals

What's inside your PC

A PC has seven core components. They are,

1. CPU: the central processing unit. The thing that does calculations.
   
2. Motherboard: the bit that all the other bits slot into
   
3. GPU: the graphics processing unit. For frames in games.
   
4. RAM: Random Access Memory. Fast, volatile, short-term storage.
   
5. Storage: longer-term storage. Comes in several flavors, mainly solid state
   and hard disk.
   
6. PSU: the power supply unit. The bit that delivers power to the other bits.
   
7. Case: a steel box that you put the other bits in.
   
   A word first on compatibility. The skeleton of the build is the motherboard,
   and you have to make sure that every other bit is compatible with your board.
   There are two CPU manufacturers, AMD and Intel; each has their own CPU
   design and thus has their own motherboard type. RAM, storage, PSUs, and GPUs
   are all cross-compatible with either AMD or Intel motherboards.
   Motherboards come in different sizes. A case will be compatible with certain
   size ranges. From small to big, these are ITX, m-ATX, ATX, and
   E-ATX. You'll want to check that your motherboard can fit in your case.
   
   

   CPUs
   

   
   AMD's most current CPUs are the 3000-series Ryzen chips. There are a bunch
   of them, but the only two you have to care about are the
   
   

• AMD Ryzen 5 3600 ($200)
  
• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X ($330)
  
  The other options are the 3600X, the 3800X, and the 3900X. None of these
  are interesting compared to the two listed above, and can be safely ignored.
  
  Intel's current CPUs are the 9th-gen Core chips. I would only seriously
  consider two of these chips,
  
  
• Intel i7-9700K ($380)
  
• Intel i9-9900K ($450-$500)
  
  and I'd ignore the rest. If you want to spend less than $350 on a CPU,
  then go AMD. If you want to spend more than $350 on a CPU,
  go Intel.
  
  A word about prior-gen chips. The AMD 2000 series (2700X, 2600) and the
  Intel 8th gen series (8700K) are still viable at the right price. Look at
  benchmarks. More on that later.
  
  A word about lower-spec CPUs. AMD sells cheap CPUs that have integrated
  graphics. That means you don't need to buy a graphics card with these chips.
  As such, a build with the 3400G or 3200G can be extremely inexpensive. Consider
  them for office use or basic builds that don't require heavy graphics.
  I have personally tested them and they play 4K video flawlessly; they should
  be perfectly adequate for basic tasks.
  
  For scientific workloads, ask me to write another post. I can't cover
  everything here.
  
  
  

  Motherboard
  

  
  Motherboards only accept either AMD or Intel CPUs, but not both, so you must
  choose a board that is compatible with your CPU.
  Once you decide between AMD or Intel, you can proceed to figure out which
  motherboard you want. There are approximately six billion boards. For AMD,
  skip the hassle and just buy the
  
  

• MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX
  
  Note the "MAX." The Tomahawk was released during the 1000- and 2000-series
  of AMD processors. The MAX variant is compatible with 3000-series chips
  out of the box.
  
  For Intel, I know far less. Any Z390 board should be acceptable.
  
  For AMD, the new X570 boards are available as well. They are pricey and
  overkill for 90% of desktop users. Feel free to skip them. Look out for the
  B550 boards that are to be released in 2020Q1.
  
  
  

  GPU
  

  
  There are two main manufacturers of GPUs: AMD and Nvidia. Confusingly, they
  do not sell GPUs themselves, but market them through partners like MSI,
  EVGA, PowerColor, Sapphire, etc.
  
  The GPU stack is a little confusing.
  That chart lists all of the main GPUs on the market, and if you count, there
  are over 25 GPUs listed. Multiply 25 GPUs by 10 or so board partners,
  multiplied again by the fact that each partner sells multiple types of the same
  GPU, and you have a recipe for an absolute nightmare of a market.
  The prices are only approximate.
  
  Let me cut through the fog. You should buy one of
  
  

• AMD RX 570 ($130)
  
• Nvidia 1660 or AMD RX 590 ($220-$280)
  
• AMD RX 5700 XT ($400-$430)
  
• Nvidia 2080 Super ($700)
  
• Nvidia 2080 Ti ($1200)
  
  Pick your price point.
  
  
  

  RAM
  

  
  RAM is distinguished by its generation. We are currently on DDR4, with
  DDR5 to come in either 2020 or 2021. This part is easy. Just buy
  16GB of DDR4 3200-speed RAM and be done with it.
  This kit
  will set you back $75 to $85 depending on the day of the week and will perform
  adequately for 99.98% of users.
  
  

  Storage
  

  
  In 2019, there is no excuse for not buying fast solid-state storage.
  For 90% of users, you should buy either the 500GB or 1TB variant of the
  Intel 660p and call it a day.
  This reviewer
  is 100% paid off by Intel, but he's also right on this topic. Buy a 660p
  and rest easy.
  
  For enthusiasts, the 660p uses new, cheap, somewhat fragile QLC NAND technology
  and you might want to go with a Samsung 970 instead.
  
  That does it for your boot drive. If you need further long-term storage for
  music, movies, videos, games, etc, look into either Seagate or WD's 8TB to
  12TB options.
  
  I personally have a few WD Gold 12TB drives. They're pricey, but they're
  enterprise-grade and haven't done me wrong yet. My firm, which buys storage
  by the truckload, loves these things. They rarely fail.
  
  I personally am using a 660p for OS, a second SSD for
  some of my media, and HDDs for long-term storage.
  
  

  Power
  

  
  I have neither the time nor the expertise to get into a deep discussion of
  power supplies. The topic is apparently very complicated. You should buy
  something in the 550W to 750W from a manufacturer like Corsair, EVGA,
  or CoolerMaster. Make sure it has the number of VGA connectors that your GPU
  requires.
  
  

  Case
  

  
  The case is the place to really personalize your build. Try not to spend
  more than $100, though; at the end of the day, it's just a steel box.
  
  

  Peripherals
  

  
  In some ways, the bits outside the computer are more important than the bits
  inside. After all, these are the bits you interact with on a daily basis.
  
  

• Monitors
  
• Keyboard
  
• Mouse
  
• Headphones or speakers
  
• Chair
  
• Desk
  
  

  Monitors
  

  
  Monitors are distinguished by size and resolution.
  
  The resolutions available are 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. I recommend the following.
  
  

• 24" 1080p for entry-level gaming and for most office work
  
• 25" or 27" 1440p
  
• 32" or higher 4K
  
  You may also care about refresh rate; the most common refresh rates are 60Hz
  and 144Hz. These only matter for gaming.
  
  One particular sweet spot is the "1440p, 27", 144Hz refresh rate" class. Look
  up benchmarks and comparison videos.
  
  

  Keyboard
  

  
  Pick to taste. Some swear by mechanical keyboards. Others buy standalone
  keyboards that mimic the laptop keyboard that they're used to.
  
  

  Mouse
  

  I have used the Logitech G500 and Logitech G403, and both are fine. They're
  somewhat expensive and will run you about $70.
  
  

  Sound
  

  
  There are a million ways to fulfill your sound needs. For wired headsets,
  the bone-stock recommendation is the AudioTechnica ATH-M50x.
  For speakers, I can recommend the Klipsch 2+1.
  
  For more earphone and headphone suggestions, ask me for an extended discussion.
  
  

  Chair and desk
  

  
  Don't neglect these. You'll be sitting at that chair for several hours per
  day, and you'll use that desk forever. Measure how wide your monitors will be
  and buy a desk accordingly. Go to an office supply shop and sit in a few chairs;
  pick one that you like. Your desk and chair will last forever, so don't be
  afraid to spend a little money here.
  
  

  Advice
  

  
  Read Logical Increments in its entirety.
  
  Watch videos from real, serious hardware reviewers. I recommend
  Gamers Nexus, Paul's Hardware, and Hardware Unboxed. Anyone else is either
  subpar or bought out or provides worthless advice.
  
  Do research, think for yourself, and ask me questions. I'll either give you
  advice or point you to reliable resources if I think my advice would be lacking.

/u/JetJaguar124 /u/Integralds

So first thing's first, Windows: ~$130 for Home Edition.

Okay, so things to keep in mind:

1. If you go Intel, overclocking isn't too great on 9th gen intel, especially if you don't have a beefy aftermarket cpu cooler. So if you don't plan on doing that at some point then you don't need a K series CPU and an overclocking motherboard. So your motherboard should primarily focus on giving you decent I/O options.
   
   
2. You also probably want to aim for 1080p or 1440p tops, given your price range.
   
   
3. Related to #1: If you don't plan on overclocking then a basic-ish mobo will do fine, and you mainly want to focus on I/O and other features. If you are getting Intel doubly so, as, as I mentioned before, intel 9th gen doesn't overclock well due to relatively low headroom to begin with. For intel overclocking boards are "Z" while non-overclocking boards are "B". For AMD they are "X" and "B" respectively.
   
   The GPU you should be seeking to use is the 1660 Ti, which is basically a slightly gimped RTX 2060 but without the raytracing stuff. If you are willing to spend a bit more then you could get an RX 5700 instead, which is nearly ~30% faster on average.
   
   That'll put you at $270 - $360 depending on the model you pick. Yes, it's a third of your budget, but the GPU is the single most important part of your build.
   
   Secondly you'll want a decent CPU to go with that.
   
   The Ryzen 5 3600 looks like a pretty good CPU, its a bit under $200, its fairly beefy and extendable so it's somewhat "future-proof" - in that it shouldn't cause much bottlenecking and you could upgrade your GPU past a 2080 Ti before needing to change the processor.
   
   This MSI Tomohawk Mobo looks good for the 3600.
   
   So we're at ~$320 for that, or about $640 total. Plus windows that is ~$730.
   
   The RAM Inty recommended before should be fine. You only really need 16 GB. This will set you back ~$80. If you find yourself wanting more RAM later down the line you can always add another pair of sticks later and double up your RAM.
   
   That puts us at around ~$800.
   
   $80 for a 750W Fully Modular Corsair PSU is basically a steal. It's refurbished though, although that shouldn't be a problem - especially with a PSU.
   
   We're at ~$880.
   
   Some good thermal paste for your CPU.
   
   We're now at ~$890.
   
   Storage depends on what you want to do. Do you install a lot of stuff and files at once? In which case you might want to get a nice sized SSD plus a big HDD.
   
   For your system drive. Plenty of space, good price, AND its an nvme SSD.
   
   That makes for ~$990.
   
   If you need lots of extra space
   
   If you need extreme extra space
   
   Keyboard and case are up to you, decide as you please. For the case just make sure that it can support an ATX mobo, as the mobo listed here is full ATX. Mechanical keyboards are crack, but they tend to be more expensive so they're probably out of range. This will be another $100 to $150 depending on what you pick.
   
   Something to keep in mind though: Your case and your monitors are basically "future proof". In other words, they won't really get "worse" with time or cause future performance issues. So monitors and case are things where you want to consider what you'll eventually want and buy ahead, even if you have to stretch a bit.
   
   This just leaves your monitor. I would NOT recommend a 1080p monitor above 24 in. Honestly, if you can go for a 1440p monitor then do it. I'm a bit of a resolution whore tho, so if 1080p works for you then that's fine. I would also avoid TN panels - they tend to look more washed out, tinny, and have worse viewing angles . . . although they also tend to be a fair bit cheaper than the good panels (namely IPS panels).
   
   I used to own one of these . . . it was vvy vvy gud. This is a relatively artsy monitor, so if color gamut correctness or whatever is important for you for photo or video editing or whatever, then this is a good pick. It's a bit expensive, yeah, but also super gorgeous. It also goes up to 75 Hz. Conversely, get a freesync monitor, and this one is probably good - haven't done much research on it, but Dells are generally pretty good in my experience (my current 4K monitor is a Dell too). Freesync will allow you to basically eliminate screen tearing and will provide a smoother feeling experience because it will even out frame rates better.
   
   One last thing to keep in mind: Shopping around on ebay and other sites can save you a fair bit. My rule of thumb is to never, ever buy sensitive parts like hard-drives, cpus, or motherboards second hand or refurbished. But everything else is fair game. So refurbished GPUs, Monitors, PSUs, Cases, etc. should be fine. Pre-owned? Ehhh . . . that I'm much, much more sketchy on - personally I wouldn't, but that's just me.
   
   So in total it'd be somewhere in the range of $1500 including monitor, OS, case, and keyboard. The system itself is around $1000. But you can perhaps knock off a hundred bucks or two by shopping around and looking for where you can buy these parts cheaper than Amazon.
   
   But again: investing in a good monitor and case can be worth it. It means you won't have to replace it if/when you do upgrade. And worst case scenario you can offload your monitor as a side/secondary monitor when you upgrade your monitor to a new one.

If you want, I can copy-paste the response I usually give to people asking about gaming headset. Hope it will help you.

Wall of text ahead. Please, read only if you are really interested...


What I usually recommend when someone ask for advice about gaming headsets is: Gaming headset are crap 99% of the time. They provide very poor sound quality, and any good headphone (literally, even 40$ ones) will sound far better than expensive 300$ headsets. The question is not if headphones are better than headset (the answer is “Hell, YEAH”). The question is, are they better for you?


What are you planning to use your headphones for? Just for gaming, or for gaming and music listening?


If the answer is “just for gaming”, then ask yourself if a Hifi headphone is what you need. Usually games don’t really need high quality headphones, since they provide low quality sound, and you will be more concentrated gaming than listening. In that scenario, everything will serve you, and gaming headsets have the advantage of the integrated microphone.


So, if you want something good for gaming, and just for gaming, with integrated microphone, then the only two headsets with good enough quality sound (aka don’t suck) are:


HyperX Cloud (70$)


Sennheiser G4me One (170$)


Both are good choices. Or go with any fancy RGB headset you find (Logitech, Razer, Corsair, Steelseries, etc), you will most probably don’t notice the difference while gaming.


BUT, if you plan to use them for music listening besides gaming, then keep reading.


About the microphone problem


Hifi headphones for gaming have the disadvantage of having to deal with the micro thing. None of them have microphone incorporated, and you must find a workaround to the problem. Options available are:


1- Use a desk microphone like this


2- Some headphones have detachable cable. If the connector is a 3.5mm jack, you can substitute the cable with this V-Moda micro. That way you can have a microphone attached and still use a single cable. Main problem is that you must use this cable, no matter what, and if you end buying an amplifier, you can no longer use this microphone, as amplifiers don’t have micro input. Also, not all headphones are compatible, as not all use 3.5mm jack connections (Audio-technica and Sennheiser headphones are NOT compatible with V-moda Boom micro, cause they use 2.5mm jack)


3- use a modmic like this one or if your budget is tight, something like this.


The first option requires desk space and it’s expensive. The second one is not compatible with every headphone, and forces you to use this cable. The third one are detachable micro, with an extra cable you’ll have to deal with. Any of them are a nuisance. Any solution is annoying. All of them are an extra expense that must be accounted. If micro is a must and you are not willing to bother with this solutions, please, go back to HyperX Cloud or G4me One.


Ok, so, you really want some damn good headphones, that also can be used for gaming! Keep reading, please (are you bored yet?).


You can choose Closed back headphones (the classic ones you have already used. Closed back models offer good isolation and do not leak sound. This is your choice when there are people around you, or you want isolation from noisy a environment.) or Open Back headphones (Open back models offer next to no isolation and will leak sound -and allow you to hear what happens around you-, but they are the best sounding models). Open headphones achieve the best sound, soundstage (feeling that sound is coming from around you) and imaging (ability to locate the source of one sound).


If you are here because you want to get a replacement for a gaming headset, I would recommend you Open back, but since they don’t isolate, you must choose. If isolation is required, get closed back, if that’s not a concern, go open.


Some closed back cans:


Audio-Technica ATH-M40x. 100$. Balanced headphones, very good feedback from lots of people. Typical entry level headphones to the rabbit hole.


Sennheiser HD 598Cs. 125$. Balanced, very very detailed, great instrumental separation. Comfortable as hell, very recommended.


Beyerdynamic DT770. 160$. V-shaped signature (lots of bass and lots of treble). Amazing soundstage (for a closed headphone). Great for explosions, movies, and rock. Treble can be harsh if you are sensible. Get the 32 ohm version, as the 80 (may) and 250 (do) need an amplifier to work properly.


Those are some examples of entry-mid level of closed cans. There are lots more, depending of your budget!


As for open cans:


Superlux HD668b. 40$. Those are THE CANS. The best quality for low budget you can get. Hands down. Great soundstage, Bass light. They are not too comfortable, but pads can be changed for a deluxe comfort (extra expense). You are not getting anything better at this price. For gaming in a budget, this are the headphones you were looking for.


Philips SHP9500. 80$. Mid-forward signature. Good soundstage, great comfort. Very detailed. Another amazing quality for the budget headphone. Due its popularity, they’re getting harder and harder to get.


Sennheiser HD 598 SR. 170$. Very similar to the HD 598Cs, but with open back. Wider soundstage, a little less bass. Very balanced headphones. Super-duper comfortable. Great for long gaming sessions.


Philips Fidelio X2. 250$. V-shaped signature. Those are in another league. Build quality is just.. OMG. Extreme soundstage and imaging. More comfortable than the HD 598. Bass is BOOOOOM!!!. A little pricey, and can be somewhat fatiguing to listen if you are treble sensible, due to high treble.


Well, that’s all. I have selected only headphones that don’t need an amplifier. Now is your turn to research, watch some Youtube videos, read some reviews, and give them a try.


All this headphones are GOOD. No trash here, and all them will make you open your eyes when listening your music if you are coming from standard headsets. You will notice sounds, instruments, that you never realized they were there, even if you had listened this song a thousand times before. Try them, and be amazed.


Welcome to the rabbit hole.

Mic or headset?

🔊 MICROPHONES

• Antlion ModMic 4
  
  Attaches to headphones using a clasp system and is easy to attach and remove. Is compatible with all headphones. Comes with and without a mute switch.
  
  
• Massdrop Minimic
  
  Attaches to headphones using a clasp system and is easy to attach and remove. Is compatible with all headphones. Has a mute switch and is modular. Is only available via drops on Massdrop.com. I recommend requesting it if you want to wait for it.
  
  
• V-MODA BoomPro
  
  Connects to the headphone's jack, replacing the headphone cable. Is compatible with Philips SHP9500 and Status Audio CB-1. Has a mute switch and a volume control.
  
  
• Neewer 3.5mm Clip on Mini Lapel Microphone
  
  Clips onto your clothing. Has no in-line controls.
  
  
• Sony ECMCS3
  
  
• Clips onto your clothing. Has no in-line controls.
  
  
• Zalman ZM-Mic1
  
  Clips onto your clothing. Has no in-line controls.
  
  
• Blue Snowball
  
  Has various placement options. Has no in-line controls.
  
  
• Samson Go
  
  Has various placement options. Has no in-line controls.
  
  

  
  

  
  You can use various audio controllers for volume control and mute toggle:
  
  

• Fosmon
  
• Insignia
  
• Lucid Sound AdjustR
  
  

  
  

  
  To connect the ModMic, Minimic, clip-on mics and other 3.5mm mics to DS4 or an audio controller, you need a TRRS / 4-pole Y-splitter (three black rings on the connector). The BoomPro doesn't require a Y-splitter. USB mics are plug-and-play.
  
   
  
  🎧 HEADPHONES
  
  

  
  

  
  

• AKG K52
  
  Sound: Has a wide and deep soundstage, good imaging, clarity and detail retrieval and decent separation. It doesn't over- or under-emphasize the bass or treble. The bass can sound a little muddy in e.g. blasts and explosions.
  
  Build: Is closed-back and over-ear. Durable and very lightweight. The cups tilt and pivot, so they should adjust to the shape of your head nicely. The earpads have decent quality and are soft and removable, but they're shallow.
  
  
  
• Philips SHP9500
  
  Sound: Has a soundstage with medium width and depth. It has good imaging, separation and detail retrieval and very good clarity. It doesn't over- or under-emphasize the bass or treble.
  
  Build: Is open-back and over-ear. Durable and lightweight. The cups tilt and pivot and the cable detaches. The earpads have good quality and they're soft and removable, but they're very shallow. Replacing them requires modification or buying/making 3D printed rings that the new earpads attach to. Modifying is very easy and quick to do and doesn't require special tools or extra parts. I've made a tutorial. 3D printed parts can be bought from Mod House Audio and Thingiverse. The clamping force is very light, so I don't recommend the headphone for children or if you frequently move your head down and have an average sized head. For aftermarket earpads, I recommend Shure HPAEC1840. These tighten the clamping force for a little, and personally, I love the comfort and fit with these.
  
  
• Superlux HD668B
  
  Sound: Has a wide and deep soundstage, I'd say 50% bigger than SHP9500. It has very good imaging, separation, clarity and detail retrieval. It has emphasized treble and a small boost in the mid-bass.
  
  Build: Is semi-open-back and over-ear. Sturdy and lightweight. The cups tilt and pivot. The cable and earpads are detachable. The earpads have bad quality and are shallow, so I recommend replacing them with earpads from HiFiMAN.
  
  
• Superlux HD681 EVO
  
  Sound: Has the same soundstage as HD668B. It has very good clarity and good detail retrieval, but has poor imaging and separation. It's warm sounding with deep bass.
  
  Build: Is semi-open-back and over-ear. The cups tilt and pivot. The cable and earpads are detachable. The earpads have decent quality and are soft and detachable, but they're shallow and the drivers stick out quite a bit, so I recommend taking out the loose felt inside the cups, unless you're sensitive to treble, and replacing the earpads with earpads from HiFiMAN, or earpads from Brainwavz if you want much more depth. These are expensive, but they have great quality, they are made of memory foam and are very soft and roomy, and the sound quality is absolutely worth it.
  
  

  
  

  
  I also compare to AKG Q701, Audio-Technica ATH-AD700x, Beyerdynamic DT990 (600 ohms), HiFiMAN HE400i, HyperX Cloud, Philips Fidelio X2 and Sennheiser HD700, which I got for gaming, except for HE400i, but it's great for gaming. I don't recommend HyperX Cloud / Cloud II / CloudX. I strongly advise against them if you don't need closed-back. My evaluations derive mostly if not only from gaming (so take it with a grain of salt for music entertainment listening). I can't emphasize enough that perceived performance in headphones is relative.
  
   
  
  Glossary | ℹ️
  ---|---
  Closed-back x | Cups with solid shells that largely isolate sound from passing in and out.
  Open-back / semi-open-back | Cups with perforations/grills that allow outside sound to freely pass in and sound from the drivers to freely pass out. How loud you hear outside sound and how loud people around you hear the sound from the headphones depend on the volume, of course. The sonic benefit to open-back is generally a big soundstage.
  Soundstage | Perceived space and environment of sound. It can be compared to virtual surround sound; both attempt to produce the same spacious, three-dimensional effect. VSS can sound more ambient and immersive, which depends on the processor you use (CMSS-3D, Dolby, SBX, etc.), but it degrades the sound quality and diminishes detailing due to compression from digital processing. You might also experience less accurate imaging and separation if the headphone already has good imaging and separation. Note that a deep soundstage is equally important as a wide soundstage.
  Imaging | Accuracy of sounds/objects positioned across the soundstage. And I mean where they are positioned -- not merely what direction they come from. This distinction is important because being able to tell only what direction objects come from isn't good enough to me when playing against people. Imaging is inherent to the audio content, so if the game is recorded or mixed poorly, a headphone with good imaging won’t improve the positional audio, so don't judge the headphone before using it in games you're very familiar with. I test mine mostly in Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
  Separation | Separating individual sounds from a range of sounds. Good separation makes it easier to filter out or discern overlapping sounds from other sounds and track them.

I'd say stop focusing on certifications and start focusing on learning how to do things.

How extensive is your Home Lab?

Have you built out any VM's yet?
Have you built a Windows domain yet?

Have you built a Squid proxy on Linux yet? (Not that Squid is super-useful anymore, but its a decent project with clear results.)

Have you built a pfSense firewall yet?

Have you bought a Raspberry Pi yet (the cheapest Linux Server on the planet)?

When you apply for that next-level job you have in mind, in the interview I am not going to ask you questions that might appear on a certification exam. I am going to ask you questions related to real-world scenarios of problems I think you are likely to encounter in the job under discussion. And I need to see how well you are ready to deal with them.

-----

"I can't afford any of those things..."

If you are trying to learn everything on just one computer or laptop, that's certainly a problem.
But if you have a second PC, just a $300-500 clunker, it changes everything.

CentOS Linux is free.
KVM Virtual Machine manager is free.

Linux Foundation - Intro to Linux for Free
Linux Foundation - Online Course Catalog - some free some paid
DigitalOcean Linux Tutorials
Docker Self-Paced Training


Windows Server 2012R2 Evaluation is free.
Windows 10 Professional Evaluation is free.

Microsoft Virtual Academy
Microsoft MSDN Product Evaluation Center -- Free Downloads
Microsoft TechNet Product Evaluation Center -- More Free Downloads


If you only have a single computer, and cannot afford a second computer, you still have options:

Amazon Web Services has a free offering for you to build virtual machines to play with:

https://aws.amazon.com/free/

If you want something a little more permanent, Amazon Light Sail now lets you build low-end virtual servers for as low as $5/month:

https://amazonlightsail.com/pricing/

Microsoft also has some free offerings for virtual servers:

Microsoft Azure Cloud Services Free Trial Center
Microsoft Training Info Center
Microsoft Ignite Training Convention Video Center
Microsoft MSDN Video Training Portal

-----

In my opinion:

If you think you are likely to apply for some Government or Contractor positions that require security clearances, go ahead and complete the Security+.

But I think you might want to focus a little more time on combining technologies into scenarios where you learn how to perform business operations tasks, rather than add another narrow-focused skillset.

I also encourage you to make yourself gain comfort with Linux.
YES: you will need to learn a whole new world of syntax and terminology, and learn to do more with syntax and less with icons.
But the benefits are real, and significant.

Buy one of these:

Amazon: Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Kit $75

That's a complete Linux Server. Just add a USB keyboard, mouse & HDMI monitor.


Watch two or three of these videos, and observe that all of the biggest players working on the sexiest of technology projects are all doing it on Linux:

USENIX Site Reliability Enginering Convention 2014 Presentations - Free
USENIX Site Reliability Enginering Convention 2015 Presentations - Free
USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference 2014 Presentations - Free
USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference 2015 Presentations - Free


-----

> [MCSA]... But again, how far can I really go trying to learn this with home equipment? I'm sure I could install a Server OS, but I don't know if I can play with the inner workings on a home network enough to familiarize myself with the content.

If you have a small home server, you can install Windows Server 2012 R2 evaluation on it, and add the Hyper-V service, and run at least 2 virtual machines on it.

The Server could become a domain controller. Then you add a guest server and a guest client using Windows 10 evaluation and another Windows server eval license.

Now you join them to a domain together and start writing GPO policies and playing in the Forest...

That can also be done in Azure cloud with virtual machines. The challenge is the short duration of the free period in Azure cloud.

honestly for your usage that’s a very big budget especially if you’re not gaming.If I were you i would find a nice thinkpad (T lineup) or an asus zenbook of high specs.I’m not a programmer but I think .NET and visual studio code are what you’re using? And I think they are light even an I5 cpu would do the trick or an I7 of you want the extra power.Since you won’t be compiling a lot just choose any machine with the following:

1)I5 8th gen or i7 8th gen even the U series should do well.Those are available from every manufacturer.Don’t go for 7th gen u cpu’s they are just dated by this point and the difference is huge.Also if you are an amd fan the new ryzen 2500u + 2700u are great options with good graphics power and linux compatibility.

2)16 gb of ram or 8gb + an empty slot.Again every manufacturer has a model of those.
3)an ssd or an ssd empty slot are NECESSARY as you will want an ssd no matter what,Having an hdd plus the ssd is a welcome extra space but not an hdd alone.
Ideally go for 512ssd or 256ssd+hdd.

4)please stay away from nvidia cards under linux they are just so much work.

5)from this point on if my choices doesn’t fit your taste you know what specs to look for as nobody can tell you what the keyboard feels like and that is something you have to try yourself and is important because you will type A LOT.
Some options :

1. pricey option : ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UAL
   
   Looks like perfect for you but the battery life which I can’t judge.
   
   2)this laptop from asus that you can upgrade with an ssd and extra ram(no idea about battery or keyboard quality): https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0762S8PYM/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1524137187&sr=8-13&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=asus%2Bzenbook&th=1&psc=1
   
   3)lenovo’s thinkpad lineup configurable via their website and all have great keyboards and nice battery life and supposedly great linux compatibility out of the box with all distros.
   
   4)dell xps 13 which is pretty much the standard In laptop recommendations for work. configurable In the dell website.
   
   5)the x1 carbon from lenovo is a rugged option.
   
   6)hp elitebook 830 G5 customized from hp’s website seems like a damn great 13inches option but is a bit pricey around 1850$ for a full configured I5 model and it has only a 50wh battery so I can’t judge the battery life.
   
   
2. the hp envy 13t looks like a nice option too,here is a review of it from laptop mag :
   https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/hp-envy-13t
   
   There are some other options that I can’t think of right now and I may have stretched it with the pricing but you have a generous budget.A word of advice would be to find an option In the 1500$ range and save those 1000$ for upgrades as even top of the line notebooks will get old fast or don’t upgrade and by that time ~3 years you would have saved another 500$ or so and by a new notebook.Hope that helps have a nice day :)

This is quite a long post but you probably should read it all. I also searched for the best possible sound on the PS4 for the cheapest price and tried almost everything.

Astro Headsets are NOT top notch. They are just OK. They have extremely elevated bass that drowns out the footsteps and clarity.

Razer again are completely overpriced and sound worse than 30 dollar headsets.

Sony Gold Wireless is decent and wireless which is also nice. But they sound a little bit muddy compared to the HyperX Cloud II. But sound better than the Astro's.

I have every headset listed except the Razer Kraken 7.1 but I do have the Razer Megalodon which was absolutely horrible and I had so many issues with it and the firmware updates fixed nothing and the sound from the headphones transmitted over the mic even when isolated so it was a wiring issue. I just would shy away from Razer at this point. I hear too many bad things about them all the time with build quality issues. Although I do think they look really cool.

For PS4 in my experience all USB sound cards sound terrible. I have tried the Syba, the Sony Silver USB Adapter, and the Logitech G430 USB sound card.

If you don't want to think about anything, buy these.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Astro-A40-Gaming-MixAmp-Pro-With-All-Cables-for-Ps3-Ps4-Xbox-Window-and-Mac-/142172429854

https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-GSP-Gaming-Headset-507079/dp/B01KV3BB0S/

This right here will probably be the best setup available for the cheapest price. The HyperX Cloud II could be substituted for the GSP 300 but HyperX Cloud II's do sound slightly less clear than Sennheiser. These GSP 300's look like a refresh of the PC 350 SE but with reduced ohms but I currently do not have the GSP 300 so can't tell you if it sounds different than the PC 350 SE but if it sounds like it, it will be great for gaming in every way.

Here are further explanations for why you should get those two.

The new MixAmp Pro TR has horrible metallic surround sound.

Example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtNF1i2eSwg

It really does sound horrible so I returned it and got the MixAmp Pro 2013 edition from eBay and can tell you that it sounds absolutely fantastic. And much better than any of the USB stuff. Because of the Digital Optical connection. It is very important that if you go this route that you set up the MixAmp Pro 2013 correctly. You have to make sure that in the PS4 settings that the output to headphones setting is set to CHAT ONLY or you will not get the surround sound features through optical. You will get the standard stereo USB sound card of the MixAmp Pro 2013 instead of the optical which sounds much better than the other options.

The MixAmp also really is an amp. It pushes my PC 350 SE 150 ohms perfectly. The other USB adapters do NOT amp and I can not get my PC 350 SE's loud enough through controller or any USB adapter. So the MixAmp pro does definitely amp. But I should mention any headset above 150 ohms or lower sensitivity would probably not work with the MixAmp that well or it would be really low volume.

Also Sennheiser is extremely well respected for their sound and I own the PC 350 SE (And the G4ME One) and can tell you that it has the best sound of any gaming headset out there except maybe the ATH-ADG1X but those are 300 dollars.

Also, I can confirm that the USB adapter that comes with the HyperX Cloud II does not support surround sound on PS4. No USB devices support surround sound on PS4 unless you buy it straight from Sony. The Sony Golds and Sony Silver USB adapter are the only two devices that support USB surround sound that I know of. And it is not that great compared to what the MixAmp Pro 2013 offers.

Now for the part where I will tell you that if you want the audiophile solution, read further.

Most gaming headsets really do suck compared to a pair of audiophile headphones and an add on mic.

So in this area I will recommend this solution.

For audiophile experience you are going to want to get these SHP 9500's:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826138190
And this add on mic (Uni Directional with Mute):
https://www.amazon.com/Antlion-Audio-ModMic-Attachable-Microphone/dp/B00R98JVVU?th=1

I don't recommend that V-Moda BoomPro even though it works perfectly with the SHP 9500's. It picks up everything in the room and since PS4 does not offer a push to talk feature I would stay away from it. It would be perfect for PC gaming though with a Push-to-Talk button.

If you get this with the MixAmp you are going to have the absolute best sound quality with the best mic quality for that price. No doubts whatsoever.

If money is really not an issue. I recommend the Sennheiser HD 598's with the ModMic and the SoundBlaster X7 with the Bluetooth USB adapter for chat. It does not work with Xbox One for chat only optical.

And if money is not an issue AT ALL then I recommend the Sennheiser HD 600 with the ModMic and the SoundBlaster X7 and the MixAmp Pro 2013 so you can put that into the X7 and use the line in and it's audio mixing capabilities so you can switch between SBX and Dolby Headphone with the MixAmp and choose the one you like the best.

I hope this helps you make a decision. I own most of the stuff mentioned and this is all from personal experience. But you should also note that sound is highly subjective so you may just have to purchase this stuff from Amazon so you can test all of it and send it back if it doesn't meet your needs or expectations.

Just upgrade your storage.

__

Internal Drive

I'm assuming you have a 2013 model, but on any version of the PS4, replacing the internal drive is easy. It really only gets a little complicated if you want to back up your data beforehand, which you'll need to do if you want to keep your saved screenshots and video clips (though game save data and system settings will be backed up to the cloud if you have PS+, but make sure they're uploaded first). Keep in mind though that if you are thinking about re-downloading everything instead of backing up-- accepting the lost of your screenshots and video clips in the process-- this also means re-downloading all of your games.

__

The choice of what kind of drive you upgrade to is up to you.

• If you want to considerably reduce your load times across the board, you could opt for a 1TB SSD. Sounds expensive, but SSDs have had a drastic decrease in cost over the years, so a fast, 1TB drive to cut down your load times isn't unreasonable.
  
• Whether you want to get the most affordable upgrade possible or if you prioritize storage size and cost over speed, a standard HDD will do the job. NOTE: The drive options in the HDD links go past 2TB, but those larger drives are 15mm drives instead of 9mm. Long story short, nothing past 2TB will fit in a PS4 without modifications.
  
• For a mix of speed and storage space / budget, you could pick up the in-between option, a hybrid drive. There's a bit of nuance to these drives, but if you're looking for the best of both worlds with a single drive, a hybrid drive does offer increased performance without sacrificing storage space.
  
  _
  
  To change out your PS4's internal drive (after backing up), turn off your PS4 and change out the drives. You'll have to get the PS4 update software from here, but, do not download it from the blue button, that's a different file than what you need. Scroll down to this part of the page and click on "Perform a new installation of the system software." Read through the instructions there, and you'll download the system software from the link under step 2. Then, turn your PS4 on in Safe Mode and install the system software.
  
  There, your system's drive is upgraded and installed, now you just restore from your PS+ cloud save or your physical drive backup.
  
  _
  
  External Drive
  
  If you don't want to deal with all of the work of changing out your internal drive, or maybe you want to run a dual-drive system, you can use an external drive.
  
  A good USB 3.0 drive makes a great option for bulk storage. This way you won't be limited by what can fit in your system, but more importantly, you'll have the option to separate slower bulk storage from a faster internal drive.
  
  If you included the above external drive with, say, a 500GB or a 1TB SSD, you can have your OS, capture data, and frequently played / bigger games on a faster drive, giving your better load times across the board, whilst still having a secondary bulk drive for your game collection. This is personally what I'd recommend.
  
  But again, if you're just looking for an easy way to increase you system's storage capacity without dealing with hard drive swapping or OS installation, you could just get a large-capacity external drive.
  
  __
  
  The Point is
  
  Instead of getting rid of games and getting new ones, just increase the amount of space you can use to store them.

If you want something with SSD pre installed in it then I would recommend this The Acer Aspire E 15

• NVIDIA MX150 which is one of the best for this range but still not great for newer games Benchmark(use the same website to check the benchmarks of the other GPU from the right hand list).
  
  
• 8th Gen i5 quad core CPU, Full HD IPS 15.6 inch screen, 8GB ram, 256GB SSD, MX 150 GPU (a nice step up from the iGPU 620 on the other acer ).
  
  
• Long battery life (advertised of up to 15-hours of battery life), weight 5.27 lbs, backlit keyboard, USB type C.
  
  
• 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD both are somewhat standards in 600 range so finding them on 500~ range is somewhat a catch.
  
  Here is a little in depth review of it :
  
  
• It is made from plastic, but it feels sturdy, screen comes with anti glare finish so it will work well outside.
  
  
• Battery life is great about 5-8 hours of general usage.
  
  
• Backlit keyboard, quite and comfortable, Trackpad have been getting some mixed reviews, I think it is a software issue, or maybe it is because some people are not used to trackpads.
  
  
• Speakers are good, above average for laptops in this range, the gaming performance is also above average since it is only MX150 but it the best for the budget.
  
  
• Very thin, very quiet (can barely hear the fans), It has room for more ram as well as more SSD, Fingerprint magnet.
  
  
  If you are ok with putting your own SSD then I would recommend this Acer Aspire E 15
  
  Here is a more detailed review of it:
  
  
• Good upgrades available, can go to 16GB of ram, and with a little more work than usual you can even fit a SSD on it.
  
  
• USB type C which is another rare thing to find on this budget.
  
  I thought I would give you a little more in depth review, so here it goes.
  
  
• Battery life is from 7 to 10 hours of normal non gaming usage.
  
• Backlit keyboard only comes on when you touch the buttons to save battery, it is quite.
  
• Easily upgradeable, we recommend you add 4GB stick and a SSD if you have the budget for it and it would turn into a perfect laptop (more so than it already was).
  
• Minimal bloat-ware, speakers are above average like what you would expect from a laptop, Trackpad doesn't have separate buttons, but they work well, the outer body has a matte finish to it which makes it feel really good even though it is all plastic and doesn't attract fingerprints easily).
  
  when you add an SSD it will be much better than other 500~ laptops.
  

Your upgrade looks like it will be way cheaper than mine was.

I got the Rift on sale for $350, but my PC was like 10 years old with only a new SSD in it.

Ended up getting an i5-9600K + MSI Z390 Gaming Edge for $470, 16 GB of RAM, Cooler Master 212 EVO which turned out to be huge and a huge pain in the ass to install (I recommend watching the video on that page that I didn't notice until after I installed the thing with only it's Ikea-like instructions.), but that big fan means it's far quieter than the tiny stock fans processors usually come with. The i5-9600K does not come with a fan either, so I had no choice and this was the most popular one on NewEgg.

Also got myself an MSI Gaming X GTX 1070 used on Ebay for $270. And because it only has one HDMI port, I decided to use that for the RIFT because it was less risky, and got a Displayport to HDMI cable which supports audio for my monitor which has the speakers built in and does not have a Displayport connector. Only afterward while taking my PC apart however did I realize I had the HMDI cable plugged into my old card with a DVI adapter, and the Gaming X has a DVI port as well, so I could have saved the money on the cable. :(

Also at the last minute I had to run out and grab a Corsair 750W power supply because my perfectly good Coolermaster 750W power supply did not have an 8 pin connector for my CPU. Of course, when I got it home it did not have the 4 pin connector and the motherboard has both a 4 pin and 8 pin and I assumed both would be needed, but I gave it a shot and just having the 8 pin was fine. But now I wonder if just having the 4 pin would also have been fine. The damn manual doesn't have a thing to say about it being okay to just use one of them, but being an electrical engineer I have to assume they're both tied to the same rail on the board, so I'm just gaining a bit more copper to lower the voltage drop if I were to connect a 4 pin as well, and the system seems perfectly stable, so perhaps they included the second connector to help with overclocking. I dunno.

Anyway, final tally including the Rift without a third sensor was $1,339.

And if you're wondering why I didn't go with AMD, well, I could have but when I priced it out, I wasn't actually going to save that much. And the Intel seemed like it would perform better with both games and applications and would just be less likely to have any issues like the Vive and its wireless solution do with AMD processors.

Part of the reason the AMD was not much cheaper is the same MSI motherboard would have been more expensive as an AMD variant and while the AMD included a cooler, the Cooler Master one was only $30 and had a bigger fan which meant it would likely be quieter. Though the AMD does run at a lower wattage, so it could be a toss up. All I know is my old PC sounded like a jet engine when I started doing any heavy lifting with 3D graphics, and it was still kinda noisy otherwise, but now its super quiet and even when running 3D apps that MSI card which I specifically chose because it's one of the quietest, was indeed really quiet.

Speaking of the 1070, my god that is a monster of a card! I barely fit it in my case. And my case is a full size tower. But it has extra 3.5" bays down the bottom where I have my hard drives installed and I had to move them down some more to get it to fit and it only barely slid in behind the metal frame of the drive bay.

Only other thing to mention is while I had no problem fitting my two ram sticks on the motherboard, that Cooler Master cooler's fan would probably collide with one of the ram sticks if I were to install four in there. I think the fan can slide up and down on the cooler though, so perhaps as long as you have low profile ram, you could slide it up a smidge or two to make it fit. Something to consider if you think you may eventually want 32 or 64GB of ram.

Alright, here we go:

PLANNING

You mainly need to figure out how many cables you need and where you'll run them to. Obviously you'll need one to each location of an AP or camera, so you need to figure out how many you'll run to jacks for connecting Ethernet devices. The bare minimum is one to each TV location and desk location, in this case you'll connect a switch to the jack if you need to connect more than one device. The ideal number is five to your main entertainment center, and two to every other TV location and desk location. This hopefully eliminates the need for secondary switches. In addition, you should run one Coaxial cable to each TV location including your main entertainment center. Add up all the Ethernet cables you'll be running, and keep this number in mind.

As for the network hub location, the best place for it is the basement, preferably an unfinished part of it near the entry point of your internet service. If you don't have a basement, use a utility room. Just make sure it has some sort of ventilation, you don't want stuff getting too hot.

EQUIPMENT

For the actual Ethernet cable, you'll want to get a 1000 foot bulk spool. Get pure copper rather than copper clad aluminum (CCA) and solid conductors rather than stranded. It needs to be riser rated (pretty much any will be) but plenum rating is pointless unless you'll be running it through air ducts. Your big choice here is the category rating: Cat5e or Cat6. Cat5e is good for gigabit, Cat6 will future-proof you for 10 gigabit. Cat6 is more expensive, thicker, and trickier to terminate as the spec only allows a quarter inch of untwisting rather than Cat5e's half an inch.

Keeping in mind the number of wires you plan on running, you'll need a punch-down patch panel with at least that many ports that matches the category rating of your cable. You'll also need punch-down keystone jacks, these also need to match the category rating of your cable. You won't need them for cables going to cameras or APs, you'll just need one for each other cable. For each location where you'll be installing jacks, you'll need a single gang old work low voltage bracket (or a surface-mount box), and a keystone wallplate. Six ports for the main entertainment center, three for each other TV location, two for each desk location. You'll also want a keystone coaxial coupler for each TV location including the main entertainment center.

You have another big choice to make for the main switch, a managed PoE switch or a dumb unmanaged switch. The managed PoE switch will simplify things a lot as it'll power your cameras and APs, while with an unmanaged switch you'll need to use PoE injectors. A managed PoE switch will, predictably, be much more expensive. Either way, you'll ideally want one with at least as many ports as the total number of Ethernet cables you'll planning to install, plus one for the router. You can get one with fewer ports, but then you won't be able to connect all your cables to it at once, you'll need to just connect the ones you're currently using. If you'll be going with a managed PoE switch, get one of these UniFi switches: 8-port with 4 PoE, 8-port with all PoE, 16-port, 24-port, or 48-port. If you'll be getting an unmanaged switch, any is fine. Just make sure it's gigabit. I used this one in my previous house, for example.

For the router, you'll want the UniFi Security Gateway.

You've got another big choice to make for the APs: Lite or Pro. The main difference is that the Lite has two 5 GHz streams, while the Pro has three. Only high-end devices like Macbook Pros have 3-stream Wi-Fi hardware, so if you don't have any devices with this, the Pro won't give you any benefit. Also, since the Lite is cheaper you can get more of them for the money, as more APs rather than better ones is the best thing you can do to improve your Wi-Fi. Both of these are available in single-packs and 5-packs, the single packs include PoE injectors but the 5-packs don't. If you're getting a PoE switch, consider getting a 5-pack of Lites.

You'll need something to run the UniFi controller. This is the software that you use to manage all the UniFi gear in one place. The easiest thing to do is install it on an Ethernet-connected PC and just run it when you need to make changes or update firmware. If you want a dedicated device for running it all the time, you can use a Raspberry Pi or Cloud Key. The Cloud Key is PoE-powered, so it's particularly convenient if you have a PoE switch.

You'll also need a few RJ45 plugs for the AP and camera cables, a crimping tool for them, a 110 impact punch down tool for doing your jack and patch panel terminations, and something to strip the cable jacket. Normally this will be built into the crimper.

Lastly, you'll need a lot of pre-made Ethernet patch cables to connect everything in your network hub. Get ones that are as short as possible, 1-3 feet. You'll need one to connect each cable you've installed from the patch panel to the switch, one for connecting the switch to the router, and another for connecting the router to the modem/ONT (this one may need to be longer). If you'll be using any PoE injectors, you'll need an additional cable for each one. You could make all these yourself, but this is very tedious and time-consuming, and hard to get right. The wires need to be in the right order and all 8 need to be connected for gigabit to work. Lastly, you'll need one for each actual Ethernet device you currently have, these should be 6 feet or longer if necessary.

INSTALLATION AND SETUP

The first thing to do is run all the cables. Camera and AP lines go to the device's location and get an RJ45 plug, all the others go to a keystone jack box/bracket/faceplate. Whenever possible, leave a foot of slack at both ends in case you need to re-do terminations. I like to terminate each cable after I run it, as it makes things easier to keep track of. For all the jacks, note the port number of the cable at the patch panel, and write that same number on the faceplate next to the jack. When you do the terminations, make sure to untwist the wire as little as possible, particularly if you're using Cat6.

For the APs, install the ceiling mount bracket using the included hardware, connect the cable to the AP, and then just put the AP on the bracket and twist it to lock it in place.

At the network hub, first hook up any PoE injectors you'll be using. Connect the patch panel port for the AP/camera cable to the injector's PoE port, and connect the injector's LAN port to the switch. Plug the injector into an outlet. Now connect the rest of the patch panel's ports to the switch, or if you have a smaller switch just connect the ones you're currently using. Connect the USG's LAN port to the switch, and its WAN port to your modem/ONT. Make sure your APs are getting power, their ring light will be white if they are.

Now, open the UniFi Controller (wherever you have it set up) and go to the Devices page. Adopt everything, and update everything's firmware. Go through it and set up everything the way you like. All the UniFi devices will light up blue once adopted and configured.

So when it comes to buying a mouse it is really all about your play style and feel. If you like to palm the mouse meaning that your whole hand is round the mouse a good mouse is the Razer Deathadder If you like the claw grip using mostly only your finger tips than I would recommend the Logitech G Pro I personally now use this mouse but used the Deathadder for a number of years. Both mice have over a 12,000 dpi setting once you install the software you can adjust as you please, but tbh most likely you will play between 200-900 dpi and 1.2-3.2 sensitivity in game. All of this is preference and you will figure out over a long period of time playing key board again is all preference it depends if you like silent of mechanical Razer Cynosa is a very nice silent one in your price range, for mechanical I have owned a lot of them and tbh the one I use is a off brand one I bought from my local Walmart and and I like it more than any high dollar ones I have owned so you might want to look there. Also you will need a nice mouse pad I have and will probably continue to use for years the razer goliaths speed it is cloth and I like it, there are also hard pads many people I know use and enjoy the Corsait MM8800 but again this is all up to preference. Last thing if you are trying to play at any high lvl of competition you might want to look into a 144hz monitor if your computer can run what ever game you are playing over about 200fps I have Acer 24inch 144hz the price is really good and makes a huge difference. well that is about all I can think about I wish you the best of luck and above all just have fun.

​

Hey! It looks like you've got a pretty solid build started here! I just want to point out a few things to make your life just a little bit easier.

1. The motherboard you have will NOT work with the CPU that you've chosen. You picked a Z170A board, which works with the 6th and 7th generation (if BIOS is flashed) of Intel CPU's, and you're buying an 8th generation. So I would recommend this board or this one instead. Either will work, it just depends on how much money you want to spend.
   
2. Don't buy the power supply you've picked. It puts out way more wattage than you'll use, so I would recommend saving some money and maybe picking up this one. As a bonus it has an RGB fan, so that's kinda cool. It's also fully modular, meaning that you only need to plug the cables into the PSU that you need instead of having extras to hide in your case.
   
3. I'd also save some money on your RAM. This set is cheaper, faster, and only requires that you use two of your RAM slots instead of all four. More upgradeability in the future!
   
4. Think about if you really need 2TB of storage right now. The 1TB SSD you have picked out is going to be great, and if you're new to PC gaming it's going to have plenty of space for awhile. You can always pick up a new HDD (like the Seagate one you have in your cart) later down the road.
   
5. With the money that you've saved, I think that you could upgrade your graphics card from your 1060 (a GREAT option, don't get me wrong) to a 1070 like this one. (EVGA is a great company in my opinion, and I love their graphics cards.) It's a great contender for both 1440p and 1080p gaming!
   
6. Others have said to get a cheaper air cooler instead of opting for the water cooler that you've picked. If you decide to go that route (completely fine) I would maybe go with something like this if you want something extra beefy to keep your CPU cool, or this less beefy one. Either way, 8th generation CPUs run hot, so the water cooler you have would work great.
   
   So there ya go! I hope that you enjoy your new build, it's going to be amazing! If you PM me I'll add you on Steam and we can play some games together when your build is all set!

generally the best sounding setup will not be a "gaming headset", but just a pair of good headphones with a separate mic.

what is your budget? that is a big factor as there is a huge variety of headphones out there all across the price spectrum.


i currently use Phillips Fidelio X2's with an Antlion ModMic running through a beyerdynamic usb dac/amp (soundcard basically, not even necessary but i had it already and its convenient) and love the setup. ive gone through several other headphones but found this setup to be the most comfortable with best sound. the X2's barely feel like youre wearing anything, have great soundstage and just sound really good in general. i previously used beyerdynamic mmx300's which are an actual headset (mic attached) but moved away from them as they just were not quite as comfy as i wanted for longer usage. also the mic didnt detach so it got annoying at times. other headphones i tried are my akg 553 pros, ath m50x, oppo pm3 and fostex th x00 but none quite had the "full package" of great sound and comfort of the x2's though. not the cheapest setup, but it works great and im happy with it so worth it to me.

https://www.amazon.com/Philips-X2-27-Fidelio-Headphones/dp/B00O2Y2MZG

https://www.amazon.com/Antlion-Audio-ModMic-Attachable-Microphone/dp/B00R98JVVU/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_23_lp_t_4

http://north-america.beyerdynamic.com/shop/usb-sound-card-for-headsets.html


in general the idea is to just get headphones from an actual headphone manufacturer, not a does it all like logitech. they make so many different things, headphones just arent a priority. others have mentioned the sennheiser game ones, which is at least a headset from an actual headphone company. the hyperx clouds are also supposed to be very good for the price despite not being from a headphone company, but that is probably because they are based off of the beyerdynamic mmx300, which is just the beyer dt990s with a mic. meaning the clouds are just a much more affordable clone basically.

at the minimum just try to avoid buzzwords like "7.1 surround". the headphones dont have 8 speakers in them (there are a few that tried doing such, but so few it doesnt matter), theyre not actually doing any surround sound so dont fall for it.

Edit: prebuilt included at bottom of post.

If your issue with building a pc is taking time to select parts, you can have the friendly people at r/buildapcforme put together a list of parts for you, and then you'd only have to visit their neatly organized set of links and put the items in your cart (usually just on amazon.com and newegg.com, occasionally ebay.com as well).

As for prebuilts, just look for something cheap. Basically anything nowadays can run the games you've listed.

If you want to go for dirt cheap, and don't mind ordering parts, you can build a computer with the ryzen 3200g APU (no dedicated GPU), 8 GB of RAM, and a b450 motherboard for... cheap. Just off the top of my head... $100 for the CPU (Actually APU), 8 GB RAM, currently $30ish, though usually around $50 (and the prices are in flux right now), Almost $100 for a motherboard with wifi, though this can be $50 if you plug it into your home router with an ethernet cable. Add a $50 case, a more than adequate, good quality $50 PSU, as well as a small-ish SSD (the linked one is a 512 GB priced at $70) and you've got yourself a completed build. Note that you'll need a desk, chair, monitor, speakers/headset, keyboard, and mouse to use this as well, and a pci-e wireless adapter if you want wifi (assuming you didn't spring for the motherboard that has built in wifi.)

Edit: Ran that through a calculator. Assuming that RAM ends up costing you $50 instead of $30, and you spring for the motherboard with WIFI, your computer will cost $350 $420. A monitor, keyboard, and mouse will jack the price up another $150ish, since most decent 1080p monitors are $100 new. You'll also need speakers, or a headset. I've edited my list above to add this, but didn't factor in price. You're most likely looking at an additional $200 for perhipials, including moniotor, if you go the cheap route; this also assumes that you have a desk (any kind that will fit a monitor, keyboard, and mouse up top, in addition to your computer tower below, will suffice) and a chair to sit in.

If you want to go the laptop route, used gaming laptops with a 960m or similar dedicated GPU usually go for about $500-$600 on Ebay. Feel free to shop around; I recommend looking specifically for a model that has support for an M.2 SSD, as you can rock a small (200-512 GB range) m.2 SSD in addition to a large (but cheap) 1 or 2 TB laptop (2.5 inch) HDD. Install the OS to the SSD, and enjoy fast as hell computer speeds; install games to the HDD and enjoy vast amounts of storage for super cheap. (This can also be done for your desktop, but most laptops only support 1 SATA storage device.)

And, hey would you look at that. I forgot to include a storage device in your system build! I'll add it in and adjust the price accordingly (probably up $50, for a total of $400.)

For comparison, I found this prebuilt computer It's got a better GPU, but the CPU is a generation behind what I've listed. It even seems to come with a keyboard and mouse. All in all, a better gaming machine, but with a price tag to reflect it; It was at $580 when I posted the link. Which honestly isn't all that bad. At all.

You know what. Screw the rest of my post. Buy that prebuilt and you're all set. Well, except for the monitor. And maybe Wifi? And speakers. But still, it's a good price. Note: There's a $530 option, the GPU is a massive downgrade and it's not worth saving $50 to get it instead of the $580 computer. Although, truthfully, both will serve your needs just fine.

Here you go.

____

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor | £185.99 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard | ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | £75.90 @ Eclipse Computers
Memory | Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | £130.44 @ Aria PC
Video Card | EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Founder Edition Video Card | £582.50 @ Amazon UK
Case | CiT - VANQUISH RED ATX Mid Tower Case | £37.23 @ Amazon UK
Power Supply | Corsair - RMx 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | £79.97 @ Amazon UK
Monitor | Acer - Predator XB271HUA 27.0" 2560x1440 165Hz Monitor | £529.99 @ Amazon UK
Mouse | Logitech - G300S Wired Optical Mouse | £80.07 @ Amazon UK
Microphone| ModMic| £44.99
Keyboard| Molong KB26-BK(Switch-MX-Brown)| £53.74
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | £1800.82
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-08 02:36 BST+0100 |

___

Ryzen 1600

- As you may notice, there is no additional cooler. This is because the 1600 comes with a quiet cooler that can hold up low to medium overclocking like a champ. Saves money, too.

Motherboard

- LEDs for fancy inner setup, able to support 4 sticks of fast DDR4 ram, and a BIOS that makes overclocking easy, this mobo will suit your gaming needs.


RAM

- The Vengeance 16GB will give you plenty of RAM in any current or future title. Clocked at 3200, the Ryzen CPU on board will be able to utilize your memory faster and more easily than lower speeds.

Case

- The VANQUISH from CiT is great looking, LED enabled, has built-in fans, and windowed sides. Good cable management too.

Video Card

- The 1080 Ti will take care of all of your needs. It can process the game you are playing while encoding for the stream without issue. This monster is the star of the build.

PSU

- Fully modular for ultimate cable management to get the most airflow and beauty out of your computer, and for ease of assembly. 550W is plenty to feed large overclocks, many HDDs and SSDs and anything you throw at it. The Gold standard indicates the quality of the PSU, and results in a more steady voltage and less heat generated (both great for overclocking), less noisy and easier on the electric bill as well.

Monitors

- This monitor is a beast. Plays in 4K, good color fidelity, tiny response time, G-Sync (WOW!) and 27" make this monitor a dreamboat.

Keyboard

- This keyboard is great. Fits the color scheme of the build, RGB lights, NKR, spill-resistant, and real Cherry MX Brown switches for gaming and typing pleasure.

NOTE: The keyboard comes in two different colors. The pictures are switched between the two. Make sure to order the one labeled Black, Cherry MX Brown

G300S

- Many pro CS:GO players swear their careers by and often win with this mouse.


Microphone

- Here's the oddball. This ModMic is a sound-cancelling, good-quality and small microphone that can attach to any pair of headphones. If you have a nice pair of headphones that you like to listen to music with, or find a pair that is more comfortable for long periods of time, attach this mic to it. Watch this or this as to why.

Yeah, there’s no reason to replace your internal drive when the USB 3.0 bus will fully take advantage of the faster read/write speeds of your SSD. An enclosure like this should work well


As far as the SSD itself, just make sure it’s within the size limitations for the PS4. From the looks of it, PS4 requires external drives to be between 250 GB - 8TB in size, and apparently they’re pretty strict on that lower limitation. There is a Sandisk 240 GB SSD that works for Xbox (despite Xbox lower limit supposedly being 256 gb) that people have said will not work for PS4. There are plenty of reasonably priced 250+ GB drives available though.


Other than that, make sure you read the reviews for the SSD before buying it. Samsung is always a good pick, as are other brands like Crucial, Western Digital, and Intel, but people do appear to be having some success with the cheaper brands like Silicon Power and Adata. If you wanna play it safe, stick with Samsung, but there are enough people that have had good luck with the other brands that it may be worth considering to save some money.


Keep in mind that while most all games should load faster on your SSD, for some the load times don’t add to anything. For instance, Rainbow 6 Siege loads the maps faster, but you still have to wait for everybody on your team and the enemy team to load the maps before you can even start playing. Battlefield 1 is kind of similar in that you’ll finish one match and load the next map like 60 seconds before everyone else, but you’re just stuck there looking at the overhead battlefield waiting for people. I will say it can be nice when you’re joining a server with a match in progress, as your load time is easily halved.


Take your favorite games and their sizes into account, then ask yourself which ones have odd loading issues (overwatch mystery heroes for starters) or you just want to load faster, and purchase your SSD accordingly.


Also, one last thing, the invisibility with OW mystery heroes will be a non issue most of the time, but there are still instances where loading the first hero in mystery heroes will result in an invisible character for 1-2 seconds. I will say I’ve never had any invisible heroes in non-mystery queues since my SSD, even in backfill situations.


/end rant lol

500 is enough to get you a machine that will handle windows fine, though, admittedly windows a bit more of a pain to use if you do not want it.

> Are there super-fast options? I’ve been reading some reviews of people saying they get slow very quickly. I want browser windows to load fast, no spinning wheel of death when watching Netflix, etc.

If you throw enough money at the problem there always a solution, but in general, chromebooks, tend to be very underpowered in terms of price to performance, but in return, they get amazing battery life. If you are going to be using more than 40-50 tabs at a time, with two of them streaming some kind of media, a chromebook may not be for you. The fastest chromebook is the google pixelbook, but it comes in at $999, at which point I would argue you might as well just buy a mac. Used pixelbooks can be picked up for significantly cheaper (800-700ish). Note: the pixel chromebook is the older 2015 model, and is much cheaper used.

> Do they allow for any offline access to your Google Drive (similar to Dropbox where you have an offline folder that syncs when you connect to wifi)?

Yes, but chromebooks tend to have very limited local storage. At your price range, only around 32 Gb of storage. If you can fit all of your files in that, you should be good. Remember, cloud storage is free for a few years, but after that you will only get 10 Gb or something of cloud storage.


> I never used Google Docs much; will I be able to edit my .docx CV and pdf it without screwing up the formatting?

Mostly, though it depends on if you are using any templates or anything that might break it. I advise you just test it in Google Docs rn.


> How do I even begin to select which brand and specs? I have never had to buy a non-Apple laptop, so I have no idea how to navigate the hundreds of options.

If only there was a subreddit devoted to selecting laptops or something... /s. Seriously though, the proper way is just like anything else look at reviews, battery life benchmarks, compare processors (just google the processor numbers with vs in between two processors, Intel Celeron N3160 vs Intel Celeron N3060) General rule of thumb for intel's naming scheme is (assuming they are from roughly the same one or two years) atom <= celeron < m3 < pentium < i3 < i5 < i7. foll Fun, right? You will also probably want to avoid any chromebooks with less than 4 Gb or ram. Make sure to check the amount of storage too, get as much storage as you need. Also, storage is NOT memory.


The HP Chromebook 13 looks like it might fit you needs.


Also note: chromebooks are typically only gurenteed around 5 years of software support (the lastest hp's support will end 2022) This could be a problem as you may not recieve security updates after then, and you will not have the option to move to a new version of chromeOS like you can with windows, MacOS, or Linux.

Your alternatives in your price range: used macbooks are within your price range on ebay. Buy a new windows machine like the Asus Vivobook (which is very popular here) and either run windows on it, or install Linux. Buy a used computer and install either Windows or Linux (if you opt for this route, by a used Dell XPS or Lenovo Thinkpad, like a Carbon X1). Downside is you either have to use Windows 10 in free mode if you opt to go the windows route, or pay $200). I personally think the best alternative is to buy a used thinkpad or XPS along with a new battery, but this will be the most complex route. (I recommend an X1 carbon or an T440 or X440) It will get you the most durable hardware in your price range, though the processor might be slightly slower than something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i3-8130U-Memory-E5-576-392H/dp/B079TGL2BZ/

If you are serious about learning where the "small differences" happen that everyone talks about, I will try to explain them. I hope this gives you a better understanding of how games and technology works "behind the scenes".


Okay, first we are going to start with your question. Short answer: Yes, probably. Important part is finding/knowing what the right monitor is. I chose the 27" version of this monitor for my gaming PC. Two important features of it for us is the 1ms (millisecond, 1000 per second) response time and 144hz refresh rate. (NOTE: "standard" monitor response time is 5-20ms, with most TV's being slower (10-50ms). "standard" refresh rate for monitors and TV's is both 60hz.)


The response time is the time it takes for the TV to display the input you gave the game console, and the refresh rate is how many times the picture is updated on the TV each second. Also make sure your TV is set to Progressive scan and not Interlaced (the 720p, 720i, 1080p 1080i difference). In most cases(almost all) 720p is actually better than 1080i if you have an older TV that doesn't support 1080p by chance. SO, REMEMBER: Low ms input lag is best, and high hz refresh rate is best. Double Important: PS4 and Xbox One maxes out at 60fps in games. (hz is the limit for fps, so console Fortnite maxes at 60fps but PC maxes out at 240fps+ for top-of-the-line gaming PCs.) This is the #1 reason that "console pros" have still switched over to PC and play with controller. I'm not in any way trying to shame console players, I'm just trying to clearly explain what the "disadvantages" are and why. Because they directly relate to the discussion at hand.


Quick History Lesson: Basically, TV's have had a long history of different "input lag" issues plauging not ony cheaper TV's, with many having ridiculously long input lag. While trying to google a few examples I found something better, a reddit post specifically talking about reducing input lag on PS4. Bonus: I also found another good link comparing TV refresh rates so you can see how much they can vary, with 10-15ms being the standard good score, and some TV's reaching 140ms input lag when they aren't in Game Mode (another setting to check on the TV).

So, what your goal of investigating from here is researching your TV's model and seeing if you can find information about its input lag times and compare them to the numbers here. Input lag is the first "issue" you want to solve, if you have it (My personal metrics would be, if it has higher than 20ms input lag then it is the first thing you should replace, but if it only has 5-10ms input lag it's not worth upgrading to 1ms unless you are upgrading all the way to a gaming PC). Alright, so hopefully I clearly explained how and why input lag and refresh rate are and what you can and can't do about it in your current situation.

Also is your internet Wired or Wireless to your PS4? If it is wireless you need to switch over to wired. I might write another post about that if you are genuinely interested. :)

Edit: Bonus if your house is cold a lot, you can usually buy big packs of these hand warmers for a big discount, I think I got like 15 of these Large-Sized hand warmers for like $4.50. This is a secret Korean strategy not many people know about, but warming up your hands before your matches so you have better blood flow can make a big difference in how quickly/precisely you are able to execute maneuvers. All my gamer friends try to go home with a pack or two of my hand warmers, and yes the big ones last for 18 hours (I like them better than the smaller 10 hour ones).

This was immensely helpful, thank you very much.

To comment on your points,

Very good to know about the fan controller. I suspected it wouldn't be able to power the fans. That seemed a little too easy. However, I will likely go for a 1 > 4 splitter so there is no wires that are unconnected. That would bother me.

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-System-Cables-Black-CPF04/dp/B00VNW556I/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1495948300&sr=1-8&keywords=fan+splitter

Would something like that work for the 4 fans? Then I would use the CPU fan header for the 5th that was attached to the CPU cooler?

Also thanks for the heads up on Corsair PSU > Silverstone. I was actually already planning on that, but for some reason, Corsair SF6000 isn't showing up in PCPP right now, and I wanted a placeholder so I knew where I was at financially. So I will be getting the Corsair SF600 + ATX -> SFX adaptor.

In regards to the front panel/header, I was going off comments like this that I had read:

"Nice but USB headers 3.0 and 3.1 not a good combination with Fractal Nano S (3.0) and Corsair H80i v2(USB 2.0). Z170i is better if you are going with these two items."

"But you can't use the front USB right now because new 3.1 to 3.0 adapter is not yet available AFAIK."

So yeah it didn't make sense to me, but since I heard a few people mention something about it I just figured there was something I was missing.

Thanks for the heads up on the RGB header. So that is a header that is in place specifically 100% for people who want to add aftermarket RGB lighting, and they would plug it in to that header?

I will not be getting an NVME SSD, as of right now I am getting the 850 evo 500g. Shortly after I build my computer and get another paycheck I will likely go back and get the Crucial MX300 1TB M2, so lessen the wires and get a good bit more storage.

And noted on the amount of accessories. I am not really bound by specific budget. I could upgrade to the 1080ti and still keep everything else if I thought there were a legitimate reason to spend another 200$ on a GPU. I am getting a 27'' 1440p 144hz G Sync monitor, and from what I can tell the 1080 should handle that at high settings pretty easily If it can do that then I really don't need to dish out the extra money for a 1080ti imo.

Plus part about building a PC (for me at least) is the aesthetics. Having parts that you love, and love to look at. I will have an open window case, so I wanted to use parts that I liked and made the computer look good - without compromising on space. So after looking at every Define Nano S build on PCPP I decided the one I linked above best represents what I'm trying to do on a computer (both aesthetically speaking and performance wise).

Thanks for letting me know about the 3 main cables I'll need too. What does the 4+4 EPS CPU cable connect, and what does the 6+2 PCI-E cable connect?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS

these:

https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATH-M40x-Professional-Monitor-Headphones/dp/B00HVLUR54

• this:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Antlion-Audio-ModMic-Attachable-Microphone/dp/B00R98JVVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1491575296&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=modmic&psc=1
  
  and you will be considered the best Girlfriend ever.......there are a million choices out there on the market today, but, in my experiance there are a very few full on pre-made Gaming headsets that are truly super good, sure some sound ok but very few have the sound quality of a decent studio monitor headphone, and for me, that's important. Good luck, and, you're awesome for soliciting info like this, well done!!
  
  whoops, missed the wireless part, sorry!!!!
  
  logtiech artemis is a nice headset, I loved mine till I moved to the set up I have above, decent sound, lots of extras, good range, good mike:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Artemis-Spectrum-Wireless-Surround/dp/B0148NPJ78/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1491575575&sr=1-3&keywords=logitech+artemis
  
  and, if he already has some logitech gear, it works in conjunction with the software he already has.

Yeah, it can be a little overwhelming to figure out where to start. Some good answers already in this thread. The good news is it's actually a lot more straight-forward than it appears. The main source of confusion/apparent complexity comes from the fact that right now both the prior gen and new gen models are still on the market, making it appear that there are a ton of headsets. In reality, there are only four that matter:

Oculus Quest: VR for people that don't have or don't want to buy a decent gaming PC. Cordless, entirely self-contained, no PC needed, no external sensors needed, but limited by the mobile hardware specs. MSRP: $399 USD

Oculus Rift S: really the go-to for a first-time VR headset. Great display that solves most of the clarity issues of older headsets, great controllers, uses inside-out tracking like the Quest (i.e. no external sensors to setup), and pretty reasonable PC hardware spec requirements to run it. So quick and easy to setup that once I finished downloading the software installer, I was up and playing VR in only about 10 minutes. The relatively tiny sound is the only real commonplace complaint, but it does have a headphone jack on the headset. $399 USD

The Valve Index: currently the super high-end of VR gaming. Higher resolution display than the Rift S, higher refresh rate, fancy finger-tracking controllers. Also getting some flack for some quality control issues on its thumbsticks. The only one of the new gen VR headsets to still require external sensors and a base station, which are pretty big negatives for VR newbies since that complicates setup and calibration. Due to the higher specs, it also needs a super high-end PC to really get the most out of it. $999 USD for the starter kit, which does include everything you need to get started, although many users recommend purchasing a third lighthouse sensor (the kit comes with two).

The HTC Cosmos: HTC's replacement for the Vive. Not out yet, so exact specs, pricing, and release date are still unknown. However, it has been confirmed that it will use inside-out tracking (so no external sensors to mess with), and cost less than $1000. The latest unofficial rumors are that it is expected to launch this September, and it's expected to have both specs and pricing somewhere between the Rift S and the Index. Worth keeping an eye on.

What not to bother with:
The Vive. Vive was the premium VR headset of its era, so it's not that there is anything wrong with it per se, it's just outdated and obsolete tech. The display and controllers are just inferior to all of the newer kits.

Windows Mixed Reality (WMR): this one is probably responsible for the VR market looking crowded, since this is a standard defined by MS and not a specific headset, and lots of different manufacturers make or have made WMR headsets. So when you see PC VR headsets from Lenovo, HP, Asus, Acer, Dell, Samsung, etc, they are all just competing WMR headsets. The head strap and display vary in quality, but they all use the same controllers, which are generally considered to be inferior to Vive, Oculus, and Index controllers. The main appeal originally of WMR was to make VR cheaper and easier to get into since WMR has the least expensive headset options, and it was the first to use inside-out tracking so no external sensors. However, its inside-out tracking is done with only two forward-facing cameras, so the tracking is significantly inferior to Quest (four onboard cameras) or Rift S (five onboard cameras) inside-out tracking.

As for specs, your graphics card meets the min, but is at the very low-end of the min. You should be able to run older or less demanding VR games just fine, but may have to run newer or visually more sophisticated VR games at low graphics settings to maintain stable framerate. I would expect Beatsaber to run fine.

One last note: VR headsets, the Rift S in particular, can be pretty picky about your USB 3.0 ports. Specifically, ASMedia USB controllers that many motherboards use tend to cause lots of problems with Oculus headsets. This Inatek add-in USB 3.0 controller has solved lots of people's VR headset issues, is officially suggested by Oculus tech support, and is pretty inexpensive at only around $23. If you decide to pick up a VR headset, might be wise to proactively check your USB 3.0 controller and if it's ASMedia just go ahead and order the Intek USB 3.0 controller along with the headset.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330 15.6" HD Business Laptop, Intel Dual-Core i3-8130U Up to 3.4GHz (Beat i5-7200U), 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, 802.11ac, Bluetooth, HDMI, Windows 10 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FZZRG2M/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_3Bl7CbRWFN1R8

-A solid option

8gb ram and core i3 will do quite a bit with 1tb hard drive for almost unlimited games



Microsoft Surface Go (Intel Pentium Gold, 4GB RAM, 64GB) and Microsoft Surface Go Type Cover (Black) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FQJL839/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_cHl7CbVG26WN1

-Quality product

Downsides is low ram and less storage but will feel more luxury

Over budget by 30 dollars



New Microsoft Surface Go (Intel Pentium Gold, 4GB RAM, 64GB) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FKVTPC2/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_lKl7CbG45BTPF

-Same computer as above but without keyboard and touchpad.

You can get a cheap bluetooth keyboard and mouse if that's what you need

for both would recommend getting some case if he brings it anywhere as it is glass and aluminum

Acer Aspire E 15, 15.6" Full HD, 8th Gen Intel Core i3-8130U, 6GB RAM Memory, 1TB HDD, 8X DVD, E5-576-392H https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079TGL2BZ/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_BSl7CbTMSZXQS

Cheap laptop with okay ram, good processor and storage you can also get an ssd instead for it still under 400

Also a side note you can get an emulator on the pc so you can play mobile games on the laptop if he wants
I would recommend blue stacks for android games i don't know any emulators for ios as i don't use ios but there should be some you can use

A good tablet is the samsung galaxy tab s5e for 400 dollars or 465 with a keyboard if you wanted a tablet
samsung also makes cheap phones if your heart so desires to save some money

You could get a gaming console for below 400 dollars too like xbox one s and get some bundled games

If you had the desire to, there are pc build guides online for less than 400 dollars and I think building pcs are fun and if you think the same you can build some great desktops for cheap the whole family can use. and you could get bonding time with your son

There are a lot if options it just depends on what you want PCs are similar to laptops its just the size difference mainly

Just so you know i think the last laptop is the best out of everything here

I would definitely avoid that hub. With 7 external ports the internal design will be two USB host controllers daisy chained together so 4 of those ports will at a minimum have to go through 3 host controllers to send data back to the PC. Very risky and prone to issues which will be explained below.

Apologies for the wall of text but it is all quite important to explain why USB hubs are not the best idea for a number of reasons. Only go the hub route if you have no other choice like you have a laptop and a PCI card if not an option. If you have a desktop and free PCI slots then grab one of the PCI cards listed at the end of this post.

USB 3.0 Hubs

The main concern with hubs is that there is an additional USB controller in the chain and if one of those controllers is not compatible then you might have tracking issues. The issue with compatibility is VR needs low latency and high bandwidth which is required for good tracking.

So you have something like this using a hub.

PC -> PCI Bus -> USB Controller -> Hub -> USB Controller -> Sensor.

I put together this image on the weekend to explain it to someone else - https://imgur.com/jI6Istl

If anything in that chain is sub standard you have issues. If you have good USB Controllers in that chain you wont see issues. Just remember a quality hub is only as good as the USB port on your PC you plug it into.

It is also recommended to get a powered USB hub if you have to go the hub route. People sometimes encounter not just a bandwidth/latency bottleneck but a power bottleneck. Importantly some PC USB ports can't push out enough power to power all the devices plugged into the hub. Get a powered hub to avoid this possibility.

Below are two brands Anker and Amazon Basics which are the hubs I commonly see people say have worked for the Rift. The 7 port one will have daisy chained USB controllers internally but people have recommended it so they must be good quality.

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Port-2-5A-power-adapter/dp/B00DQFGH80

or

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Aluminum-Portable-Adapter-Devices/dp/B00PBZX0OM


PCI Cards

Here are the cards that Oculus have recommended (I have personally tested the top two cards) .The blog posts at the end of this post might clear up why hubs are hit and miss for some people due to data/latency bottlenecks that might occur.

StarTek 2 port card (1 ASMedia controller) – Cheaper StarTek option that could be used for 2 sensors or a sensor and headset.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013HT6K3Q

Supported Inatek 4 port card (1 Fresco controller) – Don't get the 5 or 7 port card as the design is not really suited for Rift sensors as it has daisy chained controllers in the design.

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Superspeed-Ports-PCI-Expansion/dp/B00B6ZCNGM

Use the Inatek for your two front facing cameras and nothing else. Plug your third or fourth USB 2.0 camera and Rift HMD into your motherboard.

Supported StarTek 4 port card (2 Controllers) – Optional middle tier PCI card solution which can run all four sensors or 3 sensors and HMD. Equivalent to two Inatek cards.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00HJZE9VK

Supported StarTek 4 port card (4 Controllers) – Optional top of the range PCI card solution which can run all four sensors or 3 sensors and HMD. Equivalent to four Inatek cards.

https://www.amazon.com/Express-SuperSpeed-Adapter-Dedicated-Channels/dp/B00HJZEA2S

Both 4 port StarTek cards are pricey and a bit more than is actually required. You could achieve the same thing with 2x four port Inatek cards.

More reading for why USB controllers are important and how you should connect sensors

Oculus put together some blog posts last year explaining best practices. Parts 2 and 3 of Oculus tracking posts explain the USB subsystems and how to get the best config.

• Part 1: https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-roomscale-tips-for-setting-up-a-killer-vr-room/
  
• Part 2: https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-roomscale-balancing-bandwidth-on-usb/
  
• Part 3: https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-roomscale-identifying-host-controllers/
  
• Part 4: https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-roomscale-extra-equipment/
  
  Finally here is my setup and the placement of USB devices amongst all the USB controllers. https://imgur.com/a/fqgRP5p

Yeah I believe that H7 would be a step to right direction, but honestly I would go with somethin like this
https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NH-D15-heatpipe-NF-A15-140mm/dp/B00L7UZMAK

Or this https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HPX7J4K/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494584874&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=be+quiet+dark+rock+pro+3&dpPl=1&dpID=41f-YJuctCL&ref=plSrch

They are really expensive, that is true, but they pack serious cooling power. You have quaranteed silent operation and possibility of overclocking as much as you want. These two coolers THE best ones around beating all of the $150 aios too. It's just cool to have that I7 running over 5ghz with good temps and silently. But yeah that cryorig is surely going to let you oc till something like 4,6ghz still staying reasonably quiet. Choise is yours.

Your pc just literally has the best components available, I feel like it would deserve good cooler to keep it cozy;)

Ps funny thing about those noctua fans is that they alone cost 20 bucks a piece, and are seriously awesome fans, quiet, efficient and long lasting, I'm running two of the indusrial versions on my build

I am selling a few electronic items that are in like new condition for good prices.

I've got:

• A Model YHT-497 Yamaha 5.1 Channel Home Theater in a Box System. Comparable model new for $430, selling for $350. 100W per channel and the sub has a satisfying kick, discrete receiver, sub, and speakers so they can be upgraded separately down the road. Comes with a decent roll of cheap speaker cable.
  
  
• An ARRIS/Motorola SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem, Model SB6121. New for $69, selling for $50. This has a three star certification for use with XFINITY internet services which is the highest and most thorough level of testing they do.
  
  
• A Netgear Wireless Router w/ Dual Band Gigabit, Model R6300-100NAS. New for $150, selling for $120. This thing's just fucking great. I've never had any complaints about Comcast's service, and I think this guy (recently paired with the SURFboard) is the main guy to thank for that. I think I've had to reset it maybe once or twice ever.
  
  
• Official PS3 Wireless Stereo Headset w/ USB Wireless Receiver, Model CECHYA-0080. New for $100, selling for $75. These are big bulky headphones with a microphone attached. Nice sound quality, though I'm sure audiophiles would disagree.
  
  
• Monoprice speaker stands, set of 2. New for $15-20, selling for $10. These things are flimsy but they'll hold your small speakers off the ground just the same.
  
  Now, you're probably wondering why I'm willing to part for such like new items at such discounts. The reason is that there was a fire a month and a half ago in my old building and these were affected by the humidity and/or smoke to varying degrees. But they're all back from the Electronics Restoration Service, who tested, restored, cleaned, and deoderized each individual component before testing them again to ensure proper function. I then tested each item when I resumed possession of them.
  
  But, because of a gap in communication between the ERS guys and my insurance claim rep, getting these things back took over a month, and in the meantime I had replaced my sound system and internet devices. I'd hoped to be able to return them within the Best Buy returns timeframe but things dragged on too long. The speaker stands I don't need because in my new place I've mounted my rear speakers on the walls. The PS3 headset I don't need because my PS3 didn't make it through the ordeal. The 360 below it and the TV above it did, though, and both work fine as a testament to these guy's abilities.
  
  Related to that I guess I also have a couple other things for sale:
  
  
• A slew of PS3 games. No PS3 anymore and I'm not sure I'll replace it so these are for sale. All barely affected by the incident but still individually cleaned by the guys at ERS. Let me know if you're interested in something and I'll figure a price.
  
  
• 2 PS3 Controllers, one black and one white. Note that they did not try to restore or clean these at all since the system was shot. You can test them and we can figure out a fair price if you're interested.
  
  So yeah. Like new, restored items for good prices. Who's interested?

I answered this recently in another thread. Personally as long as you already own a laptop I think this is one of the best "bang for the buck" inexpensive way to get into DJing. This equipment is amazing for house parties and the like and can even get you playing in underground clubs just fine.

-----

Definitely look into alternate controllers. I really think both the Numark Party Mix and the Hercules Starlite make good choices for beginner DJs. It lets you get in with all the necessary controls so you can learn what you like and don't like without spending much money.

• https://smile.amazon.com/Hercules-DJ-DJCONTROL-STARLIGHT-DJControl-Starlight/dp/B07F8FQ8ST/
  
• https://smile.amazon.com/Numark-Party-Mix-Controller-Built/dp/B01FHJLE6M/
  
  You really don't need much to get started - both those controllers will easily take you through your first several years of learning. Also for beginner DJ software I recommend:
  
  
• Algoriddim DJay - it has Spotify support which is huge in the beginning, you don't need to build up your library to practice DJing and you'll always have every request when doing a house party.
  
• Mixvibes Cross DJ I've used several pro packages and Cross is by far the easiest to use. One of the biggest features it has that I haven't yet seen anywhere else is that it can match on phrase as well as on beat. Cross does this by keeping track of beats and bars and starting all tracks on the 1 of the phrase. Even if you accidentally triggered your incoming song on the second bar once you hit Sync it'll snap the incoming song to the second bar as well so that the 1's will line up next time around.
  
  Also if you need speakers, I highly recommend starting with a PC speaker system that has a subwoofer, usually called a 2.1 setup. This Logitech 2.1 setup is an extremely great value for what you get and is plenty loud enough for pretty much any house party:
  
  https://smile.amazon.com/Logitech-Z623-Watt-Speaker-System/dp/B003VAHYTG/

Because the PS4 is your primary usage with the HD800S, I recommend trying the Creative Sound BlasterX G5. This is entry level as a DAC/AMP combo unit but should work very well in your use case. This device is designed for consoles and PC usage and can produce very good audio from your PS4 (and PC) over a USB connection and it has separate 3.5 mm connections for the headphones and a mic (HD800S does not have a mic, but if you play online games with friends you will want to get something like the Antlion Audio ModMic to turn the headphones into a headset when you want to. If you get the G5, do not use the virtual surround sound SB-Axx1 and Scout Mode options, they are likely not as good as the standard audio output. An alternative to the Creative G5 would be a Schiit Audio Modi 2 DAC (connect to PS4 over optical instead of USB) paired with a Schiit Audio Magni 3 AMP. This "Schiit stack" as it is often called is less gamer focussed (no mic input, etc) but would still be fantastic for gaming and listening to music and is highly recommended in the audio community. You would need both the Magni 3 AMP and the Modi 2 DAC linked together to get sound - whereas you could alternatively use the all in on Creative G5. These options are audiophile entry level, but should impress you since you are so happy with the headphones on the PS4 controller already. I would try and recommend something more expensive, but honestly don't think you need that and I would have difficulty recommending more expensive devices since I dont have proper experience with that level of DACs and AMPs. TLDR; Get the Creative Sound BlasterX G5 if you want to use a mic on your PS4 with the headphones, and get the Antlion Audio ModMic to turn the headphones into a headset when you want to talk in games with friends and online gamers. If you dont need to use a mic on your PS4 and price is no matter to you (G5 is cheaper), then get the Schiit Audio Modi 2 DAC and the Schiit Audio Magni 3 AMP. Also, regardless of which DAC and AMP you get, get some nice cables off Amazon for USB or optical for your setup to connect from the PS4 to your couch/coffee table where you probably game.

I have a Viofo Compact A119 V2 which is front cam only. I use this in my work truck with it powered by the cigarette lighter socket. Turns on and off with the truck. Does everything I need it to do and the video quality is great. I bought the CPL filter for it as well, to lessen the interior reflection. The dashcam’s $96 I think, filter was like $10. Highly recommend. Easy to self install as well, which I did.

My personal car I have a Street Guardian SG9663DCPRO. This is a front and rear cam. This is pricier, it was about $280, and I bought the hardwire kit for it as well which was another $30. The front cam model is very similar to the A119 V2, they’re practically the same except for a few extra ports on this model. Installation is a bit more involved on this one, but there are YouTube vids you can watch that make it easy. Also depends on your car. FYI the cables are pretty thick, except for the external GPS cord. I was still able to hide them all, but again this depends on the vehicle you’d be installing it in. Video quality is great on this as well, crystal clear picture and readability. This model comes with a lot of extra items and whatnot, where the Viofo is very basic and just the essentials. I highly recommend the SG as well.

For both cams I have the highest possible card it can take, which is 128gb for the Viofo and 400gb for the Street Guardian. You can get these pretty cheap on Amazon, they go on sale very often.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, I’ll answer to the best of my knowledge.

There's a lot out there, and it can be tough figuring out where to begin even with the wiki. In my opinion, figuring out your needs and budget are the two most important things you can do when you're first jumping in.

• Needs -
  
  Ask yourself what you'll mainly be using your board for; are you a gamer that spends most of their time playing FPS, or do mainly use your board for work / school related activities? A little bit of both? Does your board need to be pack and go, or will it mainly be stationary at a pc? Do you want to build yourself or do you want a prebuilt that just works? Once you have a few basic requirements in mind, you can use those as a guideline to start to piecing together what you need for your situation. For example, I game a tiny bit but not enough to justify building a board around it. I do however spend quite a bit of time on my board for work and I travel quite often, so I wanted something portable that was ideal for hours of typing, and it had to have a navigation cluster. From there, I decided on a 65% board with tactile switches.
  
  
  
• Budget -
  
  It's easy to go down the rabbit hole and spend elevendy billion dollars on a custom board with all the bells and whistles, then come to find out out you don't like the layout, switch type, cap profile etc. There are MANY different price points out there; I can almost assure you that you can find something up your alley without breaking the bank. My first board that I mentioned above was a [Magic Force 68] (https://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Keyboard-68-Keys-Magicforce-Qisan/dp/B01E8KO2B0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1510046923&sr=8-3&keywords=magicforce+68+brown) that I got on sale for $30, and I still love that little thing. Since then I've built 3 custom boards and a macro pad, and I've got a few more builds in the works too, but I did it all bit by bit.
  
  After you figure out what your needs are and your budget, i suggest checking out switch types and figuring out what you think you'll like. If you're unsure, you can always grab a [switch tester] (https://www.novelkeys.xyz/product-category/switchtesters/) to help you narrow it down. and if you go the DIY route, [spacecat design] (http://shop.spacecat.design/) has a lot of great tools to get you started.
  
  I hope you find this helpful; this is really only scratching the surface. Don't be intimidated with all of the info; the more you hang around (kudos to you for jumping in after a week, I lurked for months before I asked any questions) the more you'll learn. It all starts to come together over time, so stick with it and don't be afraid to ask questions. Someone will point you in the right direction more often than not.
  
  If for some reason you do find yourself hanging though, feel free to message me and I'll be glad to help you out. :)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor | $224.99 @ Amazon Canada
Motherboard | Gigabyte - GA-AB350N-Gaming WIFI (rev. 1.0) Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard | $149.99 @ Newegg Canada
Memory | Team - Dark 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory | $144.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage | SanDisk - SSD PLUS 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $179.99 @ Amazon Canada
Video Card | Zotac - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Mini Video Card | $562.99 @ Newegg Canada
Case | Cooler Master - Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case | $54.99 @ Newegg Canada
Power Supply | EVGA - B3 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $54.99 @ Newegg Canada
Operating System | Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit | $116.50 @ Vuugo
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1489.43
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-21 21:33 EDT-0400 |

This pc is small enough to carry around in your back pack but strong enough to get ultra settings 60fps 1080p. I took into account your requests and gave my best shot at it. I'll start with the CPU. The ryzen 1500x can deliver on games and also is equipped with a stock clock of 3.5 ghz so you really don't have to overclock and comes with a pretty nice stock cooler. The motherboard includes wifi as an added bonus and the ram is a pretty fast 16gb ddr4 3000. The gpu is a 1070 which seems small but is actually pretty powerful when it comes to games. I managed to get a 480gb ssd for storage and a fully modular power supply for easy cable management. I really wouldn't overclock in a mitx build since they tend to get hot because of the small space.

Here's a monitor recommendation
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01H5KKQTM/?tag=pcp0f-20

Edit- also the corsair strafe mechanical keyboard is nice as well and if you need me to fit these two in the budget I can find a way

So the first thing you should decide is what type of internet to get. The vast majority of people get cable or fiber (if they can afford it and if it's available). Both of those options give you good reliable internet. The cheap option is to get DSL which works over telephone lines. DSL usually has low speeds and isn't as reliable but only costs like $30 a month compared to $60-100 for better internet. If you like to stream movies or do anything outside of very basic browsing, I would say to get cable if you can afford it. What you do then is find a provider for that internet (internet service provider - ISP). Comcast, Cox, AT&T, Verizon, and many local companies are ISPs but you're probably limited to only one or two in whatever region you live (assuming USA). You should also know that these companies have random naming conventions for their services (Comcast calls their cable Xfinity while AT&T calls theirs Uverse) So you go to their web sites and compare plans and find something that works for you (if you don't know what speed you need, I would recommend 20 Mbps or more for streaming and normal use, 50 Mbps if you're a really heavy user). You can use this to find out what providers even have wiring in your area (if the top speed for a certain provider only shows as 10-25 mbps, then it's likely only DSL).

If you go with cable, you'll need both a modem (which receives the internet connection from the cable built into your apartment) and a router (which takes that wired connection and turns it into wireless - wifi). I would recommend buying your own hardware because companies like Comcast charge you something like $7-10 a month per modem/router that you get from them, which ends up being more expensive than buying your own to start with. If you buy your own modem, make sure it will work with whatever cable provider you select (something like this is standard). After that, you hook up your router. There are many to choose from. You can get one for as little as $10-30, but I would recommend getting a better one like this if you can as it performs exceptionally well and is easy to set up as well.

If you have any specific questions, let me know.

Everyone is telling you to get a gigabit switch and put all your routers into AP mode. They're forgetting one important thing. You still need a router/firewall on your incoming connection. I recommend the following:

1. pfSense firewall/router. You have many options when it comes to pfSense. You can build a device out of an older computer. The requirements are an x64 processor that has AES-NI (just Google your CPU brand, model and AES-NI. You must have that for future versions of pfSense. Also, it'd be best to have an Intel NIC. Not RealTek or Broadcom. Intel is well supported in pfSense. Or, you could buy a new device. You could buy a new computer and build it yourself or you could buy directly from Netgate. If you don't have anyone that's good with computers you should buy from Netgate (and even if you do have someone who's "good with computers"). Try this model: https://store.netgate.com/SG-3100.aspx
   
   
   
2. Gigabit managed switch. The reason I say managed is that you never know if you'll need to create VLANs for a guest network. You can get a nice switch from eBay. Or if you get a specific Netgate device (SG-3100) it has a switch built in. If you get support on the device (which is extra, but I recommend it) you'll get assistance setting up the appliance with guest VLAN. If you just want a cheaper pfSense device you will still need a switch. Dell, HP or (my preference) Cisco. PoE is nice, but not needed.
   
   
3. Access points. There's no other way to say this. You guys are using the wrong hardware. You should be using prosumer/enterprise level equipment. What's nice is that you don't have to spend enterprise level prices to get this equipment. I'd recommend Ubiquiti AP AC Pro access points:
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-802-11ac-Dual-Radio-UAP-AC-PRO-US/dp/B015PRO512
   
   When you purchase individual APs from that link above, the PoE injector comes with it. The 5 pack does not have injectors so you'd need to buy those separately. Now depending on the size of each floor, you might need more than one AP one the floor. In WiFi, you never want to max out the transmit power. This seems like an odd thing to say. But think about it, if you're in a lecture hall, you can hear the professor easily because he's using a mic and speakers. However, if you have a question you have to speak very loudly (since you sit at the back of the room). It's possible you can't speak loudly enough for him to hear you. This is the same for wireless devices. Just because you blast your AP, doesn't mean that long distance devices have the power to talk back. This wastes your battery. This is the reason for multiple APs.
   
   This isn't really that bad, price wise. These devices will allow the frat to have good signal strength throughout the house. If you have more questions or would like assistance with the config, I'd be happy to help.
   
   

Alright, I see that the GPU handles 1440p @ close to 60 FPS in most newer tripple A titles & handles games on ultra setting ^1. It also handles tripple A games at a much higher FPS(75-100~) with 1080p, and by extension, esport games (dota 2, cs:go, overwatch etc) at more than 144fps. So the way I see it is that you have two choises:

• Option one: If you care about High details & high resolution in single player games, I'd most def go for a 1440p ISP monitor. This is gonna give you a very gorgeous & detailed look in-games. It's also gonna be very great watching movies on. Something like this monitor, it's around 200 euro on Amazon, but I would try to find it locally to save on the shipping cost.
  
  
• Option two: If your only experience gaming has been on a lapop the first option might sound tempting, but if you wanna play some competative games such as Fortnight, Cs:go, Pubg or Mobas a 144hz, 24 inch monitor with low responds time (1MS) is the way to go. It's kind of hard to explain just how significant the change from 60 to 120&144hz can be, but everything will look way smoother & the gameplay will seem more immersive. In general you're just gonna have a better experience. The details arent gonna be as clear as with a 1440p ISP panel, but it makes up for that with the fluidity of the gameplay itself. For a more thorough explanation, check out this video. This is a really good 144hz, 24 inch, 1MS, 1080p monitor
  
  
• Option three : If you wanna have the best of both worlds, save up more money & buy a 1440p, 144hz monitor. This will give you the benifits of both, but this comes at more than double the cost of what you had in mind for the budget. Something like this should give you the best gaming experience.
  
  Hope that gave you some insight into getting a monitor.
  
  

Here is a video that goes over current SD card specifications pretty well. I'll post what I got out of it and a little bit of additional research:

CAPACITY

There are three different types of SD cards that indicate a size range. SD cards are up to 2GB and are useless for our purposes. SDHC cards are from 4-32 GB and are ill-advised since 32GB isn't really enough. What we're interested in is SDXC cards which are from 64GB to 2TB. Each card has a micro version which is what we need. Capacity type doesn't have an impact on performance.

WRITE SPEED

There are two different families of speed classes that indicate a minimum write performance. The first, traditional speed class comes in Class 2, Class 4, Class 6, and Class 10. The number corresponds to their write speed, Class 2 is 2MB/s, class 10 is 10MB/s. This class is denoted by their number inside of a "C".

The other family of speed class is UHS. There are only two types, type 1 and type 3. These are denoted by their number inside of a "U" shaped symbol. UHS1 writes at 10MB/s, UHS3 writes at 30MB/s. That means the Class 10 and UHS1 have the same minimum write performance, but we're just going to look at UHS cards from now on. It is possible for a card to claim a UHS class speed, and a Class 10 speed.

Bus Interface

There are two different bus interfaces for UHS cards, UHS-I and UHS-II. These are denoted by roman numerals rather than our numbers. UHS-II cards have a second row of connection pins on the back of the card, while UHS-I just has the single row. UHS-II cards can transfer data faster than UHS-I cards when they are in a UHS-II compatible machine. If the machine is not UHS-II compatible then there is no benefit, however the UHS-II card will still work as it is backwards compatible. It does not look like the Nintendo Switch is UHS-III compatible, so there is no benefit to using a UHS-II card in it, which is a shame because the II interface can help read speeds tremendously.

So what is Nintendo recommending with OP's card? A microSDXC UHS3-I card. Meaning it is a micro version of a 64GB card, with the best write speed class, and the standard/worse Bus interface.

Nintendo-licensed Sandisk microSDXC 64GB UHS3-I for $19.99

Non licensed Sandisk microSDXC 64GB UHS3-I card for $23

/u/Nobody_is_lurking posted two contenders...

Sandisk microSDXC 64GB UHS1-I card for $14.25

Sandisk microSDXC 128GB UHS1-I card
for $23.25


...but it isn't actually an apples to apples comparison, as they are both UHS1 rather than UHS3. The $6 question is how big of a difference is there functionally between the two speed classes when actually being used by a Switch, which someone already took the time to test!

The results show that, when write speed was involved, the difference was significant, and that installed games can go by 3x faster using a UHS3 card. So sure, the UHS3 is a clear winner for installing, but what people really care about are load times, showed a less drastic story. Installing locally on the Switch beats any external storage options that we're looking at, then the UHS3 trailed shortly behind, with UHS1 following a little longer. For a regularly installed game the difference in load times doesn't seem to be more than a couple of seconds, even if the load time is a minute long. This guy also tested homebrew launched games though, which did show a much bigger difference between UHS1 and UHS3. So there is a difference in load time, but just not a massive one that many people would notice.

Looking at value, for whatever reason the Nintendo-licensed cards are currently cheaper than their equivalent nonlicensed cards, both the 64Gb and 128GB. Obviously the UHS-1 is cheaper than the UHS-3 across the board.

But if you want to branch away from Sandisk you can have the best of both worlds with a Samsung 64GB UHS3-I card for $15 The price per MB stays consistent at bigger sizes as well, so if you wanted a 128GB one it'd be $30.

tl;dr Buy this one. It is better and cheaper.

Never, not even once. I have COX, I've offered to pay more... doesn't matter.

I live in Phoenix... I pay for 25 this is what I get. But hey I'm still getting about half of what I pay for... which in my experience with COX should be counted as a win. I say it should be counted as a win because I moved before, terminated service, they acknowledged I'd terminated service by phone.... but, but, but something didn't quite go as planned on their end so I get to pay for an extra 6 months of "service" to an empty apartment that didn't consume a single byte of data during that time.

Anybody from COX who wants to contact me about actually providing me with what I pay for I'd be more than happy to talk with you. 10 service calls to my house has never been able to improve this whatsoever so if you think you're up to fixing it my hat's off to you. For now I'll just say that I feel like I've been financially raped by this corporation & hearing that they are one of the good ones is pretty disheartening.

I'm hoping that the telecom corporations break apart into a million little pieces and that competition drives prices down. To me looking for a good provider is like trying to find an honest Bail Bondsman... I mean there's a certain culture in this industry where looking for the good guys in the mix seems like a fools errand to me, but hey some people weren't fucked over by COX which is great. Glad to hear other people had a better experience.

EDIT: this is the modem I use... just thought I'd throw that out there before anyone pointed out how modems can slow everything down, yeah I know, first thing I tried before I starting asking for outside help.

If you ask a question, and someone answers it correctly, reply with a thank you, but include this checkmark: ✓ ( or if you cannot enter Unicode, use !check instead )

This will score the user whose comment you replied to a 'point'. Currently the points will unlock special flair that will show in all Daily Simple Questions threads.

This should be working, hopefully

In case you missed it, click here for yesterday's Daily Simple Questions thread.
There may be some questions still unanswered! Below are a selection of questions with no replies. See if you can help them out.

If you don't want to see this comment click the little [-] to the left of my username to collapse this comment.

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> Looking at buying someone's 4670k/ 16GB DDR3 build to use as a streaming PC. He's taking the storage, GPU, and PSU to use in his new build, and I was planning on throwing something like a 1050Ti or a 1060 in it to handle encoding, jury's still out on a capture card. You guys think the old one can handle streaming, and how much would you pay for it?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efj9e3t/

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> Anyone have recommendations for typing speed / accuracy tools or programs? Looking for something for a work project and figured I'd pick your brains.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efjof92/

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> My microphone keeps switching back to "Telephone Quality" in the sounds section. How do I get it to stick on "DVD Quality"?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efjtwcb/

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> I want to make an external power switch for my PC, something like this but drilling it into my desk to hide the wires. Im just wondering how worried I need to be about ESD. with the spades and wires under my desk. Obviously im gonna insulate the wires, I just need to know how much I need to insulate them,

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efk43ia/

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> Hi. I recently built myself a new pc. it's working great and I have had no problems with it so far. I just have one question; my PSU (Corsair rm850x white) came with some cable combs for the cables. I am now using the one for the 24 pin motherboard connector, but I had a hard time installing the combs on my GPU cables. They are 2x 6+2 pin so I used the 8 "slot" cable combs, but when I tried to install them I just could not press the cable into them. The cable just kinda got a little bend. It does not look all that bad right now, but I think it would look much better with these on. Any tips on how I can install them easier?
>
> ​
>
> Thanks!

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efk7kwn/

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> anyone else get a PM about joining to mine whatever the hell XMV is?
>
> I don't mine or never have mined anything

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efkeubt/

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> CPUID HWMonitor
>
> When I'm looking at the CPU temp, why are there 3 different temperature readings labeled as TMPIN0/1/2?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efkjoo0/

----

> I was looking into buying a gaming PC on eBay. I found one for a great price, and the person is in my general area. It will be express shipping. Everything brand new would cost about $870 USD, but it’s being sold for $490 USD. It also has thermal cooling and a GTX 970. The seller has over an 300 point score and has 100% positive feedback. They also told me that there is no warranty but they’d be happy to help me if there were any issues. Should I go for it? I’ve bought more expensive things on eBay before but something about buying computers makes me nervous, but I know I’m not gonna get a better deal anywhere else. Is there anything else I should check? Cheers.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efkv17w/

----

> Hello! I built a new pc recently and everything is working well except I am having an issue with my RAM. I have 16 gb of RAM in the form of 2 8 gb Corsair sticks. However, I am only able to use 7.9 gb of this Ram because 8.1 gb is "Hardware Reserved". I have looked up the issue and tried to fix it many times in the form of changing my memory settings, resetting bios etc... to no avail. If anyone could shed any light on how I might fix this that would be fantastic. The RAM is two sticks of Corsair Vengeance LPX and in BIOs it lists that all 16 gb is accessible so I don't think a stick is broken. I have a X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming motherboard. Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efkv3cb/

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> My ethernet is not working at all, I've tried troubleshooting and reinstalling the drivers. I am connected to the router and it won't connect to the internet. Apparently it has an invalid IP?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efkzewu/

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> My monitor has this vertical line in the exact center of the screen, with one side slightly few pixels higher on the right side it seems.
>
> Did I get a faulty monitor? I'm not sure if it was always like this... it only took me recently to notice.
>
> Is there a fix to do in the display setttings?
>
> It's an HP Omen 27 inch with 144hz g-sync.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efl0spy/

----

> Having a problem with RAM's 32GB shenanigan for more than a year now.
>
>
> I am truly at my wit's end so any help would be appreciated. I used to be able to bear with 16GB but new work pretty much require 32GB now or it will keep crashing my chrome and even OS sometime.
>
> I have 2 sets of 4x8GB (Kingston HyperX 2400 C15/Corsair Vengeance 2666 C16). 32 GB is the goal
>
> Neither of them would work fully with R5 1600 on Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3.
>
> 2x8GB of Hyper X gives 2400 Mhz max
>
> 2x8GB of Corsair gives 2133 Mhz max. Further than that system would not post. Automatically set to 2133 later.
>
> 4x8GB of Hyper X must be at 1833 Mhz max. Further than that it will set to 16GB 2400 Mhz (with another 16 in hardware reserve)
>
> 4x8GB of Corsair will go triple beeps multiple times then it settles with 16 GB 2133 Mhz (with another 16 in hardware reserve)
>
>
> Full spec
>
> R5 1600
>
> Whatever ram it work
>
> Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 @bios F25
>
> Gigabyte gtx 1080
>
> Corsair RMx 650
>
> Hyper X userbench https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/11698268
>
> Corsair userbench
> https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/14342851
>
> Edit: Corsair's ram is actually on motherboard QVL up to 4 slot so it's strange it won't work properly too.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efl3gem/

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> I am trying to transfer all my GoPro footage on my external hard drive to PC. Currently, my hard drive is formatted to Mac. How can I transfer the files from Mac to PC? I have an unformatted hard drive spare but if I plug it into either Mac or PC it’s then formatted to that right?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efl3kju/

----

> I'm looking for a new Monitor and I narrowed it down to either the the Acer XF240H or Asus MG248QR both are 24" TN Panels with 144hz and Freesync. I know that IPS looks better but I want a TN because of the price and the 1ms response time. Also both claim to reduce eyestrain with low blue light and no flickering. I want to try that because I have sensitive eyes. Which one of these would you recommend regardless of the price difference and why?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/efl4pci/

----

> What do you prefer a i5-6400 or i5-7400 ?
>
> Note: using a gigabyte h110m-h mobo

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/am2dm3/daily_simple_questions_thread_feb_01_2019/eflaje6/

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User | Points
-----|-------
A_Neaunimes | 506
badillin | 432
Luminaria19 | 400
zakabog | 395
thatgermanperson | 314
Sayakai | 312
saldytuwas | 249
095179005 | 227
Excal2 | 222
motionglitch | 211


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I am a bot - This action was done automatically. Please direct any questions or concerns ( or bug reports ) to \/u\/eegras - About /u/PCMRBot

In 2019 you do not absolutely need a CRT. A low enough input lag monitor combined with the input lag reductions of Faster Melee (online build to play Melee on computer it is excellent) is more than enough to match and even surpass the input lag of a crt. You can play Melee online and it is impressive how good it is.

​

- All you need to play on computer with a Gamecube controller is a Mayflash four port adapter which is 20 american dollars. The Wii U gamecube adapter will work as well. ultimate adapters should work I think too.

​

Many years of good resources for this game exist. The 20XX hack pack and the Unclepunch training mod are superb. Here are links to these things.

​

Get the launcher to play Melee online and find games with people - https://www.smashladder.com/guides/view/27dz/project-slippi-dolphin-launcher-2-0-guide-windows

Best monitor for playing melee on computer. Very good value for its performance - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H5KKQTM/

The Unclepunch training mod - https://smashboards.com/threads/training-mode-v1-1-updated-1-11-19.456449/

20XX hack pack - https://smashboards.com/threads/the-20xx-melee-training-hack-pack-v4-07-7-04-17.351221/

​

Project Slippi is also worth mentioning. It can be put on your Wii and does a great many things to assist with improvement and automatically will save all games you play as replay files. This video I saw explains the basic idea well enough - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDJiMES-dn4&feature=youtu.be

Project slippi was used at many recent tournaments with some large ones being listed here - https://slippi.gg/

​

These are some of the better resources and tools. These are only some things. If there are questions you have ask me. Good day :-)

Cheap 2.1 sound? Cyber Acoustics CA-3602 for $40 on Amazon. Brother had this exact set and he liked it, except the control knob was weird to use and it was impossible to plug in headphones without messing with the volume wheel. The exposed speakers and plastic casing make it look cheap, but they sound really good considering the cost.

Slightly better sound? Creative Sound BlasterX Kratos S3 for $80 on Amazon. All wood casing gives you great sound and they have a good amount of punch. The sub will be a bit lacking if you place it on the floor. You can get these for about $60 from Fry's Electronics if you sign up for their e-mail promo codes. They knock off $20 retail with the code.

Best bang for your buck? Logitech Z623 for $120 on Amazon or the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 for around $120 on Amazon. Both of these are THX certified and they have a lot of bass. Powerful sub coupled with some great speakers make these awesome for the price.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-500GB-Ultra-NAND-SATA/dp/B072R78B6Q/ref=sxin_4_ac_d_pm?keywords=sandisk+ssd&pd_rd_i=B072R78B6Q&pd_rd_r=6e48913a-82f5-47ee-a878-bba6330f0011&pd_rd_w=ouwib&pd_rd_wg=eDL6g&pf_rd_p=64aaff2e-3b89-4fee-a107-2469ecbc5733&pf_rd_r=9ZFFWMG7WH4XJZZRQ87D&qid=1563622854&s=gateway my ssd. Marginally (almost certainly not noticeably) faster speeds, but it's a trusted brand.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=870+evo&qid=1563623512&s=gateway&sr=8-1 Arguably the best SATA SSD you can buy, and is very reasonably priced. Well trusted, better technology than off-brand gives better random seek times etc. Definitely worth having. Maybe 10% faster in general than yours or mine

https://www.amazon.com/XPG-SX8200-Gen3x4-3000MB-ASX8200PNP-1TT-C/dp/B07K1J3C23/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=adata+nvme&qid=1563623699&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The best bang for your buck if you're taking the next step up into the NVME world MAKE SURE YOUR BOARD HAS THE SLOT FOR IT. roughly 7 times the speeds of the first two ssd mentioned. Significantly higher price per gig

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S1T0B/dp/B07MFZY2F2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=970+evo+pro+plus&qid=1563624021&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The flagship. Everybody seems to need one. Marginally better than the previous mention in reality. YOU WILL NOT NOTICE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO UNLESS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY TESTING THEM.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3GHz 8-Core Processor | $279.49 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler | Corsair - H110i 113.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | $109.99 @ Amazon
Thermal Compound | Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste | $7.25 @ Amazon
Motherboard | MSI - X370 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard | $116.16 @ Amazon
Memory | G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $238.50 @ Amazon
Storage | Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $349.99
Storage | Samsung - 960 EVO 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $445.41 @ Amazon
Case | Corsair - Crystal 460X RGB ATX Mid Tower Case | $131.99
Power Supply | EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $119.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan | Corsair - SP120 RGB High Performance 52.0 CFM 120mm Fan | $19.98 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1818.75
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-24 12:03 EDT-0400 |

PCpartpicker didn't find all the amazon links.

Case Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Crystal-Tempered-Glass-Compact/dp/B01LA2LB7W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521906800&sr=8-2&keywords=460x%2Bcorsair&th=1

SSD Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521906876&sr=8-1&keywords=860+evo+1tb

With some pretty easy overclocking, messing around with XMP settings in BIOS and voltage, you can very easily push the CPU to 3.8 Ghz, People claim to push it to 4.0 Ghz though say it seemed to be a little unstable.

If you haven't cleaned out your PSU, you should. If it's younger than 5 years it's definitely still good. 100$ saved.

Windows can be obtained for free, only disadvantage is a small Windows 10 watermark on the lower right corner, and some of the OS customization settings are locked. It doesn't bother me, and it certainly doesn't convince me to spend 100$ for customization.

M.2 nvme SSDs are many times faster than a SATA SSD, for a boot drive you won't see a huge difference in boot time, but file transfer and such it definitely shines.

The extra fan is for an exhaust for the back of the case. You'll need a fan hub Here: https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-System-Cables-Black-CPF04/dp/B00VNW556I/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1521908068&sr=1-3&keywords=fan+hub Forgot about it :/

Ive built with this case before, and it comes with a nice SSD mounting array behind the motherboard, a kinda annoying but spacious PSU basement and great air flow. tempered glass oooo

Buy zip ties. like 50. Zip ties are your friend and so is your fully modular PSU

If you want help with your CPU overclocking, you can pm me, or look up a guide on overclockers forum. Really helpful people over there.

I made it all Amazon, because of prime, which is can save you a lot of shipping. With the cheaper vendors, its cheaper for the part, but the shipping would put you over budget.

Hey guys, I have a $300 (USD) budget to improve my audio performance on my high end PC. When I built it, I more or less ignored the audio side of things, and I'm already regretting that decision :P I'm currently using cheap logitech z313, which aren't horrendous but definitely lack in volume or definition.

I DO NOT have a sound card, and am just using on-board sound of my Asus Sabre-tooth z77. Advertised on their website with these specifications:

Realtek® ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC

• Supports : Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-retasking
  Audio Feature :
  
• Absolute Pitch 192kHz/ 24-bit True BD Lossless Sound
  
• Blu-ray audio layer Content Protection
  
• Optical S/PDIF out port(s) at back panel
  
  Ive heard mixed opinions on whether on board sound is just as good as an actual stand alone sound card. I've also read how important a good DAC can be, but am not sure if its a big enough of a deal to include in my initial budget, or just something i should get "down the line" for a slight increase in performance.
  
  My question is this: what should I prioritize my budget for, in terms of performance and cost?
  
  I could potentially get the recommended JBL's (my musician friends seconded the recommendation) but it wouldn't leave any room in my budget for a DAC, soundcard, or subwoofer.
  
  Do you all think I'd be happier with getting the cheaper Klipsch Promedia 2.1 THX certified all in one (http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-ProMedia-Certified-Computer-Speaker/dp/B000062VUO/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408310685&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=Klipcsh+Pro+Media), and then a Schiit DAC on top of it (or sound card?) or would I be better off just getting the best speakers I can afford (The JBLs) and upgrading the rest as I go individually? Is the performance difference one that is drastically noticable or is it a minor difference that only true "audiophiles" would even notice?
  
  As this is for a desktop PC setup, I'm looking for all around solid performance. I use it for everything; from production to gaming to movies to music.

One fairly simple way to secure your network would be to buy a managed switch like this one and setting up VLANs to separate your network.

In a nutshell, VLANs are a way to partition your switch into different segments or "Broadcast Domains". It's like breaking your switch up into smaller switches that are not connected to each other.

Why would you want to do this?

By virtually separating your LAN, if an attacker somehow gained access to one of your devices (say the Raspberry Pi), they wouldn't be able to access your WD MyCloud or your Camera because they would be on a completely separate LAN.

Based on your network, I would create at least 6 different VLANs. Something like this:

VLAN 2 - Servers (The WD MyClouds and the Dell Tower)

VLAN 3 - Cameras

VLAN 4 - Wireless LAN

VLAN 5 - LAN (Ethernet connected PCs, Laptops, etc.)

VLAN 6 - IoT devices (The thermostat, sprinkler controller, RPis, etc)

VLAN 7 - Guest / Unsecured Wireless

VLAN 8 - Management

The Management VLAN is used to allow access to management functions of your devices like the switch.

How do the different VLANs talk to each other?

For example, how do your PCs talk to your WD MyCloud if they're on a different VLAN? Through the use of a VLAN-Aware Router!

It looks like your WRT1200AC is supported by DD-WRT and OpenWRT. It also appears that it does support VLANs. The stock Linksys firmware will not support VLANs so you would need to flash it with either OpenWRT or DD-WRT in order to use that functionality.

If you don't like the idea of flashing your WRT1200AC I would recommend replacing it with a VLAN-Capable access point like the Ubiquiti Unifi-AC-Pro (which is not bad looking either). You'll also need a VLAN-Capable Router/Firewall. You can use any Linux box with a decent Gigabit Ethernet NIC (e.g. Intel) for this task, or you can go with a purpose-built router like the Mikrotik RouterBoard hEX which has been tested to route at nearly gigabit speed.

This is a lot of info to process, if you have questions I would be happy to help! :)

Have you checked Amazon? They usually have these SSDs along the same price tag. I’ve seen them 85-100$ USD. There’s a Western Digital version of that SSD for about 88$ USD. There’s also a Crucial version of that SSD for about 88$ USD on Amazon. Not sure if it’s more expensive in AUS on Amazon. Hope I helped.

Edit: I’ll link you the items I’m talking about

This is the WD model
WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s 2.5"/7mm Solid State Drive - WDS500G2B0A https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073SBZ8YH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_I9xPBb4VDW1BD

I personally own the WD one and it’s been pretty good so far.

Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD - CT500MX500SSD1(Z) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0784SLQM6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_N.xPBb0HSAM8T

My friend owns the Crucial model and has told me good things about it.

Here is the Samsung model you’re looking for
Samsung 860 Evo 500GB 2.5 inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_AbyPBbF2HH21P

The WD and Crucial models read and write faster than the Samsung model according to the info on Amazon. And they’re cheaper. WD also has a M.2 2280 version of the SSD which is easier to install IMO and it’s the same price.

The picture you found is a bit blurry. That "IT856SE" you are seeing could actually be "IT8665E"?

There is an extended version of the it87 driver that's not in the normal kernel, and it has an "IT8665E" in its device ID list:

https://github.com/bbqlinux/it87

It is not mentioned in the README text, but the IT8665E support is inside that "it87.c" file.

Sadly, the person that worked on extending the it87 module gave up recently, he felt he had no time to do a good job. I don't know if there's someone else actively working on it somewhere.

Anyway... on Arch you have this special version of the it87 driver in the AUR as:

it87-dkms-git

This AUR package should be easy to use if everything works right. Before you install it, you just have to make sure you have the "...-headers" package for the kernel you are using installed. For example, if you use "linux" then install "linux-headers", or if you use "linux-lts" install "linux-lts-headers".


If nothing works, you could do a hardware solution. A simple way to solve this is to wire the PWM signal from the CPU fan header to all case fans. You then go and set the fan curves in the motherboard's BIOS menus, and you are done.

There's inexpensive fan hub products to do this. If your case fans are 4-pin PWM fans, the products are quite cheap, but there's also versions that can translate a PWM signal into voltage control for 3-pin fans, so 3-pin case fans can be made to work as well.

Here's two examples of what I'm thinking about:

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-System-Cables-Black-CPF04/dp/B00VNW556I/

https://noctua.at/en/products/accessories/fan-control/na-fc1

This one here can drive 3-pin fans, it translates the PWM signal into different voltages so it's more expensive:

https://www.amazon.com/Phanteks-PWM-Fan-Controller-PH-PWHUB_01/dp/B00M0R05WE/

All of those products get power from a cable that's connecting to the PSU. This is so they won't overload the motherboard fan header. They only connect to the motherboard fan header to get the PWM speed signal but won't draw power from there.

You can also make the graphics card drive case fans in hardware. There are adapter cables that can connect into that tiny 4-pin fan header that graphics card have. You can then get the fan signal from the graphics card to one or two case fans. Those adapters cables are a bit hard to find. You could do a setup where the motherboard's CPU fan header drives a case fan or two, and the GPU drives a case fan or two.

> Why metal chassis?

Aside from the fact that you don't have to worry about this yellowing issue, you mean?

Well, there's also the fact that, because it's a pain in the ass to work with, electronic devices with metal chassis tend to be more similar to rectangular prisms, which is better industrial design because then you can stack things on top of them. Compare this metal ethernet switch to the equivalent plastic one, for example. (I would have preferred to use a router as an example instead of a switch because there's even more gratuitous bullshit, including ones you can't even wall-mount or put flat against a surface(!!!), but it's too hard to find a metal-chassis one to compare against.)

Not to mention, it's often the case that I just like the aesthetic of metal better (e.g. in the case of electronics, metal is often more professional/industrial looking). And not just for electronics: I'm also generally a fan of mid-century-modern design, and since most kinds of plastics hadn't been developed commercially yet (except for Bakelite), most products back then were metal. Because design is subject to the limitations (and advantages) of the medium, today's plastic products would have a hard time replicating that look/feel even if they tried.

Consider a Radio Flyer stamped-steel wagon, for instance: the rolled edge of the body was easy to grip tightly for a kid riding in it (or an adult picking it up), the steel made a satisfying clang when you dumped rocks into it, and it had a strongly-horizontal, lithe look. In comparison, a plastic wagon has convex sides that are probably easier to manufacture but harder to grip, surely makes a dull thud when stuff is dumped in it, and just looks thick and bulky compared to the metal version. (Note: I suspect that the difference in noise is not only due to the material properties of steel vs. plastic, but also the geometric fact that stamped steel uses embossing or corrugation to increase the strength of panels, while injection-molded plastic uses ribs instead: the varying thickness of the latter probably deadens the reverb more.) Moreover, the versatility of plastic tempted the designer to add a bunch of extraneous bullshit like a big depression/footwell in the middle, fold-down seat backs, and even fucking cupholders (which you can see in this photo)! The result is that the horizontalness is destroyed and it just looks like a bulbous mess.

Granted, that plastic wagon is probably objectively superior to the classic steel design, in the sense that it won't rust (give or take the axles) when left out in the rain and appears safer and more comfortable for kids to sit in. But even then, the steel design is better because it's worse! The fact that the steel design affords not only the ability to grip the edge, but the need to as well because the sides are low and you're riding more on top of it than in it, creates the opportunity for experiences that the plastic design precludes. If I were a kid planning to ride one down a hill, I know which design I'd pick! In short, if all wagons were plastic, this would not exist.

Finally, I don't know why -- maybe its survivor bias, maybe it's the fact that steel has more heft than plastic, or maybe it's (as you mentioned) simply because it costs more -- but I feel like most products seem more high-quality if they're made out of metal. I guess it's probably mostly the latter reason, because the same phenomenon applies to e.g. hardwood floors in houses: they seem upscale now in comparison to cheap nylon carpet or vinyl laminate, but the reason oak strip flooring is so common in old houses is because it was the cheapest flooring available at the time. Heck, maybe it isn't even the higher-cost itself, but merely the signal that picking a higher-cost material conveys: implying that the designer is optimizing for quality instead of cheapness.

I'll cover a few options based on price and level of technical knowledge needed.

For T-Mobile Customers

If you're a subscriber of T-Mobile, I'd recommend taking advantage of their Wi-Fi CellSpot loaner program for a $25 deposit.

This program gets you a T-Mobile optimized router, which is a modified version of the
$100+ Asus RT-AC68U.

It is missing some options from the stock Asus unit but still has options for stuff like bandwidth prioritization and QoS (the thing is also preconfigured to give high priority to wi-fi phone calls).

User-friendly Options

• TP-Link Archer C7
  
  This costs about $80-90 and is probably the best overall option for anyone that wants a decent wireless router that has a lot of useful options. It lets you specify bandwidth settings that apply to an entire guest network (both upload/download speeds), as well as limit bandwidth to specific devices. This unit is generally recommended by r/homenetworking for a cheap, decent router, and by Wirecutters.
  
  
• D-Link DIR-880L
  
  Roughly $100 - I used to use D-Link wireless routers and they are easy to use and I have . This model can also be loaded with DD-WRT if you're so technically inclined. DD-WRT is an open-source firmware that can be loaded onto a variety of routers that gives a lot of options for power users. The default firmware will still have options to control bandwidth and QoS, so you won't need any advanced special firmware.
  
  

  More Technical Options
  

  
  If you want to learn some slightly more advanced configuration, one of the most price-accessible options is a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X combined with a Ubiquiti AC Lite wireless AP. This combination costs roughly $120-130, but it is better than similarly priced (or even more expensive) home consumer combination wireless routers and provide a lot of options and features.
  
  You can traffic shape at the EdgeRouter X, so you can do things like limit the bandwidth provided to the wireless network to begin with, or limit it to certain clients. You could also do limiting at the AC Lite access point and create a special group of users (basically, login information) with limitations on that group.
  
  The ERX can handle an ISP connection of probably up to 900 Mbps, though I have no first-hand confirmation of this as my home connection is 200/10. I've been running the ER-X and UniFi AC Lite at home for about two years with no problems, and fairly heavy internet use.
  
  However, if you just need a relatively easy consumer router, go with the easier options.

I've started to get into electronics myself, and I can say that soldering is easy, but you need the right tools for the job.
You'll need an adjustable temperature soldering iron and 1/2 milimeter iron/lead solder as the bare minimum.

I suggest grabbing some tip tinner, solder wick & vacuum, and some cheap boards to practice soldering.

This video shows how to do the actual soldering, while this video covers the tools you'll need and explains their use. These videos are made by EEV Blog and explain soldering in GREAT detail, which is how I learned to do it.



As far as making actual circuits, you have to have an idea AND parts to fulfill your idea. The Arduino UNO is a great way to program and test circuits. It's essentially a small comptuer designed to repeat whatver task you give it over and over. Alternatively, there's the Raspberry Pi, which comes in a few different models. The difference between the Pi and the Arduino is that the Pi is essentially a mini computer. You can literally hook it up to a monitor via hdmi and slam an operating system into it.

Both boards typically come in kits like this one for the Ardunio, or this one for the Raspberry Pi. The Ardunio kits with come with a lot of peripherals, like sensors and LEDs that actually do things, while you'll have to invest more with a Raspberry Pi. These kits come with detailed instructions, code you can copy and paste, and are a great way to learn how circuitry works, and is exactly what I'm doing right now. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, I've just done a decent amount of research to find out what's what.

There are two ways to hook up circuits - temporarily and (somewhat) permanently. Breadboards are used to prototype circuits without having to solder anything, typically using these wires to link different parts of the circuits together. Soldering components to those green boards I linked earlier is what you'd do when you have your circuit up and running and want to move it to something more permanent. I say "more" permanent because you can usually de-solder stuff if you needed a component for something.

Adafruit has a decently sized library of projects you can try. They often sell stuff in kits where you get everything you need to make something -- for example, this DIY MIDI controller.

Sparkfun has a great series of articles that explain the very basics of circuits and electricity

Hopefully I've explained everything enough so that you can venture off on your own. Feel free to ask questions!

I'm trying to find a list of all 82/84 key-keyboards on the market that I can actually buy new. I know there's a longer list of discontinued stuff.

As of now I know of the: 84 Keycool, Cherry G-84
, KBT RACE II, Drevo 84, Keycool hero 84, Noppoo Choc mini 84.

Looking for an 84 key with media buttons and a function key on the bottom row. I'd like MX cherry stems so I can change out the caps easily but know other caps are available. If I could program the media button locations and order keys to match. That'd be awesome.

I'm pretty happy with the OUTEMU brown switches on my 68 key magicforce so I'll probably go with brown switches.

If anyone wants to recommend me an 84 key board with media keys and some function keys like an calculator button and board number pad that'd be awesome I'm all ears. The Keycool Hero I already linked looks like a winner

I linked them in my post, but for ease:

Headphones: A good entry pair would be the Philips SHP9500S. Check out /r/headphones' headphone purchasing guide if you'd like to actually figure out what headphones would best suit you. Everyone's different.

Mic: If you want one that will resemble that of a gaming headset's mic, then the Antlion Modmic is great, and attach magnetically (I believe?). If you'd like an inexpensive mic that isn't attached to your headphones, the Samson Go is actually pretty awesome. It's shockingly-close to sounding like the Blue Yeti Pro. Here's a sound test involving the two microphones mentioned.

I come from the audiophile world, so a couple things I need to know before I offer any recommendations....
-Price, now I know you said "unlimited" but are you willing to include a DAC too?
-Listening preferences/uses, do you like music with a lot of bass or do you like a flat sound signature? Will you be doing competitive FPS where you might want more treble to hear footsteps easier?
-Environment, are you in a room by yourself or is your PC quiet enough where an open back headset is okay or do you want total isolation from any noise around you? (NOTE: open back provides better sound stage at the cost of you hearing stuff around you and other people if they're close hearing what's playing)

Last...AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY.....DON'T, I repeat DON'T buy a gaming headset if you want good sound quality unless you want to fork over more money than you have to.

Having said all that, one recommendation is the Phillips SHP9500 with Vmoda boom pro (open back) all for around $100 IIRC on Amazon.

Another recommendation is the Phillips Fidelio X2 with before mentioned boom pro.

IF you want "f*ck all outside noise" the Bose QC 35 will work (mic cord included)

However, probably the best idea out there is the Modmic (link: https://www.amazon.com/Antlion-Audio-ModMic-Attachable-Microphone/dp/B00R98JVVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503259595&sr=8-1&keywords=modmic) pick your favorite headphone and attach a mic to it)
Then you can completely go balls to the wall and get something like the ShureSRH1540.

Or just say fuck it and buy the Sennheiser Orpheus ;)

Also my first Coachella with my Hero 6!

I'm outfitting my Hero 6 with a 128GB Samsung MicroSD card.

For power, I'm bringing in two precharged spare batteries for a total of 3 batteries.

For my grip, I'm bringing in the handler as my grip. I thought about the Karma grip but it's kinda expensive and won't last the whole day in the fest; I also don't know how I would store it. What's important here is that you can't bring a grip that extends like a selfie-stick, those are banned from the grounds. If you have a hard time, kindly explain to the security guard that the grip doesn't extend and is fixed at 6-inches. I had a friend go to W1 last year with a Karma grip and she just explained that it didn't extend so she was good.

Since I'm bringing in a CamelBak, I wanted somewhere to place the GoPro when it's not on the grip and without having to worry about pickpocketers. I tried out several backpack clips like this one or this one but I essentially decided that I wanted to make sure it would quick-release to the grip for easy transitions. The clip that did have that feature broke pretty quickly so I'm going to try out this one and give it a shot with some velcro. It seems pretty sturdy. To get the camera fully upright, you're going to need a j-hook mount or a raised mount like the one included in the official mount set.

The alternative to any backpack solution is just unclip the GoPro into a fanny pack or a front pocket for safe keeping and store the grip into a backpack.

Hey, I'm glad I can talk about this with someone who is interested! No worries of annoying me with your question, networking is my passion.

An unmanaged gigabit switch would be fine for 99% of normal setups. Having a managed switch that supports VLANs will allow more flexibility in how you decide to connect devices logically but in a normal house, it's not necessary. If you start having a lab to play with, security camera you want on a different network, or a guest wifi with users that shouldn't be able to see your other devices, the managed switch becomes a necessity. Honestly, switching hardware for unmanaged switches are probably all made in the same Broadcom factory in China, so any brand will do. When you go for a managed switch, then software quality matters and spending a little more can avoid large frustrations later on.

For a 1Gbps internet link, there are two kinds of setup possible. If you have a larger house, or can't place the router centrally, I would recommend a "separate devices setup" with the Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite, a switch like the Netgear Prosafe GS116E if VLANs are needed or the TP-Link TL-SG108 if they aren't needed and on the AP side, one or two of the Ubiquiti AP AC Lite, or if you want more speed the AP AC Pro. This would allow you to make use of the 1Gbps you get.

You could also go for an integrated unit like the Nighthawk R7000 or the Asus RT-AC68U. If you have a smaller house or apartment and the router can be placed centrally, this is probably the most cost-effective setup.

For something not Ubiquiti, I would suggest Mikrotik, as they will have something that supports 1Gbps routing. They also have nice APs. They have a lot of models though, so I can't say which one would work best.

There are so many choices it's hard to be able to say "this is the best device for you". There are combinations that I know they will work well, but there are so many options I don't know them all.

This is exactly the place to ask this. I can point you in the right direction on these things, but you'll need some prices, details, or something if you want more advice.

Yes mechanical keyboard. Its like the peripheral upgrade equivalent of an SSD, everything about it is better, and you'll never go back.

HERE is a /r/MechanicalKeyboards stickied reason why. There is no way I could explain it any better. Spend a little time in that subreddit. The stickied post up top of it will help you pick your board. Then check out /r/mechmarket since durability is one of the nicest advantages.

THIS post is all you need to get started on speaker set-ups. /r/zeos is just great and covers all price ranges. Anything less than that, it will just come down to looks and reading reviews. Unless you can cop some of the Klipsch Promedias on CraigsList or something. I got a set for $25 and it is the best deal of my life. Things sound fantastic and I can't even take em above 50% or touch the sub volume without waking the neighbors.

As for wireless headphones, no idea. I don't mind the wires for the audio quality provided.

Hero 7 black is the way to go. The hypersmooth stabilization makes it worth it.

Accessories to get:

First of all, get a gopro plus trial. It gives you 50% off of batteries and other accessories, but not chargers or microsd cards.

Grab a few extra batteries. With the trial, they're $10 each.

The dual bay charger is well worth the price.

These are the microsd cards I use in my H7B. They're fast, reliable and cheap. Also on gopro's recommended list of cards to use.

I use tempered glass protectors for the lens and rear screen and they don't affect video quality at all. They went on very easily and the lens cap is a nice bonus.

For a case, I currently use this one, but the official case looks good too.

I use this frame mount and love it. The front round piece can be removed if desired; I took it off as I don't need it for what I use my gopro for. It includes mounting options for both standard threaded mounts and gopro mounts. And the back slides on and off.

If you need a head mount, the amazonbasics one is identical to the official gopro branded mount aside from the logo (I have both).

Completely optional, but I really like these aluminum knobs over the standard plastic ones.

​

That about covers everything I use. Hope this helps some!

Raw storage:

• 72TB (9 x 8TB RAIDZ2)
  
  
• 36TB (9 x 4TB RAIDZ2)
  
  Total 108TB(18 drives)
  
  Actual storage:
  
  
• 48TiB
  
  
• 24TiB
  
  Total 72TiB
  
  Case:
  
  
• Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Rev. B
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DSFDSUS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  
• Nanoxia Deep Silence 3 for parts
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Nanoxia-Computer-Controllers-Motherboard-NXDS3B/dp/B00M49SNVI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497552150&sr=8-2&keywords=nanoxia+deep+silence
  
  Used the two bay 3.5" cage, and three bay 2.5" cage from the Deep Silence 3 case.
  
  Fans:
  
  
• 2 140mm top
  
  
• 2 140mm front
  
  
• 2 120mm middle
  
  
• 1 140mm back
  
  
• 2 140mm cpu
  
  Used two 120mm case fans from the Deep Silence 3 case between the two stacks of drives.
  
  Motherboard: Supermicro X10SRA-F
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O7ZK10S/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1620 v3 3.5GHz
  
• https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117512&cm_re=intel_1620-_-19-117-512-_-Product
  
  Heatsink: Noctua DH-D15
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L7UZMAK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  RAM:
  
  
• Micron ECC Registered - 8gb x 4
  
  
• Mircon ECC Registered - 4gb x 4
  
  Total 48gb
  
  PSU: Corsair AX1500i
  
  Controllers:
  
  
• Motherboard - 10 ports
  
  
• LSI 9211-8i - 8 ports
  
  • https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RL8I7M/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    
    
• Marvell - 2 ports
  
  Total 20 ports
  
  NIC: Mellanox Connectx-2 10g
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0178CNZ9U/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  OS Disks: 2 x Intel 330 60GB, mdadm RAID1
  
  Storage Disks:
  
  
• 9 x Western Digital Red 8TB WD80EFZX
  
  • http://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
    
  • https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BYLY4DM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    
    Seven shucked from Best Buy WD easystore externals and two from Amazon as internals.
    
    
• 9 x 4TB drives, mix of Seagates and HGST NAS
  
  • 2 x ST4000DM000
    
  • 2 x ST4000DX000
    
  • 4 x HGST_HDN724040ALE640
    
  • 1 x HGST_HDN726040ALE614
    
    • http://www.frys.com/product/9112138?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
      
      I originally shucked the Seagates from externals. I have replaced the Seagates as they fail, and I had one fail during this upgrade. Yes, I have had five Seagate failures.
      
      SATA/SAS cables:
      
      
• 10 36" SATA cables
  
  • http://www.frys.com/product/8057794?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
    
    
• 2 24" SATA cables
  
  • http://www.frys.com/product/8057804?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
    
• 2 SAS four port breakout cables
  
  • https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018YHS8BS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    
    OS: Fedora 25 with ZFS for Linux
    
    Cost:
    
    
• Around $2800 without storage
  
  
• Around $3200 for storage
  
  
• Around $6000 total
  
  The cost was spread across years. This is more like two builds in one. My old build with the motherboard, memory, heatsink, CPU, and 4tb drives combined with my new 8tb build. With the 4tb drives I have replaced five of nine drives over time, which has driven up the real total cost.
  
  The case is huge, but all the space is nice. You don't feel like you are cramming anything in. I used a Fractal Design R5 for my previous build, and prefer Fractal Design cases to Nanoxia cases. But the biggest Fractal Design case wouldn't quite suit my needs. Even this was a stretch for the Deep Silence 6 case. I wish the Deep Silence 6 had spots to mount 2.5" drives on the back side like the R5. It is a feature I miss.
  
  I have a few issues. The trays and the screw holes on the WD 8tb drives don't match. The WD drives are missing the middle bottom screw holes. My temporary workaround is strong 3M double sticky foam tape with two screws. I may use a drill and drill holes in the sides of the trays. I had to tape down the 2.5" cage, but the drives are so light it is not a big deal.
  
  After building this beast I had the window closed, the door shut, and no room fan for one day. The room was quite warm. I have since opened the window, turned on the fan, and left the door open.
  
  My Kill-a-watt peaked at 450 watts during boot. It idles between 200-220 watts. So I could go back to my AX760 from my previous build with SATA power splitters.
  
  I still have one tray free, but no extra drive or SATA port.
  
  I was originally going to move the four bay 3.5" cage from the Deep Silence 3, but it was just too integrated into the case. I tried adapting it, and it didn't come out well. Even if it had, the bottom tray was going to sit below the lip of the side of the case. So that tray would have been less accessible.
  
  I am currently copying 18tb from the old array to the new array as a burn-in test.
  
  I got the original idea to build with this case from someone else's post. I probably would have just bought another Fractal Design R5, and run two systems otherwise. I have run two systems for storage before, connected them with 10g, and used iSCSI. When I did I used, https://romanrm.net/mhddfs , to merge the filesystems together. I am considering doing the same again.
  
  With the right cages you could probably fit around 26 3.5" drives in this case.
  
  Over time I have gone from 250gb to 500gb to 1tb to 1.5tb to 2tb to 4tb to 8tb drives. I didn't think I would be upgrading to 8tb anytime soon, until the Best Buy easystore deal. In the past I mostly purchased on Black Fridays. In more recent years externals from Costco.
  
  TLDR: I built a new server combining an existing 24TiB ZFS with a new array of 36TiB ZFS for the win!

One additional note on the GPU choice - as PlaysForDays noted, the "standard" RTX 2080 performs only a bit higher (~10%) than the $499 RTX 2070 Super (Gigabyte 2070 Super as an example), but retails for several hundred dollars more. Its successor, the RTX 2080 Super can be found for $699-$730 (eg, this card, or this card), making it a smarter choice than your listed $689 Gigabyte RTX 2080.

Performance differences will vary from game to game, but essentially there's no reason to choose an RTX 2080 at $690 when for ten or twenty dollars more you can pick up an RTX 2080 Super. Conversely, dropping to a 2070 Super can save you two hundred bucks for giving up about ten percent in performance. For a build this powerful, I'd simply step up to the 2080 Super and call it a day. :)

The other observations about the motherboard are also valid. The Gaming X isn't a bad board, but it's not compelling when alternatives such as the Aorus Elite exist for a very minor bump in price.

For a CPU cooler, if you plan on using a traditional air cooler, go with either a Noctua NH-D15 or the Dark Rock Pro 4 from the irritatingly yet aptly named "be quiet!" They're both top tier, very high quality coolers with low noise fans which include mounting hardware for AM4 boards. They'll handle the 3900X's heat with no issues and you'll have some headroom for overclocking if you desire.

>Plus it all seems inefficient since I already have the LAN throughout the house.

If you already have Ethernet pulled to places all over the house, then wired Access Points is the obvious and correct answer.

Ubiquiti is the king of reliable Access Points. But switching to Ubiquiti requires a bit more knowledge than your typical wireless router / repeater system, so if you choose this, you'll have to do a bit of learning too.

For 900 sqft on two floors, you can likely get away with just one Access Point mounted on the First Floor in the Center. That would easily cover the floor, plus very likely cover the floors above and below it too. A Ubiquiti nanoHD is my go-to recommendation lately, but if you are trying to save some money, an AC-LITE is fine.

nanoHD:

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-Internal-1733Mbit-Ethernet/dp/B07FFNTLJD/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=nanohd&qid=1574904222&s=electronics&sr=1-4

AC-PRO:

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-802-11ac-Dual-Radio-UAP-AC-PRO-US/dp/B015PRO512/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=nanohd&qid=1574903775&s=electronics&sr=1-5

AC Lite:

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Ap-AC-Lite-UAPACLITEUS/dp/B015PR20GY/ref=sxin_2_ac_d_rm?ac_md=0-0-YWMgbGl0ZQ%3D%3D-ac_d_rm&keywords=ac+lite&pd_rd_i=B015PR20GY&pd_rd_r=382f4fce-b8fd-41f5-9d83-2ce30c7d4867&pd_rd_w=2JjVi&pd_rd_wg=IV1TH&pf_rd_p=e2f20af2-9651-42af-9a45-89425d5bae34&pf_rd_r=BRFTH2F9ZHRVN6T7YH6B&psc=1&qid=1574903705

Since you already have Ethernet presumably at ground level, you can also consider the Ubiquiti In-Wall units as well. These units provide you Wireless Access Points PLUS they give you two Ethernet ports at ground level. If you can get your gamer and game machines plugged into Ethernet instead of wireless, you'll have the ideal setup (streaming and other things are fine on wireless).

So maybe 1 ceiling mounted AP in the middle of the first floor, one in wall where the gamer is (for Ethernet ports as well as supplemental WiFi on the second floor), and maybe one In-Wall in the basement if needed (good chance it won't be).

AC-In-Wall:

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-UAP-AC-Iw-Wireless-Access/dp/B06XZLP8Q6/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1YA0NR13TWSGZ&keywords=ubiquiti+in+wall&qid=1574903832&s=electronics&sprefix=ubiquiti+in+w%2Celectronics%2C199&sr=1-2

If you do get 2-3 Ubiquiti APs, you'll probably want a PoE switch to power them all. This is another expense, unfortunately, but makes installation much cleaner.

>Based on what I've read (and experienced before) one kungfu wireless router isn't likely to provide adequate coverage throughout the house.

If you didn't want to go the Ubiquiti route, your house is actually a pretty good candidate for an Asus or Netgear, since it's 900sf stacked on top of each other. These consumer routers are pretty good these days. Unless your house is all brick and metal, I don't see why it wouldn't cover it.

The best thing to do is separate everything out so you can future proof your setup. What if down the line you want to extend your wifi or need more wired ports? When you separate everything out (security gateway/firewall, switch and wifi access points) its much easier to upgrade and troubleshoot. Your typical consumer grade all in one routers have all three of those things in one package and none of them are particularly great.

Ubiquiti is the current leader at this for the home user. They have SOHO grade equipment (small office home office) which is basically enterprise grade equipment but at consumer grade prices.

If I were you, here's what I'd do:
Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway (USG) - this will be the brains of your system and allow port forwarding, QoS, deep packet inspection, etc.

Ubiquiti Networks 8-Port UniFi Switch, Managed PoE+ Gigabit Switch with SFP, 150W (US-8-150W) - this gives you 8 ports, all of which can be enabled for power over ethernet which can easily power your security cameras and access points. If you don't need this then you can get the cheaper non-PoE switch Ubiquiti US-8 Unifi Switch

Ubiquiti Networks Unifi 802.11ac Dual-Radio PRO Access Point (UAP-AC-PRO-US) - This is a great access point to give you fast wifi at a great range. This plugs directly into your switch via ethernet cable. If you need to extend you wifi then you can get a second one and plug it in. These can be powered by PoE which is really nice.

Total cost: $461

I guarantee you would end up spending more upgrading an all in one router over the next few years. This will easily last you 10+ years if not more and be enterprise grade equipment.

I would split your budget to get two headphones for dedicated use.

1. a. Gaming Headphone => Since you mainly listed FPS titles that require you to pin point footsteps and shots, I would recommend the Audio Technica ATH AD 700x (AD700x Amazon Link) for $92. These headphones are well respected and loved for FPS titles with the same requirements as yours. They don't need an amp and can be driven from your motherboard with ease.
   b. Gaming microphone => Get the ModMic 4.0 (ModMic 4.0 Amazon Link) for $50. These are great and can be driven using your motherboard. However I would suggest pairing them with something like this (USB Sound Card Amazon Link) for best results - add another $15 for this.
   
   
2. Music and movies headphone => Get something like the HD 599 (HD 599 Amazon Link) from Sennheiser if you want good balanced sound without breaking the bank. They are easy to drive using your mobo and if you get an amp down the line they will increase the volume of these headphones. These cans are like $149 now.
   
   ​
   
   So you will be spending $157 for the gaming headphone and mic and $148 for the music/movies headphone. I know this has a huge drawback of switching headphones when you want to do either, but you can also use the HD 599 for gaming as it has good imaging. The sound stage is not as wide as the AD700x but it is still good enough for positioning shots. However this will give you the (relatively) best of both worlds for your budget. :)

I'm going to college soon and I wanted to get some good speakers for my dorm room. I'm into EDM and I've confirmed my roommate is too, so I want really good quality ones with great bass.

My friend got the Logitech Speaker System Z623 and I was very impressed when I heard them. I want something like those, but I'd rather not have the $100+ price tag. I mean if I really have to, I'll get those, but I'd rather not spend that much.

I was looking at the Z523 and the Z506, but I guess they aren't as good. But is the difference noticeable?

I asked my friend and he said a good way to tell the quality of a system is the frequency range. And I guess the more watts, the better bass.

If anyone could recommend some good ones for a good price I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Netgear is a decent brand, so that's too bad it went out. I always use my own wireless routers because I'd rather spend the money on something good, and typically the routers or modem/router combos issued by the service provider are cheap.

Also if you're using the service provider's router and modem, you're probably paying for it. For example, with my Comcast service I would have paid $7/mo for their modem the entire time I had it. But I bought my own on Amazon for $70, and after the first year it's paid for its self.

I'm not sure what your buying options are in AU, but what I'd look for is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem from Motorola like this one. I have heard people say that, even if you're only getting speeds that would need DOCSIS 2.0, the newer modems perform a little better and they're not much more expensive.

As for routers, I just look for one with good reviews and good features. You'll probably want one that's capable of dual-band, with at least one antenna supporting 5Ghz. This article reviews some good ones, and is pretty recent. They get expensive, but the nice thing about owning your own router is you usually have more options with it, and again if you're not paying a monthly fee to lease one from the service provider you'll earn that money back in the first year or two.


(The reason why that's helpful is because, unlike a regular LAN switch, wifi can't support multiple speeds on one network. So if you have 5 802.11N devices and 1 802.11G like an old wifi printer the entire network will default to that lower speed. When you see routers advertising dual-band with 5Ghz, it's because one antenna can do Wireless-N on 5Ghz which only newer devices capable of N can connect to. That way older devices can connect to the regular network if needed, and your 5Ghz N network will always be fast.)

This is an Amazon.ca Featured Deal and is set to expire at 3:00 am (presumably March 21). Act fast! Best Buy Canada and Futureshop will price match this deal, bringing the price down to around $97

An excellent price on a 2TB external drive that can be easily removed from the casing and installed in a PS4. I picked one of these up a couple of weeks ago and did exactly that and it fits and works perfectly.

To remove the drive, carefully pry the metal top cover from the bottom plastic case. This can be done by hand or using a small screwdriver. Once the case is open, remove the drive and unplug from the USB interface board. Then just follow the Sony instructions for replacing the drive. Be sure to backup your game save data first so that it can be restored to the new drive afterwards.

The drive fits perfectly in the PS4 and meets the specs that Sony specifies for the console. If you're looking for extra storage in your PS4, this is a great way to expand at a reasonable price.

As an added bonus, you can install your old PS4 500GB drive in the case and use that as an external USB drive afterwards.

Edit: Our American friends can get the same drive from Amazon.com for $89 which is a pretty good deal.

I agree with what NovaKitFox said with audio being important, but if your budget is 100 and if you had to choose between one or the other, I'd always choose a decent mic so your viewers can hear you better.

Instead of going with the fancy wireless modmic that was previously posted, there's a cheaper wired version by the same company that I used before but still have and would recommend:

Antlion ModMic - 49.95 US

Literally find any okay headphone and stick this mic on it and you're set. Generally you don't want to use the "gamer" headset mics for recording, they come out sounding cheap. With this, you can always upgrade to better headphone down the line since it's detachable and everything. If you pick up a more studio microphone like the audio-technica AT2005USB, its nice but then you'd have to think about a mic arm and audio interface which can easily add up to another 100+ dollars.

When you DO get more money to upgrade your headphone, I would suggest looking at something like the beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO (142 US) which is what I'm using and its been my favorite thus far.

As a general rule of thumb, stay away from anything marketed "gamer" headphones or headsets. They're usually overpriced and made cheap in my opinion. Not to say they're ALL bad but I find it annoying to have to sift through it all. Just do some of your own due diligent and see what works for you.

Hope this all helps. Cheers and good luck!

When you start looking as low as $200 you have to really know what you are looking for in the laptop, as conventional laptops do begin to compete in this price range with other devices. As /u/Orangematz said, used/refurbished is definitely a good fit for you, unfortunately I don't know that I could give any specific suggestions in this area. However, if you want to buy new, you may want to consider a Chromebook. You can't run Audacity on a Chromebook natively, but there are some alternative apps available to make this work (see this list for some options).

Alternatively, you mentioned an external hard drive. Do you already have one or would that be included in the budget? If you already have it, you can use this for storage and install Linux on your Chromebook to use Audacity natively (Having an Intel processor in your chromebook is necessary if this is your plan).

If you are feeling very adventurous, you could purchase a Raspberry Pi like the one here. This runs Linux natively and should be able to handle Audacity without issue, although it may take some tinkering to get up and running the first time, especially if this is your first foray into Linux. The Raspberry Pi 3 is missing three things that laptops have, keyboard and mouse, and display. That display only comes with a cigarette lighter power adapter, so you would need a 12 V adapter. Note that this solution has a lot of parts compared to one laptop, and the display is smaller and lower resolution than you are likely to get in a good laptop, so this is really a nifty solution to your problem that adds in a bunch of extra functionality (your display can play audio/video from USB/SD and can be mounted to the back of a headrest while your computer is a neat little hobbyist device that can have a bunch of different uses besides just computer), but not really recommendable if you aren't enthusiastic about those things.

For something along the same vein but slightly less adventurous if you don't feel comfortable with Linux would be to replace the raspberry pi in the previous solution with an Intel Compute Stick (comes with windows). Alternatively, the display can be replaced with a significantly better or somewhat better and significantly cheaper monitor if portability is something you are willing to compromise on (the Raspberry Pi/Compute Stick would still be very portable, but you would need to find an HDMI-enabled display to plug into).

In conclusion, buying used/refurbished is a good idea, but if you are open to it, the "microcomputer" market segment is starting to come up to par with laptops in this price range and could offer some interesting alternative solutions for you. Wow, that was a long comment.

Hi all,

I'm looking for a midrange laptop, about $500, and am thinking about getting the Acer Aspire E 15 for $515, with an i5-7200U/8GB RAM/940MX GPU/GB SSD. Seems like a solid option, and I can upgrade the RAM to 16gb later or add more storage if needed.

I'm also looking at the ASUS VivoBook F510UA for $500 with an i5-8250U/8GB RAM/1TB HDD @5400rpm, as that seems like a good deal as well, especially if I wanted to pay $100 more and install a SSD myself. Reviews seem subpar though.

The nicer option I'm looking at is the HP Pavillion Power for $600 w/ i5-7300HQ/gtx1050 2gb/1TB HDD/8GB RAM. Seems solid, especially since I can, once again, upgrade the ram and ssd if I desire later. A bit more than what I'd like to spend, but it does seem like a good deal.

Use case is mostly programming (for work), with some web and game design so I'd like nice-ish specs (hence my desire to be able to upgrade the ram to 16gb if needed). However, I don't want to go all out on my personal computer, as I may hopefully end up getting employed and have the employer help me with a work machine. Plus I have a sweet desktop for gaming myself already.

Any input is much appreciated.

/u/The---Technician -> you've been on top of it, so hopefully you don't mind a ping for help

Hey, The_MonBear,

​

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Ffhb3b Will provide you with a PC that is compatible with and without your hypothetical 980TI, and will also have an SSD in case the one you use for your Xbox does not have matching connectors or SATA ports (don't know why, but some add-ons are strange and are incompatible with certain setups.) It also provides a setup that is very clean are cable-management friendly, as I have friends who have used this case in similar mid-range builds.

If you want, I included a reliable Flash drive for transferring files and booting a copy of windows off of.

If you need to have a more in-depth guide on your building process that uses near-identical components t this PC, I recommend Joey delgado's Ryzen 5 2600 build ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ujnl1_hW0)

​

The 580 and the 980Ti have very similar performance outputs, but depending on your budget and your card type, buy a free sync monitor (AMD GPU but about +$50 per 60/144/240 Hz increase) or G-sync (Nvidia but a ~$200 + every 60/144/240 Hz upgrade)

A 1440p 144Hz monitor would not fit in your budget, as it would make your build $1100+ save it be some very unreliable purchases. If you want any monitors I have a few I'd recommend:

​

1080p 75Hz: https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-E248W-19203R-Monitor-Speakers-Metallic/dp/B0773ZY26F/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=1080p+to+hz+monitor&qid=1556595028&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1

1080p 144Hz: https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-Response-Equalizer-Vibrance-Adjustable/dp/B01H5KKQTM/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=1080p+to+hz+monitor&qid=1556595028&s=gateway&sr=8-3

1440p 60Hz: https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-GL2706PQ-Black-Gaming-Monitor/dp/B06XDQ2RRQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=1440p+60hz&qid=1556595119&s=gateway&sr=8-1

​

You can use windows without a product key, you just will have a watermark in the right-hand corner of the screen at all times. if you NEED a product key, I recommend you use a reputable site that someone else or yourself may research, otherwise you just have watermarked windows with fewer customization options.

​

Hope you find this build guide very helpful!

I have a 144hz monitor, and it is great.

I benefit greatly from the extra hz for games like CS but if you already have a 60hz monitor and play games such as PUBG, I don't think the benefits of a 144hz monitor will make a great impact on gameplay.

• you get 60-100fps, and whatever frames your getting thats what you will see, so if your getting 60fps you will see 60 frames, instead of the potential 144.
  
  Though you may get more frames once the optimisation update gets rolled out.
  
  If you have the spare money and play many competitive FPS's, I say go for it, but you may not see that great of a difference until you get more frames on PUBG.
  
  As for the monitor, it looks great, it has the best response time that monitors have to offer along with Freesync support, looks good.
  
  I have this monitor: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BenQ-XL2411-e-Sports-eQualiser-Adjustable/dp/B01H5KKQTM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491496383&sr=8-1&keywords=benq+zowie+xl2411

I have the same 13” mid 2012 MBP and am running 16gb of RAM w/ a 1TB SSD. I also have the same version of Ableton as you. The official specs from Apple list 8gb RAM as the max but it can for sure support 16gb. Based on the specs you provided I’d guess you have the i5 version which comes stock with 4gb of RAM and the 500gb HDD. Your model will support 16gb and you’ll see a significant boost in performance, with Ableton and the computer in general, if you add 16gb and an SSD. If you leave the standard 500gb HDD, I'd assume you'd only see a moderate boost in performance since that's really the big driver of slow performance. I can't speak to the performance of Omnisphere as I don't have a working copy but I do know it made a significant boost for pretty much everything in Ableton and otherwise.

​

My recommendation would be to add 16gb of RAM plus an SSD. They are both relatively straight forward processes as well (links below), just need the right tools and to take your time. Watch YouTube tutorials. Attaching links to the items I have in mine. I'd recommend getting the Crucial RAM and Samsung SSD (which is what I have and has a higher performance rating), but the Crucial SSD will be adequate as well.

​

Let me know if you have other questions on it.

​

INSTRUCTIONS

HDD Swap - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Hard+Drive+Replacement/10378

RAM Swap - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+RAM+Replacement/10374

​

PRODUCTS

Crucial SSD - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0784SLQM6/

Samsung SSD - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/

RAM - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LTBJFW/

Tool Kit - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IVKPTP6/

Well, first off: OS X 10.11 El Capitan isn't the newest macOS version for your MacBook Pro. Your MacBook pro actually supports macOS 10.13 High Sierra. High Sierra can still be downloaded from the Mac App Store, it is just hidden. Here is the link to it (click this link in Safari only, not in Chrome or Firefox!):

• https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/macos-high-sierra/id1246284741?ls=1&mt=12
  
  OS X El Capitan went out of support in the fall of 2018, so it has been missing out on security for quite some time. Every major macOS version has 1 year of mainstream support (the time frame between its own initial release and the initial release of its successor one year later) and two years of security support immediately after that. Security support includes Safari updates.
  
  Mainstream support for High Sierra has already ended, but its security support only ends in the fall of 2020. So if you update your MacBook Pro to High Sierra, it is still safe to use.
  
  -----
  
  You can speed your machine up by adding more RAM and an SSD to it:
  
  Your MacBook Pro supports up to 16 GB RAM (2 x 8 GB RAM modules). A higher amount than that won't work due to a limitation in the logic board.
  
  You need to buy RAM that matches the following specifications:
  
  PC3-8500 1066 MHz DDR3, 204-pin
  
  Those are some examples of RAM that should work:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/OWC-PC8500-SO-DIMM-MacBook-OWC8566DDR3S16P/dp/B00BKVQFCU
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFNBP24/ref=twister_B07FSYCMM9?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-997019-204-pin-DDR3-1066Mhz-PC3-8500/dp/B006E0P1IG
  
  -----
  
  As for the SSD, your MacBook Pro supports every SSD that meets the following criteria:
  
  
• 2.5" form factor
  
• SATA3-compatible
  
  Here are some examples of SSDs that should work:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S
  
• https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-500GB-Ultra-NAND-SATA/dp/B072R78B6Q
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0A/dp/B073SBZ8YH
  
  Before you install the SSD, it is advisable to create a backup of the files you want to keep. Store them on some external drive.
  
  You can then reinstall macOS either via Internet Recovery or a macOS 10.13 High Sierra installer USB-Stick (which is the last OS your MacBook Pro supports).
  
  -----
  
  As for the battery: The battery is replaceable in MacBook Pros 2010. However, you won't be able to get an OEM battery Apple uses, most likely. Those are sold out by now and no longer available, unless you are extremely lucky. There are third party batteries that work, though, like this one for the 13" version(!):
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/HUSAN-Compatible-661-5229-661-5557-020-6547/dp/B071G53YBQ
  
  -----
  
  > I also heard mixed things about the new butterfly keyboards, but overall it seems once you get used to them they make your typing faster? So that sounds good for me if it's true
  
  The problem is less the feeling of the butterfly keyboard; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The problem is that the butterfly keys sometimes outright fail if small particles - like dust - intrude under them. I have discussed the problem here (last paragraph):
  
  
• https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/b86zvo/macbook_retina_vs_macbook_air_school_me_on_which/ejwayit/

ok. thank you so much. kinda lost here.

you were right. i turned down the oc on my ryzen to 1700 at 1.3V and my ram from 3200 to 29xx. that seemed to do the trick although its kinda annoying that i cant run my expensive ram as high as i would like to. and still weird that it worked before, but i will play it safe and look how it turns out for now. maybe run it a few days or even weeks like this to see if its stable. i think the 3,7 on the cpu i can live wiht, but i would love the 3200 on my ram.


for the usb stuff i actually went to amazon and ordered myself an inateck usb3.0 card with 4 ports.

https://www.amazon.de/Inateck-expresskarte-Anschlüsse-SATA-Stromanschluss-Strom-Y-Kabel/dp/B00B6ZCNGM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511617276&sr=8-1&keywords=inateck+usb+3

these come with a power connector directly to the psu. maybe that will help with balancing the power for my psu heavy usb devices. maybe i can put 2 rift sensors and 1 webcam on there and that will help balancing things out.

thx again for your help. i really appreciate it.

I've been in the market for speakers for playing music + playing guitar / bass. I currently have the following:

• Scarlett 2i2
  
• Logitech Z623 2.1ch
  
  When I'm just listening to music, the speakers sound great! When I add in playing guitar along with the music, there's definitely some loss in quality. The guitar and bass both sound just fine, but not really ideal.
  
  I've been considering ditching the logitech speakers for actual studio monitors paired with a subwoofer, but I'm not 100% whether I need to go this route if I want to play guitar + bass + music all together.
  
  My friend comes over to play the bass as well, so we would be playing simultaneously. I took a trip to GC today and had a listen to a bunch of studio monitors and narrowed down the most pleasing (to my ears) sound to these two monitors:
  
  
• Yamaha HS7
  
• Yamaha HS8
  
• KRK 10S2
  
  Holy crap the above speakers sounded amazing. The HS7 and HS8 had me in that room for like an hour, switching back and forth between the two. I just couldn't figure out which one I liked better!
  
  Anyways, before I go making a purchase, I wanted to see what others had to say or suggest.
  
  My budget is 1.5K

Not all-inclusive, still need some physical cables and such, but hopefully this is a starting point:

16-port gig switch: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00GG1AC7I/ Probably overkill but a few more ports doesn't cost all THAT much more and this leaves you plenty of room for expansion. Also managed so can setup VLANs, QoS, whatever.

Router: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00HXT8EKE/ These are solid for home and small business use. Config can be a little tricky if you are using any of the advanced features but plenty of throughput (1 million pps). Also supports VLANs if you want to spin up a guest wifi later.

Wireless AP: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B015PRO512/ This supports multiple SSIDs on different VLANs and offers really solid performance for not a ton of money. From the physical space you listed below I'm thinking one should me more than enough.

Cable modem: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B016PE1X5K/ I know you said this wasn't finalized but thought I would toss it in anyway. Don't skimp here, a low-end modem will really limit throughput and can crash under heavy-load. Whatever you go with make sure it's on your ISPs compatibility list! They may not support it if not.

That should put a total around $512 USD or so JUST FOR HARDWARE. Keep in mind this is a pretty basic setup but should serve as a starting point. You'll still need the physical cabling and someone able to set it all up. As mentioned earlier also this is only MY BEST GUESS as to what you will need. Please don't take this as your bible or anything like that. :)

I know I mentioned it before but I really don't mind helping set things up if needed. I'm not going to be your "call at 3AM tech guy" but if you need a bit here and there I can try to assist. :) Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts on the build. Cheers!

EDIT: Something else to keep in mind that's not really network related is backups. YOU NEED THIS. Even if you go with a cloud service like carbonite or whatever, you need to make sure the PCs have regular backups. You WILL have a hard drive die and need to pull a backup from somewhere.

You should be able schedule the initial interview as soon as 12-24 hours after signing up. I think from my sign up date to hire date I completed the entire process in 4-5 days! Which was awesome because I desperately needed work at the time! You choose when to do the interview based on the available time slots. However, there are trying something new where you can do a completely self-recorded initial interview, which has some advantages I'm sure. You will have more control over exactly what you are sending them and hopefully show something professional enough to get above $18/hour and closer to $20 or $22!

I would not invest a lot into props unless you are hired by VIPKID. In every stage of this hiring process, you will have access to the power point of what class you will be pretending to teach, so you can find those props ahead of time around your house, or make a few simple drawings. So while in practice you will need a variety of versatile props, the interview is all about getting a very specific case correct. All I purchased was a large white poster board to hang behind me, some post-it note letters to create an alphabet on the sheet, and use markers to draw some colorful shapes/animals/people/etc. on it as well. I would recommend, however, buying a small handheld dry erase board! They are so versatile and it is a small investment cost to apply for this job and look way more professional. I also purchased a nice attachable microphone which I will link below. Don't get too obsessed with finding tons of awesome props, though. Many applicants often focus too much on props and not enough on their communication skills!

If you are hired, I also have a whole list of what props and setups to get then. I'm all about keeping it simple and not having my supplies take up a whole room in my house! :D

This microphone is awesome if you want to turn your good headphones into an amazing headSET!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R98JVVU?ref=emc_b_5_t

Just get an attachment like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Adapter-Windows-AU-MMSA/dp/B00IRVQ0F8/ref=pd_bxgy_23_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00IRVQ0F8&pd_rd_r=DEJHY7WRFT67AY404A9J&pd_rd_w=5fpY3&pd_rd_wg=jPQH8&psc=1&refRID=DEJHY7WRFT67AY404A9J

or

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-headsets-separate-headphone-microphone/dp/B004SP0WAQ/ref=pd_bxgy_23_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B004SP0WAQ&pd_rd_r=FBN4YFJYQDXP8FHBXX06&pd_rd_w=VZKVa&pd_rd_wg=y9wMc&psc=1&refRID=FBN4YFJYQDXP8FHBXX06

I bought everything in B&H so that I didn't even have to wait for shipping!

Thank you for your help, kind stranger !

• I don't get what water cooling is, is it really better? Do I need to do anything with the fan, like fill it with wter, or do i just plug it in and voila?
  
  
• I'll really wait for the graphics card because i want to go all in later when i'll have enough money. I'm really used to playing games with a bad computer (GTAV all low in 800x600 on a 2017 dell XPS 13 for example, Intel integrated graphics and an I5 2.5GHz) and i'll probably stick to some csgo, gmod terraria and other smaller games haha.
  
  
• The cpu fan is a cooler master, looks a like it might be this one : https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-7H51C-Processor-Socket/dp/B000I223LO
  
  
• The other fan I have is this one : https://www.amazon.com/PV902512L-DC12V-0-16A-3-WIRE-92x25mm/dp/B00B877C50
  
  
• Do you recommend anything for cooling? Since I don't have good fans, do I need to buy more. Even in the optic of buying a new graphics card (Probably the 11GB titan), and one that can still cool down the 78xx? Water cooling is cool to if you think it's better
  
  
• What do you think of this SSD? It's better looking and cheaper where I live : https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1523216119&sr=1-3
  
  
• What's the difference between micro ATX and ATX? I'd prefer a "bigger" motherboard if it means better aeration, but i'm no expert. Plus, if my tower is big why not put a bigger motherboard in it? And will this one be able to support a better graphics card later? And i think it's a yes otherwise you wouldn't suggest this one but is it compatible with the I7?
  
• Edit : what do you think of the Asus PRIME Z370-P? : www.amazon.com/Z370-P-LGA1151-Motherboard-Generation-Processors/dp/B075RJHLBK/
  
  

• For the case, i can't find the one you're suggesting under 150€ ~ 180$ so what do you think of the Corsair Carbide 400C/270R/275R ?
  

  
  

  Anyway, thank you really much for your help, I know i ask a lot of questions but isn't this why this subreddit is made for? :)
  

  
  

  edit : this
  

  PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
  

  
  

  Type|Item|Price
  

  ----|:----|:----
  CPU | Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor | $410.00
  CPU Cooler | Corsair - H100i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | $129.00
  Motherboard | Gigabyte - H370M D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $129.00
  Memory | G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory | $224.00
  Storage | Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $150.00
  Storage | Crucial - MX300 525GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $0.00
  Case | Corsair - Carbide Series 275R (Black w/Tempered Glass) ATX Mid Tower Case | $104.00
  Power Supply | FSP Group - 650W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply | Purchased For $0.00
  Operating System | Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit | Purchased For $0.00
  | Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
  | Total | $1146.00
  | Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-08 16:05 EDT-0400 |

Some of the kits on Amazon are great, specifically the ones by CanaKit. They usually come with everything needed to get started (Pi, power adapter, sdcard, case, etc.) Some kits have more items than others.

As for which Pi, there are only really two options: the Pi 3 or the Pi Zero W. The other models are older and slower or lacking wifi/Bluetooth/etc. The Pi3 is more powerful and requires less adapters to make it plug into your TV, use USB devices, etc. The Pi Zero W requires some adapters and isn't as powerful but it is cheaper and a lot smaller so it is great for projects where you want it as small as possible. Both are great.

Overall, I'd recommend a Pi 3. More powerful, less messing with adapters, and still pretty small. This kit covers all the bases: CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit - 32 GB Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C6Q2GSY/

Pi 3, case, power, SD card, HDMI cable, SD reader, and heatsinks.

Edit: Here is a similar kit for the Pi Zero W if you want to go the smaller/cheaper route: CanaKit Raspberry Pi Zero W (Wireless) Starter Kit with Official Case https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XJQV162/

The SD card isn't as large and you don't get a card reader but you do get the needed HDMI and USB adapters.

Hope it helps!

This is almost literally what I'm building tomorrow. This is the Pi kit I'm getting. It comes with a case, power supply, and heat spreaders for the Pi's chips (how important are these?). I already have the exact controller in the Arse article, or one that looks just like it, and I have a couple extra HDMI cables around. I don't have an extra microSD card, so I'm buying a 128GB one, and trading my wife for her 64GB model. I don't think I even need 64GB, not for RetroPie. I might put a couple PS1 games on it, depending on how well they can run. But I need more buttons than that controller offers, so it will mainly be for NES/Super NES/Genesis games. And then mainly the first two. Never was a big Genesis player, but ToeJam & Earl, Sonic, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Phantasy Star... there are some real classics there. $50 for that kit makes it $10 less than the NES Classic... which was never sold here (middle of nowhere, NC).

For beginners (i.e. you have nothing yet), start with this one. It's $70, but it has a 32GB memory card and an HDMI cable, plus a case, the Pi, and a power supply. Oh and a microSD card to USB converter. For microSD card use I would actually recommend getting a USB 3.0 card reader. They're not much. And then you just need a controller.

I don't mean to imply I am not a beginner myself — I have never done this before. But I've played with Linux, I've modded Android (ran custom ROMs, firmware, and rooted four different Android phones by three manufacturers). I also build computers, though I'm only on my fourth built PC in 13 years. I'm kind of a little wet behind the ears, but I have some experience. I don't think you need that much to actually install and set up a RetroPie kit, but it helps to understand what is going on behind the scenes, in case anything goes wrong. And of course any seasoned geek will tell you, Google is your best friend, and from there, threads on Reddit, StackExchange, and Tom's Hardware are some of the best resources. Those are the search results I usually click on, in any case.

Also, not affiliated with CanaKit. I'm pretty sure theirs are the Pi kits RetroPie recommends. Or maybe it was a guide I saw. And then even before, looking to buy a Pi, I saw them on Amazon. There is another Pi kit company and their prices seem comparable, but they don't appear to have the full $70 kit (I may be wrong!), just the $50 case/power/Pi starter kit. I'm sure they're both (that brand and CanaKit) fine as long as the Pi itself is. The rest is probably just standard off-the-shelf stuff.

If you can afford $360, then the following Acer laptop with a dual core i3-8130u CPU is the best deal you can get. It has a 1080p resolution screen which is usually not found on laptop at such a low price point. New laptops below this price point will have much less powerful CPUs, though they would be fine for doing basic things like homework, video conferences and watching videos.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i3-8130U-Memory-E5-576-392H/dp/B079TGL2BZ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1540576809&sr=8-3&keywords=i3-8130u+laptop&dpID=41HfDkXXyeL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

​

The following $293 Lenovo laptop has a quad core Pentium N4200 CPU and is an example of a laptop with one of the "higher end" budget CPUs. Having 4 cores is nice, but it is not as powerful as the dual core i3-8130u CPU.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-320-backlight-Laptop/dp/B0791L59FG/ref=pd_sbs_147_5?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0791L59FG&pd_rd_r=11733487-d94a-11e8-bd66-fd11a13cb987&pd_rd_w=ZoAV1&pd_rd_wg=H5CQc&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7d5d9c3c-5e01-44ac-97fd-261afd40b865&pf_rd_r=AWF03A0DD2J9CKV60V3B&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=AWF03A0DD2J9CKV60V3B

​

The following Dell laptop with a quad core AMD Ryzen 5 2500u APU is currently on sale for $465. It is a good balance of price and performance especially if you want to play some non demanding games. It's integrated Radeon Vega 8 graphics core is about 2x more powerful than the Intel UHD 620 graphics core in the i3-8130u CPU. That makes it around as powerful as a nVidia 930m; not very powerful when compared to a modern budget dedicated GPU like the nVidia mx150, but definitely better than what Intel has to offer. Listed at 4.48lbs it is decently light for a 15.6" laptop.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-Touch-Screen-Laptop-Platinum/dp/B07FZCH4RL/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1540577485&sr=1-10&keywords=ryzen+5+2500u+dell

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Lastly, if you want a light laptop and can afford to spend up to $510, then consider the following Asus Vivobook laptop which has a quad core i5-8250u (more powerful than the Ryzen 5 2500u) and is listed as weigh 3.7lbs. It has the same Intel UHD 620 graphics core as the i3-8130u.

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https://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-Nanoedge-i5-8250U-Processor-Fingerprint/dp/B0762S8PYM/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1540577924&sr=1-3&keywords=i5-8250u+asus

Dang thank you for dumbing that down for me, it makes perfect sense when you explain it like that. So my weakest link is the truly the TW cable service... Well I still want to try it out and see how it goes with their "standard internet". If it seems not good enough I might just upgrade to turbo but from a financial reason I cannot get their "extreme service" internet as much as I would like to.

And to answer your question for right now I'm going to rent their modem for $5.99/month and see how it goes too. I was told by the time warner rep to purchase this modem if I wanted to eventually save $5.99/month. That way I could just swap out their modem and install that one in it's place. The rep told me if I ever move or get turbo or extreme internet from them it would be excellent. He also said they have about a 10 year life cycle. So it sounds like he was trying to help me out. But what is your opinion? You seem to have an amazing amount of knowledge thank you for taking some time out to reply and help me out with this topic, I appreciate it!

>media, writing, etc

If you're comfortable with a used laptop you can find Thinkpad T440 variants for less than $180. I write and watch YouTube with a T430 (T440 predecessor). Heck I even game (Kerbal Space Program, Half Life 2/Portal/Portal 2, and indie games) without issue. On a 7-year old laptop. Partly because Thinkpads are business-class devices, and built to higher quality standards than consumer devices.

Part of the reason I recommend Refurb/used Thinkpads is your desire to use Linux. Thinkpads have phenomenal Linux support because they're popular. Not just with Linux developers, but the sort of tech-oriented user that might want to run Linux. Older ones especially, since they've been around long enough for people to patch/fix/update things to get them working. Heck you can even set their battery charge thresholds just like you can in Windows, for better battery lifespan (not battery life).

And you wouldn't be lacking for power either; an i5-4300U (mid/entry-level CPU for the T440's; you probably won't need more power than this) is just as, or more powerful than, the Celerons in the laptops you linked (yikes!), and from what I saw when I quickly searched eBay; feature either 500GB HDD's or 180-256GB SSD's. Plus you can set up/buy one with dual-channel RAM which will help your iGPU. I'm not as sure about the amazon options.

If you're writing, especially to publish/for school, I recommend picking a T440 or T440s with a 500GB HDD, and buying a 128/256GB SSD and a HDD enclosure like this one separately. Once they all arrive; replace the HDD in the laptop with the SSD, install Linux on it, and use the 500GB HDD as part of your on-site backup (along with cloud storage and a second on-site backup solution, for redundancy). If you like to write on the go; maybe consider buying an extended battery.

I almost forgot the reason I'd recommend a Thinkpad to anyone who'll be doing a lot of writing; the on-device keyboard is legendary. You won't find a better one unless you spend thousands on a gaming monstrosity with a mechanical keyboard. Lots of laptops have an OK keyboard. Thinkpads have good keyboards.

Alternative AMD build at the bottom of this post

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel - Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor | $299.99 @ Amazon Canada
CPU Cooler | CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler | $46.75 @ Amazon Canada
Motherboard | ASRock - Z270 Killer SLI/ac ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $229.99 @ Newegg Canada
Memory | G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $177.99 @ Memory Express
Storage | Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $136.50 @ Amazon Canada
Storage | Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $62.99 @ Amazon Canada
Video Card | MSI - Radeon RX 580 8GB ARMOR OC Video Card | $389.99 @ Memory Express
Case | NZXT - S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case | $99.99 @ Memory Express
Power Supply | EVGA - SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $114.99 @ Amazon Canada
Monitor | ViewSonic - XG2401 23.6" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor | $329.99 @ Amazon Canada
Keyboard | Corsair - K55 RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard | $69.99 @ Amazon Canada
Mouse | Corsair - Harpoon RGB Wired Optical Mouse | $39.99 @ Amazon Canada
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1999.15
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-03 19:00 EDT-0400 |

Notes:

The original motherboard you selected doesn't support overclocking, I've replaced it with a motherboard that does. In addition, this board also has built-in WiFi which replaced the internal WiFi card you had on your list originally.
I removed Windows from your list of items, non-activated Windows runs nearly identically to activated Windows. You can read about that here. It seems like a good way to save some money until you have some more room to spend.
Picked a speedier kit of RAM for about $20 additional.
Added a 1TB Seagate HDD to your build since it's unlikely that a 250GB SSD will give you enough room for your games and video footage. The 2TB HDD is only +$30 additional for reference.
I hope you didn't want it to be $2000 after tax, because 120Hz monitors aren't exactly cheap. The one I included has FreeSync (only compatible with AMD GPU's), which reduces screen tearing at certain refresh rates. Here's another option (no FreeSync, slightly cheaper): BenQ ZOWIE 24" 1080p LED Full HD 144Hz.
I swapped the 1060 6GB for an RX 580. The performance on RX 580 is slightly better than the 1060 6GB in most test cases, and it supports FreeSync (the free version of NVIDIA's G-Sync).


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With all that being said, I've also put together another build centered around AMD Ryzen 1600. This build doesn't cost as much, and will offer competitive performance to the i5 7600k you originally selected. More importantly, the motherboard supports future AMD Processors until the year 2020, which will make upgrading in the future easy and inexpensive (Intel is dropping support for LGA1151 after this generation).

Here is the AMD Ryzen 1600 build ($80 less).

I would personally recommend the AMD build, however, you can't go wrong with either.

First of all, its not really fair for you to limit your sister's videos to 480p so you can play OW without lag. You should both be able to share the internet, just because you see your usage as more important doesn't mean it is.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm guessing that your main issue is that you are trying to game over WiFi, as you said Ethernet's not an option. I would place most of the blame on one of two things, either you've got a shitty router that cant handle a lot of traffic and is causing latency OR you internet speeds are sub 25MB/s.

Option 1, shitty router: Without knowing the specs for your router I cant tell you for certain if this is the issue but streaming media does consume a fair amount of clock cycles and if its an older router (especially a cheaper model of older router) they are not built to handle that sort of traffic. A new Wireless AC router should be able to handle that traffic easily, I really like the ASUS RT-AC68U. ASUS in general has a very friendly router interface. To utilize AC performance, you may need to buy a new wireless adapter for your PC as well but your current one will connect via N.

Option 2, slow internet: With the above mentioned AC router you can implement QoS, without paying for faster internet this is the only way to resolve your issue. As I said before, its not fair to restrict your sisters laptop to slow 480p performance BUT (at least in my ASUS router) you can make a list of up to 5 devices that will be prioritized in the order of the list. Online gaming does not take much bandwidth, watch your task manager while gaming, most of the time you will be using less than 500 kb/s. If you put your device on the top of the list your packets will have priority, but your sister's laptop should still be able to stream without any difference to her quality. Some routers also have a "game prioritization" mode where they will prioritize known gaming traffic from any source.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know.

Edit: I also would like to point out that I've tried gaming over a Powerline adapter as mentioned below. It was OK but there was still some lag and it seemed to max out at 100Mb/s download speed. I had better luck with a wireless AC pci-e card and an AC router.

I don't know what price range you'd like to spend. But for me, I got the cheapest option, and it came with 3, making it even cheaper (well, sunk cost, so might as well consider them cheaper). And they turned out to have some nice sound quality.

Personally, the decision was based fully on price, the ModMic and Sony might have a better sound quality than the Neewer and Zalman, but that doesn't mean the Neewer and Zalman has poor sound quality, they're actually really nice sound as compared to most gaming headsets. Since the sound quality of the cheap ones are in my liking I went with the cheapest I found (you can search the models up on YouTube or something and find audio recordings from them).

Here's a long summary breakdown:

1. If you want the cheapest mic on the block, get the Neewer Mini Lapel Mic, I would recommend these as they sound nice and is really cheap, came with 3 as well, although I'm not sure why you'd need 3.
   
2. If you want to try the popular pick, that'd be the Zalman Zm-Mic1. I believe this is what most people uses, but I haven't personally tried them out, so I don't know about the build and sound quality of it. But it's what most people would recommend, so there has to be a certain credibility to them.
   
3. If you want a better build quality one, really small and slick, go with Sony. Sony products will be a bit pricier but they are good products for sure.
   
4. If you want to go full on premium mode, you can check out the Antlion ModMic. They're hella expensive though....

PCpartpicker seems to err on the side of caution, but I don't trust it 100%. Newegg is probably the best in terms of parts specifications, they list cooler and ram heights and how big of a cooler each case can accept. Amazon will tell you too but sometimes you have to dig through the questions. The best source is probably the specifications at the manufacturers website.
I just built a gaming pc a few months ago, and like you I wanted function over form. 8700k processor with the best performing air cooler I could buy - https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NH-D15-heatpipe-NF-A15-140mm/dp/B00L7UZMAK
If you end up getting that you need low profile ram. I bought two of the better cooling cases from that gamersnexus link to test the cooler fit, the Silverstone RL06 and Rosewill Cullinan. Supposedly the RL06 was like 5mm too narrow to accept the D15 cooler, but it actually does fit (however it touches the window). The Cullinan I bought as a backup because it was slightly deeper and that was the one I ended up using but it didn't like my tall Strix video card, had to fight it.

I have an SSD and that improved my loading times by a good amount of time, also helps to have better internet, my speeds are good enough but not great at all.

They really aren't that expensive, I'll point you in the right direction if you want. Also helps a ton with games like PUBG, BF, Red Dead, GTA etc.

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Edit: If anyone is wondering I have one 512GB Silicon Power 3D NAND A55 SLC Cache Performance Boost SATA III 2.5" 7mm (0.28") Internal Solid State Drive from Amazon for $49.99 USD along with another of the same Silicon Power SSD but in 256GB for $28.99 USD.

Then you need the enclosure which costs $8.99: Sabrent 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool-Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III]. Super simple set up, literally open the enclosure by sliding the top off, slide the SSD into the connection slot in the enclosure, put the top on, plug it in to the USB slot and turn the thing on. Really nice price, had never heard of the brand but it has really good reviews, and works well for me. Just about the cheapest SSD I've seen on Amazon with an average review of 4.5+ (and at least 1k reviews).

What about something like these Klipsch:

http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-ProMedia-Certified-Computer-Speaker/dp/B000062VUO/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1417241684&sr=8-5&keywords=2.1+speaker+system

Sure they may not sound as good (have never owned these) and they're not as customizable but they're a lot cheaper, MORE compact, and I'm sure will sound good for the price. I mean, it is Klipsch and the Pro Media line has been around for...damn...a decade now and have always gotten good reviews.

Other than that there really isn't another non-custom made/put together 2.1 setup for the ~$200 price range...at least nothing that would sound as good.

EDIT: I know you said you wanted to deal with Amazon but Best Buy has them for $229 with free shipping...that's the best you're going to get these for anywhere unless you snag a pair here:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/corsair-sp2500-2-1-channel-speaker-system-3-piece/1853338.p?id=1218297028800&skuId=1853338

Hey buddy! I just looked over your build and I like most of it but I do have a few suggestions.

1. A lot of the comments are saying to got for Z270 but there really is no reason too, Z170 is cheaper and just as good for what you are doing (270 adds a lot of features which you probably wont be using)
   
2. That being said, the first thing I would do is ditch the MSI motherboard, not only is it on the lower end of their product line (not necessarily bad), but MSI has a very bad review history on their boards... Lots of people reporting that they break and that the support is terrible. I would personally stay clear but thats up to you, instead I would recommend the Asus Z170 PRO GAMING/AURA, its actually $10 cheaper (at time of post) and much better.
   
3. Love your RAM choice, but the same set at 3200MHZ is only $99 on Amazon right now :D faster for cheaper!
   
4. The 212 Evo is nice, but I would HIGHLY recommend spending the 10 extra dollars and getting the 212X (about 100,000 more hours of life time I think)
   
   That's, all in all its a very solid build! If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me! I am an A+ Certified Professional who would be happy to help!

Logitech z623 again and again.

I was in a similar situation where I just got the wifey ok for the controller but couldn't spend $300+ on speakers for bedroom DJing.

Got the Logitech z623 for $120 and holy crap are these things loud. The sub woofer has excellent thump to it. Best inexpensive speakers imo

I have my setup in the garage and it sounds great. I've brought the setup to a bachelor party and played for 20+ people and it was plenty loud. The subwoofer is a bit bulky but to be expected.

Edit: those Ave ones the other commentor posted look pretty badass tho. Not bad for $100. Maybe worth checking out as well

Edit exit: the Logitech are actually on sale for $105 right now

Logitech Z623 200 Watt Home Speaker System, 2.1 Speaker System https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VAHYTG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CKodAbMWSDDMH

When it comes to buying a laptop in $500 - $600 price range, 2 great laptops that come to my mind are:

1. Acer Aspire E 15 - This is one of the best all-around performing budget laptop you can get right now. It comes with the newest 8th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB of SSD. What makes it impressive though is the dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX150 GPU that it comes with. This is an entry level Nvidia GPU which aids a lot when you do something that requires more graphics power than the standard tasks.
   
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2. ASUS VivoBook F510UA - This laptop comes in two different variants, one is the basic $500 model which comes with 8th Gen Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD. The another one is $599 model which adds 128GB SSD to it. Both the models are great value according to me and its $599 model is a great choice for people looking for a laptop with more on-board storage.
   
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   So, if you want to spend around $500 then go with the ASUS VivoBook F510UA. But, if you're ready to spend $600 then Acer Aspire E 15 is better choice as it comes with dedicated GPU. As far as its little storage is concerned, it has two drive bays inside so you can put an HDD in it and increase the storage.
   
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   Acer Aspire E 15 also has a backlit keyboard which ASUS VivoBook F510UA doesn't have.

I'd say bump up the price range to $300-$400. This will increase the cost by quite a bit, but the improvement would be well worth the money. You would want to find something that has a pretty nice balance of CPU power, GPU power, and memory. For laptops at this price range, you'll want to find something with good integrated graphics, over 4GB of memory if you can find it, and have it be a 15.6 inch laptop. That last one might seem weird, but that is the size where you can usually find the best pricing because it's big enough that the internals won't be an absolute nightmare to deal with (which makes manufacturing more expensive), but small enough to not have anything too crazy on the outside, like a bigger display (which makes manufacturing more expensive). Here's a good example of what I'd recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i3-8130U-Memory-E5-576-392H/dp/B079TGL2BZ

If you find something else and aren't sure, I can take a look at it and give my opinion on how I think it will hold up.

Both the Rift and Vive have their pros and cons, I have both and here is my cut and paste summary of just some of the comparative factors people may consider, as the topic has already been done to death:

The standard 2 forward facing camera Touch tracking has some FOV and distance related Touch occlusion, so a 3rd camera really is recommended for genuine roomscale.

The official Oculus experimental guide for 2 camera 360 degree tracking is here: https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/t39.2365-6/15397552_232732683816172_4121045365602385920_n.pdf

The recommended Oculus play area for diagonally opposed 360 tracking use is only 1.5M x 1.5M, with the cameras 2M apart.

To put that into some comparative context HTC recommends 2M x 1.5M as the minimum for the Vive 2 base station room-scale setup, with 3.55M x 3.55M being the recommended. People such as myself have tested Lighthouse out to nearly 10M, though that is pushing the envelope given how Lighthouse operates, see here for details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75ZytcYANTA

The standard Rift HMD cable length is also a limiting factor for large roomscale use. By comparison my Vive tracked volume is 8Mx4M and the included HMD cable lets you take advantage of that space with a computer located halfway down the long side.

Some are reporting that hardware/cable issues can affect Touch tracking: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/5hbxxg/anyone_having_controller_warpingtracking_loss/db06gvm/

It took me a lot of fiddling to work out which USB ports gave the best results with my Rift, and still be able to use all the peripherals that go with my 3DOf compact motion simulator. I have yet to resolve all my Rift USB issues, with some visual jumps and persistent disconnects after a random period of time. A new Inateck card, as recommended by Oculus, is on its way (note some are still reporting issues, even with the recommended card): https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Superspeed-Ports-PCI-Expansion/dp/B00B6ZCNGM

Here is a list of additional hardware and cables that may been needed for full Oculus roomscale:

For Sensors:

1x Additional Sensor: https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/rift/
2x Monoprice 15-Feet USB 2.0 Extension: http://a.co/1uRWG3A
2x Security Wall Mount- Adjustable Indoor/Outdoor Mount: http://a.co/5ZQxIal
Inateck Superspeed 7 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card: http://a.co/gFqRg0x

For HMD:

Cable Matters High Speed HDMI 10-Feet Extension Cable: http://a.co/9mBQCrU
Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 10-Feet Extension Cable: http://a.co/6Q1kIKd

Touch does a pretty good job at simulating hands in VR. The Vive wands are great as things like guns and swords, both have their place. The Vive has a number of upgrades and peripherals due for release in Q2, including an ergonomic deluxe audio headstrap, trackers to bring any peripheral or real world object into VR, wireless HMD kit and finger tracked gloves.

I do a lot of public demos and to be honest the rift is far more problematic with cable management, USB related issues and setup time/issues, in comparison I can set up the Vive at schools and NGO offices in 15 minutes or less, including booting the computer and running the calibration setup.

In terms of other factors the world scale of the Rift is slightly larger in things like Longbow, which actually makes hitting things easier.

The Rift has less screen door effect but the god rays are significantly worse.

The Vive sweet spot is not as large or sharp.

The stereo overlap in the Rift is more noticeable.

The Rift has quality built in headphones and microphone, while the Vive has a built in camera but a poorer microphone.

The Vive has cutouts in the foam and accommodates glasses better.

Cost comparisons need to take in applicable shipping and taxes, the possible need for additional tracking cameras, compatible usb hardware, usb and hdmi cable extensions, upgraded headstraps, peripherals and trackers.

Oculus has ATS and ASW, SteamVR has ATW-reprojection but also allows Oculus ATS/ASW via the Oculus SDK: https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/0/305510202679681031/

I have had the odd crash on Steam, but it is pretty rare, I have had far more significant issues with things like processing a refund via Oculus Help, which then bricked Medium and that took a week to sort out. So I think it fair to say both store fronts have their features, limitations and problems.

Other extraneous factors to take into account include business practices, your room space and game play preferences, the shape of your head or any eyesight issues.

Personally I have found there is less difference between the HMDs than there is between individual users, based on having done thousands of public demos. So try them both and pick whichever is the best for you.