as an addendum to the laptop conversation, I have found exactly one machine that has what I would consider a worth-it modern GPU in an acceptable laptop form factor:
I do not think I would buy this (it’s too much money to spend on a non-Apple laptop that could break in unpredictable ways and be difficult to repair), but if you told me that I absolutely must invest in a new gaming laptop, this would be it. as a bonus it’s not hideous either.
What?
Get a 4060 laptop, wait for the 5060 (preferable tbh), or build a desktop.
You have to pay a large laptop premium on xx70 cards on top of losing a disgusting amount of performance. And it goes exponentially bad as you tier up 80, 90 etc.
Unless you need to get sick frames in cutting edge AAA games today a $1000 4060 laptop today will play everything else fine and you can buy another $1000 laptop in 6 years when another must play PC game comes out. And you’ll still be ahead $$$
My old laptop could just barely play PS4-level games if I turned down the settings a bit, probably pretty trivial to beat that at this point, yeah?
I think I’m finally gonna replace my m.2 SSD with an actual NVME drive while I’m off, and since that’s my OS drive I gotta start over again, and now the dumb internal debate rages - do I just install Windows 11 again, or should I give Nobara a shot?
I’ve heard good things but I also have an Nvidia card now, and that’s where I hear it’s kinda dicey, as drivers go. The consensus seems to be “it’s fine until it isn’t.”
Edit: OK I keep reading up on it and it sounds like a pain in the ass. I’ll just go with what I’ve got already.
Well, fuck it, I bought another computer
Reinstalling Windows from scratch is the way to go if you can muster the motivation, but there’s always the option of getting an m.2 enclosure to connect via USB and cloning your OS drive over, then swap. There’s a variety of edge cases where this might cause issues but it’s generally likely to work without much drama
yeah i saw some other laptops that are better than what i originally linked (and more expensive) but maybe not as expensive or good as this one
the one thing they have in common, though, is that they’re all sold out lol
Think it would be worth the fuss to return CL36 memory to replace it with CL30?
if it’s AMD, yes, otherwise no
I want to buy more laptops even though I already have five laptops.
Interested in installing steamos on my rog ally. I’m not sure the best way to deal w a back tho? There are ASUS specific apps to handle power throttling and controlling the mouse with the installed controller and I don’t want to lose that if I want to go back to windows?
Here’s a guide from ASUS on how to do it.
Apparently Cloud Recovery only is available for 1 year after purchase though so what I’d recommend is cloning or replacing the SSD.
Upgraded my memory and installed a new PSU. Really glad I did. Because I learned that I have been running a 7700X and 6800XT off a 7 year old 650W PSU I got from best buy 
oh I mean that’s actually fine, I’ve been running a 7700X and a 4090 off of that for a long time. you just have to count your 12V amperage, for some reason the PC hardware industry believes this is too complicated so instead they just overshoot recommended wattage and have for decades
Yeah it didn’t prove to be an issue, maybe beside the coil whine. And I am investigating if that’s actually been fixed by replacing the PSU or not.
raising a big eyebrow at the framework desktop’s power supply snorkel
Aren’t specialized air intakes for PC parts really good?
It looks fine, but the modular repairable pc company built a system with a standard Flex ATX (-based) PSU, with a special plastic snorkel to help it breathe, and a little screw-in bracket to hold the snorkel, plus extra ventilation on the side panel. I suspect this was conceived to offset the major cooling sin (a big fan on a big sink dumping heat into but not out of the case). The PSU fan is set to switch off at low loads or temperatures. It’s hard to make a small system quiet and they probably made good tradeoffs here.
I’m vaguely upset that they’re selling every single part of the Desktop as a part except the case itself
which, sure, I guess there’s already cases like it but it’s the principle of the thing
I am intrigued that the lowest tiered board is only 800 dollars and they understand the kind of pervert who would buy the boards themselves
edit: but it’s bullshit that they didn’t make the PCIE slot have an open back so it could take cards with longer keys
