Fifth Avenue Forum

**** is a HP Stream laptop...?

Apparently a lightweight, power sipping pansy of a laptop.

My mom is looking for a laptop, she does nothing on computers of note except for create the weirdest errors for herself...like converting a pdf into some, like, MacOS file or something...just random **** that seems kind of tough to do even if you were trying...

She sent me like 8 Amazon links last night and 6 of them were these etch-a-sketch boys...I wasn't impressed. But when you're determined to spend $250 on a new laptop, well, you're gonna get some real dumb ****...

For $250, you're really looking at the Chromebook line of things.

Yeah, she thinks those are fully functioning computers and not just an internet browser...not the easiest conversation I have ever had...she called me in the middle of the day yesterday to discuss haha

"Oh, you're probably working, huh?"
- Yeah, mom, it's 1:30 on a Tuesday...everyone is but you...

Sounds like my dad, calling me in the middle of the day for stupid ****.

My mom does that.. she calls me middle of the day for some stupid random thing, I answer.. and she's like "oh are you working?". Yet if I send her to VM she gets upset.

My dad used to call my mom during the day to let her know that the mail came. Nothing important, just that the mail came. He was so bored before he got a day job to keep him busy.

For $250, you're really looking at the Chromebook line of things.

Dell Outlet/Refurbished has some decent stuff in this space. Nothing you're going to do anything beyond web browsing and light productivity work, but it's a full Windows OS instead of a Chromebook which is a smartphone with a big keyboard.

Good call - looks like the Inspiron 15 fits into that category: https://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSal ... uiVw%3d%3d

We impulse-bought some trash-can Dells when the pandemic started...they all got swapped out for Lenovo Thinkpads over the next several months, so no longer does my laptop melt to my legs...

Maybe I'll ask one of the network admin guys what they're doing with those machines...

My first impressions of Windows 11 are not that great. Ignoring the absurd hardware requirements - which MS seems to flip flop on already - the actual OS isn't doing it for me.

The good:

• Clean UX (round edges, modern icons, etc.)
• Less resource intensive than W10 21H1

The bad:

• Absurd TPM and chipset requirements that will force many with 5+ year old hardware to upgrade in order to run the OS
• The right-click context menu is now limited, forcing you to right-click and then select another option to get to the full list of right-click options
• The new Start menu is trash, as is having it centered. Both can be changed back via Settings and the registry

I was going to use this as an excuse to build a new PC, as mine is now 7 years old, and doesn't meet the W11 requirements, but will likely not do that until MS makes some changes. As far as I'm concerned, this is shaping up to be another Windows 8.

I think I want to build a new PC now and not wait for the next gen chips, because I'm pretty sure that both AMD and Intel are going to hijack the pricing on them. For the first time ever, I think I'm actually going to go with a Ryzen 9 5900X system. Never thought I'd ever go the AMD route, but for multi-threaded processing, it's taking the i9-11900k to task.

I think I want to build a new PC now and not wait for the next gen chips, because I'm pretty sure that both AMD and Intel are going to hijack the pricing on them. For the first time ever, I think I'm actually going to go with a Ryzen 9 5900X system. Never thought I'd ever go the AMD route, but for multi-threaded processing, it's taking the i9-11900k to task.

Just bought a new laptop with AMD for the first time. AMD Ryzon Pro or something like that in a Lenovo X13 Thinkpad. Now all my computers (work and home) have the same keyboard.

I know this is weird, but I still burn CDRs every once in a while for my car's MP3 player. 99% of the cases these days don't have 5.25" bays, so I may have to just buy an external USB 3 burner.

I know this is weird, but I still burn CDRs every once in a while for my car's MP3 player. 99% of the cases these days don't have 5.25" bays, so I may have to just buy an external USB 3 burner.

They must be super cheap now. I remember when they first came out to the mass market and paying $230 for an internal CD burner from Sam's Club.

Ryzen has been thumping Intel for the last couple of generations on CPU performance. They might get close on GPU performance as well.

I know this is weird, but I still burn CDRs every once in a while for my car's MP3 player. 99% of the cases these days don't have 5.25" bays, so I may have to just buy an external USB 3 burner.

They must be super cheap now. I remember when they first came out to the mass market and paying $230 for an internal CD burner from Sam's Club.

Without looking, I bet I paid under $30 for my two DVD-R drives, though this was about a decade ago.

I spent way too much time researching components, so I'm pulling the trigger:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor ($549.00 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: EK EK-AIO 240 D-RGB 66.04 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PRO (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard ($199.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($187.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case ($88.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($134.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1930.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-17 16:08 EDT-0400

More than I was looking to spend, but given that I get 8+ years out of each of my computers, I think it's worth it.

Are you sure?

That's an expensive CPU. I usually go mid level on mine to save $. Is this for gaming?

Yes, I’m sure. And yes, I wanted a high end CPU since I intend to use it for a long time. Processing photos and videos is absolutely killing me on my current rig.

Writing angry emails to domestic airlines takes all the clock cycles.

It does, especially when I start smashing the keys.

Those specs look great. I've been building mostly AMD machines going back more than 20 years, and I plan on switching my gaming machine back to AMD when I next upgrade. The Ryzen 9 will be overkill for games, which aren't generally all that multi-threaded, so I plan on using a Zen 2 Ryzen 5 or 7 for that. But if you do a lot of imaging processing that can take full advantage of all of the cores/threads the Ryzen 9 offers, then I agree with you that that's totally the way to go.