Farthest Purchase: Ordering from Newegg Global Philippines

It was November the 2nd, and I was finally able to order a the graphics card I had my sights on for the past months, the EVGA RTX 2060 KO, only to find out it was out of stock, and in Amazon it reported that the next restock was in December.

Instead of waiting for Black Friday, RTX 3060-related price drops, and Christmas sales, I jumped the gun and ordered a EVGA RTX 2060 SC (Superclocked). It's the vanilla RTX 2060, I know, and it's late 2020, I know. But there's something about EVGA cards that just makes them look better than what local choices are available here in the Philippines. What we do have here in the Philippines is Galax, Gigabyte, Zotac, MSI, and Asus. 

You might ask what I have against such manufacturers and the answer might surprise you. It's their really over-the-top branding on their GPU. It makes the GPU look overly gaudy (Galax, Asus, Gigabyte) or just outright out of place (Zotac, damn the way they slapped Zotac and RTX on the shroud is atrocious to be honest lol)

Anyway, so what you actually need to do is go to Newegg, then select your region. Items available will depend on this so choose honestly. 

This isn't a shopping guide so I won't cover everything. But I will tell you to avoid being scammed or outright surprised by the unexpected, turn the following options on:

That way you won't have a Lazada-like experience of 3rd party vendors in your catalog. Reason being it might be harder to deal with them with warranty.

Paying for your items is pretty straightforward for they accept Visa and Mastercard, or if you want to use PayPal they support that as well. I used PayPal with my order though.

Now for the fun part. How the item will actually get to you, dear reader, in the Philippines or to what other place that isn't USA.

Much to my surprise, the SSD isn't in the same Newegg warehouse as the rest of the items. It's at the other coast of America. 

Above is the screenshot of my order. Of course I have scrubbed it out of any meaningful tracking information. At the time of purchase and at the time of posting this, December 13th of 2020, Newegg is running a free shipping promo for orders 15,000 PHP and above. Aside from the graphics card, I also included an SSD and RAM. Both of those I can easily get in the Philippines but bruh when I compared Lazada prices vs Newegg, it was actually cheaper to buy abroad this time around lol.

Once you're done paying for your items. You'll be notified of the charges made to your credit card and not later than 24 hours you will get shipping information.

Shipping was through UPS. UPS' local partner here in the Philippines is apparently Air21 but it was 2GO that delivered both of my orders.  The parcel from California arrived within the delivery window of 10 days but the one from New York took 12 days. 

You would expect it would be shipped from California to Anchorage (Alaska btw), then down to somewhere in Japan or HK but boy oh boy I was wrong. Like all UPS packages, first, it went to their Worldport facility in Kentucky first, then flew out to Dubai (UAE), then to Shenzen (CH), then to Clark (PH), and finally to my home province of Misamis Oriental. That's about 2/3 around the world. The same thing happened to the 2nd package. I lost the detailed tracking information though, should've saved those and did this blog earlier. 

UPS has in-house custom clearance and my purchase already included VAT so I didn't have to pay any import fee or any fee, or contact customs for that matter.

Yeah they disinfected it at some point.

When will we see the packaging upgraded from carton though? 

You can watch the unboxing video here. The smaller parcel, the SSD, arrived in this:

Yep, one of those envelopes with built-in bubble wrap.

It didn't get squished lol. Of course there's some minor bend in the box but it wasn't bad enough to dent the plastic shroud protecting the actual SSD.

To sum it up, the experience was seamless. Go to Newegg if you are unable to find or your favorite store is unable to order parts (like EVGA cards damn they're so hard to find and order in PH). Or if for some odd reason the item you want is cheaper in Newegg (VAT and Shipping included) than in Lazada or that store Kris Aquino is promoting, I say give it a shot. Those memes and posts circulating of bent graphics card from Newegg are outliers. Your precious GPU is just as prone from being bent with local couriers, especially if the couriers are feeling a bit like playing basketball for some reason but instead of using a ball, they're using your parcel.

For me, only EVGA's aesthetic suited my needs. None of the fat shrouds of other brands. None of the fancy RGBs. None of  the out of place RTX badges yuck. Sadly EVGA added that red lip thing in their RTX 3000 series and I feel absolutely betrayed.

In hindsight, seeing the shitshow the RTX 30 series and RX6000 launches have been, I'm glad to have brought this card instead of waiting for stocks to stabilize. The 3070s and 3060s here in PH are way out of SRP and even major retailers are using the gray market to acquire sufficient stock. Anyway, since I only play Black Desert Online most of the time, what's the need for a 3000-series card lol. 

Thank you for reading through this rant, now go ahead and do your first newegg order.

Closer Look: Rakk Power Supply 400 Watts

There's already a lot of unboxing and testing videos available at youtube about this power supply but here's a closer look of it and what to expect when ordering it. Also for clarity, this is not a review.

First off, where can you get this Rakk power supply? Lazada or Shopee lol. Obvious is it not? Lazada is the better choice so I bought mine from there. I believe this is exclusively sold by EasyPC. 

Look at that 559 ratings (mine not included yet) 

It took 4 days for it to be delivered from vendor to my door.

At first glance you'd want to buy this power supply but for the seasoned PC builder, this should be your last choice for the following reasons:

1.) This is too cheap. In fact, too cheap to power anything that costs 10k php or 200 usd. I mean, never skimp on your power supply, if your other parts cost at least those amounts combined, please invest in a better power supply. It's better safe than sorry. A 2000php or 40usd true-rated 80+ certified power supply unit should be your first choice. 

2.) This only has a 4-pin EPS (CPU) connector and no 6+2-pin PCIe connector. Rightfully so, I mean you shouldn't use this with anything more powerful than a 1050ti. No upgrade paths here. You will be forced to buy a new and better PSU if you upgrade your CPU or GPU. 

3.) This only has has 2 SATA connectors. Enough for 1 hard drive and 1 SSD I suppose.

The same is true for the other PSUs in this price range, some of them even labelled as 700 watts. At least Rakk is honest about this PSU.

Ever since the last time I brought PC parts from EasyPC. I stopped expecting them to put anything in another box. But this, bruh this has no box in the first place and they just wrapped it in bubble wrap.

At least they didn't skimp on the wrap.

Ah yes, look at that, Rakk has positioned the sticker expecting the PSU to be on the floor of the PC case.

The included power cable borders on flimsy and okay quality. But definitely better than the power cables I bought from CDR-King some three years ago.

Better start praying your molex fans will fit such bad quality connectors.

The SATA connectors don't look as good either.

No IO switch for this 10usd Rakk Power Supply.

A closer look at the internals. Note that this PSU weighs lighter than the CVS 500watt PSU I have. Dunno if that's a bad thing but PSU weight has become a yardstick for guessing the quality of the PSU.

So who should use the Rakk Power Supply?

Since most of the motherboards using these chipsets are using 4-pin EPS connectors, people who can use this power supply will probably fall into the following category:

1.) People with older system units using Intel H55/H61/H81 or AMD A58/A68/A78 chipsets.

2.) People with more recent system units using Intel H110/H210/H310 or AMD A320 chipsets.

3.) People in groups 1 and 2 and using a graphics card that needs no additional power from a 6+2pin PCIe cable. Examples include non-OC models for 750ti or the ever popular 1050ti.

If your planning on including this Rakk Power Supply on a build with an RX470/570 or anything higher than a GTX 750ti/950/1030/1050ti/1650, get the fuck out of here and get a better power supply unit. This is a threat, not a warning.

Intel in 2020? For Black Desert Online? I5-9400F + GTX 750ti

If you've read any Black Desert Online optimization guide, you may have come across something along the lines of "BDO doesn't like hyperthreading" but that's not it why I decided to switch from my 3400g.

It's just that I got tired of below 60fps gameplay. 😂 Anyway I decided to go with the 9400F because I didn't want to wait and save for an i5-9600K (I was planning for a 666 theme build with a 9600K, RTX 2060, and 2666mhz DDR4) but noooooo I wanted to jump the gun before COVID19 affected the prices (to it did but not dramatically).

For the motherboard, I decided to got with the B365 chipset instead of the H310 one because all the H310 boards available then didn't have heatsinks on the VRMs. I went specifically B365M-A  Prime because it looked simple and doesn't have the obnoxious branding and heatsinks the available MSI boards had.   

Pretty in Monochrome

Don't mind the AMD sticker  on that Team Elite+ RAM. That Zotac graphics card has been with me since 2015. I was planning to buy a Zotac 760 or even 770 but all the models looked outlandish compared to this single fan 750ti. Powering this system is that EVGA BV-450 watts from my Ryzen 5 3400G. Oh? There's no SSD? Chill, it's part of the next post. 

It took me this long to realize Arctic has included something like that in their tubes of MX-4 thermal paste.. 

I know I'm supposed to just use a pea-sized drop but an x-pattern does provide better coverage across the die. 

The cpu cooler is a Gammaxx 300R. The R, by the way, stands for red.  Interestingly, Deepcool took some years to make a blue variant. 

For the case, I brought a used Aerocool V3X. I've always loved Aerocool cases, too bad their availability here in my town is shit. I spent close to 25 USD on paint for a 20 USD (I'm talking USD here because most of my readers are from the US) used case. Spent one can of primer and two cans of black spray paint. 

Good thing there was no flat black available otherwise I wouldn't see this glorious shiny surface of just black spray paint. The spray paint brand I always use. RJ Acrylic Epoxy Spray Paint.

The seller actually included the original fans that came with this V3X. Of course I cleaned them up first because he didn't bother to clean them lol. It's missing a drive tray though which is sad considering I brought an 80mm fan for it (actually I brought 3 new fans because I though the case didn't have included fans)

.

The red and black aesthetic is old but really good.

First boot and without the side panel on, it's this cool.

The acrylic side panel is a bit banged up and it's also tinted to look like it's smoked.  I actually like the smoked effect because the light doesn't go through brightly and doesn't cause glare like it would have if the panel was clear. 

So how does Black Desert Online fare on this  i5-9400f + 750ti systei? Well I fucked up and didn't manage to save my benchmark runs but it's between a Ryzen 5 3400G and a  Ryzen 5 1600AE + RX 570. You can manage to run 60fps on this one but not all the time. You'll have to lower the graphics to medium preset.

Returning to AMD on a Ryzen APU Part 3: Overclocking the Ryzen 5 3400G MANUALLY (Results and Rant)

So, I finally bought myself a higher wattage PSU (but a remarkable questionable 80+ bronze 450 watt PSU from EVGA) so I can overclock outside of PBO. Here's a set of quick and dirty settings to comfortably overclock a Ryzen 5 3400G. First order of business to to power off your computer, turn it again then enter the bios. Go to advance frequency settings (using a Gigabyte board btw) and change CPU clock, CPU voltage, GFX clock, GFX voltage. 

CPU clock: 4000mhz

CPU voltage: 1.35 (started at 1.3750)

Vega 11 clock: 1650 mhz

Vega 11 voltage: 1.3 

Vega 11 memory clock: 1600 mhz

Since you can't the GFX memory speed on the bios, you'll need to do the last part with RyzenMaster. Remember to only change this part in RyzenMaster:

I think you can get away with just the stock memory clock speed of 1333.

For some reason, my CPU voltage here is 1.45. Dunno if this refers to a cap value but certainly I did not set it to 1.45.

CPU-Z and GPU-Z for your convenience. 

For the fun part, here are results and evaluations. First off, we have our favorite Monster Hunter Online benchmark. I don't play the game and I'm not planning to. Just using the free standalone benchmark tool :P

Even with everything overclocked, this result is just 47 points more than 1525mhz/1600mhz settings we achieved though PBO.

If you've been in this blog for long, you do know I regularly play Black Desert Online. Here's how the stock wraith spire of an overclocked Ryzen 5 3400G stacks against BDO in medium settings (upscale enabled)

I'll buy an AIO next. 

This thermometer is situated directly above the power supply and directly below the wraith spire. Look at that internal case temps. I guess the XFan's included in the Deepcool Matrexx 30 isn't helping much. 

As you can expect, the thermals are rather dangerous, if not atrocious. VSOC can go up to 107c and I'm told it's safe until 120c. Talk about thermal headroom huh?

Interestingly, when I reduced the voltage from 1.375 to just 1.350, my 3DMark Night Raid results lowered.

And it got progressively worse this morning. It's almost toe-to-toe with just the PBO settings we had earlier. Though I'm not feeling much of a difference in Black Desert Online.

But mind you, my goal here isn't just to overclock the Ryzen 5 3400G for testing. But rather to beat or match the performance of a GTX-750ti. And I can say we're almost there, just need better RAM and cooling maybe.

Yeah, that 750ti was paired with an E5-2670.

So what can we take away from this? Where do we go from here?

We can still push this certain Ryzen 5 3400G past 4.00ghz if we have better CPU cooling and case thermals. Should have tried this on an open testbench with my Shadow Rock LP. Currently waiting for a compatible Deepcool Gammaxx 300R since the Matrexx 30 has rather lol maximum CPU cooler height limit. This probably isn't the last of this series lol.

Update

Got the Deepcool Gammaxx 300R installed and the 130w TDP tower style cooler does wonders. I don't want to say there's much overclocking headroom left. And Oh, did I mention after trying other overclocking settings on my Ryzen 5 3400G that it power cycled so much my Windows 10 got corrupted? Yeah. Anyway, results below. Fan curve is set to maximum as well. You couldn't fit a Gammaxx 400 much less a Hyper 212 so you're going to be stuck with a Gammaxx 300 or a Gammaxx S40. When am I getting sponsored by Deepcool lol.

Look at how fast that went down. Thank you tower coolers.

And that's it for this system unit. I'm getting an M22 soon but that's going to be after I complete a swap of this B450I Aorus PRO WIFI with a much fulfilling B450M Steel Legend from Asrock. Same case though lol.

Arctic MX4 After 4 Months

This thing held up against a 3400G and a Shadow Rock LP pretty well.

Returning to AMD on a Ryzen APU Part 2: Overclocking the Ryzen 5 3400G Through PBO (Results and Rant)

So you have a brand new (lol it's been out for almost 4 months) Ryzen 5 3400G. It's an unlocked chip and you really want to push it to the limit. What to do?

1. Watch this video about AMD Precision Boost Overdrive
2. Download Ryzen Master
3. Max out all the automatic values 
4. Watch your computer crash and burn Watch your temperatures! You might not be comfortable with the VSOC MOS going upwards to 90c.
5. If you're experiencing stability issues, I suggest increasing the overdrive by the 10s.

 Yeah I just maxed the boost overdrive for GPU clock to 200mhz, while I only added 100mhz to the CPU clock. Also I clocked the memory up to 1600mhz from the base 1333mhz.

Next up are some benchmarks? Dunno just snapped some screens while running tests/games. You can view some actual gameplay benchmarks here:

My system specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 53400G with Vega 11 Graphics

Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus B450i PRO WIFI 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury 2666mhz DDR4 (2x4gb) 

Boot Drive: Team Group 240gb SATA3 M.2

Storage 1: Western Digital Green 120gb SATA3 SSD  

Case: InWin Chopin SFF Case with 150W +80 Bronze PSU

 Aida64 Load Temps (Stock)

Aida64 Idle Temps (Stock)

 

Black Desert Online running on the "Really Toasty" profile.

 

 

Black Desert Online running on stock profile.

 

Monster Hunter Online is a date game but it has a really useful stand-alone benchmark. The stock 3400G scored 4530 points.

This result is from applying the 200mhz on both CPU and GPU clocks.

Overclocking the memory to 1600mhz seems worth it though. If only I had more power. My computer's 150w bronze power supply is starting to feel like a real bottleneck.

Blender Benchmark

Cinebench R15

I'll probably do a more "professional" Ryzen 5 3400G benchmark soon but you know, there's already lots of those online. Heh. Can't wait to upgrade this build (in a better case, with more power, and finally better cooling).