Posts

How much PSU wattage you need for your PC

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 Last year I published an article teaching how to pick a good PSU . While the main reason for that post was amount of people buying E and F tier PSUs, there's also a fair share of PC builds I see where people spend too much on higher wattage PSU which compromises their budget for other components. But, at the same time, there are some people who buy a PSU that isn't powerful enough.  Out of the aforementioned 2 types, people who buy higher wattage than needed are on safer side, but like I mentioned, it often cost them a large amount of their budget. Specially in India where average salary of people is often less than the cost of a decent budget gaming PC, it becomes a big problem.  So why do people make mistake of calculating their wattage wrong? There are two big reasons.  There aren't many definitive guides out there for wattage calculation. The online wattage calculator results are all over the place. Also there is one more reason that affects people choice: PSU e...

Best free password managers

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Last year, Hive Systems published research data about how long it would take hackers to crack your password . That data/table made me realize that the strong password I've been using everywhere for years, which is only 9 characters long, can now be cracked in hours with modern hardware. Realistically, it is highly unlikely that a highly skilled hacker would target me specifically, so technically the password is still good to use. But it is a bit concerning that any nerd with knowledge of cryptographic hashing algorithms can brute force my password with a modern computer within 6 hours. Now, you may ask, 'Isn't there some sort of security measures in place by websites themselves for brute force attacks?' Yes, there are. For example, if you repeatedly enter wrong passwords, most websites will send alerts to registered emails and recovery contacts regarding suspicious activity. Bank websites will disable online banking altogether if you enter the wrong password 3 times. Th...

Why should you care about Ryzen 8000G APUs

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The Ryzen Zen4 APUs have been out for about a week now, and all major tech reviewers have released their reviews. You can watch or read the reviews from your favorite reviewers for exact performance data. Now, the question arises: why am I writing this article, stating that these APUs are important? If you're up to date with review data, you know that these APUs (or the iGPUs, to be more precise) are in the neighborhood of a dedicated GPU like the RX 6500 XT. In fact, the RX 6500 XT pulls ahead in most cases. And that raises a huge problem: the platform cost of Ryzen 8000G APUs is higher than that of a budget dedicated GPU build. Yes, the raw CPU power will be less in those budget dedicated GPU builds, but the overall gaming experience will be massively better. Don't believe me? Just look at the costs below. Ryzen 5 8600G core cost Budget gaming PC core cost Now, I know there are cheaper A620 motherboards and more affordable DDR5 RAM options. However, the same can be said for t...

Budget PC build under ₹50000, Christmas 2023

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 I haven't done one of these PC build guides in a long time. So without any further ado, lets get right into it.  Processor Ryzen 5 4500 While i3-12100F is often available at similar or cheaper price and has stronger single core performance, I'm not very comfortable recommending 4 core processor in 2023. Pretty much every game and software are benefiting from multiple cores nowadays. Now I know despite being 4000 series, Ryzen 5 3600 is still a better choice overall, but 4500 is cheaper. And with the limited budget like this, we can't be too picky.  Motherboard Gigabyte A520M K One of the main reason why I picked AMD over Intel in this budget. AMD provides similar feature set for much cheaper. If I had chosen Intel, I could've gotten only H610 motherboards by paying a bit more. Now some of you might be wondering "why not B450 motherboard then". While B450 are great value and are still available under ₹7000, most of th...

Are you overspending on certain PC component?

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 Just recently I wrote an article about picking right PSU for your build. But a lot of times people pick bad PSU not because of their knowledge(or lack of), but because of their limited budget. It is very easy to spend more money than it was needed to on certain components, resulting in shortage of money for other components, which in turn means bad selection of other components. But there is solution to this too.  First step to finding the solution to any problem is to identifying the problem itself. So here are the common ways people end up overspending in some areas. CPU cooler It might seem like the odd one because a lot of the time people are suffering from overheating issues because they didn't pick a proper CPU cooler. But that's also the main reason people overspend on CPU cooler. If you are active on PC communities online(Facebook groups, forums, reddit, etc.), You'll see a lot of people asking for help because their CPU temperature is 90-99 degree Celsius. So a lo...

Minecraft Two by Two Advancement Guide (Version 1.20 Trails and Tales update)

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 The old two by two advancement guide didn't include some of the new mobs that are introduced in 1.20 update. So I think it's about time that I publish an updated guide.  So without further ado, here is all the info you need [Note : the following table looks sort of broken on smartphones, it is recommended to use desktop view if you're on smartphone.] Mobs Breeding information Axolotl Found in – Lush Caves Food – Bucket of tropical fish Bee Found in – Meadow Biome(100% chance) or any biome with oak or birch tree(5% chance) Food – Any flower Camel Found in – Desert Villages Food – Cactus Note: Only one camel spawns per desert village Cat Found in – Villages, Witch/swamp hut Food – Raw Cod or Raw Salmon Note: Must ...

Are you cheaping out on PSU? Pick right PSU for your build.

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  You might've heard a lot of tech influencers and even people on public PC forums multiple times repeating the same statement over and over again, "Never cheap out on PSU".  But the issue is, an average consumer might not be able to differentiate between a good PSU and a bad PSU. While most of them could be aware that 80+ Bronze rating or higher is better, only a few of them know that it doesn't necessarily translates to longevity or reliability of the unit. Yes, looking for 80+ Bronze or better automatically eliminates a lot of bad PSUs from options, but there are bad options in higher rated PSUs too. Best example of this was Gigabyte's exploding PSUs in 2021. What makes it worse that they weren't just cheap models, 750 and 850 watt 80+ Gold rated PSUs were also in the batch of exploding PSUs too.  That incident triggered a rise in popularity of "PSU tier list(s)" among new PC builders and shoppers. Earlier PSU Tier List on LTT forum was probably ...