What Did You Do Today???

[Tony]

Obviously Mother Nature doesn't know how to close a door. Fantastic day yesterday with a high right at 70º. Right now, it's 29º and falling with a 40mph north wind.... This SUCKS!!!

 

[Rob Lancaster]

Hey Tony, it's finally starting to cool off here. It's still very humid but cooler than the last 3 months... But you guys on the mainland take the cake. I can't imagine the radical seasonal changes like you guy go through every year...

 

[Tony]

Heading for a low of 15º tonight.... This is going to suck.

 

[Rob Lancaster]

Oh jeezo man! Better cuddle up with the hounds………..

 

[Tony]

Only one "hound" (Dobie) and he is a slobber monster..... So how bout NO! lol

 

[Rob Lancaster]

LOL!! Yeah I'd pass on that too...

 

[Tony]

Another day. At least it wasn't 12ºF outside this morning....

 

[RandyDSok]

I ended up having a decent work day... but personally, my Escape's battery went belly up... dang battery prices have blown up since I bought one about 4 years or so ago, and I remember complaining about the prices then.

 

[Rob Lancaster]

I had to replace the battery in my civic. The battery is a small one but the price wasn't... What gives? Is there shortage of lead of something...

 

[Tony]

Ryzen 9 3950X, Just killing it!

 

[D.O.G.]

I didn't know what Ryzen 9 3950x was so I looked it up. I hope you didn't pay the listed price I found Tony...OUCH! On a different note, I was ready for a Thursday morning flight. Well poop, keep it friendly, didn't happen due to light rain and wind. I flew her in my back yard a couple of days ago but it's not the same. Hopefully this evening but the weather tells me differently. OH well. Instead of flying, I turn in my TX for a mop Lol. Good day to do the tile floors. With all the animals we have running around, I can't use regular cleaner. It can hurt my bird. I use lemon juice and water. The lemon juice breaks up the dirt well plus gives the house a lemony smell .

 

[Tony]

You gotta pay for good, and that chip is good!

 

[RandyDSok]

You gotta pay for good, and that chip is good!

No doubt it's going to be a good chip... for those folks that can take advantage of the number of cores/threads that it provides. While it'd game pretty nice ( in most cases ), it has more threads than the games need and would be a waste if that's all it was being used for. On the otherhand, you can get a Threadripper 2950X and get the same number of cores/threads for less money and also have a lot more PCI lanes for a lot more IO.

For most people, including ones doing basic productive work... The Ryzen 3700X or 3800X will be plenty. An 8 core / 16 thread CPU will be plenty ... even if they are gaming and streaming at the same time. In fact, I think the Ryzen 3600 is plenty for most people, providing almost the performance of the i7-9700k and even out performing it in some scenerio's.

If you are just a gamer only... and you want the most gaming performance, the i9-9900K an i9-9900KS are going to be the top two dogs for quite some time...


... oh, I also suspect getting your hands on a R9-3950X will be ni impossible unless you get really lucky. Demand will outstrip supply just like it did for the 3900X.

 

[RandyDSok]

I've now seen a few of the benchmark reviews... so my comments about the Threadripper 2950X possibly being a better value than the Ryzen R9 3950X ... cost is about 10% less for the 2950X but performance is about average of 30% better with the 3950X ... so unless the added IO and memory bandwidth matters for a workload... the Ryzen 3950X would likely be a better solution if performance is more important then the IO/memory.

It's still really cool that a mainstream desktop CPU has the performance normally seen only in high end desktop CPU's

 

[Tony]

Yea the drop from 60 to only 20 lanes from threadripper to the 3950x is substantial. But for most home users, we wouldn't need more than 20 I would think. But yea, it's a great looking chip on paper, and in the benchmarks.

 

[Brick]

had the great opportunity today to just lay on the couch and watch cartoons. that does the body good !

 

[Rob Lancaster]

I personally like the Simpson's and Futurama.. Now there's some great writing.....

Fun to watch while doing my New Years Eve preparation. That's right folks, it's that time of year again, time to make some boom, booms... Is everybody happy>>>

 

[Tony]

Well, this weekend the wife and I headed out and picked up some things that were needed. The first of which was new temp probes for my Weber wireless thermometer that I have had for years. One of my probes stopped working, and the other one would read weird once in a while. I couldn't find the actual probes, but I found the same connector type. Only issue is the little connector for the new ones is not quite as long as the original ones. So I had to remove the rubber seals that keep it waterproof. Not a big deal, but kind of annoying.

We also picked up a 30lb bag of lump charcoal. I'm not a fan of kingsford, or other "briquettes", there is just too much 'other' stuff in them that I'm not sure about. But I never knew they sold a 30lb bag. That was a nice little surprise. I also purchased me a new hatchet so that I could make some smaller pieces of wood for the smoker.

With all of that in hand, I felt obligated to smoke something! So I pulled a full fillet of salmon out of the fridge and stuck it on the smoker. 250º for about an hour, it reached an internal temp of 145º and it was pretty good!

Not doing anything for turkey day since the wife and I both have to work, but I can't wait to stick a big ole turkey on that smoker. We purchased them last year and they have been in the freezer ever since. When you are only paying $3.50 for an entire turkey, It's not a bad deal lol.

 

[Rob Lancaster]

Wireless thermometer "A"... Nice indeed..
I love my Weber Smokey Joe. It's a great li'll grill... I have the next larger size one too. That's for the bigger missions.

Hey Tony, about the Kingsford briquettes. In my research of making my own charcoal for fireworks I've learned a few things.. The briquets from Kingsford are made from a blend of hardwoods. Exactly what kinds of wood are blended together is a mystery.. It's binder is simple corn starch and water. There's no other chemicals involved...

When I grill, I use Kingsford briquettes but I always throw in some wood chips that I soak in water for 30 minutes while the coals are starting up. That makes for a lot of smoke from my favorites like apple, hickory, mesquite or the Hawaiian equivalents Kiawe and Ohia, pecan and maybe some cherry wood... I use news paper to start the coals; Smoke'm if you got'm!!

Yeah that kind of coal is fine for me for grilling and stuff but not for fireworking.. For that I use two different kinds. One is from a hard wood, the other is from a soft wood. The hardwood charcoal is used for basic primer and for star compositions. The softwood charcoal is use for my hot primer, lift and burst powder. You see, it's the conifers in the Western Red Cedar that give the black powder way more power than just any kine charcoal. Well that and technical grade KNO2 and sulfur and good milling. Then comes the alcohol granulating and drying. And finally the bp goes though a screening process and you're ready for action.. Whew, .. LOL!

The pictures show the charcoal cooker and the primo charcoal it produces... To process the charcoal down further so is can be used in the mill is a very dirty job. I love this hobby too!! We're almost done wrapping the shells, sweet! I hope we can continue tonight but we may have to abort because of thunder storm activity in the area.

 

[Rob Lancaster]

Tony, I know what you changed on the site...
Is it when you click on a picture it goes to a full screen, right?