Category - Practice

The big eGPU guide and benchmark test – What is an external graphics card (eGPU) good for? NVIDIA or AMD, who can handle it better?

In search of the optimal card for my eGPU case I looked for tests for a long time, but unfortunately I could never find anything adequate, where a direct comparison between Radeon and GeForce graphics cards was made as well as one could explain how overclocking affects an eGPU, up to which performance class an eGPU scales reasonably at all due to [...]


Unleashed unicorn on a flight of fancy – Shunt-Mod for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 FE and the Alphacool Eisblock GPX-N | Practice

As threatened last week, the Alphacool ice block GPX-N won’t be the only modification to my RTX 3090 Founders Edition. Today we’re going to look at the shunt resistors, the ones the GPU uses to measure how much power it’s consuming and if necessary downclocks itself if Nvidia’s limits of 350 or 400 W are reached. While [...]


The marathon starts: Review with 6 case and radiator fans from be quiet! Black Noise, Corsair, Cooler Master, Noctua and Thermaltake

Fans are a dime a dozen, but which fan fits which system? Is a model suitable as a case fan and how does it really perform on different radiators? What about the real speed range, how high is the start-up speed and what parameters does such a fan offer over the speed range, including the usually unavoidable noise emission? Exactly for all these [...]


Practical case fan tests on igorsLAB – How we test and evaluate | Basics

Case fans are a dime a dozen, but which fan fits which system? Is a model suitable as a case fan and how does it really perform on different radiators? What about the real speed range, how high is the start-up speed and what parameters does such a fan offer over the speed range, including the usually unavoidable noise emission?  Exactly for all [...]


Hot-headed unicorn under water – Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX-N for Nvidia RTX 3090 Founders Edition | Installation and Test

If you were able to purchase an RTX 3090 Founders Edition (FE) at launch for MSRP like I was, you can’t really complain. Ample performance for 144 FPS in most games even at the highest graphics settings and, if we’re being honest, the value increase of over 50%, naturally add to the appreciation. Only, as is so often the case, there [...]


Copper paste better than thermal paste? Myth busted – a bit | practice

After my last article about testing various thermal paste substitutes, I received some interesting feedback and even submissions from my readers, which I will gladly work through in chronological order. Besides great industrial pastes I first received a letter with copper paste and the request to test it. Why not? Copper is not the worst material [...]


Update RC5 – Clock Tuner for Ryzen 2.0 Tutorial and Download – New version with support for Ryzen 5000, Hybrid OC and Phoenix Mode

Update from 09.03.2021 – CTR 2.0 RC5 Lower reference frequency values for Zen3 (extra safety when pressing the TUNE button) The number of attempts to contact the SMU is increased from 5 to 10 Testing Mode – only AVX Light (fixed a bug where it was possible to unlock this switcher) Update from 04.03.2021 – CTR 2.0 RC4 As we [...]


Special adapter with caps on the PCIe socket of the graphics card against load peaks – snake oil or miracle cure? | Practice

Load spikes that can cause even nominally adequate power supplies to suddenly shut down are all the rage right now, especially since the launch of NVIDIA’s current Ampere generation. It is also undisputed that this leads to the creation of legends and, of course, the accessories industry. But is there any point at all in placing a capacitor [...]


Is a 500 W PSU really enough? An AMD Radeon RX 6800 and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 against a be quiet! Pure Power 11 500 W | Practice

You’ve seen a lot of things, even on YouTube. For example, a 500 watt power supply miraculously survives even a GeForce RTX 3080, while exactly this card even forced a 1300 watt Platinum behemoth to give up in the lab before the Ampere launch. Well, NVIDIA has meanwhile defused the boost and thus also the load changes, but that should still [...]