PC gaming technology helping "normal" PC users
What office PC users can learn from the gaming community. Transmitter 42. Logan Huggins brings us up to speed with his latest thoughts on custom built Windows PCs and how he addressed my request for a computer powerful enough to handle the real time video streaming needs of OBS Studio and other video editing tools. Logan applies what he learned from computer optimization for his gaming pursuits to provide a powerful computer for my high power office needs. Learn about this and more at transmitter 42.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for joining me, son.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No problem. Just right off that big list. I think you expect much from a wrench this wrench jockey.
Speaker 1:That's alright. So you've been in the computer gaming world for many, many years, and I'm sure your PC has evolved over the time. So you've kept a very close watch on on the technology, and you've applied it to my latest PC. I have a question about gaming PCs. How many computers have you built for your needs over the years?
Speaker 2:For me, personally?
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Personally, well, 3 complete builds. I've swapped out parts within those every now and then, but as far as my personal computers, I have built a total of 3.
Speaker 1:Total of 3 over how many years? Quite a wild number. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's see. I built my first one in my on the floor of my dorm room in college, so that would have been 2014. So about a decade, I would suppose. And if you're curious, yes, that is about the only accomplishment I have from my college time.
Speaker 1:So actually PC innovation happens how often? I was going to ask. In your case, it's only about every 3 or 4 years. You've managed to get good performance out of a PC before you've started over again with new technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's no real need to buy new hardware every year. Most of it's just fake upgrades that they're trying to get you to buy a new thing, just like an iPhone. You don't need a new iPhone every year, but they want you to buy one.
Speaker 1:Well what stimulates the need to upgrade for you?
Speaker 2:Well, just coming from a perspective of performance in gaming and I don't stream or anything like that usually unless I'm just trying to show my friends something stupid that that's happening in a game somewhere, but generally just performance in games and when it starts to get to a point where graphics are needing a bit more horsepower to get get you, to where you need to be.
Speaker 1:And by streaming, you mean live streaming of your actual gaming play? Is that how that works?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not into that. I don't want it's a hobby for me. I don't want it to be a job. Gotcha.
Speaker 1:So how has the gaming world driven PC performance? I know the video cards especially have been a big key thing about that, but what else that and what else has, gaming world given us?
Speaker 2:Well, just like you said, and you alluded to it earlier and how your needs are met by this. I mean, really, it just ends up being cheaper components that are capable of what more people are needing to do. I'm sure you remember back in the day when well, not even back in the day, but if you look at what the difference of a commercial and a professional graphics card is, we're talking 1,000 of dollars versus, you know, maybe a 1,000 if you're getting the top of the line thing on the commercial side. But you're easily gonna spend 4 to 5000 if you're getting a dedicated professional workstation, and that's just for one card.
Speaker 1:And this card is designed for high speed CAD computer aided design needs for the engineers and designers of the world. Correct?
Speaker 2:That and, you know, yeah, high end art design, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I've I've heard it said that gaming cards are fast, but not necessarily accurate, whereas CAD cards are fast and precise with what they display. And I would imagine that once it gets to the screen, there's so little difference. So what's the point?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I can tell you that the computer that I used at work back when I had more of a desk job. I used CAT on it, and it wasn't something completely insane. It was maybe a $2,000 computer, which I would evaluate my current PC at maybe just a little bit over that.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Okay. Well, let's delve into some of the subtopics of a computer. Let's deal with processors. We have the major players of AMD and Intel.
Speaker 1:Are there any others, or is that pretty much it?
Speaker 2:That's pretty much it. You'll get some I suppose if you wanted to, you could source some very weird stuff from the Chinese market, but if you want something that you know is gonna work, yeah, those are the players we're working with here.
Speaker 1:And do you have a personal preference? No. I just
Speaker 2:I want everybody to I want there to be good competition so that we are that the consumer is actually getting 2 choices. And with AMD kinda coming back onto the scene in the higher end market for commercial CPUs, we're back at a point where you can really go either way, and they all have and they each of them have a niche for every level of what you need to do.
Speaker 1:Now on my computer, I got an Intel. I think that was mostly because I was preferring it. I can't remember if you suggested AMD or Intel for me. We went with Intel. Do you remember why?
Speaker 2:Let's see. I I don't quite remember the conversation, but, I I do believe that the Intel processor that we got for you was on sale at the time, and I think that was part of the reason.
Speaker 1:That that was true. A considerable sale. I'm imagining it was a,
Speaker 2:like, half off or something. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it was getting to be replaced by a newer model perhaps, something like one of those deals. And sure enough, I mean, it was a good deal. Okay. How about motherboards?
Speaker 1:What's the deal with motherboards? There's lots of those out there. Correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Everybody and their mother has 3,000 different kinds of them. It's really one of those things that's getting a little ridiculous, to be honest. But
Speaker 1:Well, I think the biggest thing I saw in the advancement here was well, first off, there's no external hard drives and the the storage basically plugs right into the board itself, the VME.
Speaker 2:Yeah. M dot 2 storage was a pretty big pretty big deal in especially for people that like to build micro PCs. Right? Like mini ITX builds and stuff like that. It becomes a whole hell of a lot more manageable if you don't have to deal with this giant 3 and a half inch monster that you also have to shove in there somewhere.
Speaker 2:So having the storage on the board and the fastest storage that we currently have at that would have been a pretty big player.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think he got me a 4 terabyte. You know, he gave me some options. And then just for a little bit more, he told me that it'll essentially operate at light speed. I was like, for a 100 more bucks, it was a easy choice and it's fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Samsung's really, in my opinion, the king of the crop when it comes to those, but those western digital black, NVMe drives are pretty toasty.
Speaker 1:That's right. We got a Western Digital, didn't we?
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:Okay. Cases. What did he get? What case did you give me? I can't even remember.
Speaker 2:I don't I'm not recalling off the top of my head either. It was a thermal tank something. Right?
Speaker 1:Yes. He had said that they had come back from, I guess, a lull and have done a really good job with their latest offerings, and that's what we got from IPC.
Speaker 2:Yep. The they had a rough run for a few years. What happened? Well, it's one of those situations where I think you have people designing something that has never actually been an end user of their product that they're selling? They would have supply fans that didn't go anywhere and just general ease of build stuff that wasn't in there, cheap hardware, not no cable management, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:It's the little stuff that you wouldn't think really matters, but when you're putting together something that and especially, like, for me if I'm building a computer for somebody else for some side money or whatever, I wanna make sure that I can make it look good when the build is complete.
Speaker 1:And And so this latest offering, what compelled you to choose that for my build?
Speaker 2:Well, we just kinda checked all the boxes and I know you didn't I know you also wanted to downsize a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That previous box was quite a quite a beast.
Speaker 2:So you're like me personally, I'm a bit different because, yeah, we're we're getting all these things that allow you to get smaller cases and smaller builds. I like the big cases. It's fun for me.
Speaker 1:Well, in my opinion, at some point, you you you squeeze the case so much, you're starting to really push heat and and other limits. And I wasn't gonna go to something ridiculously small just because I wanted to not push that particular parameter. But, yeah, the previous case was larger than it needed to be. Although it would hold a lot of drives, which doesn't apply anymore, oops, since I don't need any external drives for this new thing. In fact
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:I couldn't put one in if I wanted to. That was a surprise that the new case doesn't even have the option for external drives.
Speaker 2:Well, it does, but they get mounted on the back. Oh. Like, on the on the side panel, not the one you look through, but the other side panel that comes off. There's mounting spaces in there. You can still put them.
Speaker 1:For the 3 and a half ers or
Speaker 2:For 2 and a half inch. Right.
Speaker 1:2 and a half. So threes and fives are need not apply.
Speaker 2:Usually, the usually, you can get a separate caddy that you can install somewhere depending on what case. If you really want to do 3 and a half inch drives, but, yeah, for the most part, those are those have gone the way of the VHS and all of our other lost friends from many years ago.
Speaker 1:What about gaming focused items? Forget about me who's an engineer with CAD requirements. What is it that you would take, say, this PC that we built and you made it just for gamers? Would you change anything?
Speaker 2:Not really. No. I mean, it would it should hold up just fine to almost anything. I mean, I'd put a maybe a tier up graphics card in there like I have, but really what you have would be able to do 99% of what I'm playing anyway.
Speaker 1:Is the biggest difference between an office PC and a gaming PC basically the video card?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Usually. I mean, that is really what you're what's working the hardest at the end of the day for what you're trying to do. I mean, depending on the game, you might be more processor bound. Something like Minecraft isn't gonna be heavily graphics card, but most things, especially these big cinematic, you know, multi dimensional, 10 minute long cutscene monoliths we have these days.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. When especially, you know, lighting is the new thing that everybody's playing about with ray tracing and god rays and all this fun stuff. That's you're gonna need a pretty beefy card.
Speaker 1:Before we go to our first break, let's talk about monitors. I've seen gamers with 1 big monitor and some with smaller piecemeal monitors to basically create a a seamless scene with multiple monitors. I guess the display cards that are all modern now can handle all of that. But which options would you choose and why?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm pretty simple. I've I have a single 30 inch 30 well, 31 inch 14 40 p monitor. I don't have any reason to upgrade from that.
Speaker 1:Is that a 16 by 9 normal HD shaped monitor or is it elongated?
Speaker 2:It's it's 16 by 9. It's but it is curved.
Speaker 1:Yeah. One of the things I noticed for my needs, I I I need a separate monitor just to run OBS Studio in its own views so you can see what you're gonna do next.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. And if you if you were doing some type of content creation, like, you know, Twitch streaming or on streaming on YouTube or something like that, you definitely need a separate display to run all of your alternate or or your side programs, like, as you said, your OBS or whatever you're using to stream with.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Is there a favorite brand name for monitors? They're they're all over the map now, it seems.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, like with everything else, everybody's got one. My last monitor was, a was it? Sorry. NHP.
Speaker 2:It was great. I have a Dell now. It seems to be doing just fine, but Sam Samsung probably has the cream of the crop, but, you know, we're getting to a point where the differences are minimal.
Speaker 1:And why'd you upgrade? Before we get a break, why'd you upgrade from 1 monitor to the next?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I I wasn't really I had didn't really buy into the curved screen thing in the beginning, but I figured, hey, I'd go ahead and try it out and I can at least get a bigger little bit bigger screen. Makes it better for watching movies and stuff. And it it is about all the highest you can push 14 40p with, but it's nice to have the extra space.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well, when we come back, we'll, delve into the hybrid PC concept that I wanna introduce to you. Oh. We'll be back in a moment. Hello, everyone.
Speaker 1:John, k x four o, here to tell you about my radio blog. If you are an amateur radio operator and want to find ways to improve your antennas to make the most of your hobby, I invite you to visit my blog www.hamradio.me for a large assortment of articles about antennas, electromagnetics, and other information of use to the active ham. Again, that's www.hamradio. Me. Okay.
Speaker 1:We're back with Logan Huggins. He's telling us all about how gaming computers have helped me and others have computers that are very good for office work, video work, and other advancements.
Speaker 2:That's me. I'm still here. I haven't run away yet.
Speaker 1:The gaming computer world has really pushed hard on certain aspects that all can benefit from. So I guess I consider my PC a hybrid because it was designed by a gamer for a guy who does CAD work and video editing work. There used to be, I guess, more of a separation there, but now it's all just fast PCs perhaps with a video card difference. If you were designing a PC for me, again, would it be anything you would do differently? Say if we added a little more money to the the pile.
Speaker 1:The current cost on this this one was about $21100 if I remember right.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So what would be the next upgrade path if and when I should ever do that?
Speaker 2:Whenever you start to I mean, I personally am a proponent of frugality when it comes to stuff like that. I mean, I don't if if you find yourself being limited when you're trying to do your CAD or your streaming or whatever, if you start to see throttling, then sure. Upgrade then. But as long as everything's going the way you need it to, I don't see any reason to throw money around. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think I've seen a few times when the video streaming gets a little hinky, but it's very rare and it isn't a problem. But I did notice it.
Speaker 2:You could always put a dedicated capture card in there if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think we have one in there. Well, no. That's for for old style video formats.
Speaker 2:Right. You have a converter in there, but you could put an actual dedicated capture card to handle that streaming portion.
Speaker 1:Now I know that GPUs are all the rage. I know in scientific community where I come from, certainly they're used for for hardcore DSP processing of whatever. Some of the antenna simulation programs I use will make use of them if they find them. I've always wondered though, I I think OBS Studio can make use of them as well, and I I guess it's pretty seamless how they work. But I'm always curious, when you have a situation like that and you have a GPU that really is a great, great addition to the computer and you use it, are you degrading something else while it's being used?
Speaker 1:The GPU, if it's being tasked for something else, does it sacrifice video performance or what? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Nope. There's no real problem. And, actually, we're it's going the other direction. Here, I would say in the next 5 to 10 years, the graphics graphics cards, if you will, video processors, graphics processing units, will take the place of dedicated processors as well. It'll just be one thing.
Speaker 1:It'll replace CPUs. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because and like I said before at the beginning of this thing, I am a tradesman and a wrench turner. I can tell you why. I can't necessarily tell you how. I'm not in the, that deep into the science of how all this stuff goes together.
Speaker 2:But, all this new machine learning and AI and all this stuff that's getting pushed out. Right? Those those are heavy, heavy, heavy processing load on the hosts. Those are graph those are video processors made by NVIDIA doing that.
Speaker 1:Right. I know over the years you've laughed at me for getting a MacBook Pro. I'm on my second one now. The first one lasted 10 years. The battery was ultimately the problem.
Speaker 1:I did replace the battery using iFixit components, and I'm successful in that, except now the the PC is is forever busy doing some processing, which I don't understand. So I need a tool for my general purpose needs, and I got another MacBook Pro for that. Not for video streaming or anything. I basically got the lowest speed version I could get just for bill paying and things like this, like that. And the number one thing that it always appealed to me on going from a 10 year old MacBook Pro to the new one was the IO, the interface, was exactly the same.
Speaker 1:The keyboard's exactly the same. So I was able to use it very, very well. The mouse pad's a little larger, but more or less is the same way it operates. That's key. Consistency of the interface was key for me.
Speaker 1:I bought other laptops, HPs, Acers not Acers, Asus.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And they all have their benefits. They're ones like really small that we use for portable use. But the keyboards, there are all these multifunction capabilities and sometimes you do a keystroke or 2 and you get the the keypad into a different mode and you can't get it out of it and now you can't use the computer until you figure that out. It's just constantly these tricky things that get in your way of productivity.
Speaker 2:Well, that's more of a Windows problem than it is a laptop problem, but
Speaker 1:I guess.
Speaker 2:Yes, I understand.
Speaker 1:I guess that is the case. But this particular problem is unique to the Asus. It's actually a driver. It's it seems to be built into how they do their their keyboard. Like the mouse pad, if you get if you touch them a certain way, it turns into the keypad.
Speaker 1:And to get it out of that, you gotta remember how to do that, or you can't use it as a mouse anymore. It's it's that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've never had an Asus computer, so I'm not up to speed on that. But I don't buy Apple products either. So
Speaker 1:Yes. I I noticed, and, I'm sure you laugh at me when I spend my money on this. All that I will say I get
Speaker 2:So my my I mean, my issue with Apple doesn't really come from the quality of the products. I mean, iPhones are good phones. Right?
Speaker 1:But it's the They better be for the price.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right. As far as as far as their computers and stuff, it's really just the whole, right to repair movement and all that
Speaker 1:Oh, yes.
Speaker 2:All that stuff going on that's a problem for me.
Speaker 1:The iFixit thing that I applied was I guess well, they have a whole thing on there in their website about that very topic.
Speaker 2:So Although, I do so I will say one thing about the having a problem with their products. I did I do remember distinctly opening up a MacBook Air one time and finding that, the fan did not actually cool anything. It was just spinning. It's just a spinning noise maker in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. My 2014 vintage one. It had to be doing something because there was warm air blowing out of it. So, I mean, that's work being done to cool something. But yeah.
Speaker 1:So sometimes fans are just there for show. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the really the big thing is the right to repair and all that because we are very we're standing on a precipice these days of not actually owning anything.
Speaker 1:Yes. I have I've heard this.
Speaker 2:We have with the tractor situation with John Deere and laptops with Apple and they're by no means the only issues with this. But
Speaker 1:Well, I've heard the same thing between the Win 7, Win 10 crowd, and the Windows 11 crowd. Some people are saying Windows 11 is is angling towards we own you.
Speaker 2:Windows 11 is hot garbage.
Speaker 1:And I, of course, put that on my PC because I didn't wanna have any issues with with the incompatibility of the software I need to run. You know, I just wanted it to be permanent. So what's wrong with Windows 11?
Speaker 2:Well, beyond the constant pop ups that Microsoft seems to love these years
Speaker 1:I have I've seen those. Yes.
Speaker 2:There's a whole bunch of security stuff in the background that I don't personally think needs to be there.
Speaker 1:Windows Defender?
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's just a lot of bloat these days that goes on in the background, especially with Edge, like, that the their new browser, which nobody uses, of course, because it's terrible. But
Speaker 1:I don't use it. I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I just miss I'm sure you understand this too. It was a sad day when the last Windows 7 machine you used went offline, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I was very happy with that and it it ran for gosh, it was at least 8 year run time, I think, for for that particular flavor of OS.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We were we were spoiled. We were we were fortunate to live in the golden years. I don't know if we're ever gonna see something like that again unless, Linux starts becoming more mainstream and we start to get, you know, like, privatized browsers.
Speaker 1:Okay. So what would you recommend to people who are they wanna build up a nice flaming hot PC Windows version, and they just need it to work for their Office needs or like me, Office plus video editing. I mean, is there any other choice but to go to Windows 11 because that's kinda you're pigeonholed into that, are you not?
Speaker 2:It is. It's an unfortunate dichotomy.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Then, I mean and we noticed that yeah. It's just been a mess ever since Windows 8 came out because we all remember that Windows 8 was so bad, they forgot that the number 9 existed and went straight to 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I we all noticed that, and we've also remembered the adage from Microsoft. She said, Windows 10, that's going to be the last version. It'll just be fixes from here on in, and they didn't keep that promise. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, when they don't
Speaker 2:when they can't count, there's not a whole lot of other other hope to be had. And then because we look on the other side of Microsoft and their Xbox and how they're naming that, it's insane.
Speaker 1:What is it? Tell us about that. We went from
Speaker 2:Xbox to the Xbox 360 to the Xbox 1 to the Xbox 1 x, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series 1 s. How logical. What meanwhile, we could say what we want about Sony, but at least they do 1 through 5 with PlayStation. I I wanna I wanna know how many times over this year, like, kids were asking for an Xbox something, and then, you know, it's just some grandparent that has no idea what they're looking for. Right.
Speaker 2:They're like, what the hell do I buy? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. I can imagine that. You wind up with a Game Boy. Right.
Speaker 2:I mean, even I, like, even I have to check it these days, and I'm and I'm around this stuff all the time. Like, what version is this? Sorry to get off topic with my frustrations that are not related.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm interviewing you. Last thing, keyboards. I bought a new keyboard for my new PC, and I love it. It's from Cherry. And I've suddenly got thrust into the realm of color coded key clicks something or other.
Speaker 1:Can you please tell us about reds and browns and and what have you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my dad sends me a text one night. Right? And he's like, shopping for keyboards. What the hell do all these colors mean?
Speaker 2:Which is fair enough. But, yeah, I mean, basically, it's a it's a part of the industry that's ended up with a lot of customer choice. Some might argue more than necessary, but there's plenty of plenty of wiggle room in typing. And a lot of people are typing all day, so you want it to be comfortable and feel nice. So Cherry, specifically, makes different types of key switches.
Speaker 2:Maybe you want a little bit higher activation force. Maybe you want your keys to be silent. Maybe you want them to auto audibly click. These are all options. You can swap them out.
Speaker 2:But, I mean, you should probably just go ahead and buy a keyboard that has the ones you want already. But that's where the color coding comes from. Just So,
Speaker 1:basically, as you know, the learning process for the uninitiated, they have to go research what the colors mean. Yep. And you think you're just buying a keyboard? Correct. Of course, there's some keyboards you can pay probably $10 for and, of course, they're not that great.
Speaker 2:But Well, and, of course, we're talking about mechanical keyboards, right, at this point because the membrane the membrane boards that you get for 10 or $20, they're just that's that's not related to this.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. So I spent, I guess, $99 on that. I had it in the Amazon cart, and I actually ordered it with, either red or brown. I can't remember which now.
Speaker 1:And then I consulted you with that email you just mentioned, and I quickly changed my mind. And I went and canceled the order at Amazon and refilled it with the appropriate one. And I
Speaker 2:think you did end up going with Browns because you wanted a little bit of tactile. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I do like that. And it's it's really nice. It is rather loud, but that's okay. But, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was rather lambasted on the fact that I I yet another thing I didn't know about was being thrown in my face is about just simple keyboards.
Speaker 2:Well, just to give a quick rundown, the the basic two things that you're deciding when you're getting a key switch is, do you want tactile feedback, which is you actually have to apply force to activate the key key click? B, do you want it to audibly click when you do it and it basically just adds another piece of metal in there that snaps and makes a clicking noise. So you've got green and blue, which are audible click with and without activation force. Brown and clear, which are no click, higher and lower activation force. And reds are gonna be here neither.
Speaker 2:Just a smooth activation all the way down.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, I appreciate your time for for this. Any last minute, advice for folks in 5 seconds?
Speaker 2:Don't buy graphics cards every year. Okay. Thank you, Logan. Have a good one.
Speaker 1:Transmedicine 42.
