Gaming to me of one form or another is life, from VR to streaming it has kept me going over the last three years, to the point that my treatment and medication notes at my GP has Streaming, VRchat, Beat Saber, SkyrimVR among other things and my consultant states that without technology and how I use it then I would probably be a statistic. (Autistic, Bipolar, ADHD, PTSD).
Now we have all seen the changes in the world, the cost of living has gone through the roof, electricity bills are out of this world and to put in context disability benefits even adding the severe disability payment I get has gone up since 2019 by 3%.
So the beast of a machine that has gotten me through the last three years is in parts and being sold off, I loved putting computers together and since a 386sx in the 90's I can trace back my current build as you do the replace parts one at a time slowly (well except for the switch from early amd to core duo and more recently back to amd)I can't afford the electricity to keep it running 18 hours a day every day, its spec is (AMD 3950x, msi x570 tomahawk, 32gb 3600mhz, Zotax AMP 2080ti, beQuiet 1200w psu, 3 m2 drives (one in pcie) 3 SSD. with 2 monitors and my VR attached it could pull upwards of 1000w at full load.
So a month ago I was able to buy (selling a SW collection) a Lenovo Legion 5 pro, it came as a 5800H cpu, 16gb, 1TB m2 and a 3070rtx (not the paired down maxq version but the full 140tdp version) and Windows 11.
I did some testing and removed Windows 11, I love the aesthetic but especially for AMD CPU if you are streaming/gaming its not really ready yet, changed over to Windows 10 the performance boost is amazing.
Added a 1TB Sabrent m2 in the spare slot.
Then I transferred my valve index (thank you valve for the gift) and all VR titles away from my main PC and it handled them fine, everything from American Truck Simulator to SkyrimVR, FalloutVR, Half life Alyx and VRchat.
One of the amazing things about the Lenovo is the ports, it has 2 full display port enabled USB C (one for second monitor, one for Valve index) and a spare HDMI, it has 4 USB 3.2 ports on top of that.
Well once it was handling the VR side my main PC suffered a "glitch" which meant moving completely over to the laptop anyway.
The built in sound card is fine so used a splitter on the single 3.5mm jack to plug in my AT2020 XLR mic via my sound mixer and my AKG 270 studio open back headphones.
Used an couple of Anker 4 port USB expansions Moved over my Logitech G600 mouse (my favourite mouse of all time) and my Chroma keyboard,
Added in my streaming camcorder via the elgato camlink. and the dog camera (a Logitech 920) Xbox 1 x gamepad and the avermedia game capture USB setup.
And this damn think absolutely rocks, it draws a max of 230w touching 300w if you add in my 32"AOC monitor in echo mode.
I can stream/encode/record run my games at 1440p on the 32", the CPU itself draws 20-30w even with OBS recording/streaming and a game going and the thermals never go above 80c, the 3070rtx doesn't throttle even in VR.
I sold my 2080ti and used the money to buy 32gb of 3200mhz crucial cl22 memory and a usb 3.2 nvme enclosure for m2 so I can use one of my 1tb m2's from my big build as storage.
I will miss upgrading and building the big toys but in current climate this is better, and I have it with an extended warranty service contract which means if it breaks down in the next 2-3 years and they can't fix it I get "at time" cash/cheque to replace/buy a new one.
Now we have all seen the changes in the world, the cost of living has gone through the roof, electricity bills are out of this world and to put in context disability benefits even adding the severe disability payment I get has gone up since 2019 by 3%.
So the beast of a machine that has gotten me through the last three years is in parts and being sold off, I loved putting computers together and since a 386sx in the 90's I can trace back my current build as you do the replace parts one at a time slowly (well except for the switch from early amd to core duo and more recently back to amd)I can't afford the electricity to keep it running 18 hours a day every day, its spec is (AMD 3950x, msi x570 tomahawk, 32gb 3600mhz, Zotax AMP 2080ti, beQuiet 1200w psu, 3 m2 drives (one in pcie) 3 SSD. with 2 monitors and my VR attached it could pull upwards of 1000w at full load.
So a month ago I was able to buy (selling a SW collection) a Lenovo Legion 5 pro, it came as a 5800H cpu, 16gb, 1TB m2 and a 3070rtx (not the paired down maxq version but the full 140tdp version) and Windows 11.
I did some testing and removed Windows 11, I love the aesthetic but especially for AMD CPU if you are streaming/gaming its not really ready yet, changed over to Windows 10 the performance boost is amazing.
Added a 1TB Sabrent m2 in the spare slot.
Then I transferred my valve index (thank you valve for the gift) and all VR titles away from my main PC and it handled them fine, everything from American Truck Simulator to SkyrimVR, FalloutVR, Half life Alyx and VRchat.
One of the amazing things about the Lenovo is the ports, it has 2 full display port enabled USB C (one for second monitor, one for Valve index) and a spare HDMI, it has 4 USB 3.2 ports on top of that.
Well once it was handling the VR side my main PC suffered a "glitch" which meant moving completely over to the laptop anyway.
The built in sound card is fine so used a splitter on the single 3.5mm jack to plug in my AT2020 XLR mic via my sound mixer and my AKG 270 studio open back headphones.
Used an couple of Anker 4 port USB expansions Moved over my Logitech G600 mouse (my favourite mouse of all time) and my Chroma keyboard,
Added in my streaming camcorder via the elgato camlink. and the dog camera (a Logitech 920) Xbox 1 x gamepad and the avermedia game capture USB setup.
And this damn think absolutely rocks, it draws a max of 230w touching 300w if you add in my 32"AOC monitor in echo mode.
I can stream/encode/record run my games at 1440p on the 32", the CPU itself draws 20-30w even with OBS recording/streaming and a game going and the thermals never go above 80c, the 3070rtx doesn't throttle even in VR.
I sold my 2080ti and used the money to buy 32gb of 3200mhz crucial cl22 memory and a usb 3.2 nvme enclosure for m2 so I can use one of my 1tb m2's from my big build as storage.
I will miss upgrading and building the big toys but in current climate this is better, and I have it with an extended warranty service contract which means if it breaks down in the next 2-3 years and they can't fix it I get "at time" cash/cheque to replace/buy a new one.