[rovopio]

^
 
$26... plus %30-35 import tax and 2 months delivery time... buying from ebay or amazon isn't viable from where i live, sadly....
 
the cheapest dac/amp available is nuforce udac3 and fiio e17 both $150~$160... i wish they hv smthn cheap like hifiman hm101 or ibasso d-zero...
 
btw @bowei006... if the notebook amp is the one that's crap... if i buy a dac only device like nuforce udac3 or hifiman hm101... will it bypass the notebook's amp...?
 
also... if i buy an amp only device... like fiio e11 or smthn... will that bypass the notebook's amp...?
 
ps: as im typing this i know the question is dumb, but i genuinely dont know

 

[bowei006]

  ^
 
$26... plus %30-35 import tax and 2 months delivery time... buying from ebay or amazon isn't viable from where i live, sadly....
 
the cheapest dac/amp available is nuforce udac3 and fiio e17 both $150~$160... i wish they hv smthn cheap like hifiman hm101 or ibasso d-zero...
 
btw @bowei006... if the notebook amp is the one that's crap... if i buy a dac only device like nuforce udac3 or hifiman hm101... will it bypass the notebook's amp...?
 
also... if i buy an amp only device... like fiio e11 or smthn... will that bypass the notebook's amp...?
 
ps: as im typing this i know the question is dumb, but i genuinely dont know

buying a unit like those bypasses everything. 
 
No, E11 won't bypass laptops amp

 

[214324]

Stoner Acoustics UD110 is pretty good from what I've read. $50 + shipping (it's like $3 for shipping or something).

 

[bowei006]

  Stoner Acoustics UD110 is pretty good from what I've read. $50 + shipping (it's like $3 for shipping or something).

That was so last year
 
This year, the new $1000 USB DAC's are IN! BUY NOW WHILE IT IS HOT! Worry about anything else later

 

[linglingjr]

  That was so last year
 
This year, the new $1000 USB DAC's are IN! BUY NOW WHILE IT IS HOT! Worry about anything else later

Plus they support 3600bit/14400Khz for when humans evolve enough to hear those frequencies.

 

[ibob4tacoz]

So, if any of you guys remember, I complained about how hot my laptop ran a LONG time ago. Welp, I scrapped up enough motivation to open the darned thing up and replace the thermal paste. My dad and I stopped at Fry's Electronics earlier to grab some Antec Formula 7, since they didn't carry AS5 anymore
Anyway, teh entire job took about 1 1/2 hours and my temps dropped from 85 Celcius to about 75-80. Schweet. 

 

[214324]

  So, if any of you guys remember, I complained about how hot my laptop ran a LONG time ago. Welp, I scrapped up enough motivation to open the darned thing up and replace the thermal paste. My dad and I stopped at Fry's Electronics earlier to grab some Antec Formula 7, since they didn't carry AS5 anymore
Anyway, teh entire job took about 1 1/2 hours and my temps dropped from 85 Celcius to about 75-80. Schweet. 

Never heard anything about the Antec. As long as its not a metal based its good (so no AS5, IC Diamond is also one). I don't like metal base since it usually carries a lot of risk since I've worked with a few bare-die components. IC Diamond btw is horrendous for this stuff because it does scratch the heatspreader/IHS or the chip itself. Metal based TIM is fine if the IHS is on (still risky if you use waaaay too much).
 
In other news the Acer C720 chromebook i3 version finally came out. Cheap Windows machines forever (assuming somebody can get the BIOS or hardware to work with it).

 

[AxelCloris]

  So, if any of you guys remember, I complained about how hot my laptop ran a LONG time ago. Welp, I scrapped up enough motivation to open the darned thing up and replace the thermal paste. My dad and I stopped at Fry's Electronics earlier to grab some Antec Formula 7, since they didn't carry AS5 anymore
Anyway, teh entire job took about 1 1/2 hours and my temps dropped from 85 Celcius to about 75-80. Schweet. 

 
AS5 is a pretty good paste. I've used it in a handful of builds. Currently I'm using MX4 and it's doing just as well as the AS5 (if not even slightly better) for about the same price. It seems a tad easier to apply than AS5 so that's what's giving it a small edge to me.

 

[ibob4tacoz]

Never heard anything about the Antec. As long as its not a metal based its good (so no AS5, IC Diamond is also one). I don't like metal base since it usually carries a lot of risk since I've worked with a few bare-die components. IC Diamond btw is horrendous for this stuff because it does scratch the heatspreader/IHS or the chip itself. Metal based TIM is fine if the IHS is on (still risky if you use waaaay too much).

In other news the Acer C720 chromebook i3 version finally came out. Cheap Windows machines forever (assuming somebody can get the BIOS or hardware to work with it).

The Antec stuff has "nano-diamond" particles in it so, idk. I wasn't used to seeing a CPU without a heatspreader, the bare die looked so beautiful, so shiny, I just wanted to... Wha- what? Oh, I was being weird.

AS5 is a pretty good paste. I've used it in a handful of builds. Currently I'm using MX4 and it's doing just as well as the AS5 (if not even slightly better) for about the same price. It seems a tad easier to apply than AS5 so that's what's giving it a small edge to me.

I like AS5. They used to carry it, so I asked a employee if they had AS5, he responded, "No, we don't have AS5 anymore..."
In my mind:

 

[214324]

The Antec stuff has "nano-diamond" particles in it so, idk. I wasn't used to seeing a CPU without a heatspreader, the bare die looked so beautiful, so shiny, I just wanted to... Wha- what? Oh, I was being weird.
I like AS5. They used to carry it, so I asked a employee if they had AS5, he responded, "No, we don't have AS5 anymore..."
In my mind:

IC Diamond also uses grinded up diamond dust and it scratches the IHS so I tend to stay away from that stuff.
 
AS5 is quite meh IMO. Much better TIMs out there for the same price.

 

[Yazen]

AS5 is cheap depending where you buy it haha.

 

[linglingjr]

painstakingly choosing what thermal paste to use is almost as silly as choosing between aftermarket $500 cables for your $300 headphones.  The measurable difference is so small, they'll all do their job just fine and a 1º C difference isn't going to stop your computer from melting. 
 
Meh.  Does head fi die in the summer?  There haven't been any new posts in the majority of threads I'm used to.

 

[ibob4tacoz]

painstakingly choosing what thermal paste to use is almost as silly as choosing between aftermarket $500 cables for your $300 headphones.  The measurable difference is so small, they'll all do their job just fine and a 1º C difference isn't going to stop your computer from melting. 

Meh.  Does head fi die in the summer?  There haven't been any new posts in the majority of threads I'm used to.

Lol, I just skim through maybe a review or two before buying thermal paste. For more major parts, do do supa-isn't endive research. And yes, yes it does.

 

[Yazen]

  painstakingly choosing what thermal paste to use is almost as silly as choosing between aftermarket $500 cables for your $300 headphones.  The measurable difference is so small, they'll all do their job just fine and a 1º C difference isn't going to stop your computer from melting. 
 
Meh.  Does head fi die in the summer?  There haven't been any new posts in the majority of threads I'm used to.

You have been in cryogenic sleep for several hundred years.. The Head-Fi you once knew no longer exists.. :X

 

[ibob4tacoz]

Dayum. So, my laptop temps dropped quite a bit again. I woke up, thinking that maybe the paste had settled/bonded a bit better overnight. I don't know what happened, but my temp went from 75-80 at full load to about 65 Celcius. Ran Prime95 for a bit and it never topped 65...