Comment by mrweasel 7 hours ago
Maybe they just don't really use anything else, but I just love that the most reliable memory is just Kingston ValueRAM. No fancy heat spreader or packaging, not even a black PCB, just chips on a classic green circuit board.
> just chips on a classic green circuit board.
Thankfully Industrial Motherboards exist though not cheap or simple to obtain depending. Examples:
https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/industrial-motherboards
https://www.advantech.com/en-us/products/microatx-motherboar...
I thought the gaming PC airflow was front fans => cpu cooler => back (and top) exhaust fan(s) which puts the RAM sticks in the smack middle of the airflow.
> It really gives the game away.
Does it?
That kingston ram is DDR5-5600, with smaller memory sizes, and has a longer warranty. This suggests that the product is binned memory from a line that is relatively mature (and by extension low failure rates).
And, because it's clocked lower, it runs cooler, which reduces failure rate.
On top of that, server memory is usually binned more strictly. And, it usually has bits missing for ECC, custom controller firmware, and cutting edge processes for packing more memory into the form factor.
Now as a consumer you may think an LED is "riced" out, but I think custom firmware on your ram built for your application is way more "riced".
> None of that stuff actually helps
It probably actually does, especially for "high end" ram. IE stuff running at much higher transfer rates. Heat and voltage are the enemies of stability here. A heat sink/transfer shield is certainly going to help (in theory, anyways)
On top of that, server ram has a higher expectation of cooling quality than consumer, which can be anything goes.
Finding consumer hardware that isn't riced to the max is getting hard. I wish pcpartpicker had a checkbox to filter out anything with RGB lights. Or one to filter out things marketed towards 13 year old boys - but that might be harder.
Preempting the inevitable comment: "just turn it off". That doesn't always work. I bought a mouse once, I think it was Razor, that required their electron slop-ware to control the lights. And if you didn't keep the software running, the lights would default to on. I had to take it apart to desolder the LEDs and throw them in the trash. And of course, like all mice I've seen, the screws were under the teflon feet, so I had to mangle them slightly to get in there. It was a decent mouse otherwise, but screw that nonsense.
Ironically for gaming usage that electron slopware can get you VAC banned (I think you need to have used certain features not merely have it installed). I should probably find the OSS alternative that allows me to turn it off.
It's also getting to a point where I wind up paying a price premium for non capital g gamer hardware. Fortunately opaque cases are still a thing and can hide some of it.
The closest I've seen to this are the ASUS ProArt cases/components, which lean toward a modernized, stealthy workstation vibe, as well as some cases from botique Chinese manufacturers like Streacom and Jonsbo/Jonsplus which also go for a sleek but more professional and subdued aesthetic.
The downside is that they're not cheap.
For motherboards Asus also have their CSM (Corporate Stable Model) series. A few of these are even on green PCBs.
I'm now at the point I research parts to see where the LED control is stored.
My keyboard LED is controlled internally without software. My mouse requires software to set, but there is open source rgb control software that was trivial to install and set once, uninstall and forget.
The only one I got wrong was my GPU, which apparently isn't rgb but just has a strip of coloured light beaming at all times.
Thankfully my case isnt mesh everything, so most light is kept inside.
Check out OpenRGB. It more often than not supports your device and it runs on most OS’s. I used it to turn off the rave happening in my rig.
Just get the logitech competition. I've had multiple G series mice, they all have on-board memory. I have a cooler master which behaves the same.
You can program them from a VM, then toss that away and the mouse remembers its settings, even multiple "profiles". You don't have to put up with electron slop-ware or whatever the crap dev platform du jour is. They just work.
This is honestly why if it didn't start life as an OEM (Dell, HP, Lenovo) part, I just buy Supermicro workstation boards, as they tend to use the better workstation chipsets, don't have any of the silly shit like RGB, and seem to just be more durable and better built in my experience.
This is presumably in part because it's going to have loose tolerances as a bottom-bin product.
The difference in performance between "good" and "bad" DDR5 can be very large.