My instinct says *”Minus 150 watts on PSU”*, but you’d probably insta-lose when everyone who’s already cutting it close experiences failures immediately.
SirGeorgington
Easily the 3D V-Cache one just because there aren’t that many CPUs that applies to, way easier to stay under 1000 people.
LoquaciousLamp
Getting rid of the x3d cache would only really effect people that are running heavily modded unity games.
Dropping from 8fps to 5 wouldn’t be that noticable.
djackson404
Minus 150W on PSU. If they bought a PSU that’s running balls-out all the time they’ll notice, everyone else will have been smarter and bought one with capacity to spare, so they’ll likely never notice, and it’s not something you can measure with any software.
Interesting_white
Minus 10% refresh rate, i doubt many people would notice
SwagChemist
The monitor refresh rate
Sasqath
Not on the list, but swapping NVME SSD from 990 PRO to 970 EVO, same capacity.
-Markkk-
I’ll choose -10% frame rate, unless you have 60 hz monitor you hardly notice this
Dependent_Cookie2045
I don’t think people would notice the efficiency cores being disabled.
It wouldn’t have a noticeable effect unless people specifically monitor each core.
Mrkindman69
(-10% refresh) rate easly 3d vcache will hurt performance and same for e cores if ur some one who opens stuff in the background halfing ram may cause instability and the same for -150 watts off psus and switching w10 with 11 or 11 with 10 will be noticed if they wear head phones win they start windows or if Microsoft stops urging u to switch to w11
Edit :I think psus most of the part are over spec ed. So maaaybee that too….
No-Recognition7420
Thats impossible to achieve. 1000 people is just too few.
with ram you would lose easily, many people use too much ram daily (like editors)
same with CPU.
Many are using their PSU to the maximum (my PC would be the first to die, lol)
refresh rate is also a no. millions of fps players.
going to settings which I assume many do daily will expose the windows swap.
The cooler might seem like a nice option. BUT most people have their PC on the table. so Insta-loss
3D-Vcache swap is the most likely to win. but don’t forget these freaks who always have their task manager open and looking at their cpu/ram usage (I’m one of them).
No way to win this.
TheRealMeeBacon
Windows change. Most people wouldn’t notice a difference.
nemesit
EfficiencyCores disabled is the easy choice
Ar_phis
E-Cores, easy choice. And I do have a 13600k.
If every PCMR user who even has E-Cores would have them disabled, I would guess less than 1000 would notice in a day because the majority uses their PC for gaming or lighter tasks and E-Cores rarely give a benefit when you already have 6+ P-Cores.
I would think some might even get a slight performance increase as their Power/Thermal “budget” could benefit from ~25% less draw.
I like E-Cores in general and I do think they will become more relevant in the future, but just like we had barely any use from 8+ P-Cores when the first Ryzen/Threadripper CPUs released, current OS/Schedulers and Software doesn’t benefit a lot from E-Cores in general.
TheOneRebornReborn
The cooler, most people don’t monitor temps regularly (ignoring that most people would notice a huge bulky ass cooler randomly appearing inside their PC)
Rasty_lv
fps or psu would be easy choices. id go with refresh rate. easier to not notice.
originalmatete
I’ll undervolt the CPUs, and that’s about it
dedoha
There is no good answer here, keep in mind that there are over 130 million monthly steam users, surely 1k people would notice even the smallest change like 100mhz downclock on cpu
airyrice
I’d say minus 10 percent refresh rate easily. Essentially, those who made the conscious decision to purchase 60Hz over 120+Hz don’t care about smoothness and are unlikely to notice, those who have a 60 or less Hz monitor for office uses won’t notice either since their tasks don’t typically feature animations that are supposed to be smooth, and those with higher refresh rates won’t notice either, because above 144Hz you start getting diminishing returns in temrs of smoothness and some dude rocking 360Hz wouldn’t notice much.
I’d argue most of the people who would notice this would be those who are in the middle of the spectrum, 75ish HZ.
I’d assume FPS monitoring software or something along the lines of that would give it away, if the change to refresh rate is not only in terms of what’s seen but also in terms of what’s displayed in the system, which I assume would be most logical.
Smooooochy
My top 3, in order, would probably be:
V-cache, E-cores, -10% Hz
psych4191
3d vcache for sure.. The non-3d variants of the CPUs are still pretty damn good. It’d be difficult to find 1000 people that’d notice the difference in a day.
The PSU one people are cutting it close + prebuilts cut it way close with dogshit PSUs.
TactlessDrawing
All of these are bad options, damn
Due-Ad-7308
I think if it was *”all i7’s becomes i5’s from their generation”* then that might become a stronger option than a lot of these.
If you go back further than 3 years, i3’s begin to choke very noticably on software their respective i5’s do fine on.
JoostVisser
-10% refresh rate. Anyone who claims to notice that is talking out of their ass
Intergalactic_Cookie
-10% refresh rate I think
toaster98
I’d go fo the i5/i3 swap. Joe average won’t notice a difference.
Due-Ad-7308
NH-D15 isn’t bad if we assume most people don’t open up or study the inside of their case very closely each day. But there’s definitely a lot of people that love to see the crazy AIO and custom loop RGB setups when they boot up.
flooble_worbler
-10% fps off the monitor. They will not notice
carlbandit
If they need to notice what the change is and not just that there’s been a change, -150w to everyone’s PSU. Plenty of people’s PCs will stop working, but most people wouldn’t have the means to test their PSUs power output, they would just see that their PC doesn’t work. The people who are likely to have the knowledge and tools to check their PSUs power output more than likely have >150w buffer on the PSU they chose.
If they just need to detect a change, disable the 3D cores.
wisdomelf
i think eff core disable. i think either most sub dont have latest intel cpu or dont need that much amount of cores
win 10/11 swap maybe.
NPCxSHADOW
-10% refresh rate
xXRHUMACROXx
10% refresh rates. Unless games shows “2560 x 1440 216hz” or fps counter locks at “54 fps”, most people wouldn’t notice, especially those with lower refresh rates since the difference would be so small
skidster159
I’d disable the efficiency cores
thedreaming2017
Switch out windows versions. It’ll just keep working and no one will complain about a seamless upgrade and those on windows 11 won’t mind going Back to 10.
DarthArtero
I would halve everyone’s RAM.
Relatively harmless but could be rather annoying.
East_Engineering_583
Refresh rate is the safest bet, but given that some Linux turboautist noticed a breach because the program he was using was a few milliseconds slower than usual, I’m not very confident
That, or 3d cache or -150 watt from a PSU
Aszdeff
3DV-Cache or Windows 11/10 swap
The only one that would notice are content creators and they would assume that their content must be heavier than usual.
So yay.
i3order
Halve everyone’s ram. You’d slowly notice the performance, slowly think your crazy.
Falkenmond79
Less then 1000 is hard. Too many IT guys out there. I’d go with the efficiency cores or the coolers. Win is too easy. 3d cache would be noticed by hordes of fps or RTS players. -10% refresh might be a winner, though.
Techy-Stiggy
Easy -80 nits on your HDR monitor. Good luck noticing because windows HDR is already a mess
Aggressive_Talk968
got better idea swwap the reset and power buttons on the case
potatofaminizer
Probably the 3D VCache. Windows swap also has a potential
Cat7o0
I think the refresh rate would be the best option. the 3d v-cache would maybe be the next best
44 Comments
My instinct says *”Minus 150 watts on PSU”*, but you’d probably insta-lose when everyone who’s already cutting it close experiences failures immediately.
Easily the 3D V-Cache one just because there aren’t that many CPUs that applies to, way easier to stay under 1000 people.
Getting rid of the x3d cache would only really effect people that are running heavily modded unity games.
Dropping from 8fps to 5 wouldn’t be that noticable.
Minus 150W on PSU. If they bought a PSU that’s running balls-out all the time they’ll notice, everyone else will have been smarter and bought one with capacity to spare, so they’ll likely never notice, and it’s not something you can measure with any software.
Minus 10% refresh rate, i doubt many people would notice
The monitor refresh rate
Not on the list, but swapping NVME SSD from 990 PRO to 970 EVO, same capacity.
I’ll choose -10% frame rate, unless you have 60 hz monitor you hardly notice this
I don’t think people would notice the efficiency cores being disabled.
It wouldn’t have a noticeable effect unless people specifically monitor each core.
(-10% refresh) rate easly 3d vcache will hurt performance and same for e cores if ur some one who opens stuff in the background halfing ram may cause instability and the same for -150 watts off psus and switching w10 with 11 or 11 with 10 will be noticed if they wear head phones win they start windows or if Microsoft stops urging u to switch to w11
Edit :I think psus most of the part are over spec ed. So maaaybee that too….
Thats impossible to achieve. 1000 people is just too few.
with ram you would lose easily, many people use too much ram daily (like editors)
same with CPU.
Many are using their PSU to the maximum (my PC would be the first to die, lol)
refresh rate is also a no. millions of fps players.
going to settings which I assume many do daily will expose the windows swap.
The cooler might seem like a nice option. BUT most people have their PC on the table. so Insta-loss
3D-Vcache swap is the most likely to win. but don’t forget these freaks who always have their task manager open and looking at their cpu/ram usage (I’m one of them).
No way to win this.
Windows change. Most people wouldn’t notice a difference.
EfficiencyCores disabled is the easy choice
E-Cores, easy choice. And I do have a 13600k.
If every PCMR user who even has E-Cores would have them disabled, I would guess less than 1000 would notice in a day because the majority uses their PC for gaming or lighter tasks and E-Cores rarely give a benefit when you already have 6+ P-Cores.
I would think some might even get a slight performance increase as their Power/Thermal “budget” could benefit from ~25% less draw.
I like E-Cores in general and I do think they will become more relevant in the future, but just like we had barely any use from 8+ P-Cores when the first Ryzen/Threadripper CPUs released, current OS/Schedulers and Software doesn’t benefit a lot from E-Cores in general.
The cooler, most people don’t monitor temps regularly (ignoring that most people would notice a huge bulky ass cooler randomly appearing inside their PC)
fps or psu would be easy choices. id go with refresh rate. easier to not notice.
I’ll undervolt the CPUs, and that’s about it
There is no good answer here, keep in mind that there are over 130 million monthly steam users, surely 1k people would notice even the smallest change like 100mhz downclock on cpu
I’d say minus 10 percent refresh rate easily. Essentially, those who made the conscious decision to purchase 60Hz over 120+Hz don’t care about smoothness and are unlikely to notice, those who have a 60 or less Hz monitor for office uses won’t notice either since their tasks don’t typically feature animations that are supposed to be smooth, and those with higher refresh rates won’t notice either, because above 144Hz you start getting diminishing returns in temrs of smoothness and some dude rocking 360Hz wouldn’t notice much.
I’d argue most of the people who would notice this would be those who are in the middle of the spectrum, 75ish HZ.
I’d assume FPS monitoring software or something along the lines of that would give it away, if the change to refresh rate is not only in terms of what’s seen but also in terms of what’s displayed in the system, which I assume would be most logical.
My top 3, in order, would probably be:
V-cache, E-cores, -10% Hz
3d vcache for sure.. The non-3d variants of the CPUs are still pretty damn good. It’d be difficult to find 1000 people that’d notice the difference in a day.
The PSU one people are cutting it close + prebuilts cut it way close with dogshit PSUs.
All of these are bad options, damn
I think if it was *”all i7’s becomes i5’s from their generation”* then that might become a stronger option than a lot of these.
If you go back further than 3 years, i3’s begin to choke very noticably on software their respective i5’s do fine on.
-10% refresh rate. Anyone who claims to notice that is talking out of their ass
-10% refresh rate I think
I’d go fo the i5/i3 swap. Joe average won’t notice a difference.
NH-D15 isn’t bad if we assume most people don’t open up or study the inside of their case very closely each day. But there’s definitely a lot of people that love to see the crazy AIO and custom loop RGB setups when they boot up.
-10% fps off the monitor. They will not notice
If they need to notice what the change is and not just that there’s been a change, -150w to everyone’s PSU. Plenty of people’s PCs will stop working, but most people wouldn’t have the means to test their PSUs power output, they would just see that their PC doesn’t work. The people who are likely to have the knowledge and tools to check their PSUs power output more than likely have >150w buffer on the PSU they chose.
If they just need to detect a change, disable the 3D cores.
i think eff core disable. i think either most sub dont have latest intel cpu or dont need that much amount of cores
win 10/11 swap maybe.
-10% refresh rate
10% refresh rates. Unless games shows “2560 x 1440 216hz” or fps counter locks at “54 fps”, most people wouldn’t notice, especially those with lower refresh rates since the difference would be so small
I’d disable the efficiency cores
Switch out windows versions. It’ll just keep working and no one will complain about a seamless upgrade and those on windows 11 won’t mind going Back to 10.
I would halve everyone’s RAM.
Relatively harmless but could be rather annoying.
Refresh rate is the safest bet, but given that some Linux turboautist noticed a breach because the program he was using was a few milliseconds slower than usual, I’m not very confident
That, or 3d cache or -150 watt from a PSU
3DV-Cache or Windows 11/10 swap
The only one that would notice are content creators and they would assume that their content must be heavier than usual.
So yay.
Halve everyone’s ram. You’d slowly notice the performance, slowly think your crazy.
Less then 1000 is hard. Too many IT guys out there. I’d go with the efficiency cores or the coolers. Win is too easy. 3d cache would be noticed by hordes of fps or RTS players. -10% refresh might be a winner, though.
Easy -80 nits on your HDR monitor. Good luck noticing because windows HDR is already a mess
got better idea swwap the reset and power buttons on the case
Probably the 3D VCache. Windows swap also has a potential
I think the refresh rate would be the best option. the 3d v-cache would maybe be the next best
Frame rate is the obvious answer.