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Buff Skeleton
Oct 24, 2005

Paul MaudDib posted:

here you go. I dunno about "solid" though, it's getting to be a pretty niche feature and most of the boards you'll find it on are cheap/crappy. Out of those three I'd probably say the HD3P is the least-crappy looking one.

Maybe at some point think about getting a USB DAC/amp combo unit or a USB audio interface (if you need a mic).

Oh nice, thanks! I'd looked at that MSI board on Amazon, but maybe missed the specific version with a PCI slot since there's like a dozen variants over there. But this could well solve my problems perfectly :)

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Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Buff Skeleton posted:

Oh nice, thanks! I'd looked at that MSI board on Amazon, but maybe missed the specific version with a PCI slot since there's like a dozen variants over there. But this could well solve my problems perfectly :)

I can tell you that my MSI Z97 PC Mate was one of the shittiest boards I've owned, and I think the "PC Pro" might be the modernized version of that. It had really bad noise on the onboard audio (which, granted, you won't be using) and was not feature-rich. In particular the Gigabyte HD3P is the only one there with Type-C.

Buff Skeleton
Oct 24, 2005

Paul MaudDib posted:

I can tell you that my MSI Z97 PC Mate was one of the shittiest boards I've owned, and I think the "PC Pro" might be the modernized version of that. It had really bad noise on the onboard audio (which, granted, you won't be using) and was not feature-rich. In particular the Gigabyte HD3P is the only one there with Type-C.

Huh, maybe it varies between generations? I have a MSI MS-7673 right now that's been very solid, and way before that I had an ASUS P5N-E that never failed either. I think I had a Gigabyte board at some point as well that was well-behaved.

That said, if it seems like all three choices are kinda meh, where the Gigabyte is merely the least-meh, I think I'd rather spring for a better board and a new sound card rather than chance things just to get an ancient PCI slot in there.

Looks like there are plenty of PCIe Xonar successors available too, so I might just get one of those. What are some good, solid motherboards for an i7-8700k that should hold up for years?

Buff Skeleton fucked around with this message at 02:36 on May 18, 2018

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Buff Skeleton posted:

Huh, maybe it varies between generations? I have a MSI MS-7673 right now that's been very solid, and way before that I had an ASUS P5N-E that never failed either. I think I had a Gigabyte board at some point as well that was well-behaved.

That said, if it seems like all three choices are kinda meh, where the Gigabyte is merely the least-meh, I think I'd rather spring for a better board and a new sound card rather than chance things just to get an ancient PCI slot in there.

Looks like there are plenty of PCIe Xonar successors available too, so I might just get one of those. What are some good, solid motherboards for an i7-8700k that should hold up for years?

It's more that this tier of motherboards (or at least the one I had - it was a $70 mobo) are cheap/bad, that one looks like a pretty nice one for its era (eg 48-bit 192 KHz onboard audio). They run OK, it's just they tend to have less features (mostly), slightly lower core/RAM overclocks, etc. The one I used had really bad noise on the onboard audio.

Here's a list of Z370 motherboards with the best VRMs. Don't take this too seriously, anything past "midrange" ("180W power, 336 hour AVX uptime") is completely excessive for anyone who's not doing LN2 or something, you definitely should not drop from a 8700K (say) to an 8600K to buy a better motherboard, if that's your budget. We're maybe talking 200 MHz difference between "great" and "poo poo tier", it will not make or break you. But if you intend to hold onto it for 5+ years then the difference between a poo poo-tier $125 and a midrange $200 motherboard may not be as significant, and they will probably wear better due to better caps/better heatsinks/etc. VRMs and caps do not like to be hot, a 20C difference in temps can translate into a >4x difference in runtime.



Again, bear in mind that most people are using USB DAC/amps and interfaces (or Firewire, particularly interfaces) now. Internal cards are getting to be a niche. Inside the PC case, there's a lot more RF noise that needs to be shielded (or maybe not, in which case you may not be getting the quality you think you are).

The other thing to bear in mind is... 8-core Coffee Lake is probably coming late this year, and nobody knows whether they're going to work on Z370. I think yes, but nobody knows. Next year AMD is also launching 7nm CPUs that will likely clock as high as Coffee Lake and also have up to 12 cores, while probably hitting a similar power target as the 8C Coffee Lakes. If you aren't literally dying for hardware, it may be a better decision to wait a year to build. Maybe consider that an incentive to go with that PCIe card or a USB DAC/amp or interface instead? Good audio hardware is not getting 25% cheaper year-on-year at the moment.

(and fwiw I feel you on this becoming a niche feature... I have a SCSI card for my scanner that needs PCI non-express and I'm trying to figure out what to do since most of my PCs don't support that anymore. But I understand the decision on board partners' part here - my gaming rig only has PCIe nowadays and that's OK, and Z370 is a gaming chipset first and foremost. The picture is a bit better in the non-OC chipsets, a lot more of them have PCI non-E support for at least one slot, and that probably satisfies most of the people who need PCI non-E capability.)

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 03:44 on May 18, 2018

OtherworldlyInvader
Feb 10, 2005

The X-COM project did not deliver the universe's ultimate cup of coffee. You have failed to save the Earth.


Buff Skeleton posted:

Do they still make motherboards with regular-rear end PCI slots, or is it exclusively PCIe now?

I'm thinking of upgrading my aging i5-2500k processor, which of course means new motherboard and RAM as well, but I also have an Asus Xonar DG PCI sound card I'd rather not replace if I can avoid it. I've had bad experiences with onboard sound with every motherboard I've ever tried (my speakers pick up interference from the board, even with quality boards), so I would be hesitant to ditch a discrete sound card entirely. That and getting audio drivers working perfectly on any Windows OS (even 7) can be delicate work.

If I were to jump to an i7-8700k or something, is it even possible to find a solid motherboard with a PCI slot these days? If not, are there any decent discrete sound cards that are known to work well with Windows 7, but aren't stupidly overpriced like Creative cards?

Sounds like you might have already figured this out, but you can buy a PCIe Asus Xonar DGX for $40: https://www.amazon.com/Xonar-DGX-GX2-5-Audio-Engine/dp/B007TMZ1BK/

Fuzzie Dunlop
Apr 14, 2013
Are there going to be significant Memorial Day sales? At this point does it make sense to wait a week or so?

Ema Nymton
Apr 26, 2008

the place where I come from
is a small town
Buglord
Hello folks, I want to use the Windows 10 Game Bar to record games, but my video card doesn't support it (meanwhile, my cheap refurb laptop can). So I'm looking to replace my 5-year-old GeForce GT 630. I'm in the USA, and I play PC games, but nothing strenuous since I usually only buy games on Steam sales. I don't want to spend more than $200. My main monitor is 1080p with a second at 720p.

But look at this minefield of cards that don't support NVidia NVENC or AMD VCE. It's saying, "This series onward work, except for these, but some might? v:geno:v "
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-windows/system-requirements/pc-hardware-requirements-for-game-dvr

Shopping on newegg and eBay is a pain because I'm constantly having to check back to this list. Is there a simpler way to find and compare GFX cards that support Game DVR? I think it has to be PCI-E 2.0 to work in my motherboard.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Ema Nymton posted:

Hello folks, I want to use the Windows 10 Game Bar to record games, but my video card doesn't support it (meanwhile, my cheap refurb laptop can). So I'm looking to replace my 5-year-old GeForce GT 630. I'm in the USA, and I play PC games, but nothing strenuous since I usually only buy games on Steam sales. I don't want to spend more than $200. My main monitor is 1080p with a second at 720p.

But look at this minefield of cards that don't support NVidia NVENC or AMD VCE. It's saying, "This series onward work, except for these, but some might? v:geno:v "
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-windows/system-requirements/pc-hardware-requirements-for-game-dvr

Shopping on newegg and eBay is a pain because I'm constantly having to check back to this list. Is there a simpler way to find and compare GFX cards that support Game DVR? I think it has to be PCI-E 2.0 to work in my motherboard.

It's 600 or later for Nvidia. We're now on 1000-series. Anything you get new should be fine. Here's a good 1050ti for under $200 on Newegg that will fit in your case and work with whatever you have. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137056

e: and PCI-E 3.0 will be backwards compatible with a 2.0 motherboard. It'll be slightly slower speed, but a 1050ti isn't going to saturate a x16 link anyway.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Not all NVIDIA cards have the NVENC block onboard though - the GT 1030 doesn't, and I would suspect the GT cards in the 600/700 might not have it as well. Probably GTX-only for the encoding support.

As a heuristic, I'd say "if it's 600-series or newer, AND a desktop-level GTX chip (some of which end up in laptops) then it will support NVENC" but things are pretty muddy if you go back to the Kepler days when the lineups were a lot less straightforward (particularly in the OEM/laptop segments).

I'd echo the recommendation for a 1050 Ti or a 1050 (these do have the encoder).

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 04:01 on May 19, 2018

Ema Nymton
Apr 26, 2008

the place where I come from
is a small town
Buglord
Thanks for the help :) I will consider buying that card once I open my case and confirm it has enough slots and clearance for it.

My current card is a 600 series, but happens to be one of the models that may or may not do recording (in my case not).

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"
I'm pretty sure they could find a way to put a 1050 on a thumbdrive if they really wanted to. It'd be a really funny-looking thumbdrive, but hey.

All snark aside, if your case can't fit even one of the low-profile 1050/1050Ti cards, I think we'd all be curious to see that case. I think there are even a few low-profile passively-cooled ones, too.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

BIG HEADLINE posted:

I'm pretty sure they could find a way to put a 1050 on a thumbdrive if they really wanted to. It'd be a really funny-looking thumbdrive, but hey.

All snark aside, if your case can't fit even one of the low-profile 1050/1050Ti cards, I think we'd all be curious to see that case. I think there are even a few low-profile passively-cooled ones, too.

The one I linked is a two-slot. Could be an ITX pc jammed full of must have old Sound Blasters and idk an IDE card. We have seen enough people with weird systems yelling about how they can’t do the same as always for me to ever rule anything out.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Ema Nymton posted:

Thanks for the help :) I will consider buying that card once I open my case and confirm it has enough slots and clearance for it.

My current card is a 600 series, but happens to be one of the models that may or may not do recording (in my case not).

Yeah, again, the low end of the lineup used to be a shitshow. Some of those models shipped on up to 4 different types of silicon with as many as 9 different configurations once you take RAM into account. And wait till you see what a shitshow mobile GPUs used to be (and still are, somewhat).

The older Fermi models that NVIDIA shoehorned into the 600/700 lineup won't support NVENC, that was a Kepler feature. Some of the GT### models on earlier Kepler silicon might not support it either, dunno.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"
So some news for people who don't read PC trade sites regularly: the 1180 should be out in Founder's Edition form in July, with the custom cards due in August/September. The only news is about the 1180, which suggests that nVidia is going for a tiered release again - expect the 1170 to come out 1-2 months later. No pricing information has been released, and everyone who lists one is talking out their asses as that'd be heavily NDAed because depending on crypto it's certainly subject to change.

Similarly, and I would certainly wait until we get confirmation, if the cards *do* release in July, and nVidia licenses Founder's Editions to EVGA, buying a card preferably at the end of June/early July would place you healthily within the Step Up window for both the Founder's Editions *and* the base model custom-build card (remember Step Up doesn't apply to the high-OC/premium SKUs). EVGA can take their sweet time upgrading you, but once you're in the queue, you're golden.

Now we all just have to wait for Computex for the formal announcement, and hopefully Intel will dish more info about the Z390 and octacores. The Z390 might have more life in it than I originally expected - Intel is having tons of problems with moving to a 10nm process, which means Ice Lake (the next consumer-level architecture) is probably going to be a 2020 part.

It's probably going to be a very :smuggo: Computex for AMD, except for the Radeon group.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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That's just as speculative as the GTC release was, and I'm super burned out on GPU speculation at this point.

Frankly I think NVIDIA is probably not going to release 12nm cards, they wouldn't be on the market long at all before AMD released on 7nm. It's just a question of when NVIDIA considers 7nm to be ready. Technically 7nm is already in volume production, as is GDDR6 - meaning we potentially should be seeing/should already have seen the release. There is no real substantial point where NVIDIA would definitely release over the next year, it's just whenever they feel like it.

I wouldn't be surprised by a July soft-launch and Aug/Sep hard-launch but there is no evidence either will happen.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Paul MaudDib posted:

That's just as speculative as the GTC release was, and I'm super burned out on GPU speculation at this point.

Frankly I think NVIDIA is probably not going to release 12nm cards, they wouldn't be on the market long at all before AMD released on 7nm. It's just a question of when NVIDIA considers 7nm to be ready. Technically 7nm is already in volume production, as is GDDR6 - meaning we potentially should be seeing/should already have seen the release. There is no real substantial point where NVIDIA would definitely release over the next year, it's just whenever they feel like it.

I wouldn't be surprised by a July soft-launch and Aug/Sep hard-launch but there is no evidence either will happen.

Right, hence my saying to wait for Computex, where hopefully hard info will finally replace "now don't tell anyone, but" rumor mongering.

If nVidia stays mum in Taipei, we'll know.

Coca Koala
Nov 28, 2005

ongoing nowhere
College Slice
Sanity check on this? I'm building a linux desktop to gently caress out with various programming environments, plus some web browsing and slack/discord.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock - Z370M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
Case: Cooler Master - Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

I don't know if the ddr4 is worth it, but it's not too much more. I'm going with 16 gigs of ram over 8 because I don't want to have to worry about how much ram slack has chewed up or how many tabs I have open. The case is one that I already have, so I'd prefer to stick with that one if possible. I suspect the power supply is overkill, but I've gotten burned before by buying a power supply that was close to the lower limit for what I needed, so I went with something way more beefy than what I thought I needed this time around.

I have no strong feelings on the cpu or the motherboard, I just picked the performance/no oc cpu from the OP and a motherboard with the right socket.

TheFluff
Dec 13, 2006

FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE
e: nvm I'm dumb

Instant Grat
Jul 31, 2009

Just add
NERD RAAAAAAGE
Sanity check? Trying to help an Aus-based friend with a rig for video editing and 1080p-ish gaming. It has to be mobile - ideally with a form-factor that goes well in a suitcase, which is why I picked out this case (it also has a handle - again, good for transport).

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($498.00 @ Shopping Express)
CPU Cooler: Scythe - BIG Shuriken 2 Rev. B 45.5 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($98.00 @ Amazon Australia)
Motherboard: ASRock - Z370M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($189.00 @ IJK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($239.00 @ Umart)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($109.00 @ Shopping Express)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Mini Video Card ($419.00 @ Scorptec)
Case: Silverstone - ML08B-H HTPC Case ($95.00 @ Umart)
Power Supply: Silverstone - Strider Gold 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply ($109.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Total: $1756.00

I'm considering advising them to step down to the non-K 8700, since they probably won't be doing any overclocking - will the Turbo Boost basically raise itself to match a non-overclocked K-chip? Also, I'm not an idiot and that CPU cooler will totally fit in that case, right?

E: I haven't asked, but I'm assuming they're planning to have all the bighuge video files on external drives.

Instant Grat fucked around with this message at 21:40 on May 20, 2018

Throc Mortin
Oct 15, 2006
Hi all,

I'm currently thinking about updating my current machine (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LPBsLJ). My PSU/case are 8+ years old, and my USB ports on my case are starting to die.

Primarily, I'm looking to game with this machine: 4-6 EVE clients simultaneously, Star Citizen, and VR in late 2018/early 2019

Is it worth upgrading now, or am I better off waiting until I'm ready to actually purchase a VR kit? If it is upgrading now, is it worth doing anything other than new case/PSU/windows 10?

Thanks!

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Throc Mortin posted:

Hi all,

I'm currently thinking about updating my current machine (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LPBsLJ). My PSU/case are 8+ years old, and my USB ports on my case are starting to die.

Primarily, I'm looking to game with this machine: 4-6 EVE clients simultaneously, Star Citizen, and VR in late 2018/early 2019

Is it worth upgrading now, or am I better off waiting until I'm ready to actually purchase a VR kit? If it is upgrading now, is it worth doing anything other than new case/PSU/windows 10?

Thanks!

If you buy an Intel Optane drive you get a free jpeg with your next serving of Crobbers’ cock.

Arivia fucked around with this message at 06:57 on May 21, 2018

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Throc Mortin posted:

Hi all,

I'm currently thinking about updating my current machine (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LPBsLJ). My PSU/case are 8+ years old, and my USB ports on my case are starting to die.

Primarily, I'm looking to game with this machine: 4-6 EVE clients simultaneously, Star Citizen, and VR in late 2018/early 2019

Is it worth upgrading now, or am I better off waiting until I'm ready to actually purchase a VR kit? If it is upgrading now, is it worth doing anything other than new case/PSU/windows 10?

Thanks!

Wait another 2-4 weeks. Computex 2018 kicks off on the 5th of June and runs until the 9th, and there'll likely be a fair number of NDAs lifted then. For starters, one thing Intel's expected to announce is an "Anniversary Edition" of the i7-8700K in the form of the i7-8086K, which is just an 8700K with a stock 4Ghz clock and 5Ghz turbo clock. That might send the 8700K a bit lower in pricing, but it's already been pretty damned low ($299 or lower in some cases with promo codes/bundle discounts). We'll also (hopefully) get more information on when to expect the octacores and Z390.

To my knowledge, EVE is still a 32-bit application, but they're 'working on' 64-bit. The client alone also only uses one core (plus resources for the audio no one listens to), but I *believe* there's a way through Windows to force different instances to use different cores, which makes a six-core CPU advantageous. I also can't in good conscience (since you're running 32GB of DDR3) recommend more than a 2x8GB kit of DDR4-3000 or -3200, because the prices for high-density RAM are still astronomically high - seriously, some kits cost as much as a 1070 itself. 2x8 kits are slowly getting back down to pre-bubble pricing, but they've still got about $30-50 to go, and 4x8 will still run you ~$300-350.

On the GPU front, again, it's a matter of what nVidia decides to announce at Computex. The sheer fact that no one knows - or will say definitively - how much frame buffer will be on the 1180 (and no one will officially *say* that it'll be called the 1180 yet) means that nVidia's got a pretty decent NDA in place. One of the safest plays would be to pick up an EVGA 1060 or 1070 at/around their MSRP and use it as a placeholder card to use in the Step Up program. nVidia's (supposedly) going to be doing a tiered release of their new GPUs - putting out the x80 part first, and following it up with the x70 "later." Rumors have the MSRP of the x80 part at $699, but no site will confirm this, and I'm sure nVidia is even unsure of the MSRP and is hoping beyond all hopes that something happens to reinflate the crypto bubble (despite Ethereum ASICs coming out that are vastly more efficient than GPU mining). If history serves as any judge, the x80 part will be about 15-20% faster than the current Titan Xp, and the x70 part will be on par with the TXp performance-wise.

And even though it was a joke post, *don't* consider Optane. It shows great promise as an NVMe alternative/successor, but it's just *way* too expensive at this point.

BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 21, 2018

jaffathegreat
Mar 1, 2009
What country are you in? Australia
What are you using the system for? Gaming.
What's your budget? <AUD$1500 (supplying own keyboard, mouse, and monitor)
If you’re doing professional work...? N/A
If you're gaming, what is your monitor resolution? How fancy do you want your graphics, from “it runs” to “Ultra preset as fast as possible”? 1920 x 1080 - Ultra preset as fast as possible.

Pc Partpicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/F6Z4sZ
Umart: https://www.umart.com.au/Umart-IEM-i5-Master-1060-Esports-Gaming-PC_43395G.html

Umart is offering a computer which I copied (more-or-less) in that PC Partpicker link. I haven't bought a computer in 6 years and I'm worried about over-spending (Aussie Dollar :(). Given that I want to be able to play Dark Souls 3, Doom, and other graphically intense games on full settings, is this rig appropriate? I also want to get a Steam link to connect to my TV so I hope this will work for that as well. I'd also like to keep my options open for maybe getting VR down the track.

I also think that 500g SSD is not going to be nearly enough storage given how many Steam games I plan on downloading. Should I get one large SSD or two smaller ones?

I'd like to remove some of the flashier items too. I have no case preferences but I'd prefer the cleanest, simplest (sans LEDs) and smallest machine possible.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

jaffathegreat posted:

What country are you in? Australia
What are you using the system for? Gaming.
What's your budget? <AUD$1500 (supplying own keyboard, mouse, and monitor)
If you’re doing professional work...? N/A
If you're gaming, what is your monitor resolution? How fancy do you want your graphics, from “it runs” to “Ultra preset as fast as possible”? 1920 x 1080 - Ultra preset as fast as possible.

Pc Partpicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/F6Z4sZ
Umart: https://www.umart.com.au/Umart-IEM-i5-Master-1060-Esports-Gaming-PC_43395G.html

Umart is offering a computer which I copied (more-or-less) in that PC Partpicker link. I haven't bought a computer in 6 years and I'm worried about over-spending (Aussie Dollar :(). Given that I want to be able to play Dark Souls 3, Doom, and other graphically intense games on full settings, is this rig appropriate? I also want to get a Steam link to connect to my TV so I hope this will work for that as well. I'd also like to keep my options open for maybe getting VR down the track.

I also think that 500g SSD is not going to be nearly enough storage given how many Steam games I plan on downloading. Should I get one large SSD or two smaller ones?

I'd like to remove some of the flashier items too. I have no case preferences but I'd prefer the cleanest, simplest (sans LEDs) and smallest machine possible.

A preliminary edit: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/fvxLsZ

Obviously this is more than your quoted budget, but you can get back down to your budget (almost $1500AUD on the nose) by dropping down to a 500GB MX500. You can get *under* $1500AUD by going with an H370 motherboard and DDR4-2666 RAM. You lose the ability to use higher-clocked RAM with a locked chip (which costs you a bit of performance), but originally you had DDR4-2133 on a Z370, so no biggie. There are also a huge lack of options in the H370 mATX space. You can already save yourself some money by dropping the AIO unit - the stock cooler is perfectly fine for the locked chips and an AIO would be overkill.

If you want the smallest case possible, obviously ITX is an option, but to make your budget you'd probably have to make more concessions. Here's an H370 ITX build with 16GB of 2666 that *just barely* overshoots $1500AUD: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/3PqLsZ

Z370 ITX build (16GB of DDR4-3000 brings the price to $1600AUD, so I stuck with 2x4GB in this edit): https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/yJ9qmq

There *are* slightly cheaper ITX cases than the 250D, but the 250D is pretty easy to work with and is decidedly *not* 'flashy.'

EDIT: I can see you don't have a new PSU in your original link, which I'm taking to mean that you intended to re-use your Corsair VS 550W. If that PSU is 6+ years old like your current system, I/we would strongly advise you replace it.

BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 12:00 on May 21, 2018

jaffathegreat
Mar 1, 2009

BIG HEADLINE posted:

A preliminary edit: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/fvxLsZ

Obviously this is more than your quoted budget, but you can get back down to your budget (almost $1500AUD on the nose) by dropping down to a 500GB MX500. You can get *under* $1500AUD by going with an H370 motherboard and DDR4-2666 RAM. You lose the ability to use higher-clocked RAM with a locked chip (which costs you a bit of performance), but originally you had DDR4-2133 on a Z370, so no biggie. There are also a huge lack of options in the H370 mATX space. You can already save yourself some money by dropping the AIO unit - the stock cooler is perfectly fine for the locked chips and an AIO would be overkill.

If you want the smallest case possible, obviously ITX is an option, but to make your budget you'd probably have to make more concessions. Here's an H370 ITX build with 16GB of 2666 that *just barely* overshoots $1500AUD: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/3PqLsZ

Z370 ITX build (16GB of DDR4-3000 brings the price to $1600AUD, so I stuck with 2x4GB in this edit): https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/yJ9qmq

There *are* slightly cheaper ITX cases than the 250D, but the 250D is pretty easy to work with and is decidedly *not* 'flashy.'

EDIT: I can see you don't have a new PSU in your original link, which I'm taking to mean that you intended to re-use your Corsair VS 550W. If that PSU is 6+ years old like your current system, I/we would strongly advise you replace it.

Thanks for the great advice. I'll stash away a bit more cash for a few weeks as I like the options you get at the $1600ish price range.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

jaffathegreat posted:

Thanks for the great advice. I'll stash away a bit more cash for a few weeks as I like the options you get at the $1600ish price range.

Yeah, getting 2x8 is more worthwhile on the ITX build since those boards lack four DIMM slots. And seriously - don't even *bother* looking up what 2x16GB of DDR4-3000 costs at the moment. :ohdear:

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Jtj4MZ

Does this look like a decent midrange build? I need to replace my living room PC which gets used for movies and gaming, and is hooked up to a 4k monitor that it's currently too old to get much use out of. The 1060 is just a temp until the new Nvidia cards come out and I swap in the 1080 Ti from my desktop, but I'd hope the 1060 would get me at least 4k desktop and video and 2560x1440 gaming for the next six months or so. I may want to move my Oculus Rift to the living room too eventually, so I wanted to make sure the motherboard could handle it.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Phenotype posted:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Jtj4MZ

Does this look like a decent midrange build? I need to replace my living room PC which gets used for movies and gaming, and is hooked up to a 4k monitor that it's currently too old to get much use out of. The 1060 is just a temp until the new Nvidia cards come out and I swap in the 1080 Ti from my desktop, but I'd hope the 1060 would get me at least 4k desktop and video and 2560x1440 gaming for the next six months or so. I may want to move my Oculus Rift to the living room too eventually, so I wanted to make sure the motherboard could handle it.

Here's a retooling with a standard M.2 SATA SSD (you really won't notice the difference) where I managed to fit in a 6GB 1060 and still came in ~:20bux: cheaper: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tJzKXP

And for 2560x1440 gaming, you're *really* going to want the 6GB 1060. The 3GB is going to suffer even with 1080p Ultra settings in a few years' time, if not sooner. I also went with a Pioneer optical drive because it was $10 more for BD-R/RE, and it's worth :10bux: to not buy LG.

BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 22, 2018

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



BIG HEADLINE posted:

Here's a retooling with a standard M.2 SATA SSD (you really won't notice the difference) where I managed to fit in a 6GB 1060 and still came in ~:20bux: cheaper: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tJzKXP

And for 2560x1440 gaming, you're *really* going to want the 6GB 1060. The 3GB is going to suffer even with 1080p Ultra settings in a few years' time, if not sooner. I also went with a Pioneer optical drive because it was $10 more for BD-R/RE, and it's worth :10bux: to not buy LG.

I'll be replacing the 1060 by the holidays, so I'm not looking to overspend on the 6GB version if I don't have to. Will the 3GB version hold me over until then? The goal is to replace the 1060 with my 1080 Ti and use the big living room monitor with this PC for 4k gaming, but I'd like some sort of performance in the meantime.

And there's really not enough difference between that Crucial drive and those new 970 Samsung EVOs to be worth it? I think you recommended against the 960 I ended up putting in my last build, and if I'm being perfectly honest I can't tell that it's much faster than the cheapo SATA SSD I had in the media PC I'm retiring. I'd be dumb not to take your word for it this time, but I just liked the idea of having a really fast drive. :)

Dr. Fishopolis
Aug 31, 2004

ROBOT
The 3gb model has a lot more in common with the 1050ti than the 1060. It's just a bad card and you should feel bad if you buy it.

edit: to be clear, it doesn't just have less ram, they stripped cores out of it for whatever reason.

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

Phenotype posted:

I'll be replacing the 1060 by the holidays, so I'm not looking to overspend on the 6GB version if I don't have to. Will the 3GB version hold me over until then? The goal is to replace the 1060 with my 1080 Ti and use the big living room monitor with this PC for 4k gaming, but I'd like some sort of performance in the meantime.

And there's really not enough difference between that Crucial drive and those new 970 Samsung EVOs to be worth it? I think you recommended against the 960 I ended up putting in my last build, and if I'm being perfectly honest I can't tell that it's much faster than the cheapo SATA SSD I had in the media PC I'm retiring. I'd be dumb not to take your word for it this time, but I just liked the idea of having a really fast drive. :)

The 3GB 1060 should be an 'okay' holdover, but you're going to *really* notice it at 1440p. Part of the reason I went with an EVGA 1060 was the possibility of you being able to take advantage of the Step Up program for an 1180 in the next 90 days.

And the 970 is not appreciably better or faster than the 960 - whenever Samsung cuts the price of a brand new product, it's not because they're being kind. Also, NAND prices are falling, and DRAM pricing isn't far behind - so even $199 for 500GB NVMe, that's still 'top of the mark.' I changed your case to the Fractal Design Focus because every case they make is a joy to work with, and to the Seasonic PSU because they're tanks and carry that 10 year warranty. I also just learned today that when Seasonic sends out review units, they arrange that through a retailer - they don't send reviewers specially-tailored golden sample units to review. Every Seasonic PSU that's reviewed is from retail stock. They're evidently the *only* PSU seller that does that.

With the 'savings' of going with a 3GB over a 6GB on the 1060, consider going with an 8700 over the 8400.

BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 01:59 on May 22, 2018

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Don't buy a 3 GB video card ya dingus.

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

Is it worth spending an extra $200 to get an 8gb 1070 over a 6gb 1060? ($300 vs $500)

If I'm not playing bleeding edge games will it make a noticeable difference?

Edit: I bought the 1070 without waiting for an answer because I have no self control and want to play pc games on a giant tv

deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 03:10 on May 22, 2018

Throc Mortin
Oct 15, 2006

BIG HEADLINE posted:

Wait another 2-4 weeks. Computex 2018 kicks off on the 5th of June and runs until the 9th, and there'll likely be a fair number of NDAs lifted then. For starters, one thing Intel's expected to announce is an "Anniversary Edition" of the i7-8700K in the form of the i7-8086K, which is just an 8700K with a stock 4Ghz clock and 5Ghz turbo clock. That might send the 8700K a bit lower in pricing, but it's already been pretty damned low ($299 or lower in some cases with promo codes/bundle discounts). We'll also (hopefully) get more information on when to expect the octacores and Z390.

To my knowledge, EVE is still a 32-bit application, but they're 'working on' 64-bit. The client alone also only uses one core (plus resources for the audio no one listens to), but I *believe* there's a way through Windows to force different instances to use different cores, which makes a six-core CPU advantageous. I also can't in good conscience (since you're running 32GB of DDR3) recommend more than a 2x8GB kit of DDR4-3000 or -3200, because the prices for high-density RAM are still astronomically high - seriously, some kits cost as much as a 1070 itself. 2x8 kits are slowly getting back down to pre-bubble pricing, but they've still got about $30-50 to go, and 4x8 will still run you ~$300-350.

On the GPU front, again, it's a matter of what nVidia decides to announce at Computex. The sheer fact that no one knows - or will say definitively - how much frame buffer will be on the 1180 (and no one will officially *say* that it'll be called the 1180 yet) means that nVidia's got a pretty decent NDA in place. One of the safest plays would be to pick up an EVGA 1060 or 1070 at/around their MSRP and use it as a placeholder card to use in the Step Up program. nVidia's (supposedly) going to be doing a tiered release of their new GPUs - putting out the x80 part first, and following it up with the x70 "later." Rumors have the MSRP of the x80 part at $699, but no site will confirm this, and I'm sure nVidia is even unsure of the MSRP and is hoping beyond all hopes that something happens to reinflate the crypto bubble (despite Ethereum ASICs coming out that are vastly more efficient than GPU mining). If history serves as any judge, the x80 part will be about 15-20% faster than the current Titan Xp, and the x70 part will be on par with the TXp performance-wise.

And even though it was a joke post, *don't* consider Optane. It shows great promise as an NVMe alternative/successor, but it's just *way* too expensive at this point.

Thank you for the advice! Much appreciated!

Ghostpilot
Jun 22, 2007

"As a rule, I never touch anything more sophisticated and delicate than myself."

Phenotype posted:

I'll be replacing the 1060 by the holidays, so I'm not looking to overspend on the 6GB version if I don't have to. Will the 3GB version hold me over until then? The goal is to replace the 1060 with my 1080 Ti and use the big living room monitor with this PC for 4k gaming, but I'd like some sort of performance in the meantime.

As others have said, avoid the 3gb 1060's like the plague. Amongst other things, Nvidia has done the monumentally shady thing of replacing the DDR5 memory in them to DDR4 without making a mention of it anywhere on the packaging. One had to dig deep on their EU site to find any mention of that.

It's a straight-up different - lesser - product that they are presenting as the same 1060 they've been selling.

Once you go below a certain tier/threshold, some manufacturers will pull stuff like that because they figure those buying from that range won't know any better.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

Dr. Fishopolis posted:

The 3gb model has a lot more in common with the 1050ti than the 1060. It's just a bad card and you should feel bad if you buy it.

edit: to be clear, it doesn't just have less ram, they stripped cores out of it for whatever reason.

Star Man posted:

Don't buy a 3 GB video card ya dingus.

The 1060 3 GB is nowhere near as bad as you guys are making it out to be. It's a perfectly fine product for 1080p. 1440p and 4K are going to get a bit uncomfortable but that card is going to struggle with anything except e-sports at 1440p and above anyway (and esports don't care about VRAM capacity). Sure, the 1060 6 GB is about 10% faster, but it also costs about 40% more. The only alternative in the 1060 3 GB's pricerange is really the 1050 Ti 4 GB, and the 1060 3 GB is like 60% faster at 10-20% extra cost (yes, the difference between 1050 Ti and 1060 is that huge, even vs the 3 GB). Throwing away 60% extra performance to get an extra 1 GB of VRAM that the card can't even make effective use of is an idiot-tier move. Yes, in 5% of games you will have to turn textures down from "hyper" to "high" (it's amazing that we think of this as a "hardship" on a $200 GPU), but the 3 GB is still the overall best card in this price range by a country mile.

Ghostpilot posted:

As others have said, avoid the 3gb 1060's like the plague. Amongst other things, Nvidia has done the monumentally shady thing of replacing the DDR5 memory in them to DDR4 without making a mention of it anywhere on the packaging. One had to dig deep on their EU site to find any mention of that.

It's a straight-up different - lesser - product that they are presenting as the same 1060 they've been selling.

Nah, you're making poo poo up. The only product with a DDR4 variant is the 1030.

The internet rage about NVIDIA lately is just unreal. "NVIDIA released a HTPC card with DDR4 reeeeee" "NVIDIA released a 1050 Ti SE and even called it a 1050 instead of pretending it was as good as a full 1050 Ti, reeeeee"

Low-end desktop cards, OEM, and mobile parts coming in a variety of core and VRAM configurations is nothing new. And yes, the DDR3/DDR4 variants have always been idiot traps, something for OEMs to stuff into prebuilts for people who don't know the difference, or for people who are just running HTPC and don't care about 3D performance (and maybe do care a 30% reduction in GPU power consumption). And I know some of you have been around long enough to see this before.

People didn't get anywhere near this ruffled about the RX 560 14CU, or the DDR3 variant of the RX 530, or the fact that AMD is still trying to pass off 4-6 year old GCN 1.x cards as RX 400s and 500s. Wonder why :thunk:

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 17:16 on May 22, 2018

Dr. Fishopolis
Aug 31, 2004

ROBOT

Paul MaudDib posted:

People didn't get anywhere near this ruffled about the RX 560 14CU, or the DDR3 variant of the RX 530, or the fact that AMD is still trying to pass off 4-6 year old GCN 1.x cards as RX 400s and 500s. Wonder why :thunk:

my god paul it's all true
you've uncovered the something awful pc building and parts megathread's darkest secret
it's not that we're justifiably upset at a company selling a lovely, stripped down version of a product without informing the consumer that it's different
it turns out we're all secretly paid by amd through george soros' accounts in the cayman islands to turn the forums against nvidia
you know too much now. you have 15 minutes before the amd spec ops team arrives, please don't run, you'll only make it harder on yourself.

Llamadeus
Dec 20, 2005
Reading r/AMD is bad for your health.

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe
I mean, the slower RX560 version where you have to check product numbers online to see which you're getting was bad and probably everyone who reported on it said as much. As are cut down unlabeled R530 or whatever versions (but nobody who's actually looking for a GPU to game with buys R550 and lower anyway).

The thing is, goons don't have to mention them because the suggestions for buyers was Nvidia for everything even before AMD prices got inflated to hell due to miners, and we poo poo on AMD for Vega and endless Polaris/GCN refreshes constantly so I'm not sure what parallel universe you're talking about, it doesn't seem to be ours.

orcane fucked around with this message at 16:25 on May 22, 2018

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LRADIKAL
Jun 10, 2001

Fun Shoe

Paul MaudDib posted:

"NVIDIA released a HTPC card with DDR4 reeeeee" "NVIDIA released a 1050 Ti SE and even called it a 1050 instead of pretending it was as good as a full 1050 Ti, reeeeee"

Low-end desktop cards, OEM, and mobile parts coming in a variety of core and VRAM configurations is nothing new. I know some of you have been around long enough to see this before.
why :thunk:

Great opinion. Of all people to throw out autism accusations it comes from you?
The thing we have been around long enough to see is you running your mouth accusing our community of being Nvidia shills. Shut your useless mouth.

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