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Gnumonic
Dec 11, 2005

Maybe you thought I was the Packard Goose?

Bryter posted:

GPUs and CPUs tend to overstate their PSU requirements as they don't know if you're using a good brand like seasonic or something decidedly more dodgy. Also PSUs operate at their peak efficiency in machines drawing around 50% of their rated wattage, so it's technically optimal to use a higher rated one, but it's not a huge deal by any means if you're sticking with a good brand. 520W will be fine, just make sure it's not so old that it's out of warranty.

3.5 years left on the warranty so I'm good. Thanks, just placed the order.

I'm hoping and praying that I don't run into AMD driver hell. The first two PCs I ever built used AMD (well, ATI back then) cards and I had pretty much sworn an oath to Nvidia after a mountain of driver issues. Seems like most of the Navi problems have been resolved by now. The price/performance chasm between Nvidia and AMD in the $3-400 range was just too much this time, couldn't stomach the sense that I'd be getting ripped off if I bought an Nvidia card.

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BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

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

Sniep posted:

Last time I was in a Fry's I was looking for a lightning cable and they only had off brand. The employee told me to go to an apple store across the street, that they truly didn't even carry any apple lightning cables at all.

Wild.

When it comes to cables, when in doubt, Monoprice.

MikeC
Jul 19, 2004
BITCH ASS NARC

Gnumonic posted:

I'm hoping and praying that I don't run into AMD driver hell. The first two PCs I ever built used AMD (well, ATI back then) cards and I had pretty much sworn an oath to Nvidia after a mountain of driver issues. Seems like most of the Navi problems have been resolved by now. The price/performance chasm between Nvidia and AMD in the $3-400 range was just too much this time, couldn't stomach the sense that I'd be getting ripped off if I bought an Nvidia card.

Everyday gaming use is fine this gen. I haven't had a hiccup in 7 weeks on the Pulse 5700XT. Gamers Nexus did say they ran into issues fighting the software on the overclocking end and fan controls are finicky if you want exact curves but most users seem to just plug it in, install the drivers and go. In which case you are fine.

Sniep
Mar 28, 2004

All I needed was that fatty blunt...



King of Breakfast

BIG HEADLINE posted:

When it comes to cables, when in doubt, Monoprice.

Sure I was just landed in vegas and forgot a cable tho so I was right off the strip between the fry's and a mall, was literally redirected.

It wasn't a lack of planning, simply a mistake in packing.

Incessant Excess
Aug 15, 2005

Cause of glitch:
Pretentiousness
If I'm using more case fans than my board has headers for, can I daisy-chain some Y splitters together to hook up multiple fans to a single header or do I need a fan controller instead? Anything in particular I should look for in a fan controller if I need one?

Snow Fire
Oct 29, 2011

Incessant Excess posted:

If I'm using more case fans than my board has headers for, can I daisy-chain some Y splitters together to hook up multiple fans to a single header or do I need a fan controller instead? Anything in particular I should look for in a fan controller if I need one?

Yes, you can generally get away with 3 to 4 fans on a single header. Fan headers have a limit of 1 amp/12 watts on them, so add up the max amperage for the fans to be safe. Additionally, you could buy a fan hub and power the fans off the PSU~

Edit: Also, it depends really what kind of fans they are, if they aren't pwm, then if you want speed control the fan hub would need to have voltage control to control the fan speed. If you have pwm fans, you just need a pwm fan hub, one free fan header, and a free sata power cable. The disadvantage of using a hub is you can only control the fans as a group, which may or may not be a big deal depending on what you're doing~

Snow Fire fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Nov 17, 2019

Ak Gara
Jul 29, 2005

That's just the way he rolls.
If it's an active splitter, I think it still allows individual PWM control. I think that's what I'm reading.
https://www.aquatuning.co.uk/air-cooling/fan-accessories/25878/aquacomputer-splitty9-active-active-splitter-for-up-to-9-pwm-fans

Vasler
Feb 17, 2004
Greetings Earthling! Do you have any Zoom Boots?

BIG HEADLINE posted:

The "S" thing is new. The 2060S and 2070 are, for all intents and purposes, the same card. They use the same core revision. The 2070S is ~10% faster than the original non-Super 2070 and 2060S, and usually ~$80-120 more expensive for that relatively small boost.

The 2080S is a terrible value. If you can find a 2070S for ~$480 (there's a Zotac 2070S on Amazon for $490 at the moment), that's not a terrible buy, but anything around or over $500 is poorly priced.

RAM needs to be paired to gain the advantage of dual channel addressing. With regards to new RAM, don't spend any more than this: https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-16gb-240-pin-ddr3-sdram/p/N82E16820231637

Be careful not to buy DDR3L. The set I linked is the right kind and it's sold directly by Newegg, not a Chinese reseller.


Thanks for your help. Since I have a fairly old system (i5 4670 with 8 GB of RAM and a 970) and black friday is on the way, is this a good time to upgrade? I'm thinking some sort of better intel processor and 16-32 GB of RAM with a 2070S.

Or is it a better idea to wait on upgrading the processor/motherboard and just get a video card right now?

I game in 1080p and don't anticipate changing that for the near future.

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

Rexxed posted:

I haven't played fortnite in a while but I was able to get it running on a laptop with integrated graphics just by turning the resolution down. I think a dedicated GPU will play fortnite okay, although they may have to turn some settings down. The CPU is below their minimum spec, but their minimum spec is an i3 so it'll probably be fine.
https://www.wepc.com/benchmark/fortnite-system-requirements/

I'd give it a shot, something is better than nothing and just having an SSD will make the PC feel fast in general.

Yeah I looked up some videos of a similar spec'd PCs running Fortnite. Seems like a Phenom II X4 965 OC'd @ 3.6GHz with a Radeon 7850 2GB OC is able to run the game at 1080p medium settings at ~60-70fps no problem. I expect the X4 840 @ 3.2GHz to just run maybe 10-15 fps slower then, and that shouldn't be too bad.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Vasler posted:

Thanks for your help. Since I have a fairly old system (i5 4670 with 8 GB of RAM and a 970) and black friday is on the way, is this a good time to upgrade? I'm thinking some sort of better intel processor and 16-32 GB of RAM with a 2070S.

Or is it a better idea to wait on upgrading the processor/motherboard and just get a video card right now?

I game in 1080p and don't anticipate changing that for the near future.

I'm in more or less the exact same situation and looking at a similar modest upgrade to kick the can a few years. i5 6600 (non-k) and a 970 with 16gb or RAM. Right now I'm looking at upgrading to a 7700k (already checked, mobo is combatable) and either a 2060S or 2070 and bumping the RAM to 32GB because holy poo poo ram is cheap.

My issue is that I'm tempted to grab a cheaper used 7700k off ebay, but the words "ebay" and "used overclockable processor" throw up all the red flags in my head. Anything I should know to avoid buying someone's hosed up mistake beyond the obvious poo poo like not buying from no-feedback sellers?

Used prices seem to hover around 220-50, while new is a hundred more, so the savings would be significant.

Indiana_Krom
Jun 18, 2007
Net Slacker
In your situation I wouldn't spend any money on a 7700k, if you are looking for more performance you won't find anything worthwhile in another quad core. Just dig in your heels and hold on with your 6600 until you can get more cores.

I had a 7700k and it was choking badly in newer games with just a vanilla GTX 1080.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Indiana_Krom posted:

In your situation I wouldn't spend any money on a 7700k, if you are looking for more performance you won't find anything worthwhile in another quad core. Just dig in your heels and hold on with your 6600 until you can get more cores.

I had a 7700k and it was choking badly in newer games with just a vanilla GTX 1080.

I thought that most games these days don't utilize multiple cores well (correct me if I"m wrong), and that single core speed was still the main thing. I was thinking the boost from a 3.3ghz to a 4.2ghz CPU would help make the whole thing last a bit longer and kick the can on refreshing the mobo.

TheFluff
Dec 13, 2006

FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Cyrano4747 posted:

I thought that most games these days don't utilize multiple cores well (correct me if I"m wrong), and that single core speed was still the main thing. I was thinking the boost from a 3.3ghz to a 4.2ghz CPU would help make the whole thing last a bit longer and kick the can on refreshing the mobo.

That used to be the case, but new AAA titles are starting to also utilize more cores. Some newer titles (Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Origins for example) really chug with "only" four cores and want at least 6. So I'd agree it's not really worth upgrading from a 4-core to a 4-core with hyperthreading, even if you get a bit better single thread performance. Especially if you're not bottlenecked on CPU performance today already.

Ak Gara
Jul 29, 2005

That's just the way he rolls.
Uhm. I just realized I might hit the 300 LED limit for my motherboard (Aorus Master)

I'm pretty sure the ekwb velocity drgb has 24.


How many LEDs are there in the 2080 Aorus Waterforce WB, or 4 sticks of trident z drgb?
My fans are already going to take up 210 leds, that leaves 90, minus the CPU block that leaves 66 for the GPU and RAM.

I might have to plug the phanteks Halo Lux Digital fan LED's into a phanteks drgb hub?
At least the Aquacomputer's farbwerk 360 doesn't count.

inkblottime
Sep 9, 2006

For Lack of a Better Name
Okay, I have a flip to what I was running into before. I'm upgrading my SO's i5 4690k gaming machine. I had thought about getting her a i9 9900kf if it drops to $400 but I think that's going to be way overkill for a 1080 GPU. I don't want to upgrade the GPU yet, since I think the next gen will be more cost effective (2000 series and 5700 series being a minor upgrade for a lot of money). I could purposefully bottleneck the CPU with the expectation of upgrading later but I'm undecided.

If my budget is roughly $1200, where would you put the extra $400-500 in this build? x570 motherboard? More/faster ram? 3700x? Better NVME?

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($194.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B450I GAMING PLUS AC Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 2.048 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($204.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Corsair Crystal 280X MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($95.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $789.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-17 16:41 EST-0500

NOTE: I have 2700x chip to flash the bios on the motherboard. Also monitor is 32 inch ultra wide in 1440. Also, I'll be watching for Holiday sales for this build.

inkblottime fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Nov 17, 2019

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

You have a mini itx board going into a micro atx case. I mean it works but I'm sure you can have a more efficient use of space. Are you attached to the matx form factor? Because that case isn't all that compact from what I've seen and the regular Meshify C is pretty close while being able to use a full atx board.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

TheFluff posted:

That used to be the case, but new AAA titles are starting to also utilize more cores. Some newer titles (Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Origins for example) really chug with "only" four cores and want at least 6. So I'd agree it's not really worth upgrading from a 4-core to a 4-core with hyperthreading, even if you get a bit better single thread performance. Especially if you're not bottlenecked on CPU performance today already.

Hrm. I played AC:O through (haven't gotten Od yet) pretty acceptably with the processor I've got. Sounds like I should be focusing on just getting a better graphics card and trying to drag this system forward for another few years.

What's the story on RAM these days? I've got 16gb, which I understand is the standard now if you're building new. Is there any benefit to stepping up to 32? It's a cheap-ish upgrade but that's also money I can throw to dumb poo poo if I don't need to spend it.

edit: DDR-4 2400 ram, ca. 2015 or so.

inkblottime
Sep 9, 2006

For Lack of a Better Name

Mu Zeta posted:

You have a mini itx board going into a micro atx case. I mean it works but I'm sure you can have a more efficient use of space. Are you attached to the matx form factor? Because that case isn't all that compact from what I've seen and the regular Meshify C is pretty close while being able to use a full atx board.

I'm planning to water cool and this was the only case I found that fits my specs of handling two rads plus being less than 17 inch tall without going to full ATX. If I didn't have the 17 inch restriction on height, I'd probably choose a x570 Tuf board but this is unfortunately what I'm working with.

Kullik
Jan 5, 2017

Yo thread, I've been not paying attention to computer bits for years due to being poor and working in IT and not wanting to spend my free time also reading about computer stuff.

Ive currently got an I5 4670 which isn't horrible and is coping ok but i was thinking of upgrading it though cause its the weakest part of my system right now and i have a bit of spare cash and its nice to do these things while you can.

Is it currently feasible for someone in the UK to upgrade this, considering ill need new RAM and a new motherboard for like £300 and get a decent performance boost for video games and general browsing or would i be better off just doing something else with that money, im open to buying second hand stuff also if that helps.

VelociBacon
Dec 8, 2009

Kullik posted:

Yo thread, I've been not paying attention to computer bits for years due to being poor and working in IT and not wanting to spend my free time also reading about computer stuff.

Ive currently got an I5 4670 which isn't horrible and is coping ok but i was thinking of upgrading it though cause its the weakest part of my system right now and i have a bit of spare cash and its nice to do these things while you can.

Is it currently feasible for someone in the UK to upgrade this, considering ill need new RAM and a new motherboard for like £300 and get a decent performance boost for video games and general browsing or would i be better off just doing something else with that money, im open to buying second hand stuff also if that helps.

We can't say too much without knowing what GPU you have and what resolution and framerate you intend to play games at. Second hand is always going to be better value but CPUs are relatively cheap compared to GPUs.

side_burned
Nov 3, 2004

My mother is a fish.
I want to get some Noctua fans for my case and want to make sure I am understanding what I have read about PMW. If I got a PMW fan hub like this one I can connect the hub to one of the PMW headers on the mother board and use sata to molex cable to connect the hub to the power supply and I will still be able to control the RPM of the fans I connect to that hub from the software, correct?

Edit: Just for reference the Ausus Prime X470 is the motherboard I was planning on getting.

side_burned fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Nov 17, 2019

Kullik
Jan 5, 2017

VelociBacon posted:

We can't say too much without knowing what GPU you have and what resolution and framerate you intend to play games at. Second hand is always going to be better value but CPUs are relatively cheap compared to GPUs.

i have a 1060 and play games at 1080p 144hz (when possible)

TheFluff
Dec 13, 2006

FRIENDS, LISTEN TO ME
I AM A SEAGULL
OF WEALTH AND TASTE

Cyrano4747 posted:

Hrm. I played AC:O through (haven't gotten Od yet) pretty acceptably with the processor I've got. Sounds like I should be focusing on just getting a better graphics card and trying to drag this system forward for another few years.

What's the story on RAM these days? I've got 16gb, which I understand is the standard now if you're building new. Is there any benefit to stepping up to 32? It's a cheap-ish upgrade but that's also money I can throw to dumb poo poo if I don't need to spend it.

edit: DDR-4 2400 ram, ca. 2015 or so.

If you have a 60Hz monitor you probably don't really need a faster CPU yet. In almost all games so far the CPU bottleneck only starts becoming apparent above 60fps (Hitman being a likely exception if you crank up the settings). If you don't have any plans to upgrade to high refresh rate at the moment, you can probably keep your CPU for another year or two. If you do plan on going for an upgrade to 1440p 144Hz, you probably want both a new CPU and a new GPU at the same time.

There's little or no benefit to 32GB RAM in a gaming PC, and in fact even 16GB is sort of overkill - it's just really cheap these days.

JosephSkunk
Dec 16, 2003
Yes, evidently you had misperceived it as rain.
Hi folks may i please request a sanity check? I'm buying a pc for my son for xmas, WA state US. He wants to run Doom, has a 1920x1080 monitor and isn't much into caring about turning up the detail. I want to keep it cheap as possible. Newegg has sale on this:

Ryzen 5 1st Gen 1600 (3.20 GHz)
8 GB DDR4
480 GB SSD
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
AMD Radeon RX 580 4 GB GDDR5

For <$500. It's got lots of lights and poo poo like that which i think my son will really love.

Is this a good deal and will it run basic hd on modern games?


Edit https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16883230484

JosephSkunk fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Nov 18, 2019

MikeC
Jul 19, 2004
BITCH ASS NARC

JosephSkunk posted:

Hi folks may i please request a sanity check? I'm buying a pc for my son for xmas, WA state US. He wants to run Doom, has a 1920x1080 monitor and isn't much into caring about turning up the detail. I want to keep it cheap as possible. Newegg has sale on this:

Ryzen 5 1st Gen 1600 (3.20 GHz)
8 GB DDR4
480 GB SSD
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
AMD Radeon RX 580 4 GB GDDR5

For <$500. It's got lots of lights and poo poo like that which i think my son will really love.

Is this a good deal and will it run basic hd on modern games?


Edit https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16883230484

They aren't ripping you off by any means but it falls short in some aspects from what we normally recommend.

The good:

Ryzen 1600 is still a fine CPU but if we were doing a DYI, we would just pay for a 2600 which is 10 bucks more in most cases. But it is not a big deal. It will do the job until 6 core CPUs become obsolete for gaming and when that happens, all 6 core SMT CPUs like it will go with it, even a modern 3600.
The Powersupply at 600w is more than enough to power the machine and supply enough juice for upgrades later on.


The bad:

8GB is below the usual recommendation of 16GB of RAM. We also don't know what type of ram it is at what speed it is at and in what configuration. This will potentially impact performance.
The Video card is also a 4GB version of the Rx 580. While it will run Doom just fine (it is an old game) newer titles will likely start to choke on 4GB with high detailed texture files. You can combat this by lowering texture quality but it might look ugly.
The SSD at 480 GB is very small. You won't be able to install too much on it but if its just DOOM, then we are ok. Keep in mind you don't actually have all 480 GBs to work with. SSDs need a bit of a buffer most of the time or they might start running like dogshit on some SSD types. Without the specs being known on the newegg site, we can't say for sure.

The skinny is that if all he wants is DOOM at 1080p, sure this system will probably do just fine. It is just that its lifespan as a gaming PC with acceptable settings feels very short. You can't put much more on it besides the OS and a few games. Compromises on settings will almost certainly have to be made for AAA games today, much less tomorrow. But if keeping costs down is an absolute requirement then this does the job so to speak. If you are worried that you are getting robbed blind, then I would say no, they are offering a fair price for the parts and putting it together for you with a 1 yr warrenty. Goons tend to look down on prebuilds but if this fits the bill and you don't care about longevity then, by all means, pull the trigger.

If you are willing to spend even a bit more, you can DYI a solution that will likely last longer.


edit:

[PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($99.12 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($74.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA Ultimate SU800 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($97.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 580 8 GB ARMOR OC Video Card ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair SPEC-04 ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Corsair)
Power Supply: Corsair CX (2017) 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Corsair)
Total: $597.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-17 20:13 EST-0500

Add 20 bucks for a Windows 10 key you can get off SA mart that is totally legit.

This is a quick and dirty DYI parts list that gives you an idea of what 620 dollars will buy. Same CPU, 16 GBs of RAM, 8GB VRAM video card, 1 TB of storage. If you are willing to dip into ebay to get a used RX 580 for 100 bucks or so you can save another 50 bucks. I'd have to check the RAM to make sure it is compatible with the motherboard but if it isn't this RAM kit, there are plenty more like it on the verified compatibility list for the same price.

The downside is that you have to build it yourself and you don't get the keyboard, mice and if something goes wrong, you can't just take it back to them and tell them to fix it.

MikeC fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 18, 2019

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

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

Vasler posted:

Thanks for your help. Since I have a fairly old system (i5 4670 with 8 GB of RAM and a 970) and black friday is on the way, is this a good time to upgrade? I'm thinking some sort of better intel processor and 16-32 GB of RAM with a 2070S.

Or is it a better idea to wait on upgrading the processor/motherboard and just get a video card right now?

I game in 1080p and don't anticipate changing that for the near future.

Adding to my former advice: consider getting that 2x8 DDR3-1600 kit I linked if your old system will end up becoming a kid's system or a grandma PC. 16GB is certainly a good thing to have, but it's also spending ~$60 on something that won't benefit you in the slightest if your current system's equipment's just going to end up in mothballs.

If you have every intention of staying at 1080p I'd still recommend the 2060S if money's really burning a hole in your pocket because it will do 1080p and 1440p very well. I'd wait for BF/CM to see if the prices on 2060S, 2070s, and 2070s cards go down (stranger things have happened). That being said, keep checking r/buildapcsales every day, and if a pre-BF/CM price seems good to you, go for it. At most, you'll likely lose out on :20bux: - no one's going to be selling a 2060S for $329, but a non-Super 2070 at ~$430 might be possible, and 2070S has already hit $490.

Assepoester
Jul 18, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
Melman v2

Indiana_Krom posted:

In your situation I wouldn't spend any money on a 7700k, if you are looking for more performance you won't find anything worthwhile in another quad core. Just dig in your heels and hold on with your 6600 until you can get more cores.

I had a 7700k and it was choking badly in newer games with just a vanilla GTX 1080.
The 7700k has 8 threads whereas the 6600 does not, and that's enough to make a difference some thread-hungry games like BF and GTA and RDR, so I'd say as a drop-in replacement to extend the life of a current system for $220~ it could be worth it, anything newer would require a whole new motherboard.

But overall I'd say you're right in that just saving money to upgrade the processor and motherboard in one go to something with 6core/12threads or 8core/16threads would be even more worth it.

Stickman
Feb 1, 2004

$220 + the $130-160 you could get for the 6600+motherboard on eBay would cover a 3600+motherboard and potentially have a bit left over for fancier ram.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Yeah. Looking at prices you’re right on that.

One more idiot question: how much of a handicap is ddr4-2400 in this day and age? Basically fine if a bit old or would I be kneecapping myself by putting it in a newer system? Would 32gb of that (or 16 plus 16 of whatever’s modern and cheap down shifting to the old stuff) be better than 16gb of new ram?

Edit: gently caress me AMD vs Intel for cost:performance isn’t even a completion these days is it? This is what happens when you only look at hardware once every 4-5 years.

Is there some monkey paw poo poo with current AMD I don’t know about? Will it give me cancer? Is AMD owned by Hitler’s reanimated corpse? Do the chips spontaneously combust after two years?

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


I'm in the US and I'm looking to build a second PC, possibly to use as a capture/streaming unit in tandem with my gaming/audio recording machine.

I bought a new case, PSU and mobo when my CMOS battery died because I'm a big dumb idiot who didn't think to check the CMOS battery before rushing out and buying a new PSU and then ordering a new motherboard and case when the PSU didn't fix it, because the motherboard must have shorted out on the case or something (this was wrong and a $5 battery fixed the whole drat thing).

So I've got a new ATX case, 700w PSU and motherboard and want to make something functional to throw together both as a spare/emergency office computer and a twitch/facebook live/whatever else casting machine. Because the motherboard's compatible with everything in in my old PC I'm inclined to upgrade the old one and put the old parts on this new machine. I'm trying to keep cost below $500 for the remaining stuff and if I end up needing to spend more then I'll probably do the essentials first just to get it running and then add niceties like an HDD and non-onboard graphics.

Old machine is basically going to be for gaming, recording audio via Audition, Audacity, Pro Tools, and/or Logic (13-16 wav tracks simulataneously at 48k), and very little else.

The new one is going to be a stream box, probably using OBS to either take webcam feeds from the studio (up to 3, but only one at a time) and an audio submix from my mixer using a Steinberg UR-22 or a direct HDMI audio+video feed from the first PC.

Here's the old computer, minus 2tb platter drive (can't remember name) and 90s beige box case that I found on the side of the road:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tRXDx6

Here's everything I've got for the new one right now:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JsdZf9

Questions:
- If I want to upgrade the old PC and put the old one's ram and possibly processor in the new one, am I making a serious mistake?
- I need to get through approximately 40' of air and a 1" plywood wall to reach my nearest WAP. What's the cheapest wifi card I can get away with using? I bought an ASUS PCE-AC88 wifi card for the old one and it works well, but it was like $100 or something and I'd prefer to spend less if possible. Also, can I safely put the one receiver next to the other or should I space them out a couple feet? Should I just pony up the money for another router and just run ethernet to both PCs from it? Networking ain't my forte.
- If I'm just sending out streaming video with the new PC, can I safely skip a video card and use the motherboard's on-board video (assuming I get a processor capable of it?) or do I need to buy a low-end video card. High end video card?
- Am I better off getting an internal or external video capture card? Leaning towards internal because it's one less thing to break or lose during a move.
- Where do you get a cheap OEM win10 license nowadays?


e: having just seen that RAM speed discussion, would I be better off putting the new motherboard and ram (when I get it) into my old PC? My old motherboard apparently can't support more than 2400MHz - which it downgrades to 2133.

Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Nov 18, 2019

MikeC
Jul 19, 2004
BITCH ASS NARC

Cyrano4747 posted:

Yeah. Looking at prices you’re right on that.

One more idiot question: how much of a handicap is ddr4-2400 in this day and age? Basically fine if a bit old or would I be kneecapping myself by putting it in a newer system? Would 32gb of that (or 16 plus 16 of whatever’s modern and cheap down shifting to the old stuff) be better than 16gb of new ram?

Edit: gently caress me AMD vs Intel for cost:performance isn’t even a completion these days is it? This is what happens when you only look at hardware once every 4-5 years.

Is there some monkey paw poo poo with current AMD I don’t know about? Will it give me cancer? Is AMD owned by Hitler’s reanimated corpse? Do the chips spontaneously combust after two years?

Slower memory is a handicap in games. The difference between a 2400 kit vs 3600 kit with decent latency can range from 5-10% difference in FPS performance. Not with all titles, or all configurations but the trend is clear. Anything less than 3000 MHz RAM and you be guaranteed to experience performance loss that is outside of variance. More slow memory won't help you. It is the speed at which the CPU can get RAM to regurgitate its data and push it back that counts.

edit: This is assuming your motherboard and CPU support faster memory. I was talking in a general sense. This is not saying you should buy faster memory for your current rig.

In the mid-range, Intel has no offering that comes close to AMD. AMD delivers more cores and threads at a cheaper price than Intel does without sacrificing meaningful single-core performance as it did in the past. The fact that Intel decided to lock multithreading away from consumers has bit them in the rear end. The 9600k is a 6 core part just like the R5 3600 that AMD has. Except the 3600 comes with SMT so it has 12 threads vs Intel's 6. The 9600k is now dropping frames on more modern titles that are starting to leverage the extra threads. People are suffering from micro stutters in games like Battlefield multiplayer and Assassin's creed. The best gaming CPU is still on Intel's side with the 9900K being the top dog but it is by an insignificant amount and it only matters if you have an 1100 dollar video card to pair with it. Anything slower than a 2080 Ti will almost certainly be bottlenecked by the GPU anyways.

The only downside to AMD is that you have to stay on top of BIOS updates much more frequently and you have to pick your RAM and motherboard carefully. You want to make sure they play nice with one another or you could get a lot of headaches. Check the RAM QVL on your motherboard of choice and buy a kit off that list to minimize the chances of compatibility issues.

MikeC fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Nov 18, 2019

90s Solo Cup
Feb 22, 2011

To understand the cup
He must become the cup



This 2070 Super costs about the same as my current 1070 Ti. I'm looking into a new 1440p 144hz monitor soon, so I'm wondering if I can keep my current card for a while longer or if I'll be forced to upgrade at some point.

BIG HEADLINE posted:

From what I've heard, Fry's is on life support. Maybe Micro Center will swoop in and buy them (and their locations) out if/when they finally fold.

I highly doubt it. The key to Micro Center's success involves avoiding any overexpansion that could potentially bite the company in the rear end later on. Still, wouldn't mind seeing one in Nashville, at the very least.

Boz0r
Sep 7, 2006
The Rocketship in action.
I have a 6600K and 1070 setup. How much would I get out of throwing another 1070 in there?

Rexxed
May 1, 2010

Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

Boz0r posted:

I have a 6600K and 1070 setup. How much would I get out of throwing another 1070 in there?

SLI is garbage now, not that many games support it and if they do it's not worth the price of a second card. You'd be better off selling your current card and getting a beefier one.

Boz0r
Sep 7, 2006
The Rocketship in action.

Rexxed posted:

SLI is garbage now, not that many games support it and if they do it's not worth the price of a second card. You'd be better off selling your current card and getting a beefier one.

Yeah, that's what I though.

eames
May 9, 2009

Boz0r posted:

I have a 6600K and 1070 setup. How much would I get out of throwing another 1070 in there?

like 20% more performance with far worse framtimes if all stars align and your title supports it.

You could look into buying a 5700XT during the ongoing sales if you don't have a G-Sync monitor.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

OK, another question. I'm seeing some deals at microcenter for motherboard + processor combos. Is it worth the extra $30 to move up to a Ryzen 7 2700x from the Ryzen 5 2600 bundle?

bus hustler
Mar 14, 2019

Cyrano4747 posted:

OK, another question. I'm seeing some deals at microcenter for motherboard + processor combos. Is it worth the extra $30 to move up to a Ryzen 7 2700x from the Ryzen 5 2600 bundle?

Keep in mind that the bundles aren't set in stone. You could save $10 with this board: https://www.microcenter.com/product/510207/gigabyte-b450-aorus-m-am4-matx-amd-motherboard which also supports DDR4-2933 natively (and 3200 if overclocked). You just get $30 off if you add it to your cart with the right processor.

I doubt you'll really see the difference between the two processors, on the other hand $20 is like lunch with a soda these days so go nuts, youre certainly not going to regret the 2700x.

bus hustler fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Nov 18, 2019

Scruff McGruff
Feb 13, 2007

Jesus, kid, you're almost a detective. All you need now is a gun, a gut, and three ex-wives.

Cyrano4747 posted:

OK, another question. I'm seeing some deals at microcenter for motherboard + processor combos. Is it worth the extra $30 to move up to a Ryzen 7 2700x from the Ryzen 5 2600 bundle?

Be aware that the Microcenter "bundle price" of $30 off the mobo applies to any CPU/Mobo that you buy together assuming they are compatible with each other, not just the ones they show on their site paired together, it'll apply the discount once you add the items to your cart. Just so no one limits themselves because they don't see a bundle for what they really want.

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BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"
I'd be a little :ohdear: about a 2700X on a B450 board, though. That's kind of stretching things.

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