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Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

tuyop posted:

What do you all do to vent these sick gaming rigs? The computer is in the bedroom and it’s just like a 400w heater at load, right? And the bedroom is obviously hotter because of this.

Air conditioning isn’t really an option. Should I build some elaborate duct out from the back of the PC to the window? Is this what liquid cooling is for? Like it sounds like the radiator just has to be somewhere else because ultimately the waste heat will end up in the bedroom, so the liquid cooling would also need some ducts.

Option 1: Position close to a window.

Option 2: Position case in another room/closet. Run your monitor cable through the wall to bedroom. Connect peripherals to the monitor.

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Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

Alchenar posted:

This feels like one of those times where there might be a few edge cases where it's a bad idea to fill slots, particularly if the ram is different, but actually 99.99% of the time it's absolutely fine. The Motherboard comes with 4 slots for a reason, manufacturers aren't playing a big con on everyone.

I recently in this very thread had a “don’t use that other PCI slot because it doesn’t do power correctly” experience, but I take your point. I thought it might have been there as a tradeoff of space vs speed.

There’s stuff like this out there talking about changes in memory controller load, but it’s good to know for sure. Thanks.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/4x4gb-vs-2x8gb.1549035/

PageMaster
Nov 4, 2009

Alchenar posted:

This feels like one of those times where there might be a few edge cases where it's a bad idea to fill slots, particularly if the ram is different, but actually 99.99% of the time it's absolutely fine. The Motherboard comes with 4 slots for a reason, manufacturers aren't playing a big con on everyone.
Through (very) quick Google, it looks like it depends on the type of DIMM connection to the CPU, with T Topology performing better with 4 slots filled (though may have lower looks on clock speeds, especially with AMD CPUs), but Daisy Chain setup mobos allowing higher clock speeds for 2 sticks. Not super helpful since I'm not familiar with either of the two setups, buy my takeaway was it's a strong consideration for overclock memory.

Indiana_Krom
Jun 18, 2007
Net Slacker

tuyop posted:

What do you all do to vent these sick gaming rigs? The computer is in the bedroom and it’s just like a 400w heater at load, right? And the bedroom is obviously hotter because of this.

Air conditioning isn’t really an option. Should I build some elaborate duct out from the back of the PC to the window? Is this what liquid cooling is for? Like it sounds like the radiator just has to be somewhere else because ultimately the waste heat will end up in the bedroom, so the liquid cooling would also need some ducts.
400w is probably insufficient to raise the temperature of your bedroom enough to bother doing anything about it, and besides a high end gaming computer only generates 400w of heat when you are actively gaming on it. The rest of the time modern computers idle down to <100w, and many <50w. Crack the door and turn on a ceiling fan and it will probably be a significant challenge to even measure a difference.

dis astranagant
Dec 14, 2006

Subjunctive posted:

I thought that 4 slots was slower than 2 slots, all else being equal. I thought I learned that in this thread, in fact!

It's slower in the "my ram has its own liquid cooling and all I care about is a number to show off on reddit" sense, not the I bought this thing to do work sense.

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

Two sticks of RAM have a better chance of running at full speed (using XMP overlock) than 4 sticks of RAM. But if you stick to the QVL list before purchasing you should be good.

taqueso
Mar 8, 2004


:911:
:wookie: :thermidor: :wookie:
:dehumanize:

:pirate::hf::tinfoil:
I can't find it but there was an article about how some motherboards have the memory traces optimized for 2-stick use (shorter traces for 2 sockets at the expense of the other 2), and some don't. Either way you probably won't be able to OC quiiiite as much with 4.

tuyop
Sep 15, 2006

Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted

Fun Shoe
I’m embarrassed because when I assembled my computer, I put the cooler on in the one orientation where it obstructed the A2 RAM slot. I only have to sticks so it’s functionally fine but extremely embarrassing regardless.

Indiana_Krom posted:

400w is probably insufficient to raise the temperature of your bedroom enough to bother doing anything about it, and besides a high end gaming computer only generates 400w of heat when you are actively gaming on it. The rest of the time modern computers idle down to <100w, and many <50w. Crack the door and turn on a ceiling fan and it will probably be a significant challenge to even measure a difference.

Thanks but I don’t know, I mean I’ve been working in there every day since like March and maybe it’s just the combination of clouds and weather in the last couple of weeks or something but it’s definitely been warmer.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Mu Zeta posted:

Two sticks of RAM have a better chance of running at full speed (using XMP overlock) than 4 sticks of RAM. But if you stick to the QVL list before purchasing you should be good.

If you look at the QVL they often break it out by 2 and 4 slots populated, with many models only being validated at 2.


taqueso posted:

I can't find it but there was an article about how some motherboards have the memory traces optimized for 2-stick use (shorter traces for 2 sockets at the expense of the other 2), and some don't. Either way you probably won't be able to OC quiiiite as much with 4.

The minutiae of topology, single vs dual rank*, et cetera does not matter for the people ITT asking what stuff to buy. If someone was an extreme tweaker who was gonna manually OC their ram or whatever, they wouldn't be asking for build advice here.

*useless info alert: if using single-rank ram, 4 sticks will be measurably faster than 2 sticks (higher bandwidth). not by enough to really matter, but measurable.


What matters for people ITT is being able to slap the ram in the slots, boot into the BIOS, click one "make memory go fast" button, and have it work with no fuss. For that purpose, 2 sticks of QVL ram is generally the safest bet. It's just more likely to work at XMP speeds, that's it. If your memory fails XMP and is running at the 2133 fallback speed, that's slow enough to have real performance impact.

Canuckistan
Jan 14, 2004

I'm the greatest thing since World War III.





Soiled Meat
I have a RX480 GPU, which does most of my 1920x1080/60hz gaming fine. I'm looking at upgrading to 1920x1080/ 144hz for gaming and VR purposes. I guess the current meta is to wait for Ampere to drop sometime in next few months?

Kikuchiyo
Apr 24, 2003

Shuttle of joy never forget.
Curious to get people's thoughts on the best route to upgrade. I have two old PCs that have sat idle while I've been in grad school, and I'd like to combine them together into one decent mini-ITX pc for light gaming. The two current setups are as follows:

Micro-ATX Gaming PC that has sat idle for three years
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2133 CL15 Memory ($94.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4 GB Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

NAS that I created from the previous gaming PC that has, likewise, been gathering dust for three years
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($310.98 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Intel DH67CF H67 Express Mini-ITX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Mushkin Essentials 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 CL11 Memory ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($72.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($98.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($178.28 @ Amazon)

My initial plan was to just get an Intel 100/200 series mini-ITX motherboard and migrate the i5-6500 computer over to the Node 304 case in full. However, I didn't realize that old hardware was so expensive - mini-ITX boards for LGA 1151 rev1 are surprisingly pricey; nearly as expensive as 8th/9th or 10th gen intel boards, in some cases. So, I see my options as being the following:

1) Stick with the i5-6500 setup, and just bite the bullet and pay ~$100 for a used 100/200 series mini-ITX board, sell everything else out for parts
2) Buy a 300-series or 400-series motherboard along with an i3-9100 or i3-10100, maintaining the same level of performance as the i5-6500 while modernizing somewhat
3) Sell all of this stuff on eBay/SA Mart and completely rebuild a new PC from the ground up.

I've been out of the PC building game for quite some time (as the parts list might hint at) so I'm not sure how beneficial a full refresh would be vs. just swapping out the CPU/MB.

I would like to keep this as price-neutral as possible - i.e., use the proceeds from selling all this old stuff to cover the cost of anything new. However, I don't mind if it takes a while to sell - neither of these computers are being used right now, so I can afford to have all the parts lying fallow for a bit. To that end - any advice people have on how best to sell all this would be appreciated, too!

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.

Kikuchiyo posted:

Curious to get people's thoughts on the best route to upgrade. I have two old PCs that have sat idle while I've been in grad school, and I'd like to combine them together into one decent mini-ITX pc for light gaming. The two current setups are as follows:

Micro-ATX Gaming PC that has sat idle for three years
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2133 CL15 Memory ($94.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4 GB Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

NAS that I created from the previous gaming PC that has, likewise, been gathering dust for three years
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($310.98 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Intel DH67CF H67 Express Mini-ITX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Mushkin Essentials 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 CL11 Memory ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($72.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($98.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($178.28 @ Amazon)

My initial plan was to just get an Intel 100/200 series mini-ITX motherboard and migrate the i5-6500 computer over to the Node 304 case in full. However, I didn't realize that old hardware was so expensive - mini-ITX boards for LGA 1151 rev1 are surprisingly pricey; nearly as expensive as 8th/9th or 10th gen intel boards, in some cases. So, I see my options as being the following:

1) Stick with the i5-6500 setup, and just bite the bullet and pay ~$100 for a used 100/200 series mini-ITX board, sell everything else out for parts
2) Buy a 300-series or 400-series motherboard along with an i3-9100 or i3-10100, maintaining the same level of performance as the i5-6500 while modernizing somewhat
3) Sell all of this stuff on eBay/SA Mart and completely rebuild a new PC from the ground up.

I've been out of the PC building game for quite some time (as the parts list might hint at) so I'm not sure how beneficial a full refresh would be vs. just swapping out the CPU/MB.

I would like to keep this as price-neutral as possible - i.e., use the proceeds from selling all this old stuff to cover the cost of anything new. However, I don't mind if it takes a while to sell - neither of these computers are being used right now, so I can afford to have all the parts lying fallow for a bit. To that end - any advice people have on how best to sell all this would be appreciated, too!

Honestly you're better off sticking with the 4770k in the NAS, it actually has a higher passmark score and the extra threads mean it's better suited to NAS type workloads. I'd just fully part out the 6500.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Kikuchiyo posted:

Curious to get people's thoughts on the best route to upgrade. I have two old PCs that have sat idle while I've been in grad school, and I'd like to combine them together into one decent mini-ITX pc for light gaming. The two current setups are as follows:

The 6500 is aging fast for gaming, depending on what "light gaming" means. If you're playing indies and small games it's fine, if it means you play AAA games but you're not obsessed about performance it's getting kinda crappy even for that. This is an issue with all non-hyperthreading 4-core CPUs. There are games where 6600Ks are a real anchor.

MiniITX stuff doesn't drop in value on ebay very much because "I'll put together a HTPC / NAS / tiny PC" is a common idea for people with old hardware.


If you don't care about any of the existing stuff for any particular purpose, I'd say look at selling the NAS box whole as a ready-to-go thing. I feel like you might get a taker for that on SAmart or somewhere for an ok price? The value is in the HDDs and the small form factor.

Kikuchiyo posted:

2) Buy a 300-series or 400-series motherboard along with an i3-9100 or i3-10100, maintaining the same level of performance as the i5-6500 while modernizing somewhat

That's definitely not what you want to do, in comparison with a Ryzen 3600 and an AM4 ITX board.

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

Kikuchiyo posted:

2) Buy a 300-series or 400-series motherboard along with an i3-9100 or i3-10100, maintaining the same level of performance as the i5-6500 while modernizing somewhat

Yeah don't do this one.

Kikuchiyo
Apr 24, 2003

Shuttle of joy never forget.

Scruff McGruff posted:

Honestly you're better off sticking with the 4770k in the NAS, it actually has a higher passmark score and the extra threads mean it's better suited to NAS type workloads. I'd just fully part out the 6500.

Makes sense - I may look at just selling that guy complete per some of the other recommendations, given I could probably find a smaller mini-ITX case and start new.

Klyith posted:

The 6500 is aging fast for gaming, depending on what "light gaming" means. If you're playing indies and small games it's fine, if it means you play AAA games but you're not obsessed about performance it's getting kinda crappy even for that. This is an issue with all non-hyperthreading 4-core CPUs. There are games where 6600Ks are a real anchor.

MiniITX stuff doesn't drop in value on ebay very much because "I'll put together a HTPC / NAS / tiny PC" is a common idea for people with old hardware.

If you don't care about any of the existing stuff for any particular purpose, I'd say look at selling the NAS box whole as a ready-to-go thing. I feel like you might get a taker for that on SAmart or somewhere for an ok price? The value is in the HDDs and the small form factor.

That's definitely not what you want to do, in comparison with a Ryzen 3600 and an AM4 ITX board.

sean10mm posted:

Yeah don't do this one.

Yeah, that seems reasonable - I'll go ahead and wipe that guy and see if there are any takers. Certainly easier than trying to part everything out individually, which would be a bit of a hassle. Seems like it'd be a decent little server/NAS for someone who wants a bit more flexibility than an all-in-one NAS.

Doing a rough calculation of how much all the stuff would cost individually, seems like around $600 at non-scalper prices. Do you think I'd get any bites for ~$500? Feel like pre-built computer second-hand sales are the wild west. edit: whoops it's actually an i5-3570k in there, not an i7-4770k! bit of a difference

Thanks for the advice on not going the route of the i3-9100f, as well. Just so tempting when it's only $70 right now. I'll take a look at Ryzen 3600 potential builds to see what I could put together for a reasonable price.

Kikuchiyo fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jul 31, 2020

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Selling old computers as a whole never works. There's somebody out there who has a use for each part, there's basically no one looking to drop a bunch of money on outdated hardware.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

I was planning to upgrade but seeing the note at the end of the 2160p build in MikeC's about waiting til the fall I'll just do that. Do y'all have any idea as to how much the new video card you'd recommend for that build will cost?

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

Badger of Basra posted:

I was planning to upgrade but seeing the note at the end of the 2160p build in MikeC's about waiting til the fall I'll just do that. Do y'all have any idea as to how much the new video card you'd recommend for that build will cost?

No idea, it's all rumors right now.

I am guessing the RTX 4070 or whatever will be like $500 but this is literally me making a guess.

Spacedad
Sep 11, 2001

We go play orbital catch around the curvature of the earth, son.
My motherboard is set to arrive tomorrow and I'm all set to build. :dance:

So I got some vanity troubleshooting stuff to ask for input.

I haven't ordered my case fans yet, because I want to explore some RGB/non-RGB options (like the chromax) as well as see good-priced options that might not disrupt my look.

I'm toying with a mix of 1, 2, or 3 RGB fans strategically placed for accents. I also know from video footage and screenshots that RGB fans at the case front on meshify C show quite well through the mesh.

One idea I have is just one 120mm rgb fan at the back of the case to use as a lil' focal point, and the rest pretty mundane looking fans.

I'm open to suggestions on what fans to get for a swanky look at a good cost. If I can even make the relatively inexpensive gray fans work for this (may be good for the front of the case where they are harder to see) then I can go with those too.

Also for future vanity, I'm considering collecting one or two of these colored mesh dust filters to swap in for different looks: https://www.fractal-design.com/products/accessories/color-mesh-panel-for-meshify-c/green/

The blue one looks real nice on white. But they all look pretty nice.

Also from seeing how people have the meshify C on their desks, adding a lil light (like a small table light or a LED strip nearby) near where the front of the case is to make the triangular design on the dust filter more visible is a pretty nice look.

Scruff McGruff posted:

Honestly you're better off sticking with the 4770k in the NAS, it actually has a higher passmark score and the extra threads mean it's better suited to NAS type workloads. I'd just fully part out the 6500.

My old system is a non-k 4770 and I'm thinking of converting it to a NAS.

But it works fantastic as a secondary/backup art & animation computer for the time being. If anything goes wrong with my new main system I'll have something else I can do my freelance work or run my art classes on.

I actually do want to make a secondary build (maybe like a portable mini-itx build which I can take to live classes and art conventions) in the future, and around that time I can probably turn the old i7 into a NAS grandpappy system.

Spacedad fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jul 31, 2020

GoodluckJonathan
Oct 31, 2003

Quick upgrade question - I have an aging i5-2500k (hell of a chip) and a rx580 8gb video card. I want to upgrade the processor, mobo, RAM and I guess the power supply. The computer is used for gaming ( Cyberpunk 2077 plz ) and basic graphic design stuff. Just one monitor at 1980x1200. What processor should I get? Budget is 450-575 for mobo, processor, ram and psu. I live in the US and am reasonably close to a Microcenter. Thanks!

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

If you can find the parts at Microcenter a Ryzen 3600, b450 Tomahawk Max, and 2x8 gigs of 3200mhz Ram are still the standard. You should be able to get that for around $330. PSU is more complicated right now but a good one is like $100. The Tomahawk is pretty hard to find online for retail price though and has jumped up a bit.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/625050/msi-b550m-pro-vdh-(wifi)-amd-am4-matx-motherboard

This mobo is supposed to be decent for the price. It includes wifi and has pci gen 4 in case we ever need it.

Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 31, 2020

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World
The B450 MAX should be like $125, for reference. Anything much higher than that is price gouging.

e: You can also get a substantially better CPU cooler than stock for like $35. Arctic Freezer 34 CO, CM Hyper 212 Evo, etc.

sean10mm fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jul 31, 2020

GoodluckJonathan
Oct 31, 2003

Cool, cool, thank you.

sean10mm posted:


e: You can also get a substantially better CPU cooler than stock for like $35. Arctic Freezer 34 CO, CM Hyper 212 Evo, etc.

So this is something I should definitely do? OC is just flipping some setting in the bios?

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

The included cooler is fine but louder than the aftermarkets. The 3600 doesn't really use that much power.

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

It's all about sound. I used to advise going with stock and switching it out of it bothered you, but 100% of people wound up going aftermarket so I don't do that anymore.

movax
Aug 30, 2008

Bigger, slower fans are the path to less noise!

In general, for killing noise, have less fans, and to have less fans, go for bigger fans, and bigger fans don't have to spin as fast.

AndNowMax
Sep 25, 2009

Fighting the fight for *mumble* *mumble*
Finally have the time, money, and space to get around to building a PC after playing games mostly on consoles forever. Going to be used mostly for games, my monitor right now is 1080p/60hz, but I’d like to upgrade to 1440p/144hz at some point. Budget is ~$1600.

Done quite a bit of reading in this thread and elsewhere but am still a little tiny baby when it comes to this stuff so please let me know if I’m doing anything dumb

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard ($209.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($96.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($104.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB PULSE Video Card ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A Digital ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($125.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $1196.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-31 16:44 EDT-0400

Other Questions:
If I were interested in getting into VR in a year or so, would it just be a matter of slamming in a new GPU or would I have to start from scratch to get an Index somewhat playable?

Do I need additional cooling?

Are there any goon-recommended monitors?

Plan to pick up a Windows 7 key in SA-Mart if the guy’s still offering them. I’ve never had a nice desktop, at best have gone through a series of garbage laptops that could play Starcraft 1 and FTL and nothing else, so it’d be a real thrill to be able to play shooters at max settings. Thanks!

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

GoodluckJonathan posted:

Cool, cool, thank you.


So this is something I should definitely do? OC is just flipping some setting in the bios?

Overclocking AMD is basically a waste. Just give them adequate cooling and Precision Boost 2 (which is on by default anyway) gives you as much performance as you're going to get out of the thing without an amount of effort that's not remotely worth it.

Like some people have literally seen minimum FPS get worse while power consumption and heat spike badly by trying to manually OC all the cores instead of just letting it manage itself.

Rinkles
Oct 24, 2010

What I'm getting at is...
Do you feel the same way?
just a stupid person question: are there compelling reasons to go amd over nvidia for gpus? thinking about the $200-$500 range.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Rinkles posted:

just a stupid person question: are there compelling reasons to go amd over nvidia for gpus?

If you want the performance of a 2070 for the price of a 2060 Super, and you're willing to deal with occasional hassle from a less than perfect driver situation. Here's my last 2 posts in the AMD thread:

Klyith posted:

Owning a 5700, it feels like a prototype. I haven't had enough problems to make me hate it (and getting it at a very good price helps), but it's frequently just a bit whack. Like, recently I've been seeing an occasional corruption sparkle effect around the mouse cursor when the cursor is over a youtube video. Harmless but whack.

Klyith posted:

Since it's summer I have the GPU set to negative power target, and I suspect that is what causes the occasional flicker. Not a big enough deal for me to reset that, I'd rather have less heat than a perfect mouse cursor. But I think the power management system is one of the things that wasn't quite done when they pushed it out the door. I had much worse issues with power targets & fan curves last year. As long as it's just the cursor being weird and not full crashes, I'm ok leaving it as is.

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

Klyith posted:

If you want the performance of a 2070 for the price of a 2060 Super

and you aren’t interested in DLSS or (lesser issue) RTX

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

AndNowMax posted:

Finally have the time, money, and space to get around to building a PC after playing games mostly on consoles forever. Going to be used mostly for games, my monitor right now is 1080p/60hz, but I’d like to upgrade to 1440p/144hz at some point. Budget is ~$1600.

Done quite a bit of reading in this thread and elsewhere but am still a little tiny baby when it comes to this stuff so please let me know if I’m doing anything dumb

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard ($209.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($96.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($104.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB PULSE Video Card ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A Digital ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($125.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $1196.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-31 16:44 EDT-0400

Other Questions:
If I were interested in getting into VR in a year or so, would it just be a matter of slamming in a new GPU or would I have to start from scratch to get an Index somewhat playable?

Do I need additional cooling?

Are there any goon-recommended monitors?

Plan to pick up a Windows 7 key in SA-Mart if the guy’s still offering them. I’ve never had a nice desktop, at best have gone through a series of garbage laptops that could play Starcraft 1 and FTL and nothing else, so it’d be a real thrill to be able to play shooters at max settings. Thanks!

IMO there's no reason to buy the Crucial P1 anymore because it's just not substantively cheaper than SSDs that don't use inferior QLC memory and have better endurance ratings. That's probably my Hottest Take here though.

Is there a specific reason you zeroed in on that board? It's not bad by any stretch, but depending on what you're doing a TUF X570 might just be a better value for like $40 less, or a B450 Tomahawk MAX for $125 might be plenty.

Do you care about RGB bling on your RAM that much? If not you can get 3600 CL16 RAM for like $75.

Now's not a great time to spend real money on a video card with the RTX 3000 series coming out soon-ish.

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Rinkles posted:

just a stupid person question: are there compelling reasons to go amd over nvidia for gpus? thinking about the $200-$500 range.

Above $300 they have better perf/$, but no RTX features (namely, potentially, DLSS 2.0 which is apperently huge but I haven't experienced it myself), and the software was/is a mess, causing system crashes. I've heard it's better than it was, but is still happening. How bad / widespread this is is hard to get info on, but its definitely still a problem. It alone is enough that I wouldn't be comfortable suggesting the 5700/XT to anyone who isn't very familiar with the vagaries of computers.

AndNowMax
Sep 25, 2009

Fighting the fight for *mumble* *mumble*

sean10mm posted:

IMO there's no reason to buy the Crucial P1 anymore because it's just not substantively cheaper than SSDs that don't use inferior QLC memory and have better endurance ratings. That's probably my Hottest Take here though.

Is there a specific reason you zeroed in on that board? It's not bad by any stretch, but depending on what you're doing a TUF X570 might just be a better value for like $40 less, or a B450 Tomahawk MAX for $125 might be plenty.

Do you care about RGB bling on your RAM that much? If not you can get 3600 CL16 RAM for like $75.

Now's not a great time to spend real money on a video card with the RTX 3000 series coming out soon-ish.

Cool cool, is there another SSD you’d recommend? Crucial seemed fine but I pretty much just picked one off of the PCPartPicker list.

The board was recommended by a friend for a bit of future-proofing since it supports pcie4.0 and should be able to support the next gen of video cards. I also need WiFi on my card and it looks like the TUF X570 would only save me about $20 in that case, would it still be worth it?

Someone like two pages ago (Kraftwerk?) recommended that specific RAM and the RGB option was only like an extra 4 bucks. If other RAM is fine I’m happy to downgrade, but for my first build I don’t mind spending a couple bucks on RGB to make it look flashy and dumb!

Yeah it sucks, I keep reading that in this thread. Fortunately I’m probably not going to drop money on a really high-end board unless I decide to get into VR and that won’t be for a while, so hopefully I can get at least a year or so out of this video card. I thought some people were saying ITT that the mid level cards probably weren’t going to come out until a couple months after the high range ones were anyways.

Also I just recognized your username, I think I followed your modified starting strength program like ten years ago lol

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

AndNowMax posted:

The board was recommended by a friend for a bit of future-proofing since it supports pcie4.0 and should be able to support the next gen of video cards. I also need WiFi on my card and it looks like the TUF X570 would only save me about $20 in that case, would it still be worth it?

I don’t believe we have any reason to believe that the upcoming generation of GPUs will require, or even take advantage of, PCIe 4.0. Did I miss something?

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

AndNowMax posted:

Cool cool, is there another SSD you’d recommend? Crucial seemed fine but I pretty much just picked one off of the PCPartPicker list.

The board was recommended by a friend for a bit of future-proofing since it supports pcie4.0 and should be able to support the next gen of video cards. I also need WiFi on my card and it looks like the TUF X570 would only save me about $20 in that case, would it still be worth it?

Someone like two pages ago (Kraftwerk?) recommended that specific RAM and the RGB option was only like an extra 4 bucks. If other RAM is fine I’m happy to downgrade, but for my first build I don’t mind spending a couple bucks on RGB to make it look flashy and dumb!

Yeah it sucks, I keep reading that in this thread. Fortunately I’m probably not going to drop money on a really high-end board unless I decide to get into VR and that won’t be for a while, so hopefully I can get at least a year or so out of this video card. I thought some people were saying ITT that the mid level cards probably weren’t going to come out until a couple months after the high range ones were anyways.

Also I just recognized your username, I think I followed your modified starting strength program like ten years ago lol

Every once in a while somebody remembers my old workout posting haha

For a SSD I would go with WD SN550 for basic or SN750 or 8200 Pro if you want something with sexier benchmarks, but for most uses most SSDs are just going to seem fast as hell regardless.

PCIe 4.0 is kind of just not really doing anything right now, but if you have the budget there's nothing wrong with going X570 or B550 to get the new hotness. I'm probably using an Asus Rog Strix B550-F Gaming when I get around to my next build but it's definitely not necessary vs a B450.

PageMaster
Nov 4, 2009
are there any good trustworthy PC component retailers online besides newegg or amazon to look into? Trying to get a Noctua cooler, but they're out of stock on amazon, and newegg sellers are charging 75-100 dollars for shipping. Microcenter is also out of stock, and I'd like to avoid going down to some of the lower listed options on google just yet..

Indiana_Krom
Jun 18, 2007
Net Slacker

PageMaster posted:

are there any good trustworthy PC component retailers online besides newegg or amazon to look into? Trying to get a Noctua cooler, but they're out of stock on amazon, and newegg sellers are charging 75-100 dollars for shipping. Microcenter is also out of stock, and I'd like to avoid going down to some of the lower listed options on google just yet..

https://www.bhphotovideo.com has some noctua coolers in stock, don't know if its the specific one you are looking for though. I've ordered some random stuff from them before (have a batch of like 4 cyperpower battery backups that I got on a really good sale for instance). They have been around long enough to earn some trust at least.

MikeC
Jul 19, 2004
BITCH ASS NARC

Badger of Basra posted:

I was planning to upgrade but seeing the note at the end of the 2160p build in MikeC's about waiting til the fall I'll just do that. Do y'all have any idea as to how much the new video card you'd recommend for that build will cost?

Unless RDNA 2 shits the bed (which is unlikely given that the consoles look sick), you should be looking at around 2080 Super performance being the new midrange at around the 499-549 USD price point from both vendors with Nvidia probably being the more expensive option since they will still likely hold the performance crown. Expect the new high end to be around 20% faster than the 2080 Ti with good Raytracing support anywhere north of 700 USD. Closer to 700 if Big Navi is actually a thing. If not, probably 1000 plus like they are now.

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Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

Indiana_Krom posted:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com has some noctua coolers in stock, don't know if its the specific one you are looking for though. I've ordered some random stuff from them before (have a batch of like 4 cyperpower battery backups that I got on a really good sale for instance). They have been around long enough to earn some trust at least.

I've been ordering from them for like a decade now and they are solid.

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