PC Building/Upgrading/Parts-picking Megathread Reloaded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > PC Building/Upgrading/Parts-picking Megathread Reloaded

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orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

For my parents I built a PC for image processing, office/e-mail and light gaming a few years ago. Am I right assuming there's not much I can do with its LGA1156 i3-550 (on a P55 ATX mainboard) except give the computer away as a whole? The socket was very short-lived as far as I can tell, and it looks like no one made mini-ITX boards for it, so moving it to a SFF case like I originally considered is out.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2017 21:20

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:47

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

600W seems like overkill for an ITX build with a GTX 1060, but I guess if you want to attach a million things and OC everything, more headroom is better (FWIW the napkin math from the OP ranges from 320 to 520 W).

Weltlich posted:

OS Chat:

Thanks to everyone so far that's given me good advice. NewEgg has a 10% off going on MS OS's right now. I have been wisely warned away from Win7, and am going to give Win10 another chance.

My question: For a system that will be for gaming and browsing, do I really need Win10 Pro, or will Win10 Home suffice?

NEVERMIND: Found the answer in the FAQ, unless someone has an opposing opinion.

You can check SA-Mart for cheap Win 7 Pro keys, they can still be used to activate Win 10 Pro licenses.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 21:39

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Weltlich posted:

I was thinking about that, but someone earlier in the thread said that might become a nightmare, because getting win7 to install on a kaby lake system can be problematic. I would really like to save the cash, but this is also the first system I've built from scratch in 20 years - so avoiding the headache also sounds kind of nice. However, if folks have a good walk-through of the process, I'd be game for reading up on it.

You're not using the key to install Windows 7, you download Windows 10 to an USB drive (eg.) and install it from scratch, then once it's running you use the Windows 7 key to activate Windows 10, basically turning the Win 7 key into a Win 10 one.

orcane fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Apr 18, 2017

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 21:48

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

WiiFitForWindows8 posted:

Hello everyone!

I built a PC based off posts here back in 2012.

It's finally starting to lag behind in a way that is unacceptable to me(good lord, the bridge/mission screen of Legacy of the Void ran so choppy it began to anger me.) and I kind of want to know: can I upgrade the CPU and GPU and just be fine with that, or will I need to build a whole new PC? Here's my build:

What else are you playing/using the PC for? What settings? StarCraft 2 is pretty CPU-bound IIRC and I would have expected a 2500k to suffice (overclock for free performance boost?), same for a GTX 760 with 2 GB of VRAM. For Starcraft 2, that is - for general gaming, I'd replace the video card with something between GeForce 1050 Ti and 1060/Radeon RX 580 if you want to use higher quality settings in modern games at 1080p.

However, at the very least I'd add an SSD - having everything on a spinning platter drive in 2017 is more painful than I can imagine (that's unlikely to fix your LotV performance woes, though).

# ¿ Apr 18, 2017 22:53

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

No that's pretty much standard, it just means if you have 6 SATA ports (I didn't look at how many that mainboard has), one or two are used for the M.2 device and can't be used for SATA SSDs, hard disks or optical drives.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 20:17

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

What do the load temperatures look like? Because idle below 35�C is pretty meaningless (and you're comparing a full size tower cooler to a small form factor cooler in a tower case) and also depends on other stuff like where the computer is set up, what else you have in it generating heat, what other fans you have in that case etc.

# ¿ May 8, 2017 16:19

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Khablam posted:

Ryzen is interesting, just not for gaming IMO. Overclocking isn't guaranteed, and overclocking to go "on par" with a 7600 isn't reliable at all, and not overwhelmingly compelling even if it works given the 7600k will outperform it in gaming by 25%, and is often not a lot more expensive as it's often bundled, etc.
That can be the difference between, say, ~35 to ~45fps, when you're CPU bound and it's absolutely worth the money.

25% hahahahaha.

# ¿ May 13, 2017 15:50

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

AM4 and Ryzen just came out, it's completely bonkers trying to make a case for which platform is better/less supported than the other.

# ¿ May 13, 2017 17:58

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

HP Artsandcrafts posted:

Cross posting this from The SFF and Mini-ITX thread:

So I'm looking to build a secondary pc and I wanted to keep it on the small side. I have most the parts picked out already so the only real question I have is which case to buy. The three goals I have for this build is keeping it entirely air cooled, try out Noctua fans, and use a more premium case. Here's the parts list https://pcpartpicker.com/list/J6bq2R .

My first and safest choice is the Caselabs Bullet BH2. Keeping it cool should be a breeze and I have actually found it cheaper than what they have it listed for on Amazon.

The next is the Ncase M1 and honestly this one scares me a bit. Keeping parts cool looks like a loving chore and the graphics card I'd like to use isn't ideal. I do have a little GTX 950 I can throw in but I'd probably replace it if I can get my 1070 sold. Either way I'd use the bottom fan mounts. And it looks like I'll need at least five or six fans for this build. Even with fan splitters I think it's going to to be close.

Last is the Dan A4-SFX v2, they're available on Kickstarter again. It actually looks like a much more straight forward build than the M1. I'd just have to substitute the NH-U9S for a Noctua NH-L9i.

Are there any other cases I should look at?

There's also the Fractal Design Node 304 (roughly the size of the Bullet BH2 but cheaper, should be trivial to keep cool) and the Node 202 (Desktop-like form factor, in volume it's between a Dan A4 and the Ncase M1 and size restrictions for components are similar to the Dan). I have a Node 202 but with a Pentium G4560 and GTX 1050 Ti I can't tell you how hard it is to keep higher end parts cool.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 22:08

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

I would like to "refresh" an older Core i3 system for my parents. Unfortunately its P55 mainboard doesn't have USB 3.0 yet. Do good USB 3.0 controller cards for eg. PCI-E exist?

# ¿ Jul 18, 2017 09:38

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

For your use, you could get a H110 board for the G4560, there are several which support Kaby Lake CPUs. Z270 boards give you newer on-board features and the option to put in a *K-CPU and faster RAM later.

Either way, don't buy current 2c/4t i3 CPUs while the 2c/4t Pentiums exist.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2017 10:30

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Don't buy a 7700k now.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The Red models are designed for NAS, so it should suite you fine. Blues are basic desktop usage, Blacks are heavy general use (games, etc), Purple is for surveillance recording, and Greens are meant to be tossed in industrial crushers because they're utter crap.

I don't think they even do Greens anymore, except for SSDs. They also added Red Pro (those run at 7200 rpm) and Gold ("enterprise-class"/"Datacenter", but they're similarly priced as Black and Red Pro).

# ¿ Aug 24, 2017 13:14

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

I think I have one of those in an old family PC that's rarely used. The other day I booted it to check for updates - big mistake (both of those) :v:

# ¿ Aug 24, 2017 14:27

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

The mainboard has 6 SATA ports, two of which will be disabled if you use a SATA M.2 device, you can use the other four ports for HDDs etc.

If you use a NVMe SSD you can use all SATA ports.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 16:18

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

If your input devices are connected to USB 3.0+ ports (eg. because your mainboard doesn't have anything else), Windows 7 can't use them because it lacks a built-in USB 3.0 driver. They work during POST because it's the BIOS/UEFI handling the devices. This has been a thing on Intel platforms for a while.

Either you have to install Windows 10 (you can freely activate it with your Windows 7 key after installation is complete - don't enter the key during installation) or jump through several hoops to get your devices' USB 3.x driver into Windows 7.

orcane fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Sep 14, 2017

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 08:07

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

It's a good thing no one was arguing to use HDDs over SSDs. Normal users who don't have to unpack archives all the time should spend their money on larger SSDs or better video cards instead of smaller, faster NVMe drives. If you don't already know your computer use profits from using NVMe drives, you probably don't need to spend money on one.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2017 12:49

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

BurritoJustice posted:

Only buy a black if your computer is in another room, they're ridiculously loud.

I have one in a Fractal Define R5 and they're not actually that loud :confused:

# ¿ Sep 24, 2017 08:45

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

You're probably going to have slightly longer load times though because disk performance actually takes that "up to 30%" hit (for NVME devices anyway).

# ¿ Jan 9, 2018 09:59

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Bob NewSCART posted:

How much of a jump is a 1060 vs a 970? And are the AMD equivalents even worth looking at?

The GTX 1060 6GB is about 10-20% faster. The RX 570 is a sidegrade that's only slightly faster than a GTX 970, and the RX 580 is about as fast as the 1060. All of them are way overpriced right now due to the cryptomining bubble, so I'd just take the GTX 970 for now and wait for new cards or saner prices.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2018 11:01

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Overrated?

Taffer posted:

I assume you don't want to drop big :10bux:

on crowdfunded SFF cases. The SilverStone Milo ML05 eg. would be a bit smaller (7 liters, vs. the Node 202's ~11) for a mini-ITX board, SFX PSU and the optional low-profile GPU. It also has a multipurpose bracket for a slim optical drive or 3.5" HDD.

Oversized power supplies are no big deal, the Corsair SF450 is the better option there, though.

You say you want a strong CPU, does your software scale well with additional threads? If so, consider using AMD's Ryzen (eg. Ryzen 5 1600 with 6C/12T or Ryzen 7 1700 with 8C/16T), otherwise go for the new i5-8400 (6C/6T) on something like the Asrock Z370M-ITX/ac (no cheaper chipsets for the 8th gen. Intel stuff yet), don't bother with 7th generation Intel CPUs at this point.

Regarding case fans, it depends on your case but since you're planning to run without GPU you probably don't need one.

For CPU coolers, the CPU's boxed cooler should suffice but if you want something quieter or run into issues with temperatures, the Noctua L9i (or L9a-AM4 for Ryzen) is the safest bet for really low profile cases, with the option to replace the attached A9-14 fan with the full height (25mm) A9 PWM. Depending on the case you end up with, there might be other options. But they're all more expensive and unlikely to be required.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2018 12:01

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Social Animal posted:

I just spent a bit over $300 for an rx 570. I don�t know how I feel. Is it a decent card for someone during this gpu crisis? If not I�ll just return it I guess.

It's a decent card for games in 1080p somewhere between a GTX 1050 Ti and a GTX 1060, closer to the latter. In a world without crypto miners, paying over $300 would buy you the faster 1060 but in this crazy time, it's a relatively normal price for it I guess. If you just need *a* video card, the GTX 1050 Ti 4GB is cheaper and not quite as overpriced (yet) at the same time. The RX 570 is almost 50% faster though, if you actually need the performance.

orcane fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jan 18, 2018

# ¿ Jan 18, 2018 16:36

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

The GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB is an efficient (both in power and price) card for 1080p gaming, although you'll have to reduce details in newer games. There's nothing wrong with it at all and the markup due to the cryptomining craze is very minor, compared to every other card that's faster.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2018 10:37

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

I don't know what they go for specifically, but I'd imagine the step up to the i5-8400's 6 cores/threads is not very much in terms of money over an unlocked i3, but it would let you keep the new setup before you have to upgrade the next time, while games keep getting better at using more than 4 cores.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 17:44

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

MREBoy posted:

One question I have is that at this point in time, is there any reason to get an i7 7xxx over an 8xxx, other than maybe price ? Second, I was wondering about M.2 slots and how they interact with any SATA ports on the motherboard. The mobo in the pcpartpicker bit below says the following about its M.2 slots:

I find this bit a smidge confusing as it seems to imply that what mode you run the m.2 drive in can affect if the motherboard SATA port(s) works. My educated guess is that it's a one or the other situation, in that using a m.2 slot kills the corresponding attached/shared SATA ports.

The only reason to pick up 7th generation/Kaby Lake CPUs is if someone wants to do an upgrade on an existing 100 or 200 series chipset mainboard. Intel doesn't do price cuts on old CPUs so they're not really cheaper (or not by enough to matter). A computer you want to keep for another five years or w/e probably shouldn't use a 4-core CPU when 6/8 cores is the current mainstream in consumer CPUs (and consoles).

Also that part about SATA is due to how M.2 is a form factor, not an interface type. Using a SATA M.2 device typically disables the shared port(s) on the mainboard but I assume that board's BIOS lets you set which device gets priority - you are correct that it's an either/or thing. As an illustration here's the Z370 chipset block diagram:

The chipset supplies 24 PCI Express lanes, NVMe M.2 devices use PCI Express and are typically connected to 4 lanes. They only have to be shared if a lot of lanes are required elsewhere eg. for SLI/Crossfire mainboards. M.2 devices using SATA are taking their ports out of the six provided by the chipset.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 11:38

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Your Computer posted:

I've been looking at upgrading my old i5-3570K CPU but I've seen mixed messages about newer CPUs not supporting Windows 7. Now, clearly there's a reason for that but I'm not ready quite yet to go over to Windows 10 and I was wondering what CPU I should be looking for that does support Windows 7? I'm prepared to buy a new motherboard and RAM if need be since those are also getting up in the years

I'm not necessarily looking for the fastest and most expensive stuff, just something newer and stronger than my old one. My graphics card is a GTX970 and it's been good enough for me, but I've noticed some stuff being CPU-bottlenecked. This is mostly for gaming, for what it's worth.

The Skylake generation (6x00) is the last one officially supported, but there's a hack that circumvents the CPU check of Windows Update so you can run anything including Coffee Lake and AMD Ryzen. The chipsets and mainboards generally still have drivers for Win7 (except the Intel iGPU on the 7x00 and 8x00 series, I think) and the new CPUs run fine.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 21:10

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Your Computer posted:

Thanks! A lot of articles and such made it sound like I wouldn't even be able to boot up with one of these new CPUs. Anything specific I need to keep in mind when upgrading? And what exactly is this hack?

Still haven't decided on a processor either. It's been too long since I looked at CPUs and I can't remember what I'm looking for. Aside from the most powerful and most expensive processors, what is a good upgrade for the old i5-3570K? In terms of performance, I'm sure most of the newer ones will outclass my old processor so I guess I'm looking for the best "bang for the buck" as long as I can get it to run.

Modern i5/i7 (8th generation ones have six cores instead of the just four like yours) and Ryzen 5/7 are going to be faster than your 3rd generation i5. I'd probably go with a Ryzen 5 or Core i5 8400 for "modern but affordable" but those still aren't exactly cheap. And you have to buy expensive DDR4 RAM. It depends on your budget, really. If you can find cheapish pre-owned stuff like a Core i7 6700k and a Z170 mainboard, that would even come with official Windows 7 support. Buying it new is not really saving you money though, because Intel never drops prices of old CPUs and you're looking at good older mainboards which aren't in production anymore, so you might as well go with current hardware.

The hack for Windows 7 is this software: https://github.com/zeffy/wufuc

Getting Windows 7 to run on a Ryzen mainboard is a tad easier, since Ryzen doesn't have an iGPU and AMD was about to support Windows 7 until shortly before launch (surely Microsoft didn't have anything to do with that). The boards I checked all had a full set of Windows 7 drivers available.

The newer Intel platforms are a bit harder since you'll have to jump through some hoops wrt drivers but most of them are available on the mainboard's download pages or from the manufacturers of the component (like Intel LAN/Wi-Fi, Realtek Audio etc.). Sometimes the driver packages under "Windows 10" include the Windows 7 drivers, and sometimes the generic driver in Windows works well enough. Finding the right driver for the iGPU takes a bit of effort, but at least for Kaby Lake it can be done. Coffee Lake CPUs might introduce new issues on that front.

A general challenge is getting Windows 7 onto a new computer, since the OS doesn't have drivers for NVMe or USB 3.0 and newer mainboards don't have USB 2.0 controllers. If that's the case you'll have to install off a non-USB optical drive or modify the installer to add the corresponding drivers.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2018 20:29

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Calef posted:

Hi Goons. I'd appreciate a sanity check here.

First of all, I'd like some validation that cpusolutions.com isn't a scam. I don't really have the time or energy to build a machine myself from pcpartspicker.

Second, I want to be sure I'm not doing anything stupid with this build.
[...]
One of my core use cases is podcast recording and so it's important that the machine not be extremely loud. I'll also be using it for gaming and streaming and video editing.

You can get much better CPUs from pcpartspicker.com but it seems like cpusolutions.com tops out at roughly quad-core 4.2 GHz processors. I'm not really sure whether this ought to be a dealbreaker or not.

The liquid cooling system is also something I'm a bit nervous about. I've never really dealt with one before and don't know what it entails.

I can't tell you about that website but the build is using outdated hardware (which doesn't save you much money). If you're spending that much you should be getting the newer parts like Z370 chipset mainboards and 8th generation Core CPU (eg. i7 8700k instead of 7700k), also faster DDR4 RAM (up to about 3000 MHz the price increase over eg. 2400 is not significant).

M_Gargantua posted:

Yeah this puts it in simple words, Pentiums are fine, but why would you get one when he 8400 exists. I would only consider Pentiums in applications where you weren�t going to need any GPU, which makes them great for NAS or stream boxes

E; and I was also operating on the assumption that it sounded like the opinion had been formed back when all intel chips were pentiums, and being used as a catch all term.

You mean when the i3 8100 exists. The i5 is not really in the same price range.

Pentiums are okay but if you're building a PC for gaming you have better options unless you have to penny pinch. The older 2 core/2 thread Pentiums up to Skylake could be used for low cost gaming but then games started to ask for more than two threads or they refused running. The Kaby Lake Pentiums had hyperthreading like the i3 so you could actually play modern games too. Since then they have 2 cores/4 threads but the newest i3 has 4/4 and isn't much more expensive. Beyond cheap pre-builts or second hand stuff, if you want low cost gaming right now, you could also get a Ryzen 3 APU which actually lets you skip having to buy some basic $50 GPU to play more than Solitaire.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 00:43

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

HalloKitty posted:

Whether you have a board that allows overclocking or not, the answer is 4790K, but I imagine they've held their value well on the used market.
You also don't want to pair it with slow RAM (<1866) otherwise you're throwing perfomance gains away.

Mine's fine with DDR3-1600 :colbert:

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 09:13

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

jonathan posted:

Can that liquid metal thermal paste be used ontop of the cpu or is that only for delidding stuff ? Going to delid and then upgrade to an AIO cooler from my 212.

Technically you can use it on top of the CPU too, and some people do, but the liquid metal paste corrodes aluminium (copper is not entirely immune either). It's also electrically conductive so it's very easy to damage your computer with it.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 19:47

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

M_Gargantua posted:

Just as a side question, to the (Multiple!) people who have said "I Don't overclock but I'm going to de-lid and liquid metal this $$$ Processor"

Why?

They can always overclock it in a few years and enjoy cooler/quieter operation in the meantime. Or the people who use cases like a DAN A4 or S4 Mini, because up to 20 degrees is huge when your CPU cooler is limited to about 50 mm height.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2018 13:29

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Computerbase ran a similar comparison with unlocked i7 CPUs from Sandy Bridge to Coffee Lake, with and without overclocking and faster RAM. It's in German if you can be bothered, the results on page 2 include frametimes.

In the five games they tested with a GTX 1080 Ti, performance on the i7-2600k goes up from default (with DDR3-1333) to overclocked (with DDR3-2133) by +24% in FPS, +37% in frametimes in 1080p. I'd expect relative gains on a 2500k to be in a similar ballpark, depending on the game of course.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 15:56

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

The point is to check to what extent the older CPU generations can keep up today and how much you can gain from overclocking, the results are an upper limit of that if you run a current video card.

Obviously slower video cards run into GPU limits faster, but the relative performance increases are not going to be massively different. The lower limit would be comparing the GTX 1080 Ti's 4k benchmarks. Since that resolution is still mostly GPU limited, overclocking Sandy Bridge doesn't do much for your average FPS (<5%) but still results in a 16% increase in frametimes/minimum FPS.

E: It might also become a very specific use case for people when they upgrade their older systems with a GTX 1170/2070 "soon" :haw:

orcane fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Feb 27, 2018

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 16:26

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

If you get one new stick you should try to get the same product you already have, but it might still lead to compatibility issues. The sticks today might have the same name but still use different memory chips.

A new matched and tested kit would let you get a slight performance boost, too. With DDR3-1866/2133/2400 you can get noticeably better minimum framerates in games (and a very small increase in average FPS). DDR3 is old so the sweet spot is probably "as fast as possible" now, but IIRC kits with DDR3-2400, especially with 8 GB sticks, are somewhat rare or overly expensive. I'd aim for DDR3-2133 for a new kit.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 11:59

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Kingnothing posted:

I have two identical 1.5 TB drives, and I just got a single 3 TB to replace one (only two bays).

What�s the best way to decide the fitness of each drive to pick which one I replace?

CrystalDiskInfo, get the standard edition ZIP version to avoid bundled software in the installer.

If both drives show as "good", decide based on SMART attributes. Check the raw value, if you have any reallocated sectors, spin retries or any of the attributes marked critical in the linked article, ditch the drive.

Otherwise I'd replace the one that was manufactured earlier unless the other one has significantly more power-on hours.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 11:21

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Kingnothing posted:

Thanks for the reply.

I was a little wrong about the drives in the first place. One is about two years older, and the older one is quite a bit slower but has about half the power hours.

They both have different thresholds for reallocated sectors according to CDI, and I don't quite understand why there's such a difference. I'm assuming because there's a warning there may be something wrong, but I don't quite get it.

Both also pass a short SeaTools test. Trying to avoid a long test if I can because this is a media server and I don't want that function offline too long.

You want to look at the raw values, it's why CrystalDiskInfo colors the Seagate drive's reallocated sectors count yellow (and changes the drive status to caution) - that drive had to remap sectors with errors 23 times so far, which is an indication that it might be dying.

Thresholds are set by the manufacturers to whatever they like, so they're not very helpful, especially if they tie their RMA process to it (eg. SeaTools will report the drive as "good" until a threshold has been reached) so it may be in their interest to set the thresholds to unreasonable values. A few years ago I had a Seagate HDD that was happily passing SeaTools tests and I only figured out it was dying because SH/SC goons told me to check CrystalDiskInfo. It had hundreds of reallocated sectors (which was occasionally freezing my computer completely) and wasn't even halfway to the threshold. It probably would have died long before reaching the threshold, just so Seagate wouldn't have to replace it in case it happened within the warranty period.

The Seagate drive being older, showing bad sectors and a massive amount of read- and seek errors tells you everything, really. Replace it and keep the WD one.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 21:29

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

Jago posted:

I believe this to be incorrect. If not, it is incorrect that having 8 pci Express slots really hurts performance. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_PCI_Express_Scaling/

Are you wrong about two things or just one?

The 2400g seems like a real bargain to me, not to mention the almost certainly cheaper motherboard.

Getting objective info on AMD products out of Paul is not going happen either way.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Mar 4, 2018 20:47

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

cage-free egghead posted:

A year old CPU is "horrifically outdated" now...? I mean, it's not much to upgrade but the 7600k is still more than capable.

The statement is unnecessarily hyperbolic and in a general sense it's wrong, but in the context of people putting together DIY builds with Kaby Lake CPUs in 2018, it's correct - the CPU is not outdated but the idea of building a new system with it is.

Intel doesn't drop prices of old CPUs so unless you get a used system or an amazingly cheap prebuilt system with a Z270 + i5 7600k, you're going to be paying just as much for a product that's inferior in every way.

However, the OP was changed to (exclusively, :laffo:

) suggest Coffee Lake CPUs/builds for everything earlier this year so that doesn't seem to be the issue.

orcane fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Mar 12, 2018

# ¿ Mar 12, 2018 14:40

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

pranbran posted:

Hoping for some help from the hivemind here. The GF and I are looking to build ourselves gaming computers for the first time and have a budget of $1000 per computer since we have to buy two. We are starting from scratch as we have 7 year old laptops that we are currently using - not much is salvageable. I've been poking around on PCPartPicker and referencing the OP a much as possible and put this build together:
[...]
I just had a few questions that I couldn't figure out on my own:
1) We're trying to make sure that we are okay to upgrade parts as we save up additional money. If my understanding is correct, the motherboard I picked out can support upgrading the CPU (to an i5 or an i7), memory (up to 64GB), at least one additional hard drive, and possibly the video card as well. Do I have that correct?
2) Do we need a sound card? I was looking through what specs I could find, but I couldn't find any mention of whether or not sound was supported by the motherboard or another component. I added a sound card just in case, but I didn't know if it was necessary. If it's covered by something else, I'd like to get rid of the sound card and put that money toward monitors.
3) Do we need any additional cooling for this? I saw the option for CPU Cooler and additional fans, but I wasn't sure how necessary any of that was. I did see that the CPU, GPU, and Power Supply all had fans already, so I'm thinking its not necessary but I wanted to verify.
4) Is there anything that sticks out to you as something that doesn't look like it'll work in this set-up or just seems weird overall? Anything we could downgrade to save a bit of money without sacrificing performance?

Your understanding of your upgrade options is correct - current Intel CPUs are "easy" in that regard since there's only the Z370 chipset right now and it supports everything from low-end Pentiums and i3s to unlocked i7s suitable for overclocking. It supports the highest RAM frequencies and the mainboards are usually well equipped with add-on features, gamer bling LEDs and better voltage regulation for overclockers. Going with Z-series chipsets is a good idea especially if you want to keep the PC for a while, since it allows you to put in an unlocked i5 or i7 later, and even overclock it to extend the system's life later.

However, if you want to save some money, Intel is supposed to launch the lower end H310, B360 and H370 chipsets for the current CPU generation next month. They don't support overclocking but include some features the Z370 doesn't have yet (like USB 3.1 and integrated wireless LAN) and should allow for cheaper mainboards.

Mainbards have good enough integrated sound these days. If you figure out it's not good enough after all, you should consider a good USB DAC instead of an actual sound card.

CPUs other than the overclockable k-series like the 8700k come with adequate CPU coolers, they're just not silent and don't have much headroom if you're using them in a stuffed case with bad airflow eg. But in a Fractal Define you don't have the latter problem, so only spend the additional $30+ if you really want a silent cooler. The Fractal Define R5 comes with case fans, buying more is unnecessary (especially with the i3 and a GTX 1050) and you can always add a new CPU cooler and case fans later when you get faster but hotter components.

Things I'd change:

Mainboard looks good to me but maybe someone will tell you there are better Z370 ATX boards (differences are mainly in voltage regulation and addon features, also Gigabyte had a bad reputation for a while but I think they got better again).
Buying a second RAM stick allows you to get additional speed out of your setup because the RAM can run in dual channel mode. You can either get the 8 GB in 2x4 GB sticks or go for 16 GB in 2x8 GB sticks instead. I know you're trying to save money, so you could pick the former option, and see if you can get them in DDR-3200 for roughly the same price. You can always throw it out once DDR4 becomes cheap again or upgrade it to eg. 40 GB total
The 850 EVO is a good SSD but the newer Crucial MX500 is cheaper and faster where it counts for everyday users. The newer 860 EVO is faster but not in a way that's worth the additional price. If you can get the 850 cheaper than the MX500, go for it, though.
Unless you're all set up with a NAS, you probably want to add an actual spinny drive HDD, especially if you're planning to play modern games - they're frequently over 50 GB and fill up even larger SSDs very fast, with 250 GB you basically have room for Windows, your applications and like one or two games. Something like a 2 or 3 TB WD Red or Blue is not very expensive.
Fractal Design released the successor to the R5, the R6 - if it's the same price and you don't need the few things the R6 ditched (like multiple 5.25 inch bays for optical drives eg.), consider getting the new one. Or actually, consider a slightly more compact version like the Define C. The R5/6 is pretty big - it's great if you need to stuff a lot of things into it and want to have room for big bad cooling towers on your CPU and great airflow inside, but it wastes a lot of space if you only use it for a mainboard, one HDD, one SSD and one video card.
I'm not sure if the PSU is one of the good Corsair units, I'm not familiar with them.
You can save the money for Windows 10 by getting a cheap Windows 7 key (eg. on SA-Mart, but key seller websites like Kinguin or Craigslist works too), you can install Windows 10 without adding a key, then activate with the WIndows 7 key once it's installed. That'll be $10 to $30 instead of 100.

orcane fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Mar 12, 2018

# ¿ Mar 12, 2018 21:48

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

sean10mm posted:

Pardon my stupid question, but here goes: for gaming purposes, is there any new CPU that, out of the box, is a meaningful upgrade from an i5-6600K @ 4.2?

Depends on what's meaningful to you I guess. If you want to keep all your other hardware you can get up to the i7 7700k (if you're using a Z170 board that would require a BIOS udpate which you have to install with the 6600k), it has 8 threads instead of your 4 for the increasing amount of modern games which scale well with more threads, turbo goes up to 4.5 GHz. The Z170 doesn't support the fastest RAM speeds but it gets the job done. The newer CPUs like the i5 8400 or i7 8700k have six cores and 6 (i5)/12 (i7) threads and the latter's turbo goes up to 4.7 GHz, but they require a new mainboard.

I'd say, keep the 6600k unless you have specific reasons to upgrade, eg. if your favourite multiplayer FPS doesn't reach 200 fps or whatever. You can always upgrade to Ryzen 2/3 or 8th/9th gen Core in the future.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2018 23:02

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:47

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

cowofwar posted:

Is the i5-4590 still reasonable and not limited in performance compared to coffee lake cpus? Looking to upgrade my GTX 760 2Gb when the new card series come out and wondering if I should upgrade the rest at the same time. It's paired with 8gig of DDR3 1600.

I play games but my monitor isn't HD, just 1920x1080.

1920 x 1080 is ("full") HD

The current i3-8100 is basically your i5 but with slightly higher base clock and lower TDP on a modern platform (DDR4, newer USB, faster NVMe slots, more PCIe lanes if you need those). Compared to the Coffee Lake i5/i7 you're missing two cores, games are slowly scaling better with more threads but 4 threads are not completely outmatched yet. A Coffee Lake i5/i7 is going to be faster in modern games, but it depends on the specific game.

Personally, I'd upgrade the video card and go from there. If your system ends up feeling slow in the games you want to play, you can still upgrade the rest of your computer - or wait with the upgrade if it's still fast enough for you. Technically you could even upgrade your current setup by using more and (especially) faster RAM, DDR3-1866 or even -2133 is not expensive compared to the recommended DDR4-2666 and up for Coffee Lake builds. And if you can find a cheap used one, you could upgrade to the i7 4790k. That should be cheaper than buying a new mainboard with Coffee Lake CPU and DDR4-RAM, but it also won't last as long.

SalTheBard posted:

Thanks for the link to the SFF and Mini-ITX thread! I didn't check first to see if there was one! Also I get what you are saying about future proofing, I choose my words poorly there. I guess more what I meant was incremental upgrades which now that I think about it is no different than any regular computer.

The challenge - and fun! - of SFF builds are the restrictions you have to work around. With an ATX case you can basically put in whatever, with SFF builds you have to work around the constraints of your chosen case, like maximum cooler height, GPU dimensions, storage selection etc. Also, optimizing cooling is more important because you usually can't just stick two more case fans and a bigger tower cooler in.

As you say, you can still do incremental updates like other PCs though. Just be ready to disassemble your entire box if you eg. want to replace the CPU or its cooler (low profile coolers are often screwed in directly from the back of the mainboard instead of using mounting plates) or a NVMe SSD on mainboards where the M.2 slot is on the back :haw:

orcane fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Mar 13, 2018

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 10:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > PC Building/Upgrading/Parts-picking Megathread Reloaded

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