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canepazzo posted:Have been meaning to upgrade the CPU as my 6700k is getting a bit old. I play on a 1440p/144hz monitor, on a 1080ti. RAM is 16gb 3200Mhz. GPU should still last me for a bit, I think. Not planning to move to 4k any time soon. The 3600 is generally the best value you can get right now, but it should be said it's not necessarily a huge upgrade from a 6700K. In games that are bound by single-thread performance you'll get maybe 10-15% better FPS or something on that order (see GN's review for some numbers - they don't have a 6700K but the 7700K is close-ish, especially if you've overclocked the 6700K). On the other hand, in games that are bound by multi-thread performance, like Assassin's Creed Origins, it's easily 50% higher framerate. So, if it's worth upgrading or not depends on what you play. Also, a 3600 won't get you all the way to 144fps in current AAA titles. You'll get over 100fps easily and over 120 in many titles, but usually not the full 144. If you have a variable refresh rate monitor this really doesn't matter at all though. So to sum it up, a 3600 is a great purchase in general, but the answer to the question "is it right for you" is a somewhat unhelpful ~it depends~.
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Nov 13, 2019 14:25
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canepazzo posted:Thanks - so what CPU would I be looking at for an actual, tangible upgrade then? If you're after single threaded performance there's unfortunately not much that makes sense other than the 9700K or 9900K, and both of those are pretty dang expensive. The higher core count Ryzens don't really have all that much better single thread performance than the 3600. I'd say that if you're getting >100fps in the games you play currently, you can hold off on upgrading for at least a year or so, or until you start playing games where you get thread-limited. If you're playing asscreed though and it's chugging along at 70fps, a 3600 is still a good buy even though it won't do all that much for you in some other titles. A 9700K/9900K would be splurging - they're great CPU's, just expensive.
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Nov 13, 2019 14:39
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Incessant Excess posted:Are the dimensions of a "reference" GPU related to other parts like the motherboard or could those conceivably change with a new GPU generation? If a case can fit a reference 2080ti, can I expect it to also fit a reference 3080, 4080 etc... ? Not necessarily, no, but in practice, probably. There is a standard width that is generally adhered to, but the card length can be all over the place. In practice though GPU sizes have been fairly constant for years now.
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Nov 13, 2019 18:32
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:That is because I did some looking around and that CPU is on sale on Newegg and also Real Good so I upped it from a non-hyper threaded i7. A 27" 1440p 144Hz IPS monitor with variable refresh rate support is only around $400 these days, and it'll do more for gaming than almost anything else you can buy will. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Nov 13, 2019 |
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Nov 13, 2019 21:17
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charity rereg posted:For the OP I realize that PCPartPicker does not hit every retailer, every deal, every card but their filters are really second to none in these types of comparisons. geizhals.eu would like a word. PCPartPicker is okay-ish for some parts (for GPU's it's decent for example), but check out the monitors category on Geizhals - there's something like 100 different filter parameters just for this one product category. Unfortunatly it's EU market only though.
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Nov 14, 2019 15:06
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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.
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Nov 17, 2019 22:42
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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. 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.
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Nov 18, 2019 00:03
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"G-sync compatible" freesync monitors are certified by nvidia to a pretty high standard and are functionally indistinguishable from actual g-sync monitors to a consumer. Other freesync monitors vary; basically all the 144hz gaming ones are perfectly fine and we recommend them all the time in the monitor thread, but read a few reviews if in doubt (TFTCentral and Rtings.com are both trustworthy and equipped to actually measure monitor performance). Examples of these include the 27" 1440p 144Hz IPS ones from Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, LG and Nixeus, as well as the 34" 1440p 120/144hz ultrawides. One notably bad example though is one of Samsung's curved VA panels; I forget the model number but since it's VA it's not a good buy anyway. Cheap ones with max refresh rate between 60 and 90 hz are usually terrible. Don't do what citycop did and buy one of these without careful research first. 4k 60Hz ones with a freesync range of 40-60Hz usually work, but variable refresh rate with a range that narrow usually isn't very useful. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Nov 24, 2019 |
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Nov 24, 2019 05:35
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Bloodly posted:The absolute honest answer is 'I don't know'. That is... well, no offense intended, but that's actually bizarre. As far as I can tell that monitor is a 32" 16:9 panel with a native resolution of 1360x768, and while it does support both 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 as inputs, both of those are the wrong aspect ratio and will end up stretching the image. Normally I'd strongly recommend a new monitor to actually take advantage of your GPU in this sort of situation, but if you don't notice or care about that sort of distortion it might honestly be a wash. How far do you sit from it? At least try running it at its recommended resolution (1360x768) and look at this test pattern and see if you can tell that the circles actually look round rather than elliptical (as they will with 1280x1024 or 1600x1200).
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Nov 24, 2019 17:35
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Oddhair posted:Previous Post in this thread The 9400F doesn't make any sense when you can get a Ryzen 5 2600 for $20 less, or a 3600 for $195. If you for some reason don't want an AMD CPU, don't get a $185 overclocking motherboard for a $140 locked CPU. Get the cheapest Z370 or Z390 board you can find in that case. Also $80 is too much for 16GB of DDR4-2666, you can get 16GB of DDR4-3200 for $60 these days. This would be significantly better performance (slightly better single thread, significantly better multi-threaded) for about the same money: PCPartPicker Part List CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($194.00 @ Amazon) Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.99 @ B&H) Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($81.99 @ Amazon) Total: $390.98 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Downgrade to a 2600 and DDR4-3200 if you want to save $100. e: 4K is basically always GPU bottlenecked and I don't think you'll have a good time with dual Titan Z's in SLI at all. It basically doesn't work except in benchmarks these days. I would expect a single Titan Z to be underdimensioned for 1440p 120Hz and completely inadequate for 4K 60Hz. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 21:58
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PassiveSentence posted:GPU recently died, and I'm looking to buy a replacement, a better PSU, and also upgrade to a 1440p 144hz monitor for gaming. The higher the framerate the more likely you are to become CPU bottlenecked. At 60fps you'll be fine, but a 4590 will probably not be able to keep up above 100fps in new games. In some games that like lots of threads (like Asscreed or RDR2) you might barely get to 70, even. In older games you'll be fine. Game settings generally don't affect the CPU either.
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Nov 27, 2019 20:36
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canepazzo posted:So I've decided I need to upgrade the system; I asked in the past and was convinced to postpone it till performance actually starts to suffer. A 1080Ti should be fine for 1440p high refresh rate for a while yet. There isn't really much of an upgrade path from it anyway, it's basically only the 2080Ti that's meaningfully better. I think the problem is more with the games you mentioned than with your hardware. A 6700K is maybe a bit underpowered for high refresh rate these days, but it's not by much, and neither of the games you mentioned seem to be particularly thread-hungry as far as I can tell. So, if you want to upgrade something it should probably be the CPU, but if you're not going for a 9900K I'm not sure if you should bother. The R5 3600 is only a slight upgrade from a 6700K. You could try buying a big CPU cooler like the Noctua NH-D15 and try overclocking your 6700K, if you are okay with tinkering. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 10:45
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Faded Mars posted:So I splurged and picked up a refurb Dell/Alienware RTX 2080 Ti for significantly under retail. It is a blower card but with some power management the noise is bearable. But now I think the rest of my PC is holding it back. If you do a lot of photoshop and you want that 2080ti to really stretch its legs at 144hz I think Intel might actually make more sense for you - photoshop is one of the very few productivity workloads where Intel has an advantage these days. Unfortunately the 9900K is really the only choice that makes sense in that case. Still, a 3700X is by no means a bad buy, but since the single thread performance is barely better than on the 3600, it's not all that much better in many games. You'll still get well over 100fps though, so if you have freesync/g-sync on your monitor it doesn't really matter that much if you're getting 120fps or 140. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Nov 30, 2019 |
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Nov 30, 2019 15:20
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ItBreathes posted:Friend of mine went and bought this last night (3700X, 580 8gb, $850). Parted out it really doesn't seem to be a bad deal dollar for dollar, though you do get some of the questionable part choices endemic to prebuilts. It's still within the return window (if they don't screw him on the game code), so if I can guide him to a better system i'd like to. GamersNexus benches Total War Warhammer 2 at least, and as far as I can see all the Ryzen 3000's are basically equivalent, while the 2700 is about 10-15% behind. I think Cities Skylines is similarly single thread bound, but I'm not sure. There are games that can use the extra threads (Hitman 2 comes to mind) but they're rather rare.
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Dec 4, 2019 17:26
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ChocolatePancake posted:Been 5 years since my last build, and it's time for an upgrade. I mainly use it for programming with occasional gaming. So, docker containers, visual studio, local databases, occasional virtual machines and playing games like FarCry or Fallout, which I would like to be able to run at 1440p. Double 4-pin EPS connectors is a silly extreme overclocking feature that motherboard vendors add to their boards because it's a super cheap feature that makes them look racier or something. A single 4-pin EPS is good for something stupid like north of 300W or w/e - I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's more power than you can possibly get a 3700X to draw without putting it under liquid nitrogen. These connectors are almost always wired in parallel too so it doesn't matter if you only plug in one even though the board has two connectors. If you're not overclocking you can get away with a cheaper motherboard - if you don't care about PCIe 4 you can even step down to a B450 board, if you want. As for PSU, see the discussion above. The stock heatsink is okay for running at stock but it's gonna be louder and hotter than an aftermarket one.
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Dec 4, 2019 17:37
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General Maximus posted:So after one too many random glitches, the possibility of a USB port going bad and paranoia about the rest of the motherboard following it, I'm looking into replacing my PC. You have a build that's quite well dimensioned for a 1440p 144Hz monitor, so if there's space left in the budget that's where I'd start looking. A 5700XT is flat out overkill for 1080p 60Hz. A decent 27" 1440p 144Hz IPS monitor is usually around $400 USD or less these days, and prices have been dropping. Standing recommendations in the monitor thread are the Nixeus EDG-27S v2, the LG 27GL850 and the LG 27GL83A. Don't know what might be available locally though or what deals you might have - there are many alternatives to the ones I mentioned.
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Dec 8, 2019 15:17
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Q_res posted:I have a very RAM specific question, I'm kind of murky on exactly how big a difference frequency and timings make these days. I have a 7700k with a mild overclock to 4.6, an Samsung 860 EVO m.2 drive as C:/ and an RTX 2070 on an MSI Z270-A Pro. Currently running 16 GB (2x8) of DDR4-3000 with 15-16-16-35 timing, I've been contemplating upgrading my ram and I'm looking at a 32 GB set (2x16) of DDR4-3600 (the board supports up to 3800 according to specs when I bought it) with 16-19-19-39 timings. I do use XMPP and the OC Genie stuff as well. How much of a difference would that make versus just buying 2 more sticks of what I've already got? Unless you know for a fact that you have some kind of workload that's memory bound in some way, or you're already planning on upgrading because 16GB isn't enough for something you need to do, I don't think you should bother. If you need 32GB then I'd recommend getting a matched kit rather than buying loose sticks or separate kits to add on to what you already have. More sticks and more memory in general adds additional load on the memory controller and kits are binned and rated for use alone, not together with other kits. In your case it's very unlikely to actually be a problem in practice though because of the relatively low speeds and slow timings, but memory OC and memory instability testing is a huge pain in the rear end that's absolutely not worth dealing with and RAM is really cheap again, so if you're going to the trouble and expense of buying new modules today, just go straight for a 32GB 3600 kit IMO.
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Dec 9, 2019 14:36
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Q_res posted:Well just to be clear, what I'm looking at is either buying the exact same memory kit (same brand, spec, timings even part number) or replacing what I've got with the 32GB kit. I know better than to mix disparate RAM sticks. You're probably right in that 32 is likely overkill, but even if I just replaced my existing RAM with the same capacity of the different spec. Would it make much difference? Even buying an identical kit is not guaranteed to work - it's binned to work with 16GB and two sticks, adding two more puts more load on the IMC and could at least in theory lead to issues. Again though, in this case I'm almost certain it'd be just fine, I just wanted to make it clear that XMP timings and bandwidth ratings are for the kit, not for individual sticks or for combinations of sticks. I know it sounds weird, but it's true - memory OC is just weird. Anyway, to actually answer the question, going from 3000 CL16 to 3600CL16 is not likely to be a big improvement in most workloads. In games you might see a few percentage points better minimum frame times, probably. GamersNexus has some numbers for Ryzen at least. For productivity, it's gonna depend heavily on what you do.
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Dec 9, 2019 15:38
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Whoreson Welles posted:Huh, that’s strange that it isn’t sold in the US. I haven’t thought about mITX but have no qualms against it. Would it bottleneck all of the other components I already have? Naw, ITX boards aren't less capable than their full-size cousins, they are mainly just less expandable since you physically can't fit as much stuff on them. Only one PCIe slot, usually only one M.2 slot (although a few boards have two), fewer SATA ports, etc etc. For most people this isn't a problem at all since PCIe expansion cards barely exist anymore, SLI has become basically unsupported and you can get way more storage than most people ever need on only 1-2 drives. ITX power delivery (or more specifically, VRM overheating) can become a problem though if you're overclocking a high-end CPU, but for an R5 it should be no problem at all, and especially not if you're gonna run it at stock or near-stock.
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Dec 10, 2019 15:52
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WattsvilleBlues posted:My GPU driver keeps crashing, even though I've reinstalled the driver's lots of times. I'm taking it the hardware is dying. Let me put it this way instead: what kind of monitor resolution and refresh rate are you using, and do you have any plans to upgrade that in the foreseeable future? TheFluff fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Dec 10, 2019 |
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Dec 10, 2019 20:29
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taqueso posted:Do you think I will be able to run this setup using a 120W Pico PSU? PC Part Picker estimates 156W so pretty iffy but I don't know how conservative the estimate is. I already have all this stuff so I can try it out but no need to bother if everyone says it's hopeless. How much power can I save if I undervolt stuff? I wouldn't say it's a great idea though.
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Dec 10, 2019 20:57
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WattsvilleBlues posted:Sorry I should have been clearer. Is there anything around £100 that would give roughly the same performance as a 7950 Boost? My monitor is a 60Hz 1920x1200 Dell panel. I'll not be upgrading anything else for the foreseeable future. Right. I'd try to look for a good deal on a Radeon RX 570, you might be able to get one for £125 or maybe even less if you shop around, and it'd be a decent upgrade too. GTX 1050Ti's can also be found for just over £100 but it's not really a better card than the 570. Other than that you could also look around for used GTX 960's, 970's or 1060's. It's actually sort of hard to find a new card that performs like the 7950 - even entry level gaming cards from several years ago (eg GTX 1050Ti) are significantly more powerful, and below that in the product stack you start running into really lovely cards that are bad value for your money. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Dec 10, 2019 |
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Dec 10, 2019 23:29
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WattsvilleBlues posted:ASUS AMD Radeon RX 580 OC 4 GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card, DUAL-RX580-O4G https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071NS93PH/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_3ad8DbW6V48ZT Yeah, that looks good. You could maybe get one with 8GB VRAM for only slightly more if you looked around but that's probably not going to make a difference in the vast majority of games, so just go for it. It's a big upgrade anyway.
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Dec 11, 2019 07:43
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Busy Bee posted:Over the last few weeks, I've been doing some research into building a PC in the next month or two. Pretty settled on building around an AMD processor + Nvidia 2080 Super. Are you planning on having hard drives in your build, or just SSD's? If you don't have hard drives, the somewhat counter-intuitive way to get low noise is to buy a case with good airflow (mesh front panel, etc) and fit as many and as big fans as you can. Having big fans with little airflow restrictions lets you move a lot of air at very low RPM, which ends up being quieter than making slow fans work hard inside a closed-off case. GamersNexus has done quite a bit of testing on this if you're interested.
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Jan 25, 2020 14:36
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Busy Bee posted:Just SSD's. How does have regular hard drives inhibit having a case with good airflow? Sorry, that could have been clearer. If you only have SSD's, the fans are the only meaningful source of noise, so if you want a quiet system all you need is to minimize fan noise. However, if you also have hard drives, those make a good deal of noise on their own, so you might want a compromise instead where you sacrifice a bit of airflow (which probably means increased fan noise) in order to get less hard drive noise. I experienced this for myself - I have a BeQuiet Dark Base 700, which is a silence-focused case with a closed-off front panel and a bunch of sound dampening material, heavy panels etc. I originally had hard drives in it, but when I moved those to a NAS in another room, I experimented a bit and found that with those gone, I could get the system to run both quieter and cooler if I removed the front panel entirely and ran with just the dust filter in front and adjusted the fan curves a bit.
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Jan 25, 2020 16:21
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Klyith posted:I just want to say there is one bit of context that's important for this: a mesh-front high airflow case is often quieter at load than a case with more restrictions. That can be true, but I'd say it depends on what CPU/GPU cooler and what fans you have though. My system is basically inaudible at idle with the fans at ~600-650 RPM, although I should note that it's placed on the floor under my desk, not up on the desk next to me.
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Jan 25, 2020 16:31
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Scyantific posted:Hello PC Building Thread! Looking to upgrade my 5 year old system, which means I'm building a new one. Going to carry over my peripherals (KB+M/Monitor/etc) so those aren't a factor. I'd also try to set aside money for a monitor upgrade in the near future. A 5700XT is sort of overkill for 1080p 60fps, and 27" 1440p 144Hz IPS monitors with Freesync can be found for around $350 these days, sometimes even less (look for the Nixeus EDG-27S v2, the LG 27GL850 or the LG 27GL83A). High refresh rate 1440p with variable framerate support is a huge upgrade for basically all first-person games and you'll have the hardware to support it.
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Jan 29, 2020 10:34
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Aranan posted:Very cool, thanks for the suggestions and the knowledge that you've got basically the same setup (and presumably like it!). Filling up a 1TB drive seems insane to me. I barely have 400GB used on my current PC. Also, I'm getting a case with no windows so I don't care what the guts of my computer look like. If you start playing AAA games it fills up crazy fast. Installs that are well over 100GB aren't uncommon these days, and I think the current CoD:MW was over 150GB. Even Rainbow 6 Siege (which is a pretty old game at this point) is well over 100GB. If you're like me and have friends who you want to play some casual shootmans with occasionally it can take a lot of disk space to keep up.
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Feb 28, 2020 08:06
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PIZZA.BAT posted:
I don't think a 9600K makes sense for what you want to do. If you want small and quiet I think you'd be better off with a R5 3600 and one of the smaller Noctua coolers. It's insignificantly less performance but cheaper and with less power draw. Intel doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now if you're not going for a top of the line 9900K build.
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Mar 6, 2020 15:59
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DMW45 posted:So, I got my current computer roughly 5 years ago as the, what the SA thread at the time called: - Do you want a pre-built system or are you okay with assembling it from parts yourself? - Do you want a completely new system or are you planning to reuse parts (e.g. chassis, hard drives, etc) from your existing one? - Do you have a brand and model number for that TV? It would be easier to make good recommendations if we know what resolution it uses. You can get quite a bit of performance for $1000 these days.
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Mar 6, 2020 16:06
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DMW45 posted:Prebuilt is preferred, but whichever would be best. If it comes down to it, and I can't get it put together myself, there's a local computer shop I can get it built at. You'll get more for your money if you build yourself with your budget, so I'd recommend going for that. It's quite easy these days and the only tool you need is a Philips head screwdriver. I'd say it's less complex than many IKEA furniture kits. You're looking at maybe a dozen screws, a few cables and seating a few things in slots where they can only fit one way. The TV is a 1080p one, so you'll have no problems getting smooth performance at high graphics settings in current games with your budget. Check the budget 1080p build in this post for a starting point, but you have room in the budget for more performance if you want it. Prices have probably shuffled around a bit since that post was written though. I don't have time to go spelunking on PCPartPicker right now or I'd just post a build - I'll probably get around to it later tho unless someone beats me to it. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Mar 6, 2020 |
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Mar 6, 2020 17:39
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_jink posted:is there a go-to recommendation for the most inexpensive computer able to run photoshop & some ancient recipe software? I'm not that familiar with prebuilts so I don't have a recommendation there, but for these kinds of computers hitting up craigslist or liquidation sales for used office PC's can be a good way to pick up a decent computer for next to nothing.
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Mar 30, 2021 23:26
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