PC Building Megathread - "Released" is a nebulous term...

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > PC Building Megathread - "Released" is a nebulous term...

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

I want a new computer since my old one seems to be dying and there's some company tax poo poo to take advantage of. Are video cards still rarer than diamonds? I live in Australia, and I want it to for web/office, fairly high end gaming and some programming. I would also like it to be ready/compatible for a high-refresh rate monitor (that I haven't got yet). Did Gsync or Freesync win the war? Is there are standard high-end PC gaming build? Is a top end video card it worth it? Seems like graphics haven't made that much progress.

My old set up is 5 year old i500 6600 Skylake 3.3Ghz with a 980ti.

Probably looking at ~$2k US (not including monitor/etc), but I'm flexible.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 03:01

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 03:15

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Scythe posted:

Thanks! My friend got his 3080 in 6 months from a retailer and now he's waiting for a CPU so it's just sitting there in a box lmao.

I guess I'll put in an order and wait.

Edit: Are the Radeon cards not worth looking at all? The main benefit of a modern nvidia card is ray tracing, right? What if I'm willing to forgo RTX?

My retailer has ETAs available for the 3060ti, whereas all the other 30xx cards are a big shrug lol. Much difference between that and a 3080?

crepeface fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Mar 15, 2021

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 03:48

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Okay, weirdly, they have 3070s now... and it's cheaper?!?!

PNY GeForce RTX 3070 XLR8 Revel EPIC-X RGB Triple Fan 8GB GDDR6
$1249.00

ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ROG Strix Gaming OC 8GB GDDR6
$1259.00

Is PNY some terrible brand?

Edit: lol as I'm making a build, they sell out.

crepeface fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Mar 15, 2021

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 08:09

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Butterfly Valley posted:

Even with Aussie dollars these are both horribly scalped, nearly twice what you should actually be paying for them

I think that's just the prices for Aus. I don't think prices are going down in the near future either, are they?

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 11:41

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Butterfly Valley posted:

Even with Aussie dollars these are both horribly scalped, nearly twice what you should actually be paying for them

Just to follow up on this, people on the Aussie PC reddit are saying $1700 for a 3080 is reasonable :eyepop:

and my retailer is selling them for $1569, so I don't think they're scalping, its just the Australia Tax.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2021 02:44

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Alright, after delving neck deep into tech reviews/videos/articles, I think this is what I'm going with. Getting the retailer to put it all together for me so I assume this means they'll do any motherboard updating, RAM XMP settings, etc. Would appreciate comments on this build, I went with a few odd choices, I think.

Decided to go with 4x8GB of RAM for the possible dual rank benefits, but I've only gone with CL16 3200MHz instead of a CL14 or 3600MHz as it seems like there's basically no difference to a Ryzen 5600x, is this crazy? The dual rank benefits were only ~10% FPS in 1080p gaming, but it still seems worth it? The extra 16GB is a nice side benefit if I wanted to open more than 7 tabs in chrome.

Went with just a SATA SSD since it seems the speed difference with a M.2 NVMe is unnoticeable in real world conditions. However, a Crucial P2 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD is $20 cheaper than the Samsung 860 Evo? Is there any reason why? Is Samsung overpriced?

I considered a 450M motherboard instead of 550M since it seems like PCIe 3.0 was enough, even for the RTX3070, except for one small test case with Doom, but I ended up going for a 550M anyway since I couldn't find a decent 450M that saved me that much money and there might conceivably be issues in the future.

For the case, I went with the Lian Li Mesh Performance that everyone seems to be jizzing over. Not sure if I should save $50 and go with the 205 Mesh Mid instead?

Got a pretty standard CPU cooler with the 212 Turbo. I've heard the extra fan doesn't really do much, but it was like an extra $6.

Chose a 750W PSU even though 650W should be enough.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED Turbo White Edition 66.3 CFM CPU Cooler ($65.00 @ PLE Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock B550M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($169.00 @ PLE Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($115.00 @ PLE Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($115.00 @ PLE Computers)
Storage: Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($139.00 @ PLE Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB EAGLE Video Card
Case: Lian Li Lancool II Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit
Total: $603.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-18 18:07 AEDT+1100

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 08:49

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Butterfly Valley posted:

Generally looks solid enough and it sounds like you've mostly thought over and arrived at the right conclusions for most of your build.

Idk where you're seeing 10% fps differences with RAM configuration, most of the charts I can see are like 3% tops, and also it should be moot because if you're gaming at 1080p with a 3070 and 5600x you're wasting a whole load of potential. At higher resolutions it's not going to matter at all, you'll be entirely GPU bound. If the NVMe is cheaper then go for the NVMe obviously, yes Samsung are overpriced in general.

If NVMe drives and b550 boards don't cost a huge amount more (or are equal or less in some cases) then the other point would be why wouldn't you go for the newer options with more recent tech, If we're already seeing benefits to PCIe 4 on b550 boards?

IDK if paying for windows is a requirement for that company to build it for you but if not you could save yourself the money and install it yourself with a key from the guy in SA Mart for $15. Assembling it and making sure it boots to BIOS is the difficult bit, installing windows and setting XMP are incredibly easy by comparison.

Oh, I've seen buying keys before, I just always assumed the giant savings of ~$200 was too good to be legit. How the hell does that work?

10% fps difference with dual rank RAM was from these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UkGu6A-6sQ&t=461s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGux0pANft0&t=102s

And yeah, b550 and NVMe is probably what I'll go with.

Edit: Just realised the NVMe SSD doesn't have DRAM and the Samasung SATA does. Thoughts on which one is better?

crepeface fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Mar 18, 2021

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 14:02

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Vinigre posted:

I live in the United States. I don't live near a Microcenter.

Needing to upgrade my tower because a 4th gen i5 just isn't cutting it anymore. The system is to be used for streaming games as a VTuber, which means running face tracking software (prprlive or VTube studio) alongside Streamlabs OBS and the game itself. My two monitors are super old 1080p 60Hz, but I'm hoping to upgrade those next year.

In the future when GPU prices go down or my funds go up, the system will also be used for streaming VR game sessions (HTC VIVE).

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor ($449.00 @ Best Buy)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S 55 CFM CPU Cooler ($69.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: *Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($93.89 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($224.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: My GTX 960 still works, so I plan on using that until GPUs become affordable again, then maybe something like a 3070.
Case: Corsair 550D ATX Mid Tower Case. <- My current case. Aside from lacking a USB-C header, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't do the job.
Power Supply: *EVGA G3 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1087.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-18 16:22 EDT-0400

I'm not sure if my choice of cooler is overkill, so looking for advice on that.
I'm also looking for a sanity check on the power supply, if that will be a reliable model and if it's not too overkill considering my planned GPU expansion.

Some of the only 3070s I could find were the overclocked ones that recommend 750w. It's partly why I'm going with that instead of 650w.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2021 01:42

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

So, since I spent like a week researching gaming PC parts and I saw a few builds/questions about essentially what I put together, here's my template to get started on researching a gaming PC build. Availability and performance per price is going to depend on local fluctuation, so adjust for that. Put your build into PCPartpicker and they'll usually pick up any incompatibilities. Feel free to ignore/yell at me for my choices.

CPU: AMD Ryzen Zen 3 series. 5600x is the sweet spot (esp. for gaming), 5900x for high end. 5800x has worse value, but is still really good. Intel CPUs are basically DoA for a few generations.
CPU Cooler: 5600x comes with a Wraith Stealth, but reports are that it's loud if you're stressing it. IMO, AIO water cooling isn't worth it, just get a decent air cooler.
Video Card: RTX 3060, 3060ti, 3070, 3080, 3090 are what you want. Radeon 6000 series is okay if you're willing to forgo raytracing and DLSS. If you're desperate enough, you can go for a last gen RTX (2080 super or something). Price per frame benchmark video here but just get whatever you can find.
Motherboard: Trickiest part. General rule is don't get a higher model board (like a X570) if it means you're getting the shittiest one of that type. Spreadsheets comparison here: (1) and (2). Make sure it has all the features you want (like number of USB slots, Wifi, PCI slots if you got a bunch of harddrives, etc.) You don't need anything higher than 1GB Lan unless you're running a local minecraft server maybe? IDK. You may have to update your motherboard to support the Zen 3 CPU.

b450 - older budget board that work, but you're limited to PCIe 3.0. However, benchmarks (1) (2) seem to indicate it won't bottle neck your video card or SSD much if at all (for now).
b550 - generally what every one gets. Recommended models to research are:
- ASRock B550M Steel Legend
- MSI B550-A Pro
- ASRock B550 Pro4
- MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI
- MSI MAG B550M BAZOOKA
See corrections below. ~~x570 - mostly for future proofing or if you can get a good deal. I didn't look at this much.~~

Memory: This is an easy place to fall into a rabbit hole. tl;dr: 16GB 3200Mhz CL14 or 3600Mhz CL16 DDR4 and check if your motherboard supports it (it should). It's unclear whether RAM speed matters much past a certain point due to the *~Infinity Fabric~* on the CPU and how matching speeds in XMP gives a small benefit. IMO, anything in the range of 3000-4000MHz or CL 12-18 (lower is better) is fine (as long as you don't get the slow end of both). The equation to figure out how (for example) 3000Mhz CL14 compares to 4000Mhz CL20:

code:

1/((RAMspeed/2)/1000) x CL = True Latency in nanoseconds

There's also some evidence that "dual rank" RAM (more common in 2x16GB configs) can give a small performance boost (1)(2), but manufacturers usually don't include this in spec sheets. You can get the same effect if you get a 4 stick config instead of 2 sticks but from reddit threads, it seems like a crap shoot about what you get. Some ordered two sticks and received a single rank and a dual rank. If you're set on dual rank, the easiest way is to get 4x8GB of single rank for 32GB RAM and as a bonus you'll be able to open more than 7 chrome tabs at once.
Storage: SSD for OS and games. Differences between SATA and faster PCIe/NVMe seem to be pretty negligible or outright unnoticeable in loading games. However, the WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 is recommended just because it happens to hit a sweet spot for performance per price, big file transfers and future proofing. If you need to chose, I'd go for size (500GB+ IMO) rather than speed. If you do get a SATA SSD, make sure it has a DRAM cache.
Storage: Some kind of traditional disk drive for everything else. I didn't look at this in-depth, I just got a basic 4 TB with a RAM cache. If you're worried about losing data, get something with a good warranty. I'd use some kind of cloud back up or RAID in that case though.
Case: Mesh cases can be as quiet/quieter than closed cases because your CPU/GPU/case fans don't need to spin as hard. An intake fan at the front and an exhaust at the back gets you most of the cooling you need, factor these into your cost if the case doesn't come with them. IMO, get a case with the fans included unless you're in love with a particular case since it's usually cheaper/easier. Everyone seems to love Lian Li Lancool line. Fractal are also recommended. Comedy option
Power Supply: 650w-850w. Generally just get whatever your video card recommends.

crepeface fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Apr 9, 2021

# ¿ Mar 22, 2021 05:27

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

my cousin went against my advice and bought a gaming pc off facebook market. when i told him to at least check the ram speed, the guy said it was 1600 MHz. he ended up upgrading it to 2400 MHz, but i'm pretty sure there was an incompatibility issue with the mother board so for non-gaming tasks, it was slower than the 10 year old pc i gave him lmao.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 08:43

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

based on what he was saying I think it was a ddr3

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 09:56

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Butterfly Valley posted:

Not possible, motherboards aren't intercompatible with different RAM generations. Also they literally don't make DDR4 RAM that slow, the slowest I can find is DDR4-2133

yeah, so it was ddr3 and he replaced the board too

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 10:49

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

look the key thing here is my cousin got owned for not listening to me when I made a good build for him

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 10:50

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Another Person posted:

any particular B550 micro ATX mobo you would recommend? this is probably the thing I know the least about due to the many types of mobo out there

Posted this a few weeks ago, it's probably still relevant. There were reviews from the usual tech youtubers (Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, Jay2cents, Linus etc) who went over some but I forgot to save them. You can go back and check the whole post if you want to see what I found about the other parts.

crepeface posted:

So, since I spent like a week researching gaming PC parts and I saw a few builds/questions about essentially what I put together, here's my template to get started on researching a gaming PC build. Availability and performance per price is going to depend on local fluctuation, so adjust for that. Put your build into PCPartpicker and they'll usually pick up any incompatibilities. Feel free to ignore/yell at me for my choices.

...

Motherboard: Trickiest part. General rule is don't get a higher model board (like a X570) if it means you're getting the shittiest one of that type. Spreadsheets comparison here: (1) and (2). Make sure it has all the features you want (like number of USB slots, Wifi, PCI slots if you got a bunch of harddrives, etc.) You don't need anything higher than 1GB Lan unless you're running a local minecraft server maybe? IDK. You may have to update your motherboard to support the Zen 3 CPU.

b450 - older budget board that work, but you're limited to PCIe 3.0. However, benchmarks (1) (2) seem to indicate it won't bottle neck your video card or SSD much if at all (for now).

b550 - generally what every one gets. Recommended models to research are:

ASRock B550M Steel Legend

MSI B550-A Pro

ASRock B550 Pro4

MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI

MSI MAG B550M BAZOOKA

~~x570 - mostly for future proofing or if you can get a good deal. I didn't look at this much.~~ See corrections below.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

Couple changes/additions/clarifications for people reading along:
Motherboard: There's really no point to X570 over B550 unless you have much greater I/O requirements than a B550 board will support. If you're not sure about this, you don't need an X570 board. It's not future proofing in any way to buy an X570 and most of them have chipset fans, which annoy people. Get a B550 board.

crepeface fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Apr 9, 2021

# ¿ Apr 9, 2021 04:37

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Yeah, that's why I included the other goon who corrected me. I should just take it out of the post tho.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2021 05:32

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Not sure if this is the right place for it, but I've been using my bluetooth headphones (Bose QC35s) recently and the sound cuts out sometimes, especially when also using a DualShock controller (over bluetooth obviously). I'm just using a cheapo bluetooth dongle plugged into my front USB 3.0 slots.

Should I just get a higher quality bluetooth dongle? Which one? In retrospect, I probably should have just got a motherboard with wifi/bluetooth.

Can I use two bluetooth dongles at once?

Related, is there a thread/recommendation for 5.1 speakers? I don't think I'm after incredible sound quality, just something serviceable with 5.1. My Logitech z640's input cable is almost completely hosed and it's attached to the central channel/control unit so I can't just replace it (though I might try opening it up).

# ¿ Apr 9, 2021 09:43

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

tuyop posted:

I would recommend troubleshooting by plugging the Bluetooth dongle into a USB2.0 port instead of 3, since 3.0 emits em radiation that interferes with Bluetooth.

If that doesn�t work, plug a USB 2.0 extension cord into a port and arrange it so the dongle mostly maintains line of sight with the peripheral. Onboard wireless stuff may help if it has one of those antennae you can place away from your case and close to your peripherals.

Bluetooth is awesome but it�s not magic and you have to account for and mitigate sources of interference to get the most out of it. Some people find that infuriating but it�s really not that bad once you understand how it works.

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

The issue is not the single dongle (probably). A single Bluetooth chip is capable of handling a gently caress ton of devices.

What�s likely happening is signal interference between the controller and the headset. Or you�re too far away.

Does it happen when you�re very close to the dongle? If not, get a long USB extender and just get the dongle closer to where you�re sitting. Or get a 20Ft USB cable for your controller.

Thanks guys, I've moved some stuff around and it seems way better.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2021 09:41

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

IIRC, I saw some tech reviewers had only just managed to get 4000Mhz RAM synced up right with Ryzen and it seemed more complicated than just 3200/3600. I don't think this matters if you're going Intel though?

Dual Rank is better than Single Rank which is better than Quad rank.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2021 16:26

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 03:15

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

I got my PC pre-assembled but the mechanical disk wasn't plugged in at all. The SATA port had the metal clip from a cable broken off in it. Anyway, I yanked it out and plugged in spare SATA/power cables but BIOS doesn't detect it.

Windows does detect it in Disk Management with the right capacity, but when I try to initialise it, I get "A device which does not exist was specified." Any thoughts? I tried https://www.kapilarya.com/fix-cannot-initialize-disk-in-windows-10 without any success.

I tried the other SATA slot in the mobo, but then it doesn't even show up in BIOS.

Edit: lmao I'm an idiot, I forgot to plug in the power cable. Or it got pulled out when I was sliding the drive around. If only the hard drive had RGB.

crepeface fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Apr 15, 2021

# ¿ Apr 15, 2021 11:46

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > PC Building Megathread - "Released" is a nebulous term...