PC Hardware and building thread

[DELTAprime]

Anyone else here interested in PC hardware and building? It's something that I've gotten back into over the last year or two. I'm personally waiting on AMD Ryzen and Intel Kaby Lake reviews to decide what platform to go with for my new build.

[UltraMarginal]

I was when I built my current rig nearly 7 years ago. I probably will be again in the next couple years... It's the longest I've gone between updates ever.

[kup]

I still build my own PC(s) and never buy one prebuild. However technology now moves pretty slowly so I rarely really need to do it. The most you end up changing is just maybe a RAM upgrade and graphics card.

My PC lasted me pretty much 6 years with only a graphics card and RAM upgrade along the way - It was still able to play all games at Max and the only real reason why I recently build a new PC, is because I wanted a smaller form factor for living room play.

It's certainly not like the mid 90s or pre-2010 when technology moved so fast that you needed to upgrade at least every couple of years.

[DELTAprime]

Yeah, any Intel i7 4C 8T CPU from the 4790k onwards performs almost identically at the same clocks. Intel have been sitting on their ass for years. I'm really looking forward to Ryzen cause if AMD can truly deliver better than 6900K performance on their 8C 12T CPU that should scale well across the whole range including lower core count higher core clock parts that will be better for gaming.

[prjkt]

Used to build my own until I got a Mac Pro in 2008. Still modding this one a bit, ram upgrades, adding USB 3 and non-supporter GPUs but my next machine may be a custo pc with an OSX86 hack in addition...

[DELTAprime]

Oh BTW: here's what my ultimate build (2017 edition) is going to be. https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/dt7Ghq

The CPU and motherboard are purely placeholder, but the rest of it is either currently installed and in use if it's marked as purchased or I'm waiting for a good special on the part.

[DELTAprime]

Hopefully the 7700k's that Intel have given to motherboard manufactures that have ended up in the hands of journalist are pre-production samples or something (tho I doubt it). Intel appear once again to have stuffed up their TIM (Thermal Interface Material) application. Delidding the 7700k and applying your own TIM to the die results in a 30 degree drop in temperature. http://wccftech.com/intel-core-i7-7700k-delid-performance-tests/

[DELTAprime]

Well the Geforce GTX 1080 Ti has been leaked via a job posting. I have to wonder how stupid high the Australia Tax will be on that one. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3151113/components-graphics/nvidia-job-posting-mentions-gtx-1080-ti-premium-club-geforce-elite-subscription.html

[drifand]

As much as the mobile devices had kicked in, it's very annoying that mobile site has some lacked features and I still have to turn on my PC time to time.

I have not bothered to make a new PC like 7 years already though I do feel I need a media pc

[DELTAprime]

So it can be safely assumed that AMD Ryzen's 8C 16T variation AMD is showing off will be a subpar gaming CPU just like the Intel 6900K AMD is aiming it at. I wish AMD would show off something that would compete better against the top gaming CPU the 6700k and it's upcoming replacement the 7700k. Even if AMD gave me a 8C 16T Ryzen for free I wouldn't install it because it be worse at gaming than my 6600k.

[DELTAprime]

Am I the only one that thinks putting 3 super expensive Corsair ML LED fans in the front of a NZXT H440 is a waste of money when you can get non-LED fans that perform similarly for cheaper?

Here's the H440 for reference. https://www.nzxt.com/products/h440-white

[DELTAprime]

Kaby Lake reviews are finally official as of today. Just as the leaked reviews said, there's nothing much to see here except slightly improved power efficiency and temps allowing for a higher clock speed. I'm going to get a 7700k, but I'm going to wait for it to drop a little in price cause you know day one prices are gonna suck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnIIlOF5D6U&t=0s

Z270 boards are also out. Again nothing much to see here but having a second M.2 port on most boards is a nice feature. I'll be getting the Asus ROG Maximus IX Hero. That will be a nice upgrade for me. I'm in the middle of transitioning from mITX to ATX so I'll be going from a tiny board to a full size board.

http://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-IX-HERO/

[TAAUBlaster]

Am I the only one that thinks putting 3 super expensive Corsair ML LED fans in the front of a NZXT H440 is a waste of money when you can get non-LED fans that perform similarly for cheaper?

Here's the H440 for reference. https://www.nzxt.com/products/h440-white

LED fans look nice but I've always just bought regular non-LED ones for the front of my PC's because I'm a tightarse :p

[kup]

LED fans would be distracting. I am the type who even places black tape on Power LEDs to tone down the light. I can't stand non onscreen lighting.

For proper cooling, go Hydro. I have done so for years now and have a very quiet PC as a result. When I built a second PC with standard fans, that now feels like a vacuum cleaner.

[DELTAprime]

So CES is wrapping up and there wasn't anything released there aside from Intel Kaby Lake CPU's and Z270 boards I have any interest in whatsoever. My interest in AMD Ryzen was killed by the all motherboard manufacturers confirming they are not doing high end motherboards for Ryzen and they will only make low end and mid tier products.

So that leaves my buying a Z270 board and 7700k CPU. The prices locally for the 7700k are about the same as you would expect to pay if you imported one from the US. But the Motherboards are being gouged by the local retailers. When I get paid this week I'm ordering a Maximus IX Hero from Amazon. The US price is $219 USD the AU price is $439 AUD before any shipping is added on, even with the fastest shipping from Amazon it's $50 - $70 cheaper converted to AUD.

[philby]

Well the Geforce GTX 1080 Ti has been leaked via a job posting. I have to wonder how stupid high the Australia Tax will be on that one. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3151113/components-graphics/nvidia-job-posting-mentions-gtx-1080-ti-premium-club-geforce-elite-subscription.html

interesting...i splurged on a 980ti when we built our system a year or so ago but dont think i need to upgrade it at the moment!

seems like cpu sector is really slow at the moment, nothing much happening there for ages!

[DELTAprime]

interesting...i splurged on a 980ti when we built our system a year or so ago but dont think i need to upgrade it at the moment!

seems like cpu sector is really slow at the moment, nothing much happening there for ages!

Actually CPU's are heating up. AMD Ryzen is coming "by the end of Q1". So far we have seen benchmarks where it outperforms a Intel 6900k which is a $1100USD CPU and knowing AMD they will price Ryzen cheaper than Intel's equivalent. That said people are expecting it to come in at $350USD (same price as the Intel 6700k) which I think is just dreaming.

That said it's one thing to have a CPU that can beat the 8 Core 16 Thread 6900k which is clocked low because of heat and power concerns at media rendering like they have shown. It's another thing to beat the Intel 7700k which is a 4C 8T higher clocked CPU at what it's best at, gaming. For me why would I buy the AMD Ryzen which is best as a media rendering CPU when I can buy a 7700k which is the current best gaming CPU on the market.

[DELTAprime]

So it turns out that just by changing my motherboard and going with 3400mhz memory instead of 2400mhz I have gone from being bottlenecked by my 6600k in GTA V to putting the bottleneck back on my GPU. Faster memory really does help performance, don't believe to old line that "RAM speed doesn't matter".

[DELTAprime]

Bleeping Expletive!!! Just had to do a full format and reinstall because the last Windows 10 update broke some stuff preventing me from updating Nvidia drivers.:mad:

[kup]

Bleeping Expletive!!! Just had to do a full format and reinstall because the last Windows 10 update broke some stuff preventing me from updating Nvidia drivers.:mad:

That happened to me when I first updated to Win10 early on the 'free update' program. I uninstalled it because of that.

Recently though, I upgraded again on my main PC and it seems to be behaving. Previously I had noticeable performance decrease from Win7 but now seems fine.

[DELTAprime]

PSA: DO NOT BUY A GTX 1070 or 1080 NOW!

They both got price drops today and the various Aussie retailers have not passed on the savings yet. The reason for the price drop was the introduction of the GTX 1080 ti at the old price of the standard GTX 1080.

[TAAUBlaster]

PSA: DO NOT BUY A GTX 1070 or 1080 NOW!

They both got price drops today and the various Aussie retailers have not passed on the savings yet. The reason for the price drop was the introduction of the GTX 1080 ti at the old price of the standard GTX 1080.

That sounds about right. I caved and finally upgraded to a 1060 (1070 was a bit over my budget) only a couple weeks ago... :(

[kup]

I bought a 970 not too long ago, It performs at Ultra exceptionally on anything I throw at it so happy enough with it. Chances are I will probably skip this generation of graphics cards as I only upgrade when my present card can no longer handle games at Max settings. I project my 970 will do fine for at least a couple of years more, perhaps more.

[TAAUBlaster]

My poor 660 couldn't quite handle the newer games anymore, so I figured it was about time to upgrade :p

[VodooCaMo]

So it can be safely assumed that AMD Ryzen's 8C 16T variation AMD is showing off will be a subpar gaming CPU just like the Intel 6900K AMD is aiming it at. I wish AMD would show off something that would compete better against the top gaming CPU the 6700k and it's upcoming replacement the 7700k. Even if AMD gave me a 8C 16T Ryzen for free I wouldn't install it because it be worse at gaming than my 6600k.

Hey Hi Delta!

You should really check this video out :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylvdSnEbL50


basically looks at un-optimised performances of the old cpus (due to intel monopoly share) and how performance of the same old chips (crappy bulldozer) has increased in FPS vs the same intel chips that were leading.

Goes on to clarify about new architecture, and AMD manufacturing for all consoles will ensure AMD Ryzen architecture will be optimised.

[DELTAprime]

^

Oh I hate that guy, not watching his videos. Nothing against you Voodoo, just don't like that YouTuber.

Anyway as we have seen from benchmarks the 1800X trails way behind the 7700K at 1080p with a Titan XP, which is the only valid resolution to test a CPU at because higher resolutions introduce a GPU bottleneck. Where Ryzen shines is in task like media encoding. Also AMD seem to have pushed Ryzen out before all the stability bugs have been ironed out.

As someone that wants to push every last frame I can Ryzen in it's current state is a poor choice. When the Ryzen 5 CPU's hit the market it will be interesting to see if the 1500X the 4C 8T part will have higher clocks allowing it to compete with the 7700k, but I'm already committed to the Z270 platform so it will be purely academic interest from me.

[DELTAprime]

So, if you're buying a Ryzen CPU and thinking "WTF why is my AIO cooler not AM4 compatible?" it looks like you can blame AMD as they didn't bother to inform the company Asetek, that makes almost every AIO on the planet, the specifications for AM4 and don't even have an official spec for water coolers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=705YHr1DyMw

/facepalm

[DELTAprime]

So I got two Seagate 4tb hard drives from Umart. One of them is DOA and now I have to sent it back at my expense. Would it kill Aussie retailers to pay for return shipping when the user is not at fault? That's one thing I'm looking forward too with Amazon launching here, free returns.

[prjkt]

Legally you should be able to get reimbursement from the retailer for your costs there
You may want to check up on that

[kovert]

DELTAprime: check this website: http://consumerlaw.gov.au/

The 'Mandatory text' is:

"Our goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. You are entitled to a replacement or refund for a major failure and compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. You are also entitled to have the goods repaired or replaced if the goods fail to be of acceptable quality and the failure does not amount to a major failure."

Perhaps you can receive "compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage", the loss being the shipping cost.

As you're in Queensland, you can contact the Office of Fair Trading for more information: https://www.qld.gov.au/law/laws-regulated-industries-and-accountability/queensland-laws-and-regulations/fair-trading-services-programs-and-resources/fair-trading-services-and-contact-information/contact-us/

[DELTAprime]

So teraflops are not a great metric for graphics performance, but I am encouraged by AMD Vega being a 13 TFLOP card at the top end and Nvidia's Volta accelerator card the V100 being 15 SP TFLOP part which will get cut down to lower performing consumer part. We might just have a bit of competition in the GPU market to bring down prices. I never want to have to pay $1299 for a GPU again.

[DELTAprime]

So now that AMD is back with avengeance and hopefully taking some market share from Intel, Intel have revealed some actual good (but expensive) CPU's. The biggest of which is a 18 core, 36 thread, $2000 USD monster Core i9 that will turbo boost up to 4.5ghz.

This just goes to prove that Intel will coast along not improving their products until there is some competition.

http://www.techspot.com/news/69504-intel-unveils-new-x-series-processors-including-2000.html

[DELTAprime]

Anyone ever tried to do an RMA through Kogan or their new Dick Smith site? I'm thinking of buying a 7700k from them since it's about $20 cheaper than anywhere else, but since they are grey market imports I want to make sure Kogan / Dick Smith will help me if the CPU is a dud and the reviews on product feedback don't encourage me.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Personally I'd rather spend the extra $20 for peace of mind, especially if it means buying from my local store down the road who can instantly help me with any issues.

[DELTAprime]

Personally I'd rather spend the extra $20 for peace of mind, especially if it means buying from my local store down the road who can instantly help me with any issues.

If I bought from the local store I bet I'd pay something like $1000 or more for a $450 to $480 CPU. The local guy is a ripoff merchant. I needed a specific motherboard model a few years back to rebuild an Intel raid that the backup had failed on and I didn't know till it was too late and the motherboard failed also. This was in the days of bad leaking capacitors coming out of China and what started the trend of solid state Japanese caps. The exact model motherboard cost about $300, it was just a stand consumer grade Intel motherboard. He wanted over $1000 for that exact board. Needless to say I bought online.

[prjkt]

I think the time is approaching that I should be replacing my old 2008 model Mac Pro.

It's lasted a long time, handles almost anything I throw at it, including games, but it's showing it's age (due to it's early EFI support, SSD support in Windows is basically non-existant)

As I've been slowly moving away from OS X and Mac only programs I've come to the realisation that I don't actually need a Mac any more, so it's time to build my first PC in probably a decade. I still may want the option of running OS X, so for compatibility reasons Intel is the way to go here.

This machine will be a dual purpose system - for gaming and photo editing - on the Mac I'd use Windows for gaming, and OS X for photos (and music in the past) but with Apple killing off the program I was using and forcing me to migrate across to the cross platform Lightroom, I no longer need to worry about that.

I've been researching a fair bit, and I've decided on the following specs to aim for:
I've had a look at the different options from Intel, X270/X299 etc, and based on my budget and needs,
Intel i7 7700K (four cores/8 threads will be a close match to my current dual quad system, and I've barely ever maxed them out)
MSI X270 Gaming M7 - has enough I/O for most of what I want to do, with the option of Intel's Optane if it's worth it.
Corsair 2x 8Gb DDR 4 3ghz Ram - enough headroom to have a play if I need to, with the option of doubling the Ram later if I feel the need
Corsair 280mm AiO watercooler for the CPU.
Corsair Carbide 600Q case - Inverse ATX matches my Mac's board orientation (access from the right, not the left) so I won't need to swap my desk around, enough room for decent airflow and the water cooler, and it's nice and quiet (not looking to show off the contents)

Keeping my current GTX 960 card as it's decent enough for now, and I can always upgrade later when I can afford to.

Storage wise, thinking of getting 2, maybe 3 M.2 SSDs (hence the mobo choice) - 1Gb SSD solely for games, a 256, maybe 512gb one for the Windows install, and either a small one for OS X/Intel's Optane option. Might use a SATA drive for OS X if I go down that path.
I'll still have one or two HDDs installed, one 4tb unit for my photo storage pulled straight from the Mac and possible one of the 1tb drives for backup purposes. Tempted to get a small SSD (~128gb for "scratch" purposes - use it for any current photo projects for quick I/O, then "archive" them once a month, or whenever it fills up to the 4tb HDD)

I will miss the cable management from the Mac Pro I think, but I can deal. Any thoughts/suggestions at all?

[DELTAprime]

Ok. So I suggest you look up in Google your photo editing software's Ryzen benchmarks. ie: Photoshop Ryzen Benchmark. A Ryzen 1700 is cheaper than a 7700k, it can be overclocked normally to around 3.9ghz to 4ghz depending on the silicon lottery and includes a fairly good air cooler so you might not need to buy an AIO. No need to pay for a Ryzen 1700X or Ryzen 1800X as they all overclock very similarly. A Ryzen B350 motherboard which is all you need for Ryzen is cheaper than a Ryzen X370 motherboard which again is cheaper than a Intel Z270 motherboard. So if your workload looks good in Ryzen benchmarks I really suggest getting Ryzen not Intel for the cost savings and potential similar to better performance depending on use case.

The only reason I recommend Intel these days is if your goals fall into very specific categories, for instance I want the absolute maximum FPS I can get so I went with a 7700k. If you can sacrifice a few frames, like 5 to 10 frames but still keeping the total framerate above 60fps then I don't think the 7700k is the best choice because of price of the CPU, motherboard and cooling plus the fact the 7700k is super hot.:eek:

After you have done the research as to i7 vs Ryzen for your use case goto https://au.pcpartpicker.com/ and make a build and post the link in this thread so I can give you better advise.

As for what you posted so far, M.2 drives are great in theory, but in reality you don't get a huge increase in access speeds over SATA because 99% of what users do is at low queue depths and you only get the benefit of M.2 NVMe SSDs at high queue depths so I really suggest a single M.2 SSD for your Windows install at most and the rest of your drives as cheaper SATA SSDs. Also Optane slows down SSD's so forget about it until the Optane PCIe SSD comes out next year (that will require an Intel system not Ryzen), but that drive will be something like $1000 for 256gb so very bad bang for the buck. Also if you do get that MSI Z270 motherboard or any other motherboard with a "heat shield" for the SSD remove the heat shield because it actually increases to temperature of the SSD and can lead to thermal throttling.

[prjkt]

Thanks for the advice. I have looked into the Ryzen series, the only thing holding me back is poor compatibility if I want to run OS X on the system, something I'm still not 100% sure about, but if I ever want to be able to access my old music projects will be a must. So far hackintoshes using Ryzen aren't the most stable, using modified kernels (as Appl have written for the Intel architecture.) Still open to the idea though, as I've still got an old MacBook Air I can boot up if needed...

What are the noticeable differences between the B350/X350 platforms?

Thanks for the info on Optane, it wasn't part of my initial look, just "would be cool if it works" type of thing, but considering I'm upgrading from 7.2k rpm HDDs any SSD will be a huge performance boost, I just like the M.2 option as there's no cabling to worry about, but I can deal with it if SATA is the way to go

[DELTAprime]

Thanks for the advice. I have looked into the Ryzen series, the only thing holding me back is poor compatibility if I want to run OS X on the system, something I'm still not 100% sure about, but if I ever want to be able to access my old music projects will be a must. So far hackintoshes using Ryzen aren't the most stable, using modified kernels (as Appl have written for the Intel architecture.) Still open to the idea though, as I've still got an old MacBook Air I can boot up if needed...

What are the noticeable differences between the B350/X350 platforms?

Thanks for the info on Optane, it wasn't part of my initial look, just "would be cool if it works" type of thing, but considering I'm upgrading from 7.2k rpm HDDs any SSD will be a huge performance boost, I just like the M.2 option as there's no cabling to worry about, but I can deal with it if SATA is the way to go

Yeah I don't know anything about hackintoshes and we probably shouldn't discuss them here so as not to get Griff in trouble with Apple's attack lawyers. So Ryzen's B350 and X370 boards are very similar in features except B350 can't do SLI and Crossfire. The current state of SLI and Crossfire is that most game devs don't care about users with more than one GPU in a system.

Right now is actually a really bad time to buy SSDs or RAM. The chips inside them come off the exact same production lines and there are not enough lines to keep up with global demand for SSDs and RAM, plus a factory that makes them got flooded with Nitrogen gas the other day shutting it down for who knows how long. You will pay a premium for any SSD's and RAM.

The best performing SSDs are made by Samsung, the 850 EVO is the best one to get in SATA format and 960 EVO in M.2, don't buy a 850 PRO or 960 PRO as you are paying extra for the extended guaranteed life of the drive and getting slightly lower performance. Intel also make great SSDs but they cost more per GB normally, there are some models of Intel SSD that review very badly but they are fine for day to day use, just not a review torture test. Overall Samsung and Intel have an extremely low failure rate compared to the smaller SSD brands like Corsair, Patriot, Kingston, etc.

Also really good idea to not buy a graphics card now. There is a global shortage of them because Bitcoin miners are buying dozens of them at a time right now so unless you are buying a GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti you can't get one for a good price. (1080 and 1080 Ti don't work well for mining)

Just to follow up on Optane. The modules on the market right now are made to only accelerate the HDD that your OS is installed on. If you OS is installed on a SSD instead of a HDD you will find things go slower because the Optane that is out right now is slower than a good SSD.

Goto PC Part Picker, make a i7 build and then make a Ryzen build and post the permalink for each, they don't have to be complete. That's the best way to scope out your build and then I can really find any issues with the build.

EDIT: Here's my systems permalink https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/BYLfBP

[prjkt]

Thanks again for the advice.

Here (https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/RFJLTH)'s my Intel build

and here (https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/Jbs2Cy)'s the AMD build

If I go the AMD build I'd definitely have to forego using OS X, as the nV card isn't supported until drivers are installed, meaning I'd have to use a second GPU (as I currently do on my Mac Pro) to boot, install drivers, reboot each time I run a version updated. Don't really want to do that. The integrated GPU in the Intel build would be able to handle that, but as you can see, the price is quite different...

EDIT:hmmm, after checking this (https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Lightroom-CC-2015-10-1-CPU-Comparison-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Kaby-Lake-Ryzen-7-973/) review for Lightroom performance, looks like saving for the 7700K might still be the way to go.

[DELTAprime]

All looks good as far as your selection of new parts, looks like 7700k is the way to go for you. Just remember it is a very hot CPU so don't get freaked out about it. It seems like every day on the dedicated PC building forums there is a post every single day with someone worrying that their new 7700k is too hot.

You hopefully won't need the Arctic Silver as there is pre applied thermal compound on the Corsair AIO, but it's good to have a tube of thermal compound anyway because if you don't get the placement right the first time or need to reseat the CPU or something you need to remove the pre applied thermal compound and replace it.

[DELTAprime]

As bad as video card prices are at the moment they are probably going to get worse in a couple of months unless the mining market crashes.

GDDR prices have risen 31% this month at every GDDR manufacture which makes me think Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and the other company I can't think of are conspiring. This might increase video game console prices also as the PS4, PS4 Pro and Xbox One X all use GDDR5.

Good thing I got all my consoles, but it's going to be rough when I buy Nvidia's next xx80 video card next year.

[prjkt]

Moving house has drained my pc funds for now, so that's on hold.
I do however have a much bigger TV, steamlink, Ethernet over power and three wireless access points in the house (thick brick walls destroy any chance of transmission)

[prjkt]

Well I've started the process. Scored a good deal on an Intel 512Gb 600p SSD, and just ordered a Fractal Design Meshify C case along with a Corsair 650W PSU.

I've decided to pass on a second SSD for games for now, save for a 1-2 TB one down the track (that Crucial MX300 2tb looks nice and affordable) and just use one of my 1Tb HDDs for games storage. Any brand new must play asap games I can install on the SSD and then move the files over later (Steam's good for this, as are some of the other launcher platforms.)

Still haven't 100% decided which way to go, but I'm edging towards a Ryzen 1700/X370 combo, as I've decided to keep my old Mac Pro and roll it back to a fresh OS X 10.6.8 install, so I've got no compatibility issues with any of my music software, powercore card, audio interface(s) etc, and have it as a dedicated music box, and a backup system if the new comp goes down.
Won't even need a KVM switch as the monitor has multiple inputs, and my Apple keyboard is on an extension cable, all I have to do is just unplug it from one extension, and plug it into the next (I already have a spare.) Will probably plug the mouse into the keyboard and cable tie part of the cable to the keyboard so it's less messy on the desk.

[DELTAprime]

Intel appear to be out of touch with reality again. The specs and price per 1000 units of the Coffee Lake desktop parts have been released and the 8700k will be a $55 USD increase over the 7700k for people buying in lots of 1000 CPUs and you know that will get passed onto consumers.

Leaked benchmarks show it is the best gaming CPU ever, but I really don't think an extra 2 frames per second in Rise of the Tomb Raider to an extra 20 fps in Witcher 3 is worth $55 especially when those games are already well over 120 fps.

[prjkt]

"How much more can we milk from the public?"

"Ryzen who?"

I'm sure they'll be great processors, but value for money seems to be lacking...

[prjkt]

aaaaand it's built:

https://i.imgur.com/5hAzpH5g.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/UbvW0Fng.jpg

final parts listing (https://au.pcpartpicker.com/user/303theory/saved/DG8JVn)

I'll probably end up getting a DAC/Headphone amp, as one day using the built in ports has me hating the crackle, but that'll be down the line (My old audio interface doesn't officially support Win10 and gave me issues on the old install, so that's staying plugged into the Mac)

[DELTAprime]

Nice build, looks great and I'm sure it performs great also.

I'm actually thinking of selling my 7700k and motherboard when the Ryzen 2x00 CPUs come out next year. The 7700k is a thermal disaster.

[prjkt]

CPU's sitting nice and stable at 3.8ghz 1.35V 28-29�C Idle, 55�C Load
Can't get the ram up to rated spec (3200mhz) without BSODs, POST failing and general f*ckups, so I guess I'll deal with 2933MHZ for now, and play with the timings a little.

User Benchmark results (http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/5224289) - pretty happy there, I knew my one-up-from-last-gen-entry-level GPU wouldn't be up there, but it handles 2560x1080 just fine, and everything else looks sweet. Might try playing with OC'ing it a little...

I spent quite a while getting all the cables routed nicely - that FPanel USB cable would NOT plug in while the MB was installed... had to lift the board up and out a little to get the room to work with it, same for the rest of the FPanel connections running under the lower side of the board - had I pulled the whole thing out entirely and taped some cables down it might have been a little neater, but it works for me, and is tough to see behind the tinted glass. The back end is a little messier, but closed up, so I'll deal for now, though if I get any 2.5" SSDs I might order some short SATA cables for the HDD tray, the ones in the MB box are about 2.5x the required length. (on a side note, A LOT neater than my old Athlon XP build from back in '04 https://i.imgur.com/XykSA8k.jpg)

[DELTAprime]

So I'm primarily looking at upgrading from my 7700k to something better for streaming. I'm torn between the much cheaper and cooler running AMD parts or the better performing and much worse performance per dollar 8700k (which is sold out everywhere because it was a rushed launch by Intel). Neither of them are bad choices since Intel have got their thermals under much better control this time around, but the price gouging on the Intel side by retailers is ridiculous.

[prjkt]

The 8700 does look interesting, an extra 2c/4t to compete with Ryzen while still having Intel�s strong single thread performance - almost regretting the AMD build I�ve just bought, but as you said, value for money for what I have now is amazing in comparison.

Maybe wait a month or two until prices stabilise for the new platform and decide then?

I�m currently pondering a new GPU, the GTX 960 is now he bottleneck lol. Possibly looking at a GTX 1070 or it�s inevitable replacement if it�s out by the time I can afford either.

[DELTAprime]

The 8700 does look interesting, an extra 2c/4t to compete with Ryzen while still having Intel�s strong single thread performance - almost regretting the AMD build I�ve just bought, but as you said, value for money for what I have now is amazing in comparison.

Maybe wait a month or two until prices stabilise for the new platform and decide then?

I�m currently pondering a new GPU, the GTX 960 is now he bottleneck lol. Possibly looking at a GTX 1070 or it�s inevitable replacement if it�s out by the time I can afford either.

Yeah I'm going to wait a little while before I pull the trigger. I'll sell my 7700k and motherboard when I do to help offset the cost of whatever I get.

As for your video card upgrade, there have been rumours that Nvidia might be making a 1070 Ti which would essentially replace the standard 1080. AMD's Vega was a disappointment in most respects so Nvidia are not in a hurry to put Volta out, but the lowest end Vega beats the standard 1070 most of the time so yeah rumour has it a 1070 Ti is on it's way.

Just remember we are in a mining boom at the moment so video card prices are inflated so shop around when you are ready to buy.

[prjkt]

Could be interesting either way... Vega does look interesting, but hadn�t looked at enough comparisons - wouldn�t be pushing too hard, no 2Kor4K gaming, just 2560x1080

Will see what the prices look like when I can afford to buy - thanks again

Edit: Although, if the 1070ti launch brings 1070 pricing down...

[DELTAprime]

no 2Kor4K gaming, just 2560x1080

Without going into the difference between true 2K and 4K like you get at the cinema, 1920x1080 is 2K. For some reason people can't get it through their heads that 1920 rounds to 2000 pixels ie:2K. 2560x1440 which people wrongly call 2K is more like 2.6K but is properly called 1440p or WQHD.

720p = HD
1080p = FHD but normally shortened to just HD
1440p = QHD
2160p = 4K UHD

Ahh resolutions, what a pile of alphabet soup.:p

And ah, don't look too hard at the Vega cards, they are really bad for both performance per dollar and performance per watt. Vega 56 might out perform a 1070, but it goes for entry 1080 prices and sucks down 1080 Ti type of voltage.

[prjkt]

I refer to 2K (or is it 2.5K?) as a multiple of 1920x1080 - the "K" comes from rounding down 1080 lines (the traditional way of measuring output resolution - the height, not width ;) )

The width then comes down to total resolution/quality, ie back in the day VHS and DVD has the same number of lines (525 for pal) yet the resolution for VHS was much lower due to it's horizontal width having fewer lines (if any of this makes sense, I'm fresh off a 11 hour shift and just waiting for photos to process)

Don't forget all the computer based resolution standards... VGA, SVGA, XVGA, WXVGA etc.... that becomes stupid trying to remember those

EDIT: and 4K refers to not the lines (pixels now I guess) but the fact that it's 4x FullHD (twice width/twice height=essentially four FullHD screens worth in a 2x2 grid in a single 4k screen)

EDIT2: Yeah the Vega pricing is a bit much for me, and the power consumption is a concern, especially with only a 650w PSU....

[DELTAprime]

Well hate to say it but you are using 2K wrong, it's an actual resolution. Check this chart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution

2K is the cinema version of 1080p , 4K is the cinema version of UHD. However the general public started using 2K to refer to the home version of 1080p and 4K for the home version of 2160p. Using them for anything other than the cinema variant is wrong, but oh well what can you do.

dual 1080p displays are just that, dual 1080p displays.

Measure height when you are talking about a number that ends in a i or p, width when talking about something that ends in a K.

I really don't know why people wanted to change from height to width, it's like changing the rules of a sport mid game.

[prjkt]

I really don't know why people wanted to change from height to width, it's like changing the rules of a sport mid game.

Been a while since my AV tech days so I'll admit to being wrong here - I too am now confused by the sudden change in measurement direction... I wonder if it's now due to the fact that the horizontal AND vertical lines are now fixed at a set resolution, instead of variable...

ah well. Still saving for that 1070

[DELTAprime]

https://i.imgur.com/FRTWvXt.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/bkEXJHB.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/GGFTfWk.jpg?1

I know I need to buy some custom PSU cables (I'm saving up for the new super high end cables from Cablemod) but apart from that I'm really proud of how my PC is looking.

[prjkt]

Looking nice and neat!

I�ve looked at those PSU cables too, but out of the budget for now

Have added more lights - I�ll have to post a pic

[DELTAprime]

Looking nice and neat!

I�ve looked at those PSU cables too, but out of the budget for now

Have added more lights - I�ll have to post a pic

So how are you going with looking for a video card?

You can actually get some video cards like Vega 56 and the GTX 1070 for MSRP if you look around and aren't afraid of shopping at the big US retailers like Amazon and Newegg that service Australia.

Though with Vega 56 you should wait a while longer for non-reference coolers to hit the market. A blower fan on AMD reference hardware hits over 70db under load so it's kinda loud.

[prjkt]

So how are you going with looking for a video card?

Going to have to wait until the new year for budgetary reason, but the GTX 960 copes pretty well with everything I've thrown at it so far - so I'll see what my options are when I've got the funds

[DELTAprime]

I know nobody here is bawler enough to buy it but for the low low price of $3000 USD you can buy the most powerful graphics card ever. The Nvidia Titan V. It's 9 X as powerful as the Titan Xp at GPU compute, but we don't know how much better it is in gaming. Anyone with this in their system has more dollars than sense.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/titan/titan-v/?nvid=nv-int-tnvptlh-29190

[TAAUBlaster]

I know nobody here is bawler enough to buy it but for the low low price of $3000 USD you can buy the most powerful graphics card ever. The Nvidia Titan V. It's 9 X as powerful as the Titan Xp at GPU compute, but we don't know how much better it is in gaming. Anyone with this in their system has more dollars than sense.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/titan/titan-v/?nvid=nv-int-tnvptlh-29190

Wow. That is a crazy amount of money just for a graphics card. :eek:

[UltraMarginal]

I'm starting to put together a plan for a new system.

I haven't done a whole lot of research yet but thanks to the PC parts (https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/92bQCy)picker website, I've thrown together a basic plan for a build.

I'm looking for something that will boot fast (hence the M.2 SSD)
something that will play games happily
do some CAD work
Process my gopro footage when I eventually get to it
partner with a network storage solution as a backup and central hub for the home with regards to media storage.
stay fast in applications for an extended period so my Mrs complains about it less.
I still buy CD's and would like to play Blu-rays so an optical drive is a thing.
For the moment I'm happy with the mouse, monitor and keyboard on the existing build.

My current machine was built in 2009 and has lasted well but the HDD's are filling up and it's getting flakey.


I'm not asking for an in depth analysis but does anyone see any glaring problems, a little feedback would be appreciated.

[DELTAprime]

One glaring issue, no power supply. Add at least a 700w PSU to your build. Corsair is a very common high quality PSU brand.

I use this one

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/product/LkM323/corsair-hx-platinum-750w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020137-na

[UltraMarginal]

One glaring issue, no power supply. Add at least a 700w PSU to your build. Corsair is a very common high quality PSU brand.

I use this one

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/product/LkM323/corsair-hx-platinum-750w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020137-na

HAHA, That's embarrassing, I picked one but put it in the inventory instead of the parts list.

trying again (https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/PbYZ4C).
I think I've picked a different Video Card as well, the one in yesterdays list was not intended, not sure how it got in. For some reason the system power required seems a lot lower than yesterday (probably a bit to do with the card, I'm guessing something hasn't filtered properly. I know that it's good to have at least a 20% overhead on available power but at the moment a 750W unit looks a little high.

I might look at trimming some fat, it's currently more expensive than any rig I've ever built/bought and the price doesn't include a screen or peripherals.

At this stage I think it's alright though. fairly long lived hopefully.

[DELTAprime]

That looks better and since you have gone with a GTX 1070 instead of the 1080 Ti you had listed yesterday your power requirements are greatly reduced so if you want to save a couple of bucks you could step down to a 650w PSU. Though a higher wattage PSU than you need never hurts.

One thing I should note. If you need the parts right away then by all means order now. But if you can wait 2 to 4 months Nvidia Volta (or a derivative of it) will be available to people that don't want to spend $3000 on a scientific video card.

That will have the effect of the second hand market will get flooded with 10 series cards like the one I'll be selling, so possible cheap video card there. Or you can get a shiny new next gen Nvidia video card.

Unlike going from one CPU generation to the next where you don't get a missive uplift from going to the new generation (Bulldozer to Ryzen is the exception to the rule) GPUs (Nvidia in particular) can get you a huge boost in performance over the previous gen.

That said if you need the parts now then don't sweat waiting for Volta.

One last thing. On many high end builds like yours you can save up to about three hundred dollars by buying the expensive stuff from amazon.com over buying locally. #AustraliaTax

[UltraMarginal]

very interesting thanks.

I'm probably better off putting it together sooner rather than later, I'm not sure how long our existing machine has before it craps out properly.

Amazon is a good tip, especially at the moment with the dollar climbing a few cents. I don't know why that never occurred to me.

I'm going to look into this Volta anyway, just out of curiosity.

thanks again so much for your help and thoughts.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Hi guys, this isn't a specific building question but I can't find a more appropriate thread for it so please forgive me.

I have a Wordpress Blog that I have through iPage. Times in the past when I have updated WP on my PC (the same way you would update an app on your phone) it has stopped me being able to upload pictures. Sometimes this has been able to be rectified via me deleting extensions or otherwise once I was able to do it through FileZilla.

However this time I cant seem to be able to. I've forgotten all my login details for Filezilla (since I only ever used it once long ago) and can't seem to figure out how to get them to send me a new username and password. iPage is no help as they just handle you paying for your domain name and WP itself is no help unless you want to pay through the nose to talk to one of their admins.

Does anyone have any idea what I could do? I am very non-tech-savvy so stuff that is a two minute job for someone else is a two-days-of-pulling-my-hair-out for me. And embarassingly I am one of those people that when it comes to computers needs to be baby-stepped through every minor step :o


Thanks in advance for any assistance any of you can provide :)
__________________

[prjkt]

tempted to get a cheap <1tb 2.5" HDD to back up my system SSD - would there be any issue in mounting a 7mm drive on a slot designed for an SSD? (specifically the tray that mounts behind the motherboard on the Fractal Design Define/Meshify C)

[DELTAprime]

From the Fractal web site:


Dedicated 2.5" drive capacity 3 (maximum 2.5" drive thickness is 12mm)

[prjkt]

Yeah I know the size isn�t an issue, was more concerned with the moving vs non-moving parts aspect... ah well, other than a bit of noise it shouldn�t be an issue

[DELTAprime]

As long as you don't go moving a PC while the drives are spun up (that applies to laptops also) it doesn't matter if you go HDD or SSD aside from the obvious performance differences.

[prjkt]

Thanks for he confirmation. Been reading tales from tech support on Reddit and started getting a little backup paranoid.

I�ve just bought a nice large capacity portable HDD and backed up my entire photo library. System disk will be next. Games can be re downloaded/installed so will be a waste of time/money backing up.

Then back to saving for a GPU...

[Trent]

In the same vein as Ultra Marginal's question, I too am in the market for a new PC. Our laptop is 8 years old and really showing it so it's time to move on. And this time I'll go for a desktop. However when I last built a PC, AGP cards were the in thing.

This build will be on a budget. Is it still possible to build a decent PC (tower only) for around $1K? While I would like a gaming rig, I have a PS4 and a Switch and with money being tight at the moment I'll forgo that requirement. I will however be playing with some 3D CAD programs and also a little bit of video editing. However the bread and butter of this machine is going to be basic word processing and Internet browsing with a dual monitor setup. Even if I skimp on some bits now with the vision of upgrading later down the road as finances improve.

I am open to the idea of second hand parts. How's that market these days?

Thanks!

[DELTAprime]

Here's a build that's a little over $1000. I don't know what you like visually so the parts are just good value parts not the best looking/most cohesive, also it doesn't include a copy of Windows 10.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/LjWWYr

On $1000AUD budget you're stuck with 8gb of RAM when you should probably have 16gb for CAD, but by going with a single 8gb stick you can easily upgrade by adding a second later on.

Ryzen is your best bet for CPU and motherboard combo for CAD due to the lower motherboard cost and the high core count on the CPU.

You mentioned CAD as the only thing that will require GPU acceleration of any sort. 1050 Ti a good low end GPU, you could go with a standard 1050 but it's not quite as good on the price to performance ratio.

On the PSU side if you want to save a bit of money you can go with a lower model to save money like the Corsair VS range (https://www.pccasegear.com/products/22271/corsair-vs650-atx-power-supply) but stick to the top teir brands like Corsair. A lower tier or no name brand can potentially kill your hardware or catch on fire.

[UltraMarginal]

CAD requirements aren't so top end these days like they used to be. unless you're working on a complex assembly with many active parts or rendering something super pretty you're video processor requirements won't be outlandish. You still need a nice video card but don't worry about anything outlandish.

I expect video processing/editing/rendering will have a higher load on your system.

[Trent]

Here's a build that's a little over $1000. I don't know what you like visually so the parts are just good value parts not the best looking/most cohesive, also it doesn't include a copy of Windows 10.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/LjWWYr

On $1000AUD budget you're stuck with 8gb of RAM when you should probably have 16gb for CAD, but by going with a single 8gb stick you can easily upgrade by adding a second later on.

Ryzen is your best bet for CPU and motherboard combo for CAD due to the lower motherboard cost and the high core count on the CPU.

You mentioned CAD as the only thing that will require GPU acceleration of any sort. 1050 Ti a good low end GPU, you could go with a standard 1050 but it's not quite as good on the price to performance ratio.

On the PSU side if you want to save a bit of money you can go with a lower model to save money like the Corsair VS range (https://www.pccasegear.com/products/22271/corsair-vs650-atx-power-supply) but stick to the top teir brands like Corsair. A lower tier or no name brand can potentially kill your hardware or catch on fire.

Cool, thanks!

I've been out of this game for a long time and was never super good at it to begin with but that seems pretty reasonable. I'd probably fork out the extra for more RAM but will have to see how finances pan out. I can always add it later. The main thing is that wifey isn't left with no home computer to do all her work on.


CAD requirements aren't so top end these days like they used to be. unless you're working on a complex assembly with many active parts or rendering something super pretty you're video processor requirements won't be outlandish. You still need a nice video card but don't worry about anything outlandish.

I expect video processing/editing/rendering will have a higher load on your system.

Yeah my CAD requirements will be minimal. But I'd like to try out some video editing as later in the year I'm hoping to have enoughsaved to buy a drone.

[DELTAprime]

Trent there is a video that's coming up on Linus Tech Tips (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw) specifically about CAD performance. It's on their paid early access platform at the moment so I've seen it and if CAD is important to you I'm going to change my recommendations.

Apparently single threaded performance is king for CAD as far as CPUs go, so if CAD is important you should probably get whatever is in your budget between the Intel 8350k, 8600k and 8700k teamed with a Z370 motherboard and overclocked. The 8350k is about $240 AUD and frankly with 4 cores that can be overclocked to around 5ghz it's a pretty good CPU for anything except highly multi threaded workloads, which you are not doing. (yes videos render faster with more cores, but the actual editing is much faster on fast single threaded machines)

16gb of RAM is a minimum requirement for CAD, but unless your doing a model with over 500 parts you don't need to go beyond 16gb.

For the video card Nvidia's Geforce line turns out to suck at CAD. Your best bet on the consumer side is to buy an AMD Radeon RX500 series card. While the Nvidia Quadro line is the best at CAD it's also uber expensive.

Unfortunately Intel CPU's are more expensive than AMD CPUs because Intel simply charges more and AMD graphics cards are more expensive than their Nvidia equivalent due to cryptomining.

Here's an updated build that will hopefully work better overall for you for not much more than the first build I created for you.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/6rxV3b

[UltraMarginal]

this is very interesting information, I was aware of some of this but not all. I think I'll be looking our for that video myself.

[UltraMarginal]

So, over the weekend, my hard drive on booting, and windows after booting said my hard drive is sick and will fail imminently. apparently my urgency to update my machine just got more urgent.

I stalled at picking a case last time. I want something that looks a bit classy, will take a blue ray drive, isn't humungous and has a good air filtering system that is easy to remove and clean without tearing the whole unit apart.

I know I don't want much huh ;-)

I currently have a coolermaster from 2009 that I quite like but the grills aren't particularly fine and removing them requires bending back steel tabs everywhere, a fair pain in the arse.

I was looking at the following, but I'm going to have to revisit:
Enermax Ostrog GT
Fractal Design Define RS Black
Zalman Z9 Neo
Coolermaster Pro 5


I'm stepping the CPU down from the 8700K to the 8700. for all intents and purposes it looks to have nearly the same performance and is $100 cheaper. I'm going to go through the other components and rationalise them as well. maybe save a few hundred dollars more to put towards a decent NAS Box.

[DELTAprime]

The cases from Fractal are huge favourites in the PC building community. Them and NZXT are two big favourites, you might say though they are the "hip" companies. Coolermaster have been around forever and there current Masterbox and Mastercase lineup is well regarded for the most part (they do make a few duds also).

Look at the Fractal first, then Coolermaster.

I'm not overly familiar with cases that have ODD support these days as it's a dying feature that I don't use because I have a USB Blu-ray drive I use on the rare occasion I need to read an optical disk. But those two cases don't look bad.

[UltraMarginal]

great advice, thanks.

looking for a PC case feels a bit like looking for a fridge, there are hundreds of different models that all do essentially the same thing but slightly differently.

[DELTAprime]

In case anyone is worried about buying AMD now that laymen media outlets across the web are saying AMD is doomed, take a look at these videos from actual people that know about this type of thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HxkLlmh4EY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ7H1WTqaeo

Bottom line, the people making these claims are shady at best.

[DELTAprime]

For anyone thats been looking to build a cheap Intel 8th without overclocking the H and B series motherboards are almost here. There are leaks of motherboards from all the big manufactures and reviews will start to come out in the next day or so.

Asus (https://videocardz.com/75407/asus-b360-h370-h310-lga1151-motherboards-leaked), MSI (https://videocardz.com/75289/msi-b360-h370-and-h310-motherboards-leaked), Asrock (https://videocardz.com/75277/asrock-h370-h310-and-b360-motherboards-leaked), Gigabyte (https://videocardz.com/75247/gigabyte-h370-and-h310-motherboards-unveiled)

Also the Ryzen 2 CPUs are really close. We know the CPU lineup thanks to leaks, pretty much the same model numbers as the 1000 series except there will be no 2800X. Prices are lower than Ryzen 1 started at but higher than Ryzen 1 currently cost. It's thought that there will be a small improvement to IPC as Zen+ (the architecture Ryzen 2 is based on) is a optimisation of Zen from the first Ryzen. But there is a boost to clock speed that is basically confirmed at this point through all the leaks.

I'm going to get a Ryzen 2 CPU, either a 2700 or 2700X depending on reviews and I'm going to probably pair it with the Crosshair VII motherboard (https://videocardz.com/75644/asus-rog-crosshair-vii-x470-motherboard-for-ryzen-2000-leaked) cause I need a ton of USB ports. I'm curious about Ryzen 2's power requirements as the Crosshair VII has a 8+4 pin power delivery setup and the MSI X470 Pro Gaming Carbon (https://videocardz.com/75667/msi-x470-gaming-pro-carbon-ac-motherboard-leaked) has an 8+8 pin setup. Normally only super high end CPUs like HEDT parts require more than a single 8 pin.

[DELTAprime]

I did something you should never do and I preordered $1000 worth of AMD Ryzen 2700X CPU and Asus ROG Crosshair VII Hero motherboard.

[prjkt]

I did something you should never do and I preordered $1000 worth of AMD Ryzen 2700X CPU and Asus ROG Crosshair VII Hero motherboard.

Looking at the new 2700 specs I�m almost regretting buying last year... but I needed to, and it�s smashing everything I need too...

[DELTAprime]

Well I've been running on my 2700X since Friday night. I have one complaint which is the "CPU diode" sensor on the motherboard is broken so I'm seeing incorrect temps in some apps. Apparently it's a really common manufacturing error and is not by itself covered under warranty.

Otherwise it's been incredibly great with actual temps never getting up above 75c in a proper full on stress test. The only games where I've noticed a hit to performance at 1440p are GTA V which is down about 5fps in CPU stress test areas. Sea of Thieves which is down from about 120fps to 110fps in open seas. And Diablo 3 which has a little stuttering now above 144fps.

[DELTAprime]

I've had a run of bad luck with my PC. My memory stopped running at the XMP setting a couple of months back. It's still in the queue to be replaced by Corsair in Taiwan. My Kraken x62's pump finally packed it in, but that's not a huge surprise given how common Asetek pump failures are. And my GTX 1080 needs to be underclocked so it doesn't crash.

So still waiting on Corsair's incredibly slow RMA process.
NZXT is trying to work out something to get me a replacement Kraken without me having to ship the dead one back to America. (I appreciate that.)
And I have to start talking to Asus about getting my 1080 replaced.

[UltraMarginal]

Life has been getting in the way, I think I'm going to go with a ARC Midi R2. case. it's a nice combination of price design and looks like it has well designed filters etc.

I was planning on a complete air cooled build but seeing a lot of case reviews I'm seeing a whole lot of closed loop water cooling setups. is it worth the effort?

I don't know if I'll ever get around to any form of overclocking. but are they noticeably cooler or quieter than a good noctua heat sink solution? it looks like they tend to blow into a case, presumably to provide the coolest air to the radiator. but this in turn blows warm air into the case which the graphics card then sees.

I get a feeling that unless I'm water cooling both the graphics card and CPU it's a bit of a waste of time. And I don't think I want to risk destroying a graphics card for the chance at a half decibel quieter system

[DELTAprime]

AIOs/CLCs are not really any extra effort and they run nice and cool. I forget if you're going Intel or AMD but I do not recommend using an Intel CPU without a good 240 or 280mm AIO anymore because frankly Intel CPUs run incredibly hot. AMD CPUs run cooler, but with their XFR2 technology working very similar to Nvidia's GPU Boost the cooler your CPU is the faster it will run.

Just get an AIO with a 6th Gen Asetek pump. This particular AIO is the only 280mm with a 6th gen pump. https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/Categories/Products/Liquid-Cooling/Hydro-Series%E2%84%A2-H115i-PRO-RGB-280mm-Liquid-CPU-Cooler/p/CW-9060032-WW
This is the 360mm with the same pump. https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/Categories/Products/Liquid-Cooling/Hydro-Series%E2%84%A2-H150i-PRO-RGB-360mm-Liquid-CPU-Cooler/p/CW-9060031-WW
And here's the 120mm if you don't have room for the larger units, but you're probably better off buying a MASSIVE air cooler than a 120mm for CPUs in particular. https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/Categories/Products/Liquid-Cooling/Hydro-Series%E2%84%A2-H60-%282018%29-120mm-Liquid-CPU-Cooler/p/CW-9060036-WW

The reason you want a 6th gen Asetek pump and not anything else is the big selling point on the 6th gen pump is reliability and so far only these products have a 6th gen pump.

Also don't bother putting an AIO on a GPU, GPUs run much cooler than CPUs thanks to their big massive heat syncs and better thermal conductivity.

[UltraMarginal]

reliability? how do we know they are reliable if they are just getting on to the market?
How unreliable is the older generation pumps and hardware? do you mean, spill fluid all over your motherboard unreliable, or stop pumping and cook your CPU unreliable?

this is kind of why I'm a bit shy of one of these, an air cooled system gives good temperatures as far as I'm aware and is much less likely to fail. even if the fan/s fail the heat sink will still promote convection.

[DELTAprime]

As in the pump fails and while it doesn't cook your CPU because modern CPUs have temperature protection, it will trigger overtemp protection. My Kraken which uses the 5th gen pump died the other week, but I think it might be electronics related, not pump.

The new 6th gen pumps are designed to be much more reliable than the old pumps. In PC land manufactures products are tested before release and given a Mean Time Between Failure (which is not always published). Asetek would not be able to say their 6th gen pumps are more reliable if their testing did not show a higher MTBF.

Besides, teardowns of the 6th gen pump show it's been heavily redesigned and is much less fragile.

[UltraMarginal]

Well, I've learned something new today, (except for the MTBF;))

I guess I can go home now. :D
Interesting and good to know. I was looking at a intel i7 8700, but I figure it's so long since I started looking I should probably do a quick pass on what is currently on the market and ensure I'm happy with my selections.

[prjkt]

Life has been getting in the way, I think I'm going to go with a ARC Midi R2. case. it's a nice combination of price design and looks like it has well designed filters etc.

I was planning on a complete air cooled build but seeing a lot of case reviews I'm seeing a whole lot of closed loop water cooling setups. is it worth the effort?

I really like the Fractal Design cases, using a Meshify C myself - no where near as many 3.5" bays (mine has 2, which I've filled, along with filling the three drive 2.5" panel.)

Also using one of their 280mm AIO coolers, good balance of cable routing (everything from the CPU block) and quiet performance.

Interesting to hear about the different pump lifetimes, might have to keep my eye on that for my next build...

in other news, here's the latest thing I have running on my new machine:

https://i.imgur.com/1i4PL6F.jpg

[Akky82]

Well, looks like i have a bit more research to do, was mislead about how hard it is to watercool but after seeing that corsair setup i have 3 questions. Currently planning on a build, anything stick out in it or does it look fine (i havent been in the know for about 10 years when lwork started getting me laptops that were better than my pc at the time, there may be better/cheaper alternatives to something, especially dont know about ram):

- i7 8700 (was originally going for 8600k)

- Asus TUF Z370 plus gaming (was tossing up between this and gigabyte auros, but most people i talked to swear by asus for mobo)

- Corsair vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4

- Antec 80+gold Earth Watts 650W

- Samsung Evo 970 m.2 250GB

- WD Black 1 or 2TB

- Noctua NH-D15

- not sure on a case yet, was originally looking at corsair c270R, then a carbide 540 air, but this talk of fractal design has me interested, i like the meshify c.


Essentially, I'd like to use it for gaming, I've tried some games lately on my laptop (3rd gen i7, radeon m7600) and its struggling, then I found myself the reciever of a gigabyte 8gb gtx1080 windforce and a 27" monitor so the decision was made to build.


So the second question is, if Im not looking to OC, is there any reason I should spend the extra 70 bucks and get that corsair hydro H115i setup (or similar)? I'm sure I could do it all myself but money is a small factor I'm taking into consideration (ie getting just the next best bit for everything all adds up).

Third question, any realistic reason to grab 3200 over 3000 RAM?

Cheers in advance for any help.

[DELTAprime]

Well, looks like i have a bit more research to do, was mislead about how hard it is to watercool but after seeing that corsair setup i have 3 questions. Currently planning on a build, anything stick out in it or does it look fine (i havent been in the know for about 10 years when lwork started getting me laptops that were better than my pc at the time, there may be better/cheaper alternatives to something, especially dont know about ram):

- i7 8700 (was originally going for 8600k)

- Asus TUF Z370 plus gaming (was tossing up between this and gigabyte auros, but most people i talked to swear by asus for mobo)

- Corsair vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4

- Antec 80+gold Earth Watts 650W

- Samsung Evo 970 m.2 250GB

- WD Black 1 or 2TB

- Noctua NH-D15

- not sure on a case yet, was originally looking at corsair c270R, then a carbide 540 air, but this talk of fractal design has me interested, i like the meshify c.


Essentially, I'd like to use it for gaming, I've tried some games lately on my laptop (3rd gen i7, radeon m7600) and its struggling, then I found myself the reciever of a gigabyte 8gb gtx1080 windforce and a 27" monitor so the decision was made to build.


So the second question is, if Im not looking to OC, is there any reason I should spend the extra 70 bucks and get that corsair hydro H115i setup (or similar)? I'm sure I could do it all myself but money is a small factor I'm taking into consideration (ie getting just the next best bit for everything all adds up).

Third question, any realistic reason to grab 3200 over 3000 RAM?

Cheers in advance for any help.

Ok, so first thing is I recommend you don't get a TUF motherboard. While the Asus TUF series was a good choice several generations ago as they were built to last they are now incredibly cheaply built and contrary to the name are not expected to last very long. An Asus Prime Z370 board should be the minimum board to go with in the Asus lineup.

On the Intel side of things faster memory doesn't make a huge difference in performance unlike AMD where you need to buy very specific memory in order to achieve good performance.

Next are you certain want a locked CPU? If you can afford it the 8700k is the way to go but between the 8700 and the 8600k I'd actually recommend the 8600k. For gaming you don't need 12 threads and a higher single core clock like you can get with a very basic overclock of the 8600k will be more beneficial for gaming. You really only need the threads and cores of the 8700k and 2700X if you are doing things like video rendering, CAD or streaming. Yes it is very nice to have that little extra bump in perf from extra threads but it's not 100% necessary for gaming and I get the sense you're trying to do this cheap.

Also that Noctua cooler is fine for overclocking and perfect for a locked CPU. AIOs perform better, but they are not mandatory.

[Akky82]

Ok, so first thing is I recommend you don't get a TUF motherboard. While the Asus TUF series was a good choice several generations ago as they were built to last they are now incredibly cheaply built and contrary to the name are not expected to last very long. An Asus Prime Z370 board should be the minimum board to go with in the Asus lineup.

On the Intel side of things faster memory doesn't make a huge difference in performance unlike AMD where you need to buy very specific memory in order to achieve good performance.

Next are you certain want a locked CPU? If you can afford it the 8700k is the way to go but between the 8700 and the 8600k I'd actually recommend the 8600k. For gaming you don't need 12 threads and a higher single core clock like you can get with a very basic overclock of the 8600k will be more beneficial for gaming. You really only need the threads and cores of the 8700k and 2700X if you are doing things like video rendering, CAD or streaming. Yes it is very nice to have that little extra bump in perf from extra threads but it's not 100% necessary for gaming and I get the sense you're trying to do this cheap.

Also that Noctua cooler is fine for overclocking and perfect for a locked CPU. AIOs perform better, but they are not mandatory.

Hey thanks for the reply, I was actually looking at a prime board (not really digging tuf yellow but im not fussed about looks or RBG), it's mainly friends from Singapore swearing by asus and lamenting that they're so expensive over there. Also one friend that works for ubisoft was mentioning about games in the future using more cores/threads (not sure on the terminology) and noted that some mmorpg Blessed online is using the lot at the moment on a 7th gen i5 (I may be misunderstanding). Point is, 70 bucks is 70 bucks and the more Im reading today the more likely I am to go with 8600k because Im sure it wont be any time soon that I'll have to worry.

Back to the board, any recommendations for another brand? Say gigabyte? auros ultra gaming at 239 seems reasonable, or just an auros with 3 slots for 209. My sister in law runs a shop and though she's doing more ipad/iphone repairs lately she always recommends gigabyte for builds she does for customers (I'd prefer to do it myself, surely a mechanical engineer can put together his own pc right?), plus I'mnot sure I want her knowing exactly how much I'mspending, because the wife certainly wont... Also CAD will more than likely be on the table but dont think it will be often enough to be worth it (not even enough to get away with tax claim at the moment).

[DELTAprime]

The Asus Z370 Prime-A and MSI Z370 Tomahawk are in a similar price bracket to the TUF boards, maybe spend a little extra (around $250 vs $230) and get something like the MSI Z370M Pro Gaming AC. You really get what you pay for with motherboards. That said you don't need to spend the type of money I do on motherboards with the Asus ROG Maximus and Crosshair series boards to get something decent. Also you pay a little premium with Asus products vs Gigabyte, MSI and Asrock.

Also don't worry about games using all threads and cores of a CPU any time soon. The only big titles in recent times that are hammering the CPU to the point you need more cores and threads are Watch Dogs 2 which is poorly optimised on PC and Assassin's Creed Origins which has an overly aggressive DRM scheme that uses 100% of the spare CPU cycles to make sure you're not pirating the game. In both cases it's an unrealistic example of how games run. Most games still use 4 threads maximum with most using less and the 8600k has 6 threads plus it can be clocked higher with very basic overclocking allowing for much better gaming performance.

EDIT: Also what's your budget?

[Akky82]

The Asus Z370 Prime-A and MSI Z370 Tomahawk are in a similar price bracket to the TUF boards, maybe spend a little extra (around $250 vs $230) and get something like the MSI Z370M Pro Gaming AC. You really get what you pay for with motherboards. That said you don't need to spend the type of money I do on motherboards with the Asus ROG Maximus and Crosshair series boards to get something decent. Also you pay a little premium with Asus products vs Gigabyte, MSI and Asrock.

Also don't worry about games using all threads and cores of a CPU any time soon. The only big titles in recent times that are hammering the CPU to the point you need more cores and threads are Watch Dogs 2 which is poorly optimised on PC and Assassin's Creed Origins which has an overly aggressive DRM scheme that uses 100% of the spare CPU cycles to make sure you're not pirating the game. In both cases it's an unrealistic example of how games run. Most games still use 4 threads maximum with most using less and the 8600k has 6 threads plus it can be clocked higher with very basic overclocking allowing for much better gaming performance.

EDIT: Also what's your budget?

1600 give or take (including win10) have to replace the hard drive in my laptop to hand-me-down it to my wife because her old hand-me-down laptop is pretty much gone (battery, screen, some keys (damn kids heh), slow as). My laptop has a small ssd (older 190MB/s ~225GB) at the moment, it wont be enough for her.

[DELTAprime]

1600 give or take (including win10) have to replace the hard drive in my laptop to hand-me-down it to my wife because her old hand-me-down laptop is pretty much gone (battery, screen, some keys (damn kids heh), slow as). My laptop has a small ssd (older 190MB/s ~225GB) at the moment, it wont be enough for her.

Ok, so here's a list that should be good for you that's under budget. Note I used PC Case Gear for the prices as they are not the cheapest therefore keeping it 100% under budget. So since you're in Brisbane going into you're local Umart should let you get them cheaper as Umart is a cheaper retailer.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/xgrMFt

I went with the 8600K as although there are people that are screaming "6 threads isn't enough" when you actually look at benchmarks single core clock is king and there is no real difference between the 8700K and 8600K.

The Noctua cooler you went with is perfectly adequate for a 5ghz overclock at 1.35ish volts which is a very safe overclock. You won't have your CPU go up in smoke with that speed and voltage.

The Strix motherboard is Asus and it's a very highly guarded one.

The memory you went with is fine for gaming.

While there is nothing wrong with a 970 Evo, by going to a MX500 you get double the capacity for a similar price and the extra speed of the 970 Evo is lost on non-data heavy workloads like gaming and operating systems.

The WD Black is faster but it's loud, the WD Blue is quiet but incredibly slow. The WD Red however is quiet, fairly fast and super reliable.

The case is your choice but the Meshify C is cheap, looks amazing and is highly regarded.

PSU is where you don't want to cheap out. A bad PSU will literally kill your components so a very highly regarded brand like Corsair or SeaSonic is much preferable.

Windows 10 Home is all you need, don't waste your money on Pro.

[Ralph Wiggum]

It's been about 7 years since I last upgraded my PC so decided to treat myself:

Intel I5 8500
Gigabyte H370 Aorus Gaming 3 motherboard
16GB Corsair 2400 RAM
Galax 1070ti

Everything runs nice and smoothly, given I'm only on 1080p...my next step will be a 1440 monitor.

[UltraMarginal]

Nice, it's now 6 months I think, since I seriously contemplated replacing our PC, and I'm still not there. too many other distractions and tasks for the fam.

It's double backed up though so I'm safe in that regard.

if I make it another few months that will officially be a 10 year refresh cycle.

[Akky82]

Ok, so here's a list that should be good for you that's under budget. Note I used PC Case Gear for the prices as they are not the cheapest therefore keeping it 100% under budget. So since you're in Brisbane going into you're local Umart should let you get them cheaper as Umart is a cheaper retailer.

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/xgrMFt

I went with the 8600K as although there are people that are screaming "6 threads isn't enough" when you actually look at benchmarks single core clock is king and there is no real difference between the 8700K and 8600K.

The Noctua cooler you went with is perfectly adequate for a 5ghz overclock at 1.35ish volts which is a very safe overclock. You won't have your CPU go up in smoke with that speed and voltage.

The Strix motherboard is Asus and it's a very highly guarded one.

The memory you went with is fine for gaming.

While there is nothing wrong with a 970 Evo, by going to a MX500 you get double the capacity for a similar price and the extra speed of the 970 Evo is lost on non-data heavy workloads like gaming and operating systems.

The WD Black is faster but it's loud, the WD Blue is quiet but incredibly slow. The WD Red however is quiet, fairly fast and super reliable.

The case is your choice but the Meshify C is cheap, looks amazing and is highly regarded.

PSU is where you don't want to cheap out. A bad PSU will literally kill your components so a very highly regarded brand like Corsair or SeaSonic is much preferable.

Windows 10 Home is all you need, don't waste your money on Pro.

Just an update here, finished the build 2 weeks ago, I went with the rog strix, 8600k, 16gb, corsair psu, fractal meshify c and crucial 500gb.

Haven't bought another hdd yet though, the list from partpicker had no price for the psu so was actually over budget but besides that I also went for the corsair hydro h115i just on a whim after seeing the box for the noctua cooler and being told yeah its huge.

It was a tight fit, about 5mm between the fans on the rad and the gtx1080 but it all looks great, spent a lot of time making sure it was neat, good changes since I last built a PC (the cables routing through the bottom/back of the case and popping through holes to the mobo for one).

So far so good, havent seen my graphics card above 64 degrees or any core over about 35 (avg about 28-29). Thanks for your help, my sister in law who tuns a computer shop (but just buys from msy/umart anyway) asked me to buy stuff and get her to put it together but i did it all myself and surprised her (wasnt hard), also replaced the keyboard/hdd on my old laptop to hand it down to my wife.

[DELTAprime]

Glad I could help.

[DELTAprime]

New Nvidia GPUs are being announced next week at Gamescom in Germany. So now is a really bad time to buy a GPU.

[UltraMarginal]

Unless you're looking for a discounted current gen model:p

[DELTAprime]

So Nvidia's little unveil is tonight. It looks like the launch will be really soon after the reveal which is very unusual for Nvidia. And they probably will never do a launch like it again because the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti have been leaked all over the internet for both Nvidia Founders Edition parts and the AIB partner cards which normally come months after the announcement.

The only mystery at this point is what are the cards going to be clocked at. If they are clocked the same as the 1080 and 1080 Ti we should get a nice little bump but nothing amazing (10 to 12%). If they are clocked higher we could get a massive leap in performance.

Founders Edition (https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-dual-fan-reference-design-leaked)

Gigabyte (https://videocardz.com/newz/gigabyte-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-gaming-and-windforce-series-pictured)

Asus (https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-strix-dual-and-turbo-series-pictured)

EVGA (https://videocardz.com/newz/evga-geforce-rtx-2080-xc-ultra-graphics-card-pictured)

PNY (https://videocardz.com/77439/pny-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-xlr8-series-leaked-by-pny)

Zotac (https://videocardz.com/newz/zotac-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-and-rtx-2080-amp-series-pictured)

MSI (https://videocardz.com/newz/msi-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-and-rtx-2080-duke-pictured)

Palit (https://videocardz.com/newz/palit-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-and-rtx-2080-gamingpro-series-unveiled)

[DELTAprime]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-au/geforce/products/store/

Nvidia wants how much for a 2080 Ti??????
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

[Ralph Wiggum]

Lol, my entire upgrade about 8 posts up cost that much :D

[Autocon]

Whats the difference with the ti version? Will wait 3 years for it to drop in price.

[DELTAprime]

Whats the difference with the ti version? Will wait 3 years for it to drop in price.

The 2080 Ti is a much bigger GPU with 4352 Cuda Cores (the things that do all the rendering work) vs 2944 Cuda Cores the standard 2080. It also has more AI and Ray Tracing hardware as well as more GDDR6 memory that is clocked faster.

The 1080 Ti had only 3584 Cuda Cores, no AI or Ray Tracing hardware and the same amount of memory but it was the older slower GDDR5X.

[DELTAprime]

So I've decided I'm going to buy a 1080 Ti and sell my 1080. With 1080 Tis going for as little as $1000 from the big PC parts retailers in Australia there is no way in hell the 2080 Ti is worth $900 extra.

[Autocon]

So I've decided I'm going to buy a 1080 Ti and sell my 1080. With 1080 Tis going for as little as $1000 from the big PC parts retailers in Australia there is no way in hell the 2080 Ti is worth $900 extra.

As little as lol

[UltraMarginal]

I'll give you a tenner for your old card:D

[prjkt]

Ordered an RX580 which arrived at the Post Office on Friday, yet still had the been put in my Parcel Locker.
I did a little research on it, and for the price (and included goodies) it seemed like a nice upgrade from my GTX960 - more than enough to game comfortably at 2560x1080 and be a little more compatible with OS X

[DELTAprime]

I'm not sure if this a permanent price cut or temporary but the Samsung 860 Evo 1tb 2.5" version can now be had for $220 at Umart and there are similarly low prices from a bunch of other major PC retailers in Australia.

So if you are wanting a storage upgrade for cheap this looks like it might be a great deal.

[prjkt]

That�s a tempting price for that much storage on an SSD

[Trent]

Wifey needs a new laptop. I have a Dell at work that I�m happy with but have no idea if they are value for money or not. Any recommendations? Budget is between $1K and $1500.

[DELTAprime]

Wifey needs a new laptop. I have a Dell at work that I�m happy with but have no idea if they are value for money or not. Any recommendations? Budget is between $1K and $1500.

I'll ask a friend of mine for you. He's a professional PC hardware reviewer that looks at a ton of laptops.

What are her requirements? ie: does she just need web browsing and email? All day battery life or will she be plugged in? Does she run anything that would need a discrete GPU like CAD? How about something that requires a lot of memory like Photoshop or video editing?

[Trent]

I'll ask a friend of mine for you. He's a professional PC hardware reviewer that looks at a ton of laptops.

What are her requirements? ie: does she just need web browsing and email? All day battery life or will she be plugged in? Does she run anything that would need a discrete GPU like CAD? How about something that requires a lot of memory like Photoshop or video editing?

Mainly just web stuff and email, word processing and the like. Dedicated GPU would be nice for if I play with it but not necessary. Will spend most of its life plugged either in home or at work, so battery not super important. And as always, the more memory the better :)

Thanks dude.

[DELTAprime]

Got a little guidance for you on your wife's laptop.

The 15' Dell Inspiron 3000 with the 8th Gen i7 has great internals and is only $1038 at the moment. Grant it the keyboard and construction isn't the best in the world but not everyone wants to spend the money on that. However, keep in mind Dell's support is not the most amazing, but it's still better than HP's which I have found to be non-existent for my HP laptop I bought a couple of years ago and is still under warranty.

The silver version of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 is a great option if you are concerned about build quality and that sort of thing, though it's only a 13". It sells for $1275 through Microsoft's website. I believe Harvey Norman has them in stock and on display if you wanted to try a demo unit. Of course, if you live close to the Microsoft Store in Sydney you can try it there. Also, Microsoft Hello is a great feature to have that will hopefully come to the desktop next year.

Asus makes good consumer (non-gamer) laptops also but I hate to recommend them unless you are happy to go without support. Asus's support will blame everything but their own products in the event you have an issue.

[DELTAprime]

The RTX 2060 is almost here. As with previous RTX cards, the price vs the last gen has jumped ($350 vs $200 for the GTX 1060). What a joke Nvidia's prices are, and this is USD, once Australia Tax is added it will be very expensive.

There's also some RTX notebook GPUs coming, can't wait to see the price on those.:rolleyes:

Sounds like there's something monitor related also, not sure as I'm not sitting through another Jensen Huang keynote. He makes Nvidia keynotes so cringy.

[DELTAprime]

Woohoo, new AMD video card coming, the Radeon VII. Matches the RTX 2080 in performance which is good. Also has the same MSRP as the RTX 2080, booo!

https://www.techspot.com/news/78196-amd-radeon-vii-world-first-7nm-gaming-gpu.html

Also of note, Ryzen 3000 is coming mid 2019. 8C 16T and at this early, non-final stage it matches the Intel 9900K running at stock clocks.

[prjkt]

Oooh might be time for a new build once all that�s out

[Trent]

Got a little guidance for you on your wife's laptop.

The 15' Dell Inspiron 3000 with the 8th Gen i7 has great internals and is only $1038 at the moment. Grant it the keyboard and construction isn't the best in the world but not everyone wants to spend the money on that. However, keep in mind Dell's support is not the most amazing, but it's still better than HP's which I have found to be non-existent for my HP laptop I bought a couple of years ago and is still under warranty.

The silver version of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 is a great option if you are concerned about build quality and that sort of thing, though it's only a 13". It sells for $1275 through Microsoft's website. I believe Harvey Norman has them in stock and on display if you wanted to try a demo unit. Of course, if you live close to the Microsoft Store in Sydney you can try it there. Also, Microsoft Hello is a great feature to have that will hopefully come to the desktop next year.

Asus makes good consumer (non-gamer) laptops also but I hate to recommend them unless you are happy to go without support. Asus's support will blame everything but their own products in the event you have an issue.

Thanks. Ended up going with a Dell. They had a sale on and I saved a fair bit of cash. I got a 15inch Inspiron 7000. Should last her a while. Also grabbed a port replicator and 2 24 inch monitors.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Ok, as someone who knows NOTHING about computer hardware I need some advice.

I want to download a game (which I have never done before) and for system requirements it says the following:

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (32-bit / 64-bit)*
Processor: Intel Core i3
Memory: 3 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 200 series or higher / ATI Radeon HD Series / Intel HD Graphics 2000 with 1 GB VRAM
DirectX�: 9.0c or higher
Hard Drive: 12 GB free space
Audio: DirectX�-compatible on-board

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (32-bit / 64-bit)*
Processor: Haswell-based Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 200 series or higher / ATI Radeon HD Series or higher with 2 GB VRAM
DirectX�: 9.0c or higher
Hard Drive: 12 GB free space
Sound: DirectX�-compatible soundcard


Now pretty much all of that is gibberish to me. How do I find out what components my computer is packing and if they are good enough to play this game?

[kovert]

How do I find out what components my computer is packing and if they are good enough to play this game?

It may differ depending on the version of Windows you're running. Try this link (https://www.howtogeek.com/196893/how-to-open-the-system-information-panel-on-windows-8/) for instructions on how to view 'System Information'.

[DarkHyren]

Typically I just use a program like Speccy (link (https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy)) or CPU-Z (link (https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)) to get a quick lowdown on what's inside a machine. Just download and run either of those (or both if you want to compare) and you should get all the info you'll need.
The only thing to be aware of is when games mention specific processors or video cards it doesnt mean that you need that exact one to run the games, just something that's comparable, for example an AMD phenom ii x4 is comparable to the Intel Core i3 processor.
If in doubt post the information you get here and one of us can tell you if it's good enough for you to run that game.

[BigTransformerTrev]

It may differ depending on the version of Windows you're running. Try this link (https://www.howtogeek.com/196893/how-to-open-the-system-information-panel-on-windows-8/) for instructions on how to view 'System Information'.


Typically I just use a program like Speccy (link (https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy)) or CPU-Z (link (https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)) to get a quick lowdown on what's inside a machine. Just download and run either of those (or both if you want to compare) and you should get all the info you'll need.
The only thing to be aware of is when games mention specific processors or video cards it doesnt mean that you need that exact one to run the games, just something that's comparable, for example an AMD phenom ii x4 is comparable to the Intel Core i3 processor.
If in doubt post the information you get here and one of us can tell you if it's good enough for you to run that game.

Cheers guys. Luckily I was able to get a techie mate on his lunch break to talk me through checking all the systems etc and apparently my computer should be able to handle the game, though now with most of the day gone I probably wont download it till next Monday now.

If I need any more help I'll give a yell - thanks again :)

[Autocon]

What is the best you can buy right now that will last for several years with components? I want to play games and stream

[UltraMarginal]

What is the best you can buy right now that will last for several years with components? I want to play games and stream

That's a bit of a loaded question do you have 2k, 5k or 20k to spend? I'm no expert so I could make vague suggestions but without a budget it's not really possible to spec something that will give best bang for buck.

[DarkHyren]

Plus there are a few more variables in addition to budget, such as do you want a pre-built machine or to do it yourself? Desktop or laptop? What kind of games?
I upgraded my friends pc a few months ago for just under $3k* so he could play and stream things like Elite Dangerous, Destiny 2 etc so I could make some suggestions based on that, but yeah it's a difficult question to answer without more information.

*this would have cost maybe $1k more if he didnt already have a case, power supply, monitor etc and more again if it had to be bought from a pc builder/shop so that's also something to take into consideration

[DELTAprime]

And when you say "stream" are you talking about watching streams or streaming your gameplay to Twitch?

[Autocon]

Desktop. Money no issue. Most likely pre-built custom made. I would blow it up if i tried to build it myself lol. Streaming all the games at top spec to twitch. I will need a beast and sadly everything is needed: keyboard, mouse, monitor etc..

[DELTAprime]

Ok. So take a look at PC Case Gear and PLE for prebuilt custom PCs as PCCG ships free Australia wide on systems and PLE is local to you in WA.

For the CPU I'd recommend a system with either the Intel 8700k, Intel 8086k or Intel 9900k depending on your tolerance for price. Those CPUs will give you the most overhead for CPU video encoding to Twitch. (That assumes you are buying right away, things will probably be different in late Q2 with Ryzen 3000 launching)

You will need a minimum of 16gb of memory, but 32gb is probably the better option for streaming if you go with CPU encoding.

In a prebuilt, you will pretty much get whatever motherboard the SI gives you, but try and get a high-end Z390 board if you have a choice as the power stages are better on the higher end boards.

As for GPU. Go with either an RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti. These are the two highest end cards on the market, again your tolerance for price will dictate which you get as RTX 2080 Ti's are overpriced. The good thing about the RTX line is the new NVENC encoder built into them provides much better video encoding than the old one. CPU encoding is still better, but if your viewers are comfortable with a lower encode quality you can use NVENC which is almost performance penalty free.

For storage get the most SSD storage from Samsung you can afford. A 970 Evo Plus boot drive will be good but is not mandatory. 860 Evo 2.5" SSDs are the better option though as you get way more capacity for your money. Just buy as much as you can afford. Also, get a WD Red HDD in as bigger capacity as you can for things that don't need to be loaded so quickly. High priority games and OS should be on the SSD. Family pictures and low priority games go on the HDD.

Let me know if you want more information or a detailed build list.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Have a look at PLE�s pre-built gaming PCs based on Delta�s advice. As a fellow sandgroper PLE is my only place for PC parts.

But before you drop a few grand on a PC, have you considered whether you have a decent internet connection for Twitch?

[Autocon]

Have a look at PLE�s pre-built gaming PCs based on Delta�s advice. As a fellow sandgroper PLE is my only place for PC parts.

But before you drop a few grand on a PC, have you considered whether you have a decent internet connection for Twitch?

:D nbn newly connected. Just need to do game capture from source and im away!

[DELTAprime]

I got a set of Corsair Vengeance RBG Pro memory today. First thing I was greeted by after installing the DIMMS and updating the Corsair iCUE software was a firmware update for the memory.

Just another thing I need to keep updated.:rolleyes:

[DELTAprime]

Here's an FYI for anyone thinking of upgrading from Ryzen first and second gen to the third gen.

Unfortunately, many first and second motherboards on the market are going to be inadequate or incompatible with Ryzen third gen. The first gen boards have a unique issue to them, the motherboard makers put too smaller bios chips on their boards so there is literally not enough memory on the board to hold the entire third gen bios. Many first and second gen boards and some third gen boards (FFS :mad:) also have inadequate VRMs to run the 3800X or higher.

So if you are upgrading or even building a new Ryzen system there are some potential pitfalls.

For anyone wondering it was MSI that said not all of it's third gen boards are designed for the high end 8, 12 and 16 core Rzyen 3000 parts, so maybe don't buy a MSI board.

[Trent]

Has anyone had any experience with those mini PCs? Specifically the ones you see on amazon for around $200. Looking to get something to use as a media Pc plugged into the TV and would like it to run Windows 10 and be as small as possible.

An example of the sort of thing I?m looking at: https://www.amazon.com.au/Computer-Desktop-x5-Z8350-Graphics-1000Mbps/dp/B07KTN21Z8/ref=asc_df_B07KTN21Z8/?tag=googleshopmob-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=341774979325&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6794706173464801945&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072284&hvtargid=pla-673203036186&psc=1

[DELTAprime]

Has anyone had any experience with those mini PCs? Specifically the ones you see on amazon for around $200. Looking to get something to use as a media Pc plugged into the TV and would like it to run Windows 10 and be as small as possible.

An example of the sort of thing I?m looking at: https://www.amazon.com.au/Computer-Desktop-x5-Z8350-Graphics-1000Mbps/dp/B07KTN21Z8/ref=asc_df_B07KTN21Z8/?tag=googleshopmob-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=341774979325&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6794706173464801945&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072284&hvtargid=pla-673203036186&psc=1

If you're willing to import this barebones is highly recommended by professional reviewers. https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20A300%20Series/

You just have to supply a CPU, memory and an SSD then you can have a full working PC in a tiny case for a few hundred dollars.

I'm looking at importing one for my mum.

[Trent]

Anyone got any suggestions for an external media drive? I need something to play my 4K/Bluray/DVD discs on as well as burn the occasional disk for my son.

[DELTAprime]

There's not much on the market for 4K UHD Blu-rays other than this Pioneer BDR-XD06J-UHD (https://www.amazon.com.au/BDR-XD06J-UHD-Pioneer-Blu-ray-Portable-Supports/dp/B06XGRHR2H) and this Verbatim https://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en/prod/ultra-hd-4k-external-slimline-blu-ray-writer-43888/

I have the standard Blu-ray version of the Pioneer, can't fault it.

Good luck finding either at a good price.

[DELTAprime]

I added a new skill to my PC building skill set. Hardline water cooling. I'm not entirely happy with the bend from the GPU to the CPU so I'll redo that when I do my first maintenance flush in half a year or so.

I was really surprised by how easy it was to do the bends and I'm sure glad I planned out the build in great detail before I ordered my parts as it meant I didn't have a ton of expensive fittings left over.

https://i.imgur.com/6WoU9YF.jpg?1

[Paulbot]

I was looking to buy a new computer in the next 12 months but recent events are fast tracking that. I have a powerful tablet PC from work so I don't really need any more hardware just a screen because sitting at a home desk for 8 hours a day working on a table is not comfortable.

I spent the last two hours trying to find a reasonably priced monitor but all the big stores are sold out. Considering an all-in-one desktop but the reviews aren't all that great. Any recommendations from the more knowledgable and tech-savy PC users?

(I've considered the lowest end model of iMac but learning all those new shortcuts?)

[DELTAprime]

If you just need a monitor for your laptop, try PCCG. https://www.pccasegear.com/

If you are going to buy a prebuilt PC you are in a world of hurt. There has been a massive run on PCs and accessories because people need to work from home all of a sudden. Plus prices have gone up because of the fallen Aussie Dollar. Prices rise and fall with the dollar, not when the stock actually enters the country because there are lots of deals in place in the PC industry.

Anyway, what do you need to do with your PC? Any games, CAD, video editing?

[kovert]

What size monitor are you looking for? Some stores seem to have bumped up their prices. The price of a monitor I bought two months ago has increased by around $50 (from the same store). They will, of course, say it is due to the poor exchange rate.

[Paulbot]

Thanks for the tip Deltaprime, I bought one from them and it�s on the way.

I only really need it for ergonomics, sitting at a desk looking at a surface pro was quickly bothering my neck. I�d like to get a new PC or laptop at some point. There�s a couple of video editing projects I�d like to do, but mostly it�s browser-based work, Ms Office and photo editing I do the most. Reviews of the HP all in ones were fairly poor but the price was okay, but finding a good price monitor on that site solved things. Even if maybe by normal standard the price is high.

[UltraMarginal]

I just recently found out about this mob Metabox, they aren't cheap but their systems are impressive and according to a colleague very modular.
I'm tempted but also still thinking about building a machine from scratch assuming I can even source the parts at the moment.

[DELTAprime]

Reviews of the HP all in ones were fairly poor but the price was okay

I can't recommend HP products these days to non-techy people. They have a bad habit of never updating the Intel security flaws in their PCs.

[Caffinetron]

I asked this on the "Console Gaming" thread and was told it would be better here so:
Does anyone on here do any of the iRacing series or get involved in casual racing using iRacing sim? I have been watching the 2 rounds of the V8 series and have been astounded by the graphics driving experience etc. Does it take a lot of money to get into or is it something pretty easily accessible?
I have a desktop PC with speakers etc, not sure if it is capable of running iRacing or not though. I also have a Logitech G920 XBox One wheel setup which can connect to the PC.
Is it ok for a casual gamer that likes to race from time to time or is it best to invest alot of time into it? Do you need to be racing against other sim drivers or can you just run around the tracks for your own experience?

[DELTAprime]

Ok, well to start it helps to know what hardware you have. So CPU, motherboard, GPU and memory (RAM). Is it an off the shelf system (ie Dell, HP) or a custom system? Also what monitor do you have (brand and model number please)? Since you have a G920 that means there's one less thing you have to buy.

If you don't know what parts you have look in dxdiag (https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4028644/windows-open-and-run-dxdiagexe), it will tell you.

[Caffinetron]

Yeah it is an off the shelf Dell system so no custom jobby with my unit. My monitor is a Samsung 24" that is at least 7yrs old.
I did look at the website yesterday and saw that it runs a program through your computer that checks your system and advises you if all is ok or needs to be changed or upgraded etc. I haven't run that yet as i also wanted to check on the casual racing of the iRacing sim and see if it is worth the time considering i am only a casual gamer.

[DaptoDog]

Pretty chuffed with myself today. Managed to fix my old Asus ROG G53 gaming laptop that my son now uses for school at home. Yesterday it fell from his table and the screen wasn't working. After watching some YouTube videos and speaking with my brother-in-law I disassembled it all and reseated the cables and the RAM. Once I put it all back together it all worked again! In fact there was a lot of dust in there and after cleaning it seems to be running quicker.

Considering I'd never pulled a laptop apart before and was expecting to have to buy a new one I'm pretty happy! :D

[DELTAprime]

Pretty chuffed with myself today. Managed to fix my old Asus ROG G53 gaming laptop that my son now uses for school at home. Yesterday it fell from his table and the screen wasn't working. After watching some YouTube videos and speaking with my brother-in-law I disassembled it all and reseated the cables and the RAM. Once I put it all back together it all worked again! In fact there was a lot of dust in there and after cleaning it seems to be running quicker.

Considering I'd never pulled a laptop apart before and was expecting to have to buy a new one I'm pretty happy! :D

Unless a laptop is made by Apple or Microsoft they are generally fairly easy to take apart and service. I'm actually thinking about pulling my monitor apart and servicing it. G-Sync Ultimate monitors have a fan in them and my monitor's fan is getting rather loud so it might be time to clean out the dust bunnies.

[Unicran]

Pretty chuffed with myself today. Managed to fix my old Asus ROG G53 gaming laptop that my son now uses for school at home. Yesterday it fell from his table and the screen wasn't working. After watching some YouTube videos and speaking with my brother-in-law I disassembled it all and reseated the cables and the RAM. Once I put it all back together it all worked again! In fact there was a lot of dust in there and after cleaning it seems to be running quicker.

Considering I'd never pulled a laptop apart before and was expecting to have to buy a new one I'm pretty happy! :D
Well done mate.


Tried to do an oil & filter change on my car today. Looked easy enough on you tube. Removed the undercarriage cover. Wrenched open the oil sump plug. Then the oil filter cartridge housing wouldn�t budge using the oil filter wrench. :rolleyes:

[DaptoDog]

Well done mate.


Tried to do an oil & filter change on my car today. Looked easy enough on you tube. Removed the undercarriage cover. Wrenched open the oil sump plug. Then the oil filter cartridge housing wouldn�t budge using the oil filter wrench. :rolleyes:

Cheers mate. Well done for giving it a go! Not something I've ever done. Did you try googling some trick for dislodging it?

[UltraMarginal]

Pretty chuffed with myself today. Managed to fix my old Asus ROG G53 gaming laptop that my son now uses for school at home. Yesterday it fell from his table and the screen wasn't working. After watching some YouTube videos and speaking with my brother-in-law I disassembled it all and reseated the cables and the RAM. Once I put it all back together it all worked again! In fact there was a lot of dust in there and after cleaning it seems to be running quicker.

Considering I'd never pulled a laptop apart before and was expecting to have to buy a new one I'm pretty happy! :D

Nice work, I would also require the threat of replacement before I had the guts to open and fiddle with a laptop.

[Unicran]

Cheers mate. Well done for giving it a go! Not something I've ever done. Did you try googling some trick for dislodging it?
I did one better. Called RACV. Guy came & helped out. And changed a tyre too for good measure. :D

[DaptoDog]

Nice work, I would also require the threat of replacement before I had the guts to open and fiddle with a laptop.

Cheers mate, I know you'd be a lot handier than me given your line of work.


I did one better. Called RACV. Guy came & helped out. And changed a tyre too for good measure. :D

Nicely done!

[UltraMarginal]

Cheers mate, I know you'd be a lot handier than me given your line of work.



that's definitely debateable;)

[UltraMarginal]

OK, so, after more than a year without a PC, i've decided to hop back in the arena. The laptop I'm writing this on just doesn't cut it for working from home.

I want a decent fast machine that will last a long time, the last one lasted nearly a decade. I will use it for the general internetting, office software, hopefully some fairly high range CAD and also hopefully for some gaming, though the gaming might not be particularly high end. I will also be re-ripping my entire CD collection. I'm also considering putting together a NAS box to keep media on and share with the smart TV etc. I'm a big fan of good sound so I would like a board with decent audio, not that there are many out there these days that don't.

so far I'm looking at the following: (I've been using PC Part Picker as a filter and general idea of prices for stuff, I'll later refine my prices with Static Ice)

Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (I realise there is 10th Gen stuff out there, and it's not much different in price but this processor has great clock speeds which tend to be better for CAD and gaming. )
Noctua NH-D9L 46.44 CFM CPU Cooler (Noctua are the best, and this cooler isn't super expensive, has great stats for noise and energy dissipation)
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (this board has great reviews but I'm wondering if it's a bit over powered for what I need)
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 CL14 Memory (the chipset doesn't support 4 lanes, just 2 so it's better to get 2 sticks of 16 than 4 sticks of 8, this set is the cheapest set I could see with this low a latency. )
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (a decent drive, Decent per $ data volume, might swap out for a single TB. considering adding a multi TB hybrid or platter drive to hold data. )
EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card (seems to be a good sweet spot, price for power and should be competetive for years.
Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Mid Tower Case ( I'm a fan of the filtering options on this, it's apparent quietness and it's proven popular for a long time)
Pioneer BDR-209DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ( to support my old fashioned CD fetish)
Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

I haven't booked in a power supply yet, considering keeping the Silver standard 850W unit from my old machine. It does have a lifetime warranty if that's worth anything.
Might also keep the DVD burner
Might also keep the functional hard drives. (traditional)
Might also keep the case fans (pretty decent)
I am pretty sure my old i7 cooler (Noctua) won't fit a 9th Gen i7, I haven't looked in to it yet, just an assumption.
the MOBO, RAM, Video Card and Primary Hard drive are all very well dated and the HDD is failing.

I'm not convinced that Ryzen is worth worrying about, it supports M.2 NVMe with PCIe 4 but the real world performance difference doesn't seem to be user noticeable, processor speed against the i7 above isn't as high, therefore not as good supporting CAD or other sequential software. I've also heard Ryzen is less stable.



Thoughts, recommendations are welcomed, I might be a day or two responding. am I shooting too high, should I just be getting an i5 with lower spec everything and saving a grand?

[DELTAprime]

Your build looks fine and since you are doing CAD I wouldn't recommend downgrading to an i5.

For the PSU I'd recommend you look at the PSU tier list (https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1116640-psucultists-psu-tier-list/)and get something from the A tier. Seasonic makes probably the best PSUs on the market and they also make many of Corsair's PSU's for them. You should never cheap out on a PSU as a bad PSU can destroy your other components either quickly or slowly over time.

Also whoever told you AMD is unstable is full of it. I think people that have problems with an AMD based system after switching from Intel are very quick to blame AMD. In reality, it's almost always a motherboard issue not an "AMD" issue. You can have the exact same problems on Intel if you buy a bad motherboard. Also, I don't know if by CAD you mean Solidworks of Autocad but Ryzen and Intel trade blows in Solidworks perf and Autocad experts seem to recommend Ryzen over Intel so there's no reason not to go AMD for CAD. Ryzen offers more cores and threads for less money. Also just because Intel has a higher clock speed that doesn't mean it performs better as AMD has much higher instructions per clock. I'm not saying you should buy Ryzen as you seem rather set on Intel, but just be aware in reality there's no reason not to go AMD. Just want to dispel the misconception.

[UltraMarginal]

Thanks for the imput Deltaprime, much appreciated.

[DELTAprime]

So, in case anyone was thinking about buying a GPU in the coming days, DON'T. Nvidia's 30 series of cards is coming out in a matter of weeks and Nvidia are claiming the 3070 will outperform the 2080 Ti at only $800 AUD. For reference most 2080 Tis cost over $2000.

[DELTAprime]

So, aside from me is anyone upgrading their CPU or GPU with all the cool new stuff coming out? I'm personally going for a Ryzen 5900X and Radeon 6800 XT.

[TAAUBlaster]

So, aside from me is anyone upgrading their CPU or GPU with all the cool new stuff coming out? I'm personally going for a Ryzen 5900X and Radeon 6800 XT.

Luckily my PC is just within spec (apart from RAM - which I have coming) for Cyberpunk, so I decided against upgrading too much. Its the only game I'm really holding out for recently. I wouldn't mind doing a new build but I'm too lazy to reinstall everything.

[Jaxius._]

Figured I�d try here for some help. I got a computer built for me recently (that doesn�t have a disk drive) and went to hook up my monitor today.
Heres the issue
>need to install monitor software (disk)
>need to install disk drive software to use disk drive (disk)
>can�t do either because i need one to do the other

Anyone able to help

[christalcase]

Figured I�d try here for some help. I got a computer built for me recently (that doesn�t have a disk drive) and went to hook up my monitor today.
Heres the issue
>need to install monitor software (disk)
>need to install disk drive software to use disk drive (disk)
>can�t do either because i need one to do the other

Anyone able to help

Can you google to see if there is a downloadable version of the monitor software or disk drive software that you can use? The other way is if you still have an old PC that has a disk drive, you can put the disk into that and create a iso copy (there are plenty of legit free software that does this) that you can stick onto a usb, plug it into your new PC, mount it and it'll act as if you have used the disc.

[DELTAprime]

Monitors are plug and play devices for the most part. No drivers needed.

The only monitors I've seen that need software is needed are ones we RGB which is normally controlled by the manufactures RGB software and the some of the latest Gigabyte monitors have a software control panel. In which case it can all be downloaded from the manufactures website.

[DELTAprime]

I ordered a 3080 at launch and was still way down in the queue to get one. By last week I'd saved up enough money to buy a 3090 instead. Since 3090s are far easier to get a hold of I swapped my card over from a 3080 to a 3090 and its already on its way to the shop I bought it from and it will be on it's way to me soon.

It really sucks that 3090s are easier to acquire than the better value 3080.

For anyone wondering I got the Asus 3090 TUF OC from PLE.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Yeah I noticed the 3070 and 3090 models were available. I guess people don?t want the ?too hot? or ?too cold? models and go for the ?porridge is just right? version.

[DELTAprime]

Two recalls have been issued in the last couple of days. First is the Corsair HX1200 and HX1200i PSUs. They say it's not dangerous, but given faulty PSUs, in general, can cause component death or worse, a fire, it's a good idea to get your PSU replaced if it falls in the production period.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/corsair-issues-hx1200-hx1200i-psu-recall

However, much more concerning is the recall of the NZXT H1 case. The PCIe riser cable in the NZXT H1 is poorly designed and is a real fire hazard that has caused around 10 house fires. If you have one of these cases, please get the replacement PCIe riser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnDWxiFvUtE

[Fungal Infection]

Looking to buy a new desktop but since I've been out of the game for so long, I haven't got the faintest idea of what to get. Looking at a a budget of around $1500, used mainly for work, browsing and the occasional bit of gaming (rare). Open to building my own as I did with my current one (8 years ago!!!) but willing to get a pre-built unit if its within budget. Looking at 16GB of RAM, DVD/Blu-ray writer, mid-range graphics card, SSD drive and network card. Not sure about the processor - I've used Intel all my life but open to AMD. No monitor required as I'm intending on using my current one. Any recommendations for what I should be getting?

[DELTAprime]

Looking to buy a new desktop but since I've been out of the game for so long, I haven't got the faintest idea of what to get. Looking at a a budget of around $1500, used mainly for work, browsing and the occasional bit of gaming (rare). Open to building my own as I did with my current one (8 years ago!!!) but willing to get a pre-built unit if its within budget. Looking at 16GB of RAM, DVD/Blu-ray writer, mid-range graphics card, SSD drive and network card. Not sure about the processor - I've used Intel all my life but open to AMD. No monitor required as I'm intending on using my current one. Any recommendations for what I should be getting?

For prebuilts, I do not recommend Dell, HP or other big brands these days. They use non-standard parts so you can't upgrade, or fix them, in the future. PC Case Gear is a good place to go for a prebuilt (https://www.pccasegear.com/category/1411_1917/pccg-gaming-pcs/ready-to-ship-gaming-pcs). Ignore the 1650 systems, but the 1650 Super and above systems are ok. That said if you can stretch the budget the $1899 2060 systems are much more powerful and an Nvidia 2060 will get you Nvidia DLSS as a usable feature.

When it comes to the optical drive, very few cases these days support optical drives. That's why I recommend getting a USB optical drive. Given how important airflow is for a good case, I really recommend getting a USB drive so you don't sacrifice on the case.

The thing is, right now is a very bad time to buy a GPU. I bought a 1660 Super last year for $360 for a secondary PC. Right now the same GPU cost $700 because of the ongoing GPU shortage. If you decide to build, consider reusing your current GPU for now in the new system until GPU prices drop. Or maybe think about buying an Intel CPU that has the iGPU and using that until GPU prices drop (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go6kUc8y7J8). Let me know which direction you want to go, and if you want to build a PC I'll make you a build list.

[SharkyMcShark]

The GPU shortage is a real pain in the ass. I'm waiting for that to subside before I go for a new rig. Hopefully before Battlefield comes out at the end of this year, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

[Autocon]

Arent they artificially inflating prices by keeping stock low?

[Fungal Infection]

Did a bit of shopping today and here's the setup I'd be looking at:

AMD Ryzen 5 or Intel I5 or higher
16 GB RAM
512 GB SSD
Mid-tier GPU
USB Optical Blu-ray/DVD writer

Is this achievable on $1500? Pre-built units would suggest no, but I'd stretch out the budget a bit more for a computer I wouldn't need to upgrade for another 8 years!! :D

[DELTAprime]

Did a bit of shopping today and here's the setup I'd be looking at:

AMD Ryzen 5 or Intel I5 or higher
16 GB RAM
512 GB SSD
Mid-tier GPU
USB Optical Blu-ray/DVD writer

Is this achievable on $1500? Pre-built units would suggest no, but I'd stretch out the budget a bit more for a computer I wouldn't need to upgrade for another 8 years!! :D

Everything except the GPU is very achievable in that budget.

Here are a bunch of very good parts that are not unreasonably priced given the current global semi-conductor shortage. https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/9xc6bh

The issue is that GPU. Not only have GPU prices risen significantly over the past 8 years (as well as everything else in the system). 8 years ago a mid-range GTX 770 MSRP was $329 USD vs the current mid-range RTX 3070 with a $499 USD MSRP. You now have a global semi-conductor shortage affecting everything that goes into building a computer from the PCB on up to the GPU die its self. Fortunately, everything except the Ryzen 9 CPUs are easy to buy in the CPU space now as supply has recently met demand.

There is however no end in sight for GPU shortages and jacked up prices.

Nvidia is pumping out as many Ampere GPU dies as they can on Samsung's 8nm process. They are then selling them and the required memory to their AIBs like Asus, MSI and EVGA at the same price they did when the products launched. The issue with the price is either that the AIBs or their distributors (we don't know who) are then profiteering in multiple ways.

Nvidia might pump out X number of dies. Then the AIBs will sell Y number of cards to their distributors (there is a small difference in the number because of defects and review samples). However, only Z number of cards are making it to retail with Z being a much lower number.

For instance, Nvidia said they made plenty of 3060 dies to fill the supply chain before launch and hopefully end the shortage. AIBs said they made plenty of cards to once again hopefully end the shortage. Then the retailers said "we got jack all cards".

So we enter the realm of crypto miners and other shady people. We don't know who but either the AIBs or their distributors are doing back door deals selling their stock of gaming GPUs to crypto mining farms or to scalpers. We just don't know where all these GPUs are going, but it's really not good. Here's a guy that got his hands on 78 3080s right after launch for mining. https://www.techpowerup.com/276554/ethereum-mining-farm-with-78-rtx-3080-graphics-cards-spotted

While AMD cards are not very good at mining and are seen as inferior by most consumers and here in Australia you can buy one easily, they are getting the same jacked-up prices that Nvidia cards are getting. A 6800 XT is supposed to cost under $1000 AUD. However, the cheapest you can buy is more like $1649 AUD.

I really suggest reusing your old GPU for now, or going with an Intel CPU with an iGPU and making do with that.

[Fungal Infection]

Funny you should mention the 770, that's my current card. I actually like the options from the link you posted so I might take a look at that - thanks for the advice! ?

[Trent]

New PC time.

After discussions with the missus, she convinced me a laptop is the way to go. I want something that I can game on and can handle Fusion 360 and probably Blender. Budget is $2-$3K.

Any suggestions?

[DELTAprime]

New PC time.

After discussions with the missus, she convinced me a laptop is the way to go. I want something that I can game on and can handle Fusion 360 and probably Blender. Budget is $2-$3K.

Any suggestions?

You should only buy a laptop if you 100% are sure you're going to need portability. While CPUs in laptops are very similar to desktop parts these days. The GPUs are nothing like the desktop version. You might look at a laptop and see a "4090" and think you are getting the same thing as the desktop part, but you're actually getting something more like an underpowered 4070.

So are you still thinking laptop or are you willing to go desktop?

[Trent]

You should only buy a laptop if you 100% are sure you're going to need portability. While CPUs in laptops are very similar to desktop parts these days. The GPUs are nothing like the desktop version. You might look at a laptop and see a "4090" and think you are getting the same thing as the desktop part, but you're actually getting something more like an underpowered 4070.

So are you still thinking laptop or are you willing to go desktop?

It needs to be a laptop. We need the portability. Believe me I would much prefer a desktop. And a lot of the time it’s gonna be hooked up to the dock in the study running through my 2 monitors. But we will have to move it on occasion.

[DELTAprime]

It needs to be a laptop. We need the portability. Believe me I would much prefer a desktop. And a lot of the time it’s gonna be hooked up to the dock in the study running through my 2 monitors. But we will have to move it on occasion.

Ok, well... Things are looking pretty grim from my browsing. Looks like the best you're going to be able to get for $3000 is a 4060. And remember that's a laptop 4060, not a more powerful desktop 4060. I'll ask someone I know who reviews laptops if he has any recommendations.

[Trent]

Ok, well... Things are looking pretty grim from my browsing. Looks like the best you're going to be able to get for $3000 is a 4060. And remember that's a laptop 4060, not a more powerful desktop 4060. I'll ask someone I know who reviews laptops if he has any recommendations.

Cheers.

And just for clarification gaming isn’t the primary use of this thing. I’m not looking for an out of this world experience. I’d say primary GPU uses would be for Fusion and Blender. Gaming is just a “nice to have”.

[DELTAprime]

Cheers.

And just for clarification gaming isn’t the primary use of this thing. I’m not looking for an out of this world experience. I’d say primary GPU uses would be for Fusion and Blender. Gaming is just a “nice to have”.

Unless Fusion has some sort of CUDA or OpenCL acceleration gaming perf more or less directly correlates to productivity perf.

[Trent]

Ok, well... Things are looking pretty grim from my browsing. Looks like the best you're going to be able to get for $3000 is a 4060. And remember that's a laptop 4060, not a more powerful desktop 4060. I'll ask someone I know who reviews laptops if he has any recommendations.

What would you recommend I look at if tha laptop 4060 isn’t that good? 4070? 4090? I don’t really want to put in the effort to bring myself back up to speed on PC stuff.

[DELTAprime]

Cheers.

And just for clarification gaming isn’t the primary use of this thing. I’m not looking for an out of this world experience. I’d say primary GPU uses would be for Fusion and Blender. Gaming is just a “nice to have”.

Ok, ignore the highlighted product in the slide, it's for un upcoming product review. But here are a bunch of Blender results.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/704711080043348079/1121581346507202722/blender.png?width=1290&height=726

So if you can possibly spend an extra $400 you can get double the Blender perf over a $3000ish laptop with a 4060 and it will last you a lot longer than the already struggling laptops with 4060s.

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/62233/msi-vector-gp68hx-core-i9-rtx-4080-16in-144hz-laptop

[Trent]

Yeah I can stretch that far if it’s worth it.

[DELTAprime]

Yeah I can stretch that far if it’s worth it.

Cool. Glad I could help.