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Thanks for the response, it's sounding like it might be an alright deal but will end up with some maintenance over the longer term, which I would rather avoid. My 1080 croaked and I need *something* in the near future since I'm using this computer for work, but it doesn't need to be super good or anything. Maybe I should just buy something garbage that would hopefully tide me over until things are more sane again.
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Jul 13, 2021 04:45
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njsykora posted:I’d assume they have some specific need that requires 2 optical drives and already have 2 they want to keep using. This plus a couple other devices. I can get away with 2 bays but more would be better. Yes, I realise how odd this is in 2021.
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Jul 13, 2021 06:51
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lordofthefishes posted:This plus a couple other devices. I can get away with 2 bays but more would be better. Consider the Fractal Design Focus G for a very cheap option. The much more expensive Define R5 is an option if you want a shitload of drive bays. Without knowing anything about build quality and ease of installation, I would prefer the Focus G here for having what appears to be better airflow without having to leave some gimmicky hinged panel open. The offset in these cases means that the topmost front-panel fan will still blow below the CPU. This may not be much of an issue with a tower cooler and a rear exhaust fan, though—your tower cooler's fans should redirect internal case airflow towards it. Just don't try using AIO water cooling if that's something you wanted to do. With a front radiator mount, your pump will be at the top of the loop (which is quite bad), and your optical drives will obstruct a top panel mount. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Jul 13, 2021 |
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Jul 13, 2021 08:05
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Consider the Fractal Design Focus G for a very cheap option. The much more expensive Define R5 is an option if you want a shitload of drive bays. Without knowing anything about build quality and ease of installation, I would prefer the Focus G here for having what appears to be better airflow without having to leave some gimmicky hinged panel open. I have the define r5 and like it but I'm surprised they still sell it - I thought there was an r6 or even r7 by this point.
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Jul 13, 2021 08:16
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VelociBacon posted:I have the define r5 and like it but I'm surprised they still sell it - I thought there was an r6 or even r7 by this point. There's an R7, though it appears to have only one 5.25" slot, and I'm not sure if it even comes with a cage for it. It's also like $170 on newegg right now. They even still manufacture and sell the Core 1000 case from 2013, apparently. I didn't mention that one due to how antiquated its design is compared to the Focus G and Define Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jul 13, 2021 |
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Jul 13, 2021 08:30
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I looked at some more cases with 5.25" bays, and drat, SilverStone is still keeping it real with some 2001-rear end cases.  Look at that 2.5" bay. I actually kind of dig the melding of old and new elements here, a mesh section in the front panel mixed with some early 2000s business tower design. A shame about the complete lack of cable management space. edit: pretty sure this is case is a few years older actually but has been relisted for some reason. Still, lol. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Jul 13, 2021 |
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Jul 13, 2021 11:15
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lordofthefishes posted:This plus a couple other devices. I can get away with 2 bays but more would be better. I don't mean to pry, but if you want to, I'd be really interested in knowing what you're using them for. I'd written off 5.25" drives completely, and I'm someone who kept an optical drive until 2 years ago.
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Jul 13, 2021 11:47
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lordofthefishes posted:This plus a couple other devices. I can get away with 2 bays but more would be better. https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-xl-r2/black-pearl/ 4 front bays.
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Jul 13, 2021 12:18
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lordofthefishes posted:This plus a couple other devices. I can get away with 2 bays but more would be better. I'm rather fond of the Fractal Focus G. Good features, good price, good looks. https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/focus/focus-g/petrol-blue/ I own one in petrol blue, it goes well with my Sapphire GPU.
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Jul 13, 2021 12:27
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The Joe Man posted:This is what I use and I love it to death: This is the newer version https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-7-xl/black/ I didn't recommend it because I didn't see that there were included drive mounts, but it seems there are and it does support two 5.25" drives. That's down from 4, but the R2 is out of production. $210 is the cheapest I found it though. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1561271-REG/fractal_design_fd_c_def7x_01_define_7_xl_full.html. May as well go with the $50 Focus G unless you really need all that extra size for something.
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Jul 13, 2021 12:47
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:This is the newer version https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-7-xl/black/ If you can't find an R2 XL, this brand I've never heard of popped up in the Amazon related section (looks like 4 bays on a bunch of their models): https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Phanteks+enthoo
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Jul 13, 2021 13:12
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The Joe Man posted:My buddy recently bought the Define 7 XL and he hates it. Weird grill vs fan placement options and a lot less customizable. Also dude said he wants more than 2 bays (unless I'm missing something). Phanteks is a very popular brand, mostly for their mesh-fronted cases which are all great. They made their name by beating Fractal Designs at airflow performance, which may be why I forgot some of their other older designs had those drive bays. Also they weren't showing up in newegg's search when looking for multiple drive bays (thanks newegg). Anyway, the Enthoo Pro may be what the op wants since it gives a third bay without breaking the bank (don't be fooled, the top slot is an i/o panel i'm pretty sure)
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Jul 13, 2021 14:14
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The enthoo pro looks like it'll work, thanks all.
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Jul 13, 2021 15:06
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lordofthefishes posted:The enthoo pro looks like it'll work, thanks all. I did a build for a friend in it. Great case, can't recommend phanteks enough.
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Jul 13, 2021 15:52
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:I don't mean to pry, but if you want to, I'd be really interested in knowing what you're using them for. I'd written off 5.25" drives completely, and I'm someone who kept an optical drive until 2 years ago. Sorry, I missed this. It's a mix of keeping some old media accessible and needing the ability to transfer large quantities of data in  the land of throttling and data caps without going over the internet. Faster to simply move a hard drive from one chassis' front bay to another if you're transferring a 100gb program between two locations. Or 100 old pieces of software from the early 2000s. This post feels like I belong in the tech relics thread.
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Jul 13, 2021 18:40
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lordofthefishes posted:This plus a couple other devices. I can get away with 2 bays but more would be better. I really love this case and it has three 5" bays! https://pcpartpicker.com/product/BfPKHx/phanteks-enthoo-pro-tg-rgb-atx-full-tower-case-ph-es614ptg_bk I use my PC as our gaming/media center, so I have a BD drive in one of the 5.25" bays. I also have a fair bit of older (and some current, POE2 is the most recent) games on DVDs, so it's nice to be able to install them if I want. I have some older optical drives I could transfer from another PC to fill the other slots, but I don't need them since the BD writes/rewrites all optical media. May get one of those fancy, front-panel displays one day. 
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Jul 13, 2021 18:58
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lordofthefishes posted:Sorry, I missed this. It's a mix of keeping some old media accessible and needing the ability to transfer large quantities of data in Oh holy poo poo, I didn't know there were 5.25" front bays for hard drives/ssds. That's actually cool and good, and I can think of some ways I can use that. This is the best thread.
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Jul 13, 2021 19:03
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Yeah that's actually super useful thinking about it, since a lot of drive caddys on cases end up too close together for it to be a nightmare getting the second connector on a power or SATA cable to contort and fit it.
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Jul 13, 2021 19:15
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:Oh holy poo poo, I didn't know there were 5.25" front bays for hard drives/ssds. That's actually cool and good, and I can think of some ways I can use that. There are all sorts of useful devices designed to fot them, actually. Want usb3 on your twenty year old beige case? Slot 4 ports in an odd bay along with a card reader for everything else!
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Jul 13, 2021 19:23
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lordofthefishes posted:There are all sorts of useful devices designed to fot them, actually. Want usb3 on your twenty year old beige case? Slot 4 ports in an odd bay along with a card reader for everything else! You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. 
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Jul 13, 2021 19:52
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:Oh holy poo poo, I didn't know there were 5.25" front bays for hard drives/ssds. That's actually cool and good, and I can think of some ways I can use that. If you don’t need to absolutely maximize transfer speeds on your swappable drives, you can do a lot of the same things with usb 3 enclosures/adapters or a NAS and avoid the bay requirements when choosing cases. There are a lot of tool-less enclosures that make drive swapping extremely easy, too, if it doesn’t make sense to buy an enclosure for every drive!
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Jul 13, 2021 20:09
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. Massive fan of the 5.25" bay computer.
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Jul 13, 2021 20:46
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. Now imagine throwing as many of those things into this case as you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otiIWhPKc20 edit:  One of my friends in the 5.25" days had a fan controller with temperature readouts and poo poo. I thought it was the coolest thing ever back then. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jul 13, 2021 |
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Jul 13, 2021 21:19
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one of us  one of us
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Jul 13, 2021 22:10
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LGR did a video some years ago about a 5.25” bay with a cup holder and cigarette lighter. https://youtu.be/_ErL39wqO-c
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Jul 13, 2021 22:46
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. holy poo poo this is amazing
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Jul 13, 2021 23:46
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:holy poo poo this is amazing Welcome, fellow travelers.  Edit: How are ml140 fans? Garish rgb for others' eye searing is important, but not top of my list. lordofthefishes fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 04:06
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I looked at some more cases with 5.25" bays, and drat, SilverStone is still keeping it real with some 2001-rear end cases. I had, IIRC, a Silverstone server style case where the front was a bunch of individual 5.25 slots and it came with a hard drive cage with a 120mm fan on it that held 4 drives. You could add 2 more cages if you wanted. That thing was a drat beast to move around. I got rid of it when the s.o. moved in because it was admittedly too loud. I wish I could remember the model name.
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Jul 14, 2021 05:47
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lordofthefishes posted:Welcome, fellow travelers. The ML140 fans are going to be very loud and are generally overkill for any normal home computer. If these are for the top panel exhaust on the Enthoo Pro, I would recommend airflow-optimized fans over pressure-optimized fans (as the ML140 claims to be). Or at least balanced ones. The Noctua NF-A14 are my preferred all-purpose 140mm case fans (though they're a wee bit pricey). They come in the classic Noctua "who fuckin' cares" beige and brown look, as well as black with their Chromax line. Whatever fans you get, make sure you get PWM versions so you can plug them into the Enthoo Pro's PWM fan hub. (PWM fans give you way finer control over their speed) Also, something I just noticed while confirming the existence of said fan hub, the Enthoo Pro's instructions tell you to plug the fan hub into the CPU_Fan header for reasons that are now outdated. Any modern motherboard will have plenty of PWM-capable 4-pin headers. You can use the other headers just fine while keeping the CPU fan on a separate header.
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Jul 14, 2021 07:07
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mom and dad fight a lot posted:You were not kidding. I'm falling down a pretty deep rabbit hole. This reminded me of front bay shenanigans we had to deal with at work at one point. We purchase our computers through a public tender and for some time a small local builder one them and built desktops from cheap parts from China. We weren't happy with their quality and would have preferred Dell/HP/Lenovo. So we added a new requirement for the tender, the desktop would have to have a built-in speaker since desktops from large OEMs had it but the small builder only had a motherboard beeper. They solved this problem by installing a speaker in the 3.5" front bay, routed the cable out through the PCI opening and plugged the cable to the motherboard output. This fulfilled the requirement and they kept winning for a long time until they gave up because of the RMA expenses. It was a pretty WTF experience when we received the first desktop with the new speaker.
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Jul 14, 2021 11:04
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After posting in the old thread in August 2020 and thinking it over, i decided to keep my current PC for a bit longer. I bought and built this PC in 2015. I feel I'll eventually run out of luck and my 970 is going to die so i'm trying to edge my bets and see what the current options are since i recently got a bonus at work. Country: Canada Use: Gaming new titles in 1080p@60FPS but i'm open to higher if possible. Hopefully lasts for 5-6 years minimum. Budget: $2500-$3000 CAD; I already have monitors, mouse and keyboard Monitor: ASUS VP247 (1080p 60hz), Old rear end LG W2053 Desired graphics: I'd like to get great graphics but it doesn't to run everything at ultra. Extras: I'd like to go with a NVME 1TB drive for the OS drive as well as a 1TB SSD for secondary storage. 32 GB of memory wouldn't be too bad since I have some leeway in my budget. I think it might also be time to invest in new monitors if I have some breathing room in the build. Here's my current PC according to Speccy : Current specs (via Speccy): Operating System Windows 10 Pro 64-bit CPU Intel Core i5 4590 @ 3.30GHz 53 °C Haswell 22nm Technology RAM 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24) Motherboard ASRock H97M Pro4 (CPUSocket) 38 °C Graphics ASUS VP247 (1920x1080@60Hz) W2053 (1600x900@60Hz) 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (MSI) 48 °C Storage 465GB Seagate SSD (SATA (SSD)) 31 °C 931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA ) 27 °C Optical Drives ASUS DRW-24B1ST j SCSI CdRom Device Audio Realtek Audio Comments? Suggestions? Pre-builts are getting alot of attention now cause they seem to be the only way to score a nice card but i've heard alot of mixed signals from stuff coming out of NZXT or Artesian builds.
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Jul 14, 2021 16:43
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware / Software Crap > PC Building Megathread: Full Tower Appreciation Station Cyberdud posted:After posting in the old thread in August 2020 and thinking it over, i decided to keep my current PC for a bit longer. I bought and built this PC in 2015. I feel I'll eventually run out of luck and my 970 is going to die so i'm trying to edge my bets and see what the current options are since i recently got a bonus at work. Unless the inflation rate has gone bananas, that is basically an unlimited budget, if you can get all parts at MSRP. Something like this would be my starting point (add $600 for the GPU with no price): PCPartPicker Part List CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor ($289.99 @ Amazon) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($99.95 @ Amazon) Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard ($164.99 @ Amazon) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($199.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($108.99 @ Amazon) Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($108.99 @ Amazon) Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB Founders Edition Video Card Case: Lian Li Lancool II Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case ($118.99 @ Newegg) Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GA 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($115.95 @ Amazon) Total: $1207.84 (~$1400 CAD, ~$2200CAD w/ GPU) Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-14 11:52 EDT-0400 Case is a filler, no idea if it works for you or fits, so get whatever suits your needs and you don't mind looking at for the next decade. Motherboards should be updated by now, but you may need to check for BIOS flashback, just in case. I'd just go with 2 NVME drives, rather than getting a second SATA: not much to be saved by getting an NVME and a 2.5". I prefer Seasonic PSUs, but was lazy, anything from the big brands with a gold rating and 10-year warranty should be fine. Toxic Fart Syndrome fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 16:56
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Cyberdud posted:After posting in the old thread in August 2020 and thinking it over, i decided to keep my current PC for a bit longer. I bought and built this PC in 2015. I feel I'll eventually run out of luck and my 970 is going to die so i'm trying to edge my bets and see what the current options are since i recently got a bonus at work. The build above is good. My suggestion is to play the game trying to get a GPU, then only buy the additional parts once you get the GPU, since you already have a working machine. Getting a good GPU right now can easily be a multi-month endeavor. Other parts are stable, and depending on how long it takes new stuff may come out that’s better or cheaper. Or we all might die. 
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Jul 14, 2021 17:44
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The 550 is 5$ cheaper at Lenovo and Amazon is loving around with what is actually in stock. You will order and the shipping will change as you get closer. It's been pissing me off as I would have ordered from other places if I had known.
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Jul 14, 2021 17:57
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Cyberdud posted:Comments? Suggestions? Pre-builts are getting alot of attention now cause they seem to be the only way to score a nice card but i've heard alot of mixed signals from stuff coming out of NZXT or Artesian builds. With your budget you absolutely should be getting a new monitor/s as 1080p@60 is considered low end these days. Hop into the monitor thread but 1440p@144hz is the sweet spot at the moment and absolutely drivable with the kind of build you were recommended. Don't bother with separate NVMe and SSDs as they're so similar in cost as to make that pointless. The SN550 you were recommended actually comes in a 2TB form if you can find that. If you can find and afford a 3080 at close to RRP then you absolutely should, given your budget, as while expensive it performs like it and would be a great match with a 1440p high refresh rate monitor for years to come. Otherwise the 3070 is also a great card.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:10
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Hi PC thread, the last time I bothered to do anything on PC was building one for doom 3 many many years ago. I'm currently in the market to purchase one or two devices. I was originally going to grab a laptop as a straight replacement for my dying personal device but after ALOT of help from the laptop thread, during a discussion about max-p/max-q , it was mentioned that desktops get alot more juice to play with for the same parts, specifically referring to 115w+ 3070's vs their lower powered cousins. I am currently debating either: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-ome...p?skuId=6450804 or https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...p?skuId=6448848 as my purchasing option here but wanted to do a bit of due diligence before pulling the trigger and see if for something between these price points I can get a nice desktop gaming rig that will let me run BF2042 all sexy like the laptop 3070 for a cheaper price. For work purposes I'm mostly in jira/tfs/cofluence/balsamiq so nothing crazy and i'm not the type to have a billion chrome tabs open, so if i could get a gaming rig and whatever this generations Lenovo t420 equivalent is for roughly 1800 well that'd be swell. What country are you in? USA What are you using the system for? Web and Office? Gaming? Video or photo editing? Professional creative or scientific computing? Shitposting? Gaming specifically Warzone, Darktide, Diablo 2, and BF2042 What's your budget? We usually specify for just the computer itself (plus Windows), but if you also need monitor/mouse/whatever, just say so. 1000-1600 ish probably gunna need a monitor but i dont mind not including it in a budget ` If you're gaming, what is your monitor resolution / refresh rate? How fancy do you want your graphics, from “it runs” to “Ultra preset as fast as possible”? Seriously answer this. It drastically changes the recommendations you will get. I want it to be pretty sexy lookin but it doesn't need to be like old school crysis levels of omg wow If you’re doing professional work, what software do you need to use? What’s your typical project size and complexity? If you use multiple pieces of software, what’s your workflow? I do product management and solution architecture primarily via web browser in web based platforms so meh. The suite of products i work with are all web based although I am taking a software engineering cert soon that may have be doing more demanding stuff so idk PS. I've been told to get an AMD CPU and ensure anything I buy has a NIC. E: a friend recommended this https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...T&skuId=6455823 but i don't see anything about a NIC and its an intel processor. Waroduce fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 22:16
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Are there any prebuilts with a top end Ryzen and NVIDIA card?
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Jul 15, 2021 06:00
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sailormoon posted:Are there any prebuilts with a top end Ryzen and NVIDIA card? Well, yes, if you're willing to either pay out the nose for one or scrape the bottom of the barrel. Here's a Newegg link with all prebuilt PCs that have a Ryzen 5000 series chip and a Geforce 3070 or better (we're using a flexible definition of "top end" here). And an equivalent Best Buy link. Best Buy only has one brand of PCs available that fits the bill, and for some reason they use 3070s and 3080s interchangeably at the same price points. The cheapest model is $3000. Newegg has a much wider selection, but it's 90% garbage with the decent looking stuff being hideously overpriced. (That Zotac 3070 rig looks like it'd actually be pretty decent if it were, oh, $600 or $700 cheaper.) Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 07:02
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I looked at some more cases with 5.25" bays, and drat, SilverStone is still keeping it real with some 2001-rear end cases. I still have a 5.25" floppy drive that I was putting into PCs for a long time and just connecting to molex power (it was IDE) so the green LED on the front would be on and it would look like it was set up. Good for a laugh I guess but now that I'm an old piece of poo poo and nobody sees my PC I haven't bothered. Also I think the little handle lock-in piece would prevent the front of my case from closing.
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Jul 15, 2021 08:19
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VelociBacon posted:I still have a 5.25" floppy drive that I was putting into PCs for a long time and just connecting to molex power (it was IDE) so the green LED on the front would be on and it would look like it was set up. Good for a laugh I guess but now that I'm an old piece of poo poo and nobody sees my PC I haven't bothered. Also I think the little handle lock-in piece would prevent the front of my case from closing. They make IDE to SATA adapters for <$10USD if you really want to load up those 3.5" discs... 
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Jul 15, 2021 08:21
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