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 RTX 4000 card info coming soon to an OP near you. Read this first! Read the OPs! They should cover a lot of the questions you may have.  IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, READ THIS: If you don’t do this, we’ll passive aggressively ask all of these questions one snarky post at a time. When you first post for advice, tell us the following:
Use PC Part Picker. It lets you piece together a system and copy-and-paste your parts list in BBcode markup. Use it. It will also prevent you from making some (but not all) bonehead moves, like getting a case too small for your motherboard. Please let us know if you happen to live near a Microcenter as well, they often have the best deals among PC retailers but it's all in-store only. Much of this OP is lifted from Fantastic Foreskin’s wonderful OP. I apologize for the becoming massive OP. Much of the advice is updated to current gen, and we’ll try to keep this updated more frequently with current hardware recs. Standardized builds for easy picking to come soon! Thread will become prettier as time goes on. Welcome to the PC Building and Parts Picking Megathread! This is where we talk about computers, computer parts, and building parts into computers. We’ll also help you troubleshoot, find accessories, pick prebuilts, and tell you when you’re being stupid. There is are a lot of parts to choose from and even more bad advice out there for people looking to get a new computer or upgrade their existing ones. This thread is a handbook for you, so that you can get a good system and have a good idea of why it’s a good system. The most common reason people come to this thread is to build a new PC for gaming, but you may have also come here for a home desktop, a workstation for professional use, a home theater PC, a storage server, or just some advice on a new computer for your parents. -- Editor’s note: With the current state of the world/manufacturing, this info is wildly out of date, and there is no real way to quantify it as pricing & availability is rapidly changing. I’m leaving it here for when we return to normal times, but for now expect to add a few hundred to ∞  to the below prices.Fantastic Foreskin posted:
If you have never put together a system before, don't worry. It’s easier to put a PC together than the average piece of Ikea furniture. Enough parts come with manuals to tell you what goes where, and you can accomplish everything with very few tools. Usually, you just need a Phillips-head screwdriver and your hands. It’s basically adult legos, but with financial consequences if you gently caress up too bad! (Just kidding. It’s nearly impossible to gently caress up bad enough to break something.) Hardware Comparison Tools The thread tends to default to Gamer’s Nexus for direct comparison benchmarks (and for good reason). Their testing is highly controlled (with publicly documented methodology), accurate, free of basis, and best of all goes to unnecessary lengths to call out slimy manufacturers (they’re directly responsible for a Consumer Product Safety Commission recall for NZXT cases causing fires). They test everything from CPUs & GPUs to cases, cooling solutions, and other fun stuff. Search for your part on their YouTube Channel, or if you’re lucky (not always) you can find text version on their site. The way they benchmark is very usefully for understanding how many %s better per dollar your new hardware will be. AnandTech's Bench database is also pretty good if you’re not looking to invest a little time and want something quick. Useful Links These are listed below as well, but just so they're closer to the top for easy navigating. Location may change in the future. Peripherals
Common Specialty System Focus Threads
External Links
Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Sep 27, 2022 |
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COMMON QUESTIONS AND GUIDELINES - READ THESE Updated June 2021
There are two rules of thumb: There is always something new coming in the next six months, so you’ll never get out ahead of the game waiting for the next release date. But on the other hand, each new release brings new hardware and discounts on older kit. If it’s no more than a month or so and your need isn’t urgent, wait to see what comes plus a couple weeks after for the market response on older gear. Upgrading or buying a new system depends on how old your system is. As long as your PSU & case dimension supports it, upgrading the GPU is trivial. For CPUs, upgrading typically requires a whole new motherboard (and maybe new ram if you’re on DDR3 still) to support the socket and/or chipset change. If your CPU is in the same socket/chipset as the newest released generation, it’s rarely worth it to upgrade outside of very specific instances (Video editing, 240+ FPS 1080p gaming, high core count workloads, etc). Not sure what you have? Speccy will give you all the fancy part numbers in one place. Copy the info or post a screenshot. CPU-Z is also a great option. There are also some computer parts with natural lifespans. Hard drives start to fail at increased rates at around five years old, and PSU should be replaced if out of warranty. Inexpensive fans will start wearing out, too, if they haven’t already. All told, if all you could carry over is the case and the DVD drive, and the case isn’t even that good, it might be better to sell or donate the old system as a complete setup. First off: Most people who say they don’t have time to build are wrong. It generally only takes an hour or two to get a pile of parts into the same condition as a prebuilt system fresh out of the box. If you'll only be using office apps and web browsing, you're probably getting a laptop (see laptop thread here). If you really want a desktop your best bet is to find something used, and plop in an SSD + more ram. Rzyen processors that don't end in G and Intel processors than end in F don't have integrated graphics, so if you wind up with one of those for home office use you'll still need a GPU for it to be usable at all, though even the cheapest available will suffice. The typical recommendation is to scour ebay/craigslist/office liquidators for decommissioned office desktops. During the Wild Wild West GPU days last year, Pre-builts were significantly more reasonable. We've crossed back into them typically being a worse deal than building, for now. We can still help you with pre-built recommendations, but we're likely to steer you towards building. My recommendation would be to decide on your minimum specs, then scour the internet for prebuilt units with those specs or better and post it in the thread. Check Newegg/Micro Center/Google and hope for the best. You can post links to prebuilts in this thread and we’ll pick them apart for you. Currently, expect to pay a large premium on a prebuilt. You can’t, don’t try. Seriously, just don’t. Buying higher end parts may give you an extra year or two if you don’t mind living in the low end at the end of your system’s life, but you can not future proof, no matter what your coworker tells you. Buy what you need now, with a little extra headroom to make sure you’re not wrong, and plan to upgrade in the future or live with what you have. From largest to smallest, EATX, ATX, microATX (mATX) and mini-ITX (mITX) are motherboard sizes, which determines both the size of case you can fit them in and the number of things you can attach to them. The mounting holes are (mostly) in the same places, so you can frequently use a smaller board in a larger case, but not vis-versa. The case manufacturer will list compatibility on the product listing or their website. Mini-ITX, or ITX is the smallest being a ~7" (17cm) square. They only have 1 PCIe slot and often only 2 DIMM slots, which is enough for many builds but does limit options. Mini ITX cases are a little harder to build in and often require special small form factor parts (SFX/SFF PSUs, low profile CPU coolers, small/low profile GPUs). ITX boards and specialized components tend to carry a price premium relative to full size parts but if you want as small as possible a PC with all the horsepower there's no alternative. See the SFF Thread for more particulars. microATX is a ~9.6" (244mm) square, permitting up to 4 PCIe slots and 4 DIMM slots (though with all modern consumer chips only having dual channel memory, this only permits more total memory than ITX, not a performance boost). ATX is very common, at 12"x9.6" (305x244mm), allowing even more expansion slots than mATX, though most computers only need 1 or 2. ATX boards may also get you more headers for fans, RGB, or other extra features, but mATX has come a long way and tends to offer much of what ATX boards do. ATX boards frequently will feature much better cooling for the board itself, which is useful for high end overclock systems. EATX is stupid and you probably shouldn’t buy one. Sometimes also called UATX, XL-ATX, etc etc, these boards are built with no specific standards and sizing is all over the place. Very few cases support them (and because sizing isn’t standard, not all EATX cases support all EATX boards), and there’s nearly no real benefit to having one over a standard ATX board. Your core/thread needs are directly proportional to your specific workload. Mid-range AMD and Intel CPUs now come with enough cores to max out gaming performance. Higher end AMD chips with higher core counts (Intel has really fallen behind here) are sometimes worth it for workloads in 3D modeling, compiling, data processing, or video editing workloads, but it depends on your use case. Anything your job isn’t paying for probably doesn’t require more cores/threads than the AMD 5600x or the Intel 12400 (all 6 core/12 thread) will offer you.  This depends largely on your budget and performance range, and is changing constantly. Do not pigeonhole yourself into one manufacturer because they were terrible 10 years ago. For the lowest (but still very good) end, the Intel i5-12400 is one of the best price/performance chips currently available. AMD's 5600x chips tend to be competitive lately in price. For mid/high tier, intel's 12600k/12700k tends to be the correct choice. Check the last couple of pages in thread as this is currently in limbo. Bottlenecks are the result of your lowest performing component holding back the others – your computer can only put out as many frames as it can process. Generally people refer to bottlenecks as when said component is causing others to be severely underutilized, but you will always be limited by a single component. In many systems, this will be the monitor as a 60hz monitor can only ever display 60fps. If you have a >60hz monitor (achieving a steady 60fps is fairly trivial for a modern system), the next most likely limiting factor is your GPU. If you want higher performance, GPU load can be lessened by turning down graphics settings or resolution. CPU bottlenecks are less common than GPU bottlenecks, but exist, especially for modern games at 1080p. Some games are more heavily CPU bound than others, so this is highly dependent on what you play.  AMD’s processors have a somewhat inelegant naming scheme. There are Zen1 processors, which are numbered 1xxx, Zen+ which are 2xxx, Zen2 which are 3xxx, Zen 3 which are 5xxx, and now Zen 4 which are 7xxx!. Intel’s modern systems are Alder Lake (12xxx) and Rocket Lake (13xxx, coming soon), in practice they just get referred to by their part number. AMD's current socket is AM5, and is about to hit the market with the new 7xxx chips coming soon. There are minimal details here. AMD’s previous socket is AM4, which is still relevant for 5600x (and the like, including the 5800x 3D)) series chips. AM4 chips are no longer being produced, but the 5600x is still a great value buy. Note, it only supports DDR4. Some older boards (b450s) support them (and it's up to each manufacturer), but you're largely relegated to b550/x570. For AM4, The b550 boards offer everything most people could need, with the x570 boards offering a few more features. You almost never need the x570 series boards, and they frequently have an annoying fan that you'll have to listen to. The 20 series boards should be ignored.  For Intel's 12th gen and 13th gen (coming soon), most people should be looking at B660 boards. Z690 would be your choice if you have any intention on doing overclocking on something other than memory. H670 is useless for most people and H610 is for OEM system builders (not you). See image for nerdy details  Bios Flashback allows you to update the Bios on your motherboard to be compatible with a CPU released after the motherboard was released, without access to the older CPU it was built for. As of now, this feature is only required if you're buying extremely old stock motherboards (which is unlikely). Do not be scared of it! It is very very easy, and there will be clear (enough) instructions on the motherboard manufacturer's website/manual. This is a tough question in the current market. By and large, almost all parts are being pushed to near max performance out of box (sometimes to the point of instability). In rare cases, you can get a slight performance boost out of an OC, but it's typically not worth it on current gen hardware. On older hardware, OCing is a valid strategy if you're trying to stave off an upgrade, especially on the intel 7xxx/8xxx. For OC, you will certainly need more than a stock cooler, and there's some more intense stuff you can do like performing a delid on your CPU to running an AIO (All-in-one water based CPU Cooler). AMD OCs rarely make an impact. For more details, please please see the Overclocking thread. This thread covers cooling solutions related to overclocking, but not much else. First off, if you aren’t gaming and just need one or two monitors, integrated graphics work great with no muss or fuss. A graphics card is not a required piece of equipment, however Ryzen CPUs that don’t end in G and Intel CPUs that end in F don’t have integrated graphics. Also, if you currently have a GPU and need to build, hang onto it. You likely can not easily replace it right now. From a price/performance standpoint, Nvidia is king of the current and last few generations, although AMD's current pricepoints are starting to become competitive. The 3080 in particular is a screaming deal at MSRP, but is overkill for most people. A 3060Ti is the sweetspot for low-mid rage gaming. Most of the Ti class cards are a waste of money, outside of the 3060Ti. Your monitor resolution and frame rate targets matter A LOT here. 3080 class cards are useless under 1440p, and in many games will hit 144 FPS at 1440p with ease. 4K is tricky and I recommend sourcing specific advice. Regarding brand, the actual silicone (brain) of the GPU is made by Nvidia/AMD and is the same for all brands as long as it's the same series (3080, 6900XT, etc). The differences in brands are cooling solutions, extra features such as thermal sensors, extra vbios (etc), and bundled software. We have a GPU megathread for discussion (mostly for complaining about crypto and nVidia's 4000 series pricing), but remember that buying advice goes here. Ti and Super (for Nvidia) and XT (for AMD) designate next level cards, and can be considered to be the next card up in the line-up, though below the card with the actual next higher number. Every other initialism or label on a card besides those and its number are just marketing names applied by the manufactures, indicating the cooler or factory overclock. In general, the "Factory OC" models aren't worth the extra cash, but the models with fancy coolers likely are if they are in your budget. You're almost always better off buying a higher number card (3070 vs 3080) vs a lower card with a better cooler, but if it's in your budget you can squeeze a fair amount of extra performance out of those fancy coolers. This does not generally apply above a certain point for nVidia (currently the 3080) No. Software and hardware support is vanishing. For gaming purposes, its safe to call multi-GPU set ups dead presently. SLI is dead. It exists on the 3090, but only kind of, and if you don't know about it it's not applicable to you, move on. If you are not gaming or performing workloads that require a GPU (video editing, certain scientific calculations, 3D modeling work, crypto mining  ), you can absolutely run integrated graphics, AMD and Intel.If you are gaming, integrated graphics will get you by on 1080p only, with medium to low settings. Most AAA recent games will run very bad, but you'll mostly be fine on older titles. You may even be able to use integrated as a stopgap until you can As of the last few months, DDR5 is a much more attractive option. You'll pay more (both motherboard wise and ram wise), but prices are close enough where the benefit may worth the cost. This is changing frequently, and you'll likely need to check in the last few pages of the thread or ask. If you are buying a 5000 series AMD chip, you will be getting DDR4. For gaming, 32gb should be preferred if it's within your budget. 16gb is ok for most current titles, but will struggle with some, and will likely be a point of issue within the next few years. Many of the current gen processors do lose performance running 4x sticks of ram instead of 2x, so upgrading later isn't as feasible. Professional high end workloads will often want to bump to 64gb. 16gb is more than enough for home office, and extremely basic home office computers can maybe get by with 8gb. DDR4 Only For DDR4 you should get RAM in the 3200-3600Mhz speed range, period. Cost wise anything below is rarely worth it. 3600 RAM offers small but measurable improvements over 3000/3200 RAM. With AMD Ryzen CPUs, getting 3600Mhz ram will offer a greater benefit, but isn't required by any means. You'll also see ram timings (sometimes called CAS Latency, or CL) on product listings. They are formatted like 16-19-19-39. All the numbers matter to some degree, but for simplicity's sake you can just look at the first/only number. Lower is better. You must avoid anything higher than 18, and the sweet spot tends to be 16. These numbers directly scale performance with the ram speed (IE 3200Mhz@CL14 performs the same as 3600Mhz@CL16), but that's a little out of this guide depth. DDR5 Only DDR5 ram speeds, timings, etc are constantly in flux. Check in thread. It'll mostly depend on price here. Besides obvious things like having the right socket for your processor, supporting overclocking or not (as well as overbuilding to support higher overclocks), and having a good selection of ports and plugs, there are only a few critical spots of differentiation in motherboards. In general, every motherboard will have a PCI Express expansion slot for a graphics card, bunch of USB ports, a bunch of SATA ports for hard drives and SSDs, an M.2 slot or two, decent-to-pretty-good built-in sound, and wired Ethernet networking. If you are buying a newish case with USB C and etc front I/O, make sure your motherboard supports it with correct headers if you care.I have a dead USB C front I/O cause I don't. But you might. Beyond that, there are a few common options. Much of this depends on chipset: For most people, these options are “that’s nice” rather than must-haves. Most cases have a good-enough setup of fans for a non-overclocked build. That being said, for any system two case fans (+ CPU cooler) is the absolute bare minimum (one intake and one exhaust). A few big fans running at low RPM in a well-designed case are far better than jamming a dozen small fans into a mesh box for the sake of “airflow.” Too many fans can be counterproductive, and the case is often more important than the fans. If you want to mess with your case’s fans, I direct you to the second post of the Overclocking thread where Fear Factory already written a ton of words (with pictures!). DO NOT BUY CHEAP-rear end POWER SUPPLIES. Not only are you risking every component in the system, but you are risking starting an electrical fire. Power supplies are one of the most critical components, yet the temptation of many builders is to ignore quality and blindly buy whatever gives out a lot of Watts. Power supplies have roughly doubled in price recently. Cheap PSUs are now pricey and good ones are very pricey. Its recommended to get an 80+ Gold (or better, but it's not needed) PSU with a 7 to 10 year warranty. While not an absolute sign of quality, long warranties are indicative of the manufacturers confidence in their product. Currently this includes the Seasonic Focus and Focus Plus Gold lines, most Corsairs, EVGA Supernova G1/2/3 lines, most Superflower units, and others. If you're unsure, post in the thread. Choosing a PSU wattage will be almost entirely dictated by your GPU choice. If you plan to go high end now or later, size up your expectations. Right now I'd recommend 850w+ for most PSUs, with maybe even higher if you're aiming for a higher end 4000 series GPU. Otherwise, 650w PSU will be fine. For mid-range gaming, you're likely looking at 650w-850w ranges. Its best to leave some overhead for transient spikes and to maximize your PSUs efficiency curve, but parts are very efficient compared to what they used to be and only getting moreso. PCPartPicker provides an estimated wattage for your build, and is mostly accurate. If you're buying a GPU, using the recommended PSU wattage for that card is a good first step, as it accounts for the other parts in your system, and GPUs literally eat electricity. Also: NEVER RE-USE OLD MODULAR POWER CABLES FROM A DIFFERENT PSU BRAND. They do not have unique keys to prevent using a cable with the wrong wiring. THIS CAN DESTROY YOUR PC. Klyith has an excellent post on PSU efficiency curves and wattage requirements. No. AMD CPUs ship with coolers that are up to the task, but are very loud. If your preference is on quiet or you buy a high end chip (anything higher than 5600x), you should really be buying aftermarket. K series Intel chips don’t ship with a cooler, so you’ll need to get one. Large tower coolers are generally the gold standard. Noctua (D15, U12) and Scythe Fuma 2 are frequent recommendations in the thread, but there are plenty of other, cheaper options. AIOs offer similar cooling to large tower coolers for much more $ + ascetic + more noise, unless you plan to spend a very large amount. Dedicated watercooling set ups should be taken to the watercooling thread.  There are two main questions here. As far as purchasing is concerned, use what your CPU comes with for the most part. If you want to be fancy, you can pick up some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, but it won't matter really all that much. The same goes for putting it on. A pea sized blob in the middle of the CPU is the easiest, and frankly if you're a first timer just do this. If you want to get into the pedantics of thermal paste application, see GN's fantastic video on the subject. Don't start this stupid debate in the thread again. SSDs come in two form factors, 2.5” and M.2, and two communications protocols, SATA and NVMe. All 2.5” SSDs are SATA, and all NVMe SSDs are M.2, though M.2 can be either NVMe or SATA (in the consumer space, anyways. Enterprise drives can be different but are beyond the scope of this). SATA is the same interface you’ve been using for hard disks for years, capable of up to 6Gb/s performance, which SSDs are capable of saturating. NVMe (Non Volatile Memory Express) uses PCIe lanes for communication and is, on paper much faster than SATA. NVMe wins most of the time in performance, and prices are so close, that it's almost always worth it to get one for your boot drive. As noted above, M.2 can be NVMe or SATA. Depending on your motherboard, some slots may support only one or the other, and sometimes some SATA ports are disabled when an M.2 drive is attached. The details will be in your motherboard’s manual, and PCPartPicker will show a warning. PCIe 4.0 is a good target to aim for if the price shakes and your motherboard supports it. If you need an abundance of storage on the cheap, multi-Terabyte HDDs can be had for half the cost of an SSD or less, however the performance gap between them is, without hyperbole, the biggest advance in home computer performance in a decade (or more). If you’re not backing up complete collections of perfectly legitimate Blu-Rays, you’re better served getting as much SSD storage as you can afford and deleting a few games if necessary. Windows 10 can be activated with any Windows 7, 8 or 10 key. Lodge North, moderator of SA-Mart has been selling Windows 10 keys in SA-Mart for years now without any complaints. Windows 10 can also be used unactivated at the cost of being unable to set your desktop/other minor feature changes. If this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, an OEM version or an education discount is likely your best bet. No. You can install an OS with a USB memory stick and you’re going to download everything else you ever install. If you do believe you need a DVD drive because "why not" you should just get a USB-attached drive. DVDs are slower than USB 2.0 so there’s no performance loss vs. an internal drive. If you hate yourself and have an internal drive already, just get a sata>usb converter or leave a sata cable chilling inside your case and pop it open when it's that once every 5 years time. Some parts yes, but usually it works out better to just get new parts and either sell the old ones, recycle them, or donate the old machine as a whole to a kid or to Goodwill. Most sales will be parted out, but if you want to donate the system or re-use it as a server or something, weigh the value of cannibalizing it vs. no longer having a complete system. Graphics cards are easiest. If your card isn’t *that* old and you want to wait for a new launch or a good deal, go ahead and carry it over. PCI Express is totally backwards and forwards compatible, so there won’t be any funny problems trying to slot it in. Any hard drive still in service is likely pretty old. Back it up ASAP and don’t be surprised when it dies. SSDs wear out eventually too, but it takes a good bit of doing. Smaller drives and newer, cheaper drives are more prone to wear. Back them up and keep an eye on the SMART readings. Back up new drives too, redundancy is the only form of data safety. For power supplies, the rule of thumb for a well-used power supply is to replace it once its warranty has expired. Power supply components can degrade with use and can lower the ability of the unit to deliver power, and potentially even endanger your new parts. It would be tragic for your brand new computer to go just because you re-use a previously fine PSU, so if its out of warranty, dump it. One benefit to the high end PSUs recommended here is that their useful like is likely longer than all your other components. DDR3 from pre-Skylake / Ryzen systems will need replaced as it won’t be compatible. If you’re already on a DDR4 platform go ahead, RAM doesn’t really go bad. If you're buying DDR5 enjoy your full rebuild. Cases (and monitors) can last a long time. If you bought really good ones, sure, keep using them! But with the advances in technology, you might find that today’s decently-priced cases and monitors work like the ultra-high-end stuff from when you last bought. If your stuff was just okay then, you might find that new kit is significantly better and worth an upgrade. Your DVD drive has probably seen zero wear-and-tear.  But let's be honest, it'll likely remain unused in the new system too.CPU coolers and fans depend; technology has definitely improved for coolers, and fans do wear out. Your existing cooler can likely be reused, though you’ll need a mounting kit from the manufacturer for AM4 boards, and new thermal paste. Fans tend to become noisier with age so you might want to replace them if the noise becomes annoying. PC stores like Micro Center or a local shop will build a PC from your own parts for a modest fee. Go in and ask. You can probably order the parts through them, as well, but beware sales pressure. If you have a geeky friend, they might be willing, too (but remember, you are asking them to do work for you, be respectful about it). Don’t ask your company IT guy unless you want to contribute to a drinking problem. Just do it yourself though, the trickiest part is screwing in the motherboard, everything else is just a matter of putting the thing in the slot. Every piece of computer part advice you see on the internet not from this thread is terrible and should be disregarded. While its true there’s a new component at every $10 price point there are definitely optimal choices to make. The figures from CPU Boss / Passmark and the like are more-or-less meaningless. We have a host of nerds here who stay up to date on component reviews and are all too happy to help, don’t turn to Reddit or worse. We deal more with the computer side of things rather than the peripheral side. Let me link you to a few other threads where you can ask for recommendations: Peripherals Monitor/Display Megathread Should I buy a $100 mouse? (not a megathread,  )Keyboard Megathread Home Networking Megathread Hardware Short Questions Let’s Talk Headphones PC Speakers Common Specialty System Focus Threads SFF Thread Overclocking Megathread Consumer NAS/Storage Megathread HTPC Thread Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Sep 28, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2021 22:00
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Thread favorite part recommendations go here. These are typically gaming focused. We recommend most for nearly every build, and it's a good place to start (or end). To be expanded. Parts to avoid like the plague - NZXT H1 (seriously, it catches fire and NZXT proved untrustworthy even with government intervention). PC Building Megathread's Big ol' List of Good Parts (updated Nov 2022) CPU: Low/mid range: AMD - 5600. 5600x if the price is the same. Do not get the 5600g Intel i5-12400 Mid/high range AMD - 7600x/7700x, largely depends on pricing Intel - 12400 at the low-mid range, otherwise 13600k High end AMD - 7700x/7800x Intel - 13700k/13900k NVMe Western Digital SN570 is the thread standard recommendation. The SN770 is also good if you can find one with a comparable price, but isn’t worth any money as an upgrade. Don't waste your money on Samsung. PCIe 4.0: depends on pricing. May be worth it for certain applications but rarely for gaming. CPU Cooler: Scythe Fuma 2 (quiet) Peerless Assassin Noctua D15 (high performance, overkill in most situations) AIO: Liquid freezer ii 360 GPU: 3070 (not the Ti), 3080s if you can find them, some of the 6600 XT cards. This changes a lot as pricing is kind of in flux and may Motherboard AMD: TBD Intel: TBD Case: Fractal Meshify 2 Fractal Torrent Lian Li o11 Corsair 4000d Fans: RGB: TBD non-RGB: TBD Thread recommended standardized builds to go here once they're ready. Useful links: r/buildapcsales A terrific subreddit, compiles PC part sales across the internet so you can find the best deal available on any given day. Active moderation keeps out the duds and the comments are very good a letting you know if a deal is good or not. Your first stop when going to buy parts. USA focused, but links to other subreddits for other regions. GamersNexus puts out the highest quality part reviews around / assorted other hardware miscellany. Your first stop for hardware performance information. If you're working with the Adobe suite / DaVinci Resolve / other pro graphics/rendering software Puget Systems publishes detailed benchmarks for them specifically. They'll sell you a system too, if you've got the dosh. You want Linux benchmarks? Phoronix wants to give you Linux benchmarks. PCPartPicker is linked above, but its useful enough to link again. You're probably buying a computer to game on, and r/gamedeals is a good way to find cheap games, as is isthereanydeal. SA-Mart is a good place look for used hardware, especially laptops. Other review sites (GamersNexus is the best, but its always good to get multiple opinions. This list is by no means exhaustive nor an admonishment of any site not linked): https://www.anandtech.com/ https://www.guru3d.com https://www.techpowerup.com/ Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Nov 13, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2021 22:00
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Troubleshooting your build Additional troubleshooting advice to go here. Some quick basics in the meantime. If your new system is not powering on
If your new system is powering, but no video
Bios Flashback isn't working
How to get additional troubleshooting help
Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 22:00
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Reserved I think the FAQ will expand to two posts eventually. Much of this will be a constant work in progress due to scope and the ever changing market. I specifically want to expand the troubleshooting and part/build recommendation areas, but all of the info is now relevant to current gen. Please feel free to suggest recommended builds/parts to be added, or troubleshooting guides, or whatever else. Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 22:01
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Butterfly Valley posted:Good effort. I would make a note in the motherboard section that points out you need to get one with the correct headers if you want to utilise your case’s front USB C, if it has one. You mentioned it in passing but I’d say it’s one of the key points to emphasise for people when they’re choosing the motherboard. Did all this, thanks. Not sure where I mentioned a 32gb limit for ITX though. Happy to add some more stuff on ITX if you want to write something up. I don't have much experience in ITX/SFF. Most pertinent is probably a recommended ITX build/recommended parts, but anything else that fits I can add. change my name posted:I would put r/hardwareswap in the links section, there are some really good deals to be had there sometimes and you won't have to pay tax (for instance I recently bought an NZXT H210 for $50 and a new Corsair 650W gold PSU for $90) Thanks, added. Use r/hardwareswap a ton personally. This is very much a work in progress, and I intend to update it frequently as things change so anything you guys think is valuable to add to the OP I'll consider throwing it in. We got an enormous amount of repeat questions in the last thread so hoping the new OP will cut down on that (lol). Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 23:08
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Goofballs posted:I'm mostly fine why my pc, I have a question around the cpu though. Currently I have an i7 8700k. Its pretty good for everything I want to do, which is gaming. Work requirements do not come near to needing more performance. I'm aware there have been developments in the cpu market, AMD going beyond Intel. Am I good to sit on what I have? I don't really mind upgrading but I'm lazy. What I care most about is fps, I'll turn up things as much as I can I just hate stutters of any kind. Are you not hitting your FPS targets? What resolution are you playing at, what's your refresh rate of your monitor, and what FPS are you looking to hit? What games are you playing? Your GPU likely matters more than your CPU here. What GPU do you have. For reference, I'm running a stock i7-7700k with a 3080 FE and I'm getting 1440p@144 in most things, and very very easily hitting 1440p@60 max settings with ray tracing (I'm getting 80s in the new RE game with everything on and near max).
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Jun 10, 2021 01:18
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Goofballs posted:Its more about am I going to run into a wall in the near future. I have a 3060 ti. I'd have loved to go higher but that was what was available. My monitor is 240 hz but the only game I get more than 240 fps is CS:GO. I'm playing at 1080, I honestly don't feel the difference at higher res than that. 240 FPS is not realistic in most games without the settings dipped to near 0, and even at that CS:GO is a stark exception. That game does look like hell on a CPU, but to spend a ton of money upgrading for one game doesn't make much sense. Unless there is something else wrong, you should probably be able to get 1080p@60fps on nearly all games with fairly high settings with your setup. To see if your GPU or CPU is bottlenecked, you can run Nvidia's driver overlay (the Gefore experience one) with advanced stats enabled and hit ctrl+r to show you CPU/GPU utilization. This. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/geforce-experience/14/401279/performance-overlay/ Run while playing a game and it'll give you a basic idea.
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Jun 10, 2021 01:43
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UmOk posted:So I updated based on thread advice. Does this look ok? The Mugen 5 generally doesn’t perform as well as the Fuma 2, but it’s not a terrible cooler. Are you carrying over a GPU?
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Jun 10, 2021 03:08
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Spacedad posted:What are the current x570 and b550/520/etc. motherboards that goons recommend. I guess my question is why? Unless you have a very specific use case, your uplift from a 3900x to a 5800x is going to be very minimal. If this is for gaming and above 1080p, you’re likely to see 1% or 0% increase there. You can also use the x570 board with the 5800x. I don’t have a recommendation for you cause I’m not sure, but just wondering
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Jun 10, 2021 14:29
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Excellent, thanks. I’ll try to find somewhere to shove most of that. Glad I reserved an extra post. If anyone else has stuff they want to write up to be added to the OP (with credit of course), please let me know. Also really looking for some recommended builds if anyone has one, as well as individual parts. Bargain bin Mid range High end I hate money tier (if you want to make a comedy build). SFF If you’re going to source one one of these, you’ll need do it as a PPP list, and include EVERYTHING, including extra case fans and dumb poo poo like that if the case needs them. As far as parts, I’m not particular familiar with these categories for current gen, so recommendations for specific parts would be very helpful. Using the above tiers is helpful. I’m not opposed to a giant list of recommended parts. Motherboards (we need intel/amd, wifi/non-WiFi) Case Fans that aren’t Noctuas (RGB & boring RGB and fan controllers Cases people like  that actually perform well thermally. Obviously there’s more wiggle room for this on something like SFF, but it still should perform good for that category. TDPs are too drat high to be shoving poo poo in a random metal box.
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Jun 10, 2021 16:06
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MonkeyFit posted:Isn't the H1 the case that had the faulty riser cables that started fires and then NZXT tried to avoid responsibility as much as possible? Good catch, thank you. I will make sure not to include that. NZXT has proved they’re a garbage company by sending GN a very good riser than a month later sending much much lower quality ones to actual consumers. Fabulousity posted:Restating because holy poo poo is it important: Why would you do this to us. But seriously, considering a thermal paste application guide (mostly just a GN video link cause they did a great one + the best intro of all Time) for the OP.
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Jun 10, 2021 20:23
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BrainDance posted:Yeah, it's not great. I probably should monitor it a little more closely to see what its actual lows and highs are but, surprisingly I've never seen it get too high either, even if it's not getting too low. Ambient matters quite a lot. Your case cooling may be more of an issue if you idle high and average under load.
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Jun 11, 2021 01:40
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Khorne posted:Great job on the op dates. Do you have a source for the Mugen stuff?? I haven’t seen that data and I’d like to see a source before considering adding it to the Op.
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Jun 11, 2021 05:13
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Bouchehog posted:Sorry, that would have been helpful...! It’s high, but not unreasonable given the current market state. If you post a link we can judge a little better if the listing is any good. change my name posted:I would add a note to the OP about Windows licenses being tied to the MOBO; just realized my version is again unactivated after switching over. Yeah, I can clarify that. I also think MS will sometimes hop the key if you contact them but they’re so cheap it’s not usually worth it. Collateral posted:I thought the 10400 was the sweet spot for last gen budget builds? What changed? No, the 10400 is pretty value compared to a 3600. The 11400 is quite good though, especially at its current price point.
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Jun 11, 2021 18:04
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OP CHANGELOG - Reformatted the FAQ list. It looks different, but this makes it much easier to add additional sections. - Fixed section regarding ram max limits. - added Thermal paste and you! section to the FAQ. - Added parts to avoid list (included NZXT H1). All other feedback will make its way eventually.
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Jun 12, 2021 06:36
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HappyCapybaraFamily posted:I love the i5 2500K so much and always love hearing about it still running The 11400 is better in every way, and even better than the Ryzen 3600 while still being cheaper. IMO it’s absolutely worth the extra $20. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/intel-...p?skuId=6452218 AMD has not released a CPU in this product category yet under Zen 3 (and they may or may not), so Ryzen can not compete at this price point. This build is pretty good otherwise. If you go 11400, just double check mobo compatibility, and make sure you don’t get an F sku if you need onboard GPU.
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Jun 13, 2021 07:35
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Heavy Metal posted:Thanks, that rocks, much appreciated! Just messed with it a bit (I don't know what I'm doing), tentatively an Asrock motherboard since a friend likes that brand, and a Corsair case. That just raises it from $728.92 to $752.93. And adding Windows 10 makes it $861.71. Also that particular power supply is $110 from newegg, the lower price is just from an Amazon reseller (maybe no warranty?). So if I went with that one from a usual seller, that'd make the total about $912. Buy a key from Lodge North on SA Mart. They’re $15. I’d be wary of a random Amazon seller being 50% cheaper and not getting a genuine part. let me look for something that’ll be worth it.
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Jun 13, 2021 07:37
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https://www.bestbuy.com/site/season...p?skuId=6414269 If you want cheap now this is a loving amazing price. If you don’t intend to buy in the future anything better than a 3060 class video card you should 100% buy this. This is one of the best PSU deals I’ve seen in a year. If you want something heftier, look at the table on the first comment of this post for the coupon codes. https://reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/nxaphl/psu_newegg_has_seasonic_deals_back_again_gm650/
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Jun 13, 2021 07:43
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ndnikola posted:Hello goon world, Link is bad
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Jun 14, 2021 17:13
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https://reddit.com/r/bapcsalescanada/comments/nhfoa9/sus_rog_strix_g15dk_gaming_pc_black_amd_ryzen/ Seems like it was $2199 a few weeks ago. Also seems pretty bad. Itx board, 1 stick ram @CL22 (holt poo poo that exists?), terrible cooler and PSU. If you have no other option it’s probably fine. But that price sucks for those garbage components. GNs latest prebuilt video showed that having only one stick of ram could knock your performance back by like 10%. And cl22 at 3200 is horrible.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:02
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Kunabomber posted:Holy poo poo I was just looking at the GPU and ram size, not the actual components Well tbf bestbuy doesn’t list them. And ASUS builds them regionally so all components are different based on region (hence the DK model). I had to google and find someone on Reddit who purchased it to know. It’s bullshit, but is what it is with prebuilts. I don’t know if Newegg.ca has ABS brand prebuilts, but GN gave one for the us market reasonable praise, and might be worth looking at what they have. Newegg definitely noticed the additional positive press, cause they just gave me a pop up from their app (which they like never do) to buy an ABS prebuilt this afternoon.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:19
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ndnikola posted:Good to know and thanks for the responses! (And sorry for broken link) No the issue is the components are garbage and you’d have to replace a bunch of stuff to make it reasonable
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Jun 14, 2021 18:20
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https://www.newegg.ca/abs-ali489/p/N82E16883360084 I don’t have time to vet it, but this seems pretty reasonable (I don’t know CAD prices and didn’t check what specific component it includes). 3600/3060 system for $1500 CAD.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:29
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ndnikola posted:Thanks Pilfered! Any thoughts on an intel vs AMD build (asking as this seems to be an intel build)? Sorry. The intel one is the better deal, i just messed up the typing. 10400 is close enough to the 3600, but the 10400 model has a 3060 which is way better than the 2060 amd model has. Monitors you should ask in the monitor thread. Sweet spot is generally 1440p@120-165hz, although 1440p@60 is great if you don’t play FPS or fast paced poo poo. At your price point you’re not powerful enough to run 4k.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:38
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LifeSunDeath posted:pretty sure you need good airflow in the case or it doesn't perform right. tbh it seems really stupid and edge-case usable, and it's expensive. They detail it in the announcement article. They also released today a new PWM fan that can run at 0% speed. The idea is to run the passive cooler, with some fans that sit at 0% unless absolutely needed, so you don’t run up against throttling situations. It’s a bit niche so I’m surprised they made it, but it’s actually a really cool idea for sound sensitive applications such as audio and video recording, live streaming, broadcasting, etc.
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Jun 15, 2021 18:37
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LifeSunDeath posted:I guess the idea is no moving parts machine, that's gotta be the idea, but it's pointless. They even have a passive cooling GPU in there LOL I know we’re all getting a laugh at this, but seriously there are use cases where an entirely silent PC is incredibly important. I’m surprised they’re marketing it to the DIY crowd though. This has enterprise written all over it.
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Jun 15, 2021 21:03
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. The heat will rise out the case, that's all good, but at this point having it inside of a case wouldn't be optimal at all.
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I think pretty much everyone else covered it. And yes fabless PSUs and PSUs that only the fan under extreme load are a thing. Again, this is a very niche product and they shouldn’t be marketing to consumers. The only consumer level thing I can think of that this would help with is something like a HTPC, but those are dead now.
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Jun 15, 2021 23:06
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Heavy Metal posted:I forgot to mention, well I mentioned a page or two back, I'm not a builder. I'm a wayward computer sailor just looking for a port here. But it's interesting to hear about all that stuff. Plus my friends are in consideration for building me another PC sometime, but I might get a prebuild for various reasons. So I'm just going computer crazy after a few days of looking at all sorts of numbers and stats and deals and stuff online. Have you looked at intel NUCs?
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Jun 16, 2021 17:15
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mA posted:Does anyone have any suggestions for a computer desk that is about 55"-60" in length and >25" in width? Most desks in this size are a few inches too small in width for my liking. I'm using a LG CX48 as my primary monitor so I need the extra width. I've narrowed my search down to this one (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086W41GX5/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A32G6KYZG6O024&th=1), but I wanted to see if any other goons who have better suggestions. Size is more important to me than any fancy features. There is a thread! I should add it to the OP. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2920891 That being said, countertop desks like above are popular. You can also get a monitor arm to give yourself space on the desk.
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Jun 16, 2021 22:54
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Heavy Metal posted:That reminds me, Snoop Dogg is still doing good stuff! Bootsy Collins has a good new single featuring Snoop. I wonder what the Doggfather is doing tech wise. I'm sure he has some high end stuff. https://youtu.be/cyG2Ys41pdE
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Jun 17, 2021 03:16
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Upgrading to a 5600X will give you a noticeable increase in gaming performance, if you can upgrade (a 3600 would be more of a side-grade). Going to 3600 CL 16 RAM might get you single-digit fps increases. Honestly though, with that 3070 your system is already blessed. At 1440p I’m not expecting a very large FPS increase here. CoolCab, is your CPU maxing out in any task you’re performing (including games)? If it’s not maxing out, you’re unlikely to see anything worth the spend out of upgrading to a 5600x. 1080p would be a different story. Everyone’s priorities are different. But for me, I’d either want cash to save for a bigger rebuild, or more SSD space as that can always carry over. There’s also other stuff like a nice mouse, keyboard, desk chair, a second monitor or monitor arms.
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Jun 17, 2021 18:48
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LifeSunDeath posted:I suppose that's the weak link in my system, I bought some cheaper ram and it's also the only thing overclocked, but I've had zero stability issues you typically get when the ram is clocked wrong or failing. Likely is just the programs though, games be weird like that on certain hardware sometimes. Should be pretty easy to pull down the clock, test, and readd the clock if needed. A clock that's stable enough to run windows could easily be unstable enough to cause issues like this.
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Jun 17, 2021 21:47
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Butterfly Valley posted:The Intel 11400 is a better CPU for cheaper than the 3600, or you could step up to the 5600x. I'd be wary of spending that little on a motherboard, it'll work but it's very bare bones. Don't spend $130 on a 500gb NVMe when you can get a 1tb SN550 for cheaper that's functionally the same performance wise. I'd want to get a slightly beefier (600W+) Gold rated PSU if I were you. And as the other poster said, get a windows key in SA mart for $15. Good advice.
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Jun 17, 2021 22:19
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punk rebel ecks posted:Are SSD/NVMEs at risk of becoming super rare in the future like GPUs due to Ethereum or is that thought not justified? It’s due to chia and it’s already starting. If it’ll continue no one knows (it probably will)
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Jun 18, 2021 04:37
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Butterfly Valley posted:Have a look at the charts on an actually reputable site and flush userbenchmark down the toilet where it belongs. Lol sure. I'll add it eventually.
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Jun 18, 2021 19:12
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Butterfly Valley posted:Looks good.
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Jun 18, 2021 20:06
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kw0134 posted:Something about getting affirmation makes pushing the "buy" button a little easier, thank you. Now to await their arrival and pray my cats don't try to eat the thermal paste when I build this thing. You don’t want to cool your cats by a couple degrees?
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Jun 18, 2021 20:49
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SalTheBard posted:This might be a stupid question and I'm sorry. I have a Z370 motherboard with G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 PC4-25600 CL16 ram (I copy and pasted this directly from my order history with Microcenter). If I wanted to upgrade to a 5800x and a Asus X570 motherboard, would I need to get new RAM? The x570 says it's DD4 so I don't think I do, but I also don't want cheap out if new RAM would actually be better. Nope, that ram is perfect.
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Jun 19, 2021 18:31
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Dr Strangepants posted:I built a PC about 7 years ago with help from this thread for light gaming. I had to replace the PSU a couple years ago and I have a similiar issue once again where the computer is powering up but the fans spin weakly and it doesn't POST. My personal life allows zero time for troubleshooting right now so my plan is to throw a nice new PSU in it, hope that was the issue, and then re-use the PSU next year when I build a new medium-tier gaming computer. Does this sound like a stupid plan?? The fan that both PSUs are exhibiting the exact same issue means the PSU was likely not the fault in the first place. You sure you can’t do a little troubleshooting? Like leave it unplugged from the wall overnight? Could easily be mobo, CPU, ram, or something else in your system causing a boot conflict. MonkeyFit posted:The sweet spot with ryzen is 3600MHz RAM, but that's just what's optimal. 3200 will still be absolutely fine if you don't want to spend the money. For the 2-3% uplift it’s probably not worth it here.
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Jun 19, 2021 21:23
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