Somebody stop me... (Gaming PC Build Thread)

[Tom Servo]

I never ran any formal tests, but I thought the loading speed for most things improved significantly when moving my games from an HDD to an SSD. It doesn't change that much when playing a game that's designed to load on the fly (think GTA5 or what have you), as those were designed to work fine with a spinning disk, but initial load times and any game not designed to work like that will benefit.

One of my favorite things these days is loading up older games that used to give you hints/tips/story bits in the loading screen, now they load so damn fast you don't get a chance to read them.

[Yw-slayer]

Of course it will help. Just depends how much by.

[Rare White Ape]

Blerp here’s a pretty good look into the subject for you.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-09-23-why-ssds-are-essential-for-pc-gaming-7005

And this one will tell you what to buy, if you choose to go down that path.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-01-10-best-ssd-for-gaming-2019-7012

[Blerpa]

Thanks RWA, really appreciated the links!
So here it is the deal:
The cpu fan on my A8 is giving way, to the point it halted completely.
I looked into cheap new parts (Ryzen 2600X, B-450, 16GB DDR4 3000mhz and a new case) but it was over 400 euro and too much, so I looked into the used aftermarket.
Got an i5 4670k with Noctua Ultra cpu fan (overclocked), Z-87K motherboard and 16GB DDR3 HyperX Fury 1866 CL10 (overclocked at 2166 I think) for 180 euro. Bought two SSD: a Crucial MX500 250GB for the OS and a Crucial MX500 500GB for games, also got a cheap Sharkoon case.
I've the PC used parts, I've my own videocard, soundcard, PSU and the 250GB new SSD (the 500GB is arriving on thursday) but still waiting the case to arrive this afternoon or tomorrow... MEH!
Can't build it, sucks to have to wait.
Hopefully I won't do a mess, it will be my first overclocked system: I dunno if it would be better to clock down all the stuff to be safe.

Oh, I forgot, I was thinking to download Win 10 from Microsoft media tool program and then, when everything is set, installed and working, buy a legit license over Amazon for peanuts.

3187

[Yw-slayer]

How do you get Windows for peanuts over Amazon? The cheapest Win10 licence I can see there is over USD100.

[JoeW]

I’m late to your pc party but I wanted to point out that yes, load and install times will be slightly better with SSD but you are still limited by the transfer speed of the interface. A 6gb/s interface is basically the bottleneck for most modern HDD and SSD. Read/write transfer speeds on large files will be nearly the same because they can’t go any faster than the interface.

I did a similar build to what you wanted (B450, 2600X etc) but I used a NVME SSD and let me tell you the difference in all functions is staggering. I highly recommend it. Boot time from pressing the power button to the windows 10 home screen is around 5-7secs. I reach over and press the button, pull my chair up, grab the mouse and it’s already to go. Literally that fast.

You will like the SSD but honestly you won’t be shocked or awed by it. Any program requiring quick access to lots of small files will definitely benefit from an SSD. But it’s the access time that is better not the actual transfer speed.

When you move up, get an nvme drive and you will really be surprised.

[Blerpa]

ESD packs digital license keys at around 10 euro. Also on Instant Gaming site.
EDIT: JoeW I've already a 240GB Kingston SSD on my A8 desktop... really changed my PC when I installed Win 10 on that new SSD compared to the old mechanical 480GB one where Acer installed all the stuff originally, I know the difference SSD makes and that is major only in OS use.

I'll look into NVME for the next PC, now, if this i5 works, I can wait a bit longer and maybe spend more for a new PCs in few years in the future.

[JoeW]

Yeah if you had an old hdd then it would make a good difference but most of the modern larger hdd drives have gotten pretty quick. Quick enough to exceed the 6gb/s bottleneck.

So definitely upgrade what you can. SSD makes good sense...durable as fuck, light, quick, no heat, and low power consumption. No brainer.

[Rare White Ape]

Glad I could be off assistance :up:

As for the overclocking stuff, I’ve not got a whole lot of interest in it, and if it was me I’d be looking at returning it to stock. But you never know, it might run just fine.

[Blerpa]

Thanks a lot for the insight.
Yes, I will start it and see if it works, then I may be looking to put everything standard, RAM as well.
Afterall it is used stuff and I want it to last as long as possible.
Still waiting the damn case! LOL

[dodint]

If this is an upgrade from Win7, you can still get Win10 for free. I just did this on a refurb Win7 machine I bought from Dell a month ago. If that's what you're doing let me know and I'll dig up the directions.

[Blerpa]

Nah, brand new PC. Already done a free upgrade from Win 8.0 to Win 10 on the A8 machine. Obviously the key is linked to the account AND the motherboard of the A8.

[JoeW]

Over clocking without needing to is a path to endless blue screens of death and frustration.

[Blerpa]

So, I managed to build it without making the house explode. Also I installed Win 10 in it with the Microsoft Media Tool by USB and... upon installing and updating it activated by itself telling me a legit license is linked to my microsoft account. I think it picked up the license i had on my old PC (probably then the old PC is now without license, but no worries, it has been cannibalized to complete this one, so it's ok).
The whole PC is:
i5 4670K
Noctua Ultra NH-U9B SE2 dual fan cooling
Asus z87-K mobo
HyperX Fury 2x8GB DDR3 PC3-14900 (overclocked to 2133)
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 580 Nitro+ 8GB
Crucial MX500 250GB SSD for Windows 10 and programs
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD for games
Creative Soundblaster Z
AOC I2769Vm 27" IPS Full HD 60Hz monitor
Sharkoon Silent Storm Icewind Black ed. 650W 80 Plus Bronze PSU
Sharkoon S25-W case
Razer Diamondback ambidextrous wired mouse
I'll add soon the mechanical 480GB in my old PC to store my personal data and miscellanea.
So far so good, Windows install took like few minutes and everything went smoothly.
Also, Razer own software is great, installed it and automatically downloaded my own old profiles from its own cloud.

3195

EDIT: Can't, for the love of Cthulhu, share the pic from Google Drive.
Sharing the pic from Imgur is also giving error.
Sharing the pic from my PC as attachment rotates the pictures wrongly. WTF is wrong with the forum? MEH.

[Tom Servo]

That's weird that imgur is giving you issues. What's the URL to the image?

[dodint]

The pic isn't rotated for me.

Sharing directly from Google is asspain, yeah. I gave up years ago.

[Freude am Fahren]

So I don't know how taxing it is on our resources here (can't be any worse than the normal image insert), but you can create an album in your profile page, upload there, then just copy the link in the post. So you don't have the little thumb under the big pic.

Test:
http://gtxforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=3196&d=1548959717

[drew]

Over clocking without needing to is a path to endless blue screens of death and frustration.

Hah! I beg to differ! I've overclocked every PC I've built in the last, 10-15 years? I had a Q6600 2.4GHz running at 3.6 for 2 years/24/7.

BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND

[JoeW]

I should have prefaced that with the words inexperienced :)

[drew]

It's all about the fine print :up:

[Blerpa]

The pic isn't rotated for me.

Sharing directly from Google is asspain, yeah. I gave up years ago.

I had to edit it on the PC, that's why now you see it in correct orientation.
And yes, sharing from Drive sucks big time.

Thanks Freude for the suggestion!

[Alan P]

Pick yourself up a 1440p Freesync monitor to take advantage of that 580. It’s being held back by your 60Hz monitor.

[Blerpa]

I dunno, Alan, I would rather prefer to run any game at Ultra settings, 16x anisotropic and full AA with 60fps than lose that.
I've a 4K 50" HDR Samsung TV I could hook it up, but then the 580 would die trying to keep up the resolution and high settings.

[Blerpa]

So, I added a third HDD, the old mechanical one from the old PC.

So, right now the new PC has this setup: Crucial MX500 250GB SSD for the OS (Win 10 Pro), Crucial MX500 500GB SSD for the games and WD Blue 500GB HDD for my personal data.
It was a bitch to put the HDD rack inside the case since I've many cables in it, but I managed; I think the 3 storage solution is ideal so far.
I still have a 240GB Kingston SSD in my old PC, dunno what to do with it... maybe a quick external portable hdd?

Future purchases? a new backlit keyboard (possibly the wireless Logitech K800?) and some decent headphones - no stupid gaming headphones with useless USB connection needed - I'm going to look into Sharkoon or HyperX, otherwise jump to Sennheiser or AudioTechnica.
Many people swear by the cheap Superlux HD681EVO, but they are very fragile and I'm know to break products too flimsy (aside from the fact I find them ugly).
Still entused to buy the classic Sony studio headphones, but I dunno if I'd enjoy their flat, neutral, sound (still, I've used them working years ago and I think they are phenomenal).

[Yw-slayer]

The open back AT headphones are legendary for their placement. Very useful for FPS.

I did end up switching to Logitech G930s because of mic convenience though. Also because now I'm now no longer a h4rdc0r331!! 1!1! FPS (or indeed any) gamer.

[Rare White Ape]

Man with grey hair games on an (overclocked) AMD Ryzen 5 at potato settings with NO graphics card and still hits 60+ FPS.


https://youtu.be/d-nmgC0K1gk

Doom at 720/30 looks better than Switch but the little Nintendo thingy can only draw maybe 10 Watts from its battery and has to run a screen as well. The PC will be pulling 15-20x that number from the wall. But prior to that he’s getting 60-70 FPS out of Dirt Rally and it looks just great.

I think it’s instructive. Maybe you don’t need to spend $2500 to get into the PC master race. Maybe 1/4 of that will do.

Drew, what’s your opinionion on this?

[Blerpa]

Ryzen 5 2600, B350 mobo, 1 Crucial BX500 SSD with 250gb for the OS and a mechanical 1TB HDD for the other stuff, 8GB of 3000mhz DDR4, an AMD RX 580 8GB or 590 and you got yourself a decent PC to run 1080p 60fps for 600-700 euro about.
Hook it to an old 1080p monitor or your Full HD tv and you are good to go.
2500$ PC are overkill for most people.

[Yw-slayer]

I'm not really surprised given that graphics card speeds haven't advanced that much in the last few years.

[Blerpa]

Point is... you spend over 2000$ for a PC capable of 4K with 60fps. Over 1200-1400 for a PC capable of 2K 144Hz. Anything less on 1080p is cheap (relatively) and easy.

[Rare White Ape]

In that vein, a GTX 1660Ti looks intriguing.

[drew]

Drew, what’s your opinionion on this?

The Master Race rules. Having been in 4k land for the last year, I coudn't go backwards.

Not sure I spent $2500 on the current box, not taking into account I've had the same power supply for almost 10 years. HDD, DVD, Case, and power supply were carry-overs. GPU, CPU, mobo, RAM all bought in march of last year.

I want to build a new one, because, I like building PCs. I'm also dumb and frivolous enough to drop a 2080ti in the bitch.

#DontGiveaFuck

[Blerpa]

So, I wanted to get decent headphones for gaming once I got my Soundblaster Z installed.
I bought some HyperX Cloud Alpha headphones... great to have detachable cable and mic, great design, very decent audio all around but... the headphone pavilions really clamp my head and bring in a lot of pain around the ears, even after a relatively short time.
I ordered some Turtle Beach Elite Atlas, hoping to get better comfort... and albeit being heavier, the weight is better distributed, but still painful to use after less than one hour (in the case of the HyperX it got to be painful after even 5 minutes eventually).
I've tried my Sony wireless/wired headphones: they are a lot lighter and a bit more loose, so they get bearable.
I've got back to my 20$ shitty Nubwo N2 headphones which wear very loose and have giant pavilions... seemingly the only way to relieve the pain from my skull, around the ears.
Shitty situation but it seems I'm particularly sensitive to clamping force and so most headphones won't do for me.

Disappointingly I'm keeping the 20$ headphones and sending back both HyperX and Turtle Beach, for a total of 181 euro to be refunded by Amazon.
Sucks, but the only headphones (closed back - can't use open or semi open back ones, I don't live alone and cannot make noise during nights) that have very low weight and low clamping force are the Bose SoundTrue Around-Ear II... problem? Bose discountinued the model in 2017 and I've found them only available as refurbished for 119 euro on a dubious site with limited refund policy.
Shitty situation and I can't afford to order them in case they won't fit properly.
So, all in all I'm pretty disappointed... may as well think to play with in ear cabled stuff in the future. MEH.

3211

[Tom Servo]

I've really liked my SteelSeries Arctis 5 headphones, they're some of the most comfortable headphones I've had. They're wired, but for $20 or so more the Arctis 7 are wireless. Microphone isn't detatchable, but it does retract into the headphone if you're not using it.

The only downside for me is when they're hooked up over USB, they have this zany lightshow on the outside, but you can turn that off buried somewhere in the settings.

[drew]

I use a $20 pair of Skullcandy ear buds.

[JoeW]

A good 5-600 watt power supply is plenty for nearly anything. Especially as time goes on. All components are becoming faster and require less power...all at the same time.

[drew]

Yep, I don't see any real used for upgrading mine. Even if I had SLI cards (which I never have, never will(?)), the 750 I have is more than enough.

[GreatScawt]

Sucks, but the only headphones (closed back - can't use open or semi open back ones, I don't live alone and cannot make noise during nights)

Ah darn, that's quite annoying. I was going to recommend the Massdrop x Sennheiser PC37X that I have. But they are open back. I really liked my Cloud II's, but you've tried something similar.

[Rare White Ape]

A monumental day my friends… My build has started!

I ordered this case: https://www.ple.com.au/Products/631855/NZXT-H200-Matte-BlackBlue-mITX-Gaming-Case-

And as funds allow I’ll accumulate more parts. With a good computer shop right around the corner from me it’ll be easy.

I’m going mini ITX because I want a small machine, but it’s my first ever PC build so I don’t want to make it too hard for myself. I’ll start here then replace it for a smaller case down the line and do one of those ridiculous shoe boxes.

I’m going to go for an i5 system but I’m torn between a GTX 1660 or an RTX 2060. I’ve seen a lot of opinions that say that a 1660 is enormous bang for the buck, but I’ve also seen opinions that say that you should save a bit more money for a 2060 and get even more bang but for a few more bucks, with the pleasure of RT thrown on top.

And that’s not even accounting for the fact that by the time I eventually buy a GPU there might be more options on the table!

They’ll be enough for a bit of 4K, a bit of VR, and a bit of 1080. Any other details I’ll work out as I go.

Thoughts and opinions?

[Alan P]

A monumental day my friends… My build has started!

I ordered this case: https://www.ple.com.au/Products/631855/NZXT-H200-Matte-BlackBlue-mITX-Gaming-Case-

And as funds allow I’ll accumulate more parts. With a good computer shop right around the corner from me it’ll be easy.

I’m going mini ITX because I want a small machine, but it’s my first ever PC build so I don’t want to make it too hard for myself. I’ll start here then replace it for a smaller case down the line and do one of those ridiculous shoe boxes.

I’m going to go for an i5 system but I’m torn between a GTX 1660 or an RTX 2060. I’ve seen a lot of opinions that say that a 1660 is enormous bang for the buck, but I’ve also seen opinions that say that you should save a bit more money for a 2060 and get even more bang but for a few more bucks, with the pleasure of RT thrown on top.

And that’s not even accounting for the fact that by the time I eventually buy a GPU there might be more options on the table!

They’ll be enough for a bit of 4K, a bit of VR, and a bit of 1080. Any other details I’ll work out as I go.

Thoughts and opinions?

Do you plan to play games at 4k or will that be limited to movies etc? If you plan to play games then your choice of cards just won't cut it, but will easily play movies at 4k through Netflix for example.

[Rare White Ape]

I plan to use it mostly for racing sims in VR. These are all older games with lower requirements. Trust me, I won’t be buying any modern AAA games as they generally don’t interest me too much.

(Just thinking about that topic, the last time I bought a full-price AAA game was Ace Combat 7, before that Red Dead 2 and that’s a console exclusive, and before that was Spider-Man and God of War, both PS4 exclusive. Prior to last major multi-platform AAA game I bought was probably Titanfall 2 or Doom)

Since I’ve already got a PS4 Pro I’m thinking that any 4K gaming I can do on a PC is a bonus, but if I get the bug eventually, hey. It’s a PC. I can just replace the GPU.

[Yw-slayer]

Get a 1660. The 2060 is not useful as it's first gen RT tech. If it ever becomes widespread it'll take a few years and you'll be better off buying a new card then. You can then sell the 1660 or put it in a backup machine.

Also, welcome to the first step toward joining the PC Master Race.

[JoeW]

I have a mini itx and a micro atx. Unless you need more than 4 drive bays or more mobo slots this is absolutely the way to go. My old full atx tower weighed a ton and most of it was empty so it was time to downsize.

[Blerpa]

Anything like basic 4K or 2K 120/144Hz... you will need an RTX 2060.
Don't buy a 1660, it's not such a deal if you are building a new PC - the price gap is not so big to justify the 1660.
Also... let's be realistic and talk about the elephant in the room: not even an RTX 2080 Ti can do decent high framerate 2K or 4K with RT on.
RT is, right now, an useless gimmick and it will be mainstream playable at high framerates around the 3rd generation of RTX cards: we are way off.

Let's not open the can of worms that PS4 Pro 4k is not real 4k. And Xbox One X can barely run 4k 30fps.
So get the 1660 only if you are going to be stuck to high framerate 1080p or 2K with compromises.

[Rare White Ape]

I’ve been playing The Witness on PS4 Pro. It’s got a 4K/30 mode (probably checkerboarded) and a 1440p/60 mode.

I can’t tell the difference between the two. I could sit closer or have a larger TV, but as it is there’s functionally no difference… aside from frame rate and of course I’m using the 60fps mode.

So like I say, any gaming at 4K is purely a bonus. I’ll be more than happy with solid frame rates in the 1440p range. Bear in mind I’m using a TV screen so I’m limited to 60Hz anyway.

[Rare White Ape]

I priced up more components that I’ll need. The minimum required to build a working PC is $900 with 16GB of RAM and an i5 9400, not including graphics card or storage.

A couple of questions:

Would a 450W power supply do the trick, or do I need something bigger?
Is 16GB overkill?
What should I be looking for in regards to part compatibility?

And I’m leaning more towards getting a RTX 2060 and not a 1660Ti. I can get a founders edition from Nvidia for $600. Please explain to me why a 3rd party card from say MSI or EVGA would be superior or inferior to Nvidia’s own card when they’re all in the same $20 price ballpark.

[Yw-slayer]

I think 450W is probably OK. 16GB is not overkill.

[Alan P]

I priced up more components that I’ll need. The minimum required to build a working PC is $900 with 16GB of RAM and an i5 9400, not including graphics card or storage.

A couple of questions:

Would a 450W power supply do the trick, or do I need something bigger?
Is 16GB overkill?
What should I be looking for in regards to part compatibility?

And I’m leaning more towards getting a RTX 2060 and not a 1660Ti. I can get a founders edition from Nvidia for $600. Please explain to me why a 3rd party card from say MSI or EVGA would be superior or inferior to Nvidia’s own card when they’re all in the same $20 price ballpark.

Founders editions tend to have standard clock speeds and basic coolers but apparently the twin fan coolers on the 20x0 range are pretty good. Other makes may have quieter or better performing coolers and often come with longer warranty and slightly overclocked standard settings.

[JoeW]

If your mobo has 4 memory slots then get 2x8GB so that later on you can add another 2 if you wish.

[Rare White Ape]

It’ll be an ITX board, so there are only two slots.

[Rare White Ape]

Founders editions tend to have standard clock speeds and basic coolers but apparently the twin fan coolers on the 20x0 range are pretty good. Other makes may have quieter or better performing coolers and often come with longer warranty and slightly overclocked standard settings.

So there’s no amazingly overwhelming reason to go with a 3rd party card.

That’s good then, because I quite like the founders cards; they don’t look like they fell into a cheap discarded parts bin at the Lamborghini factory :p

[Yw-slayer]

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/nvidia-ray-tracing-pascal-3679638

[Rare White Ape]

Yeh good luck trying to run BFV at 1080/60 with RT on a 1080!

I see two possibilities here. Either the uptake of RTX from both consumers and developers is way lower than anticipated, or Nvidia wants to give more people a sneak preview of what the tech looks like, thus enticing them to buy an RTX card.

Either way, I think it’s a good thing that it’ll be available to more people. If there are more developers working with it then we are more likely to see innovation, and also more likely to see decent performance gains through smarter implementation.

[Freude am Fahren]

I think it's the latter, and I think that Nvidia are saying themselves that it's like an RTX preview thing. They want people to give it a try, get hooked, and go get a newer card.

[Rare White Ape]

But they’re still releasing new GTX cards like the two 1660 varieties.

*thinking emoji*

They’ll probably have a 1650 for sale by the end of April.

[Blerpa]

New add to the PC, finally I can type less loudly and with less need for light during the night: Logitech K800 Illuminated Wireless keyboard.

https://i.imgur.com/osjMOA0h.jpg

[Rare White Ape]

I went shopping today. $620 thrown at the nice man at the computer store.

(Not pictured: PSU, which is on backorder)

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

Now they’ll sit painfully in a cupboard until I get some more parts. Could be a few weeks :(

And I’ve got to resist the temptation to muck with them until I can build the whole thing. Yeah I opened them and had a look, but I put them back in their packaging for now…

[Blerpa]

God, that's salivating!!! Get on with the program, RWA!!! (So, LGA 1151, Intel, uh? i5 or i7?)

[Blerpa]

Almost forgot, got a big Kallax shelf from Ikea and fixed the messed up PC area (I've yet to think what to put in those shelves now):

https://i.imgur.com/I1ry5cCh.jpg

[stephenb]

RWA - If you're building this for VR racing games I'd suggest you want something faster than a i5 9400. It's very easy to become CPU bottlenecked in VR. Especially when talking about games that weren't built from the ground up for VR. And there is no point buying a motherboard with a Z390 chipset which supports over clocking and then buying a CPU which you can't. I'd suggest the i5 9600K or 9600KF if you find one significantly cheaper - the KF does without the integrated graphics.

RTX2060 is the pick of the bunch value for money wise from the RTX series. A solid choice for VR in my view although if you can go higher you'll be able to crank up the super sampling which can definitely help with image quality in VR.

450W PSU, if it's a good one, will have just enough for a 9600K (120-180W depending on overclock), RTX2060 (170W) and anciliearies. Just bear in mind that most PSUs operate at max efficiency at around 50-60% of their maximun load. Hopefully that G.Skill RAM you've bought is the good stuff, 3200Mhz+

Enjoy!

[Rare White Ape]

^ That’s the sort of advice I need!

I went with a 600w PSU, so there’s no issue there. And the motherboard choice was given to me by the guy st the shop. It is reasonably priced and it has WiFi.

Over clocking may be something down the road for me but right now I’m staying conservative so it’s off the table. I’m aiming for an i5 9400 mostly because an i7 is almost twice the price and would end up being the most expensive component, plus an unlocked i5 is pricey too. $279 vs $409. There doesn’t seem to be any price advantage on a KF either. They’re more expensive!

But, I haven’t bought a chip yet so we will see.

The guy sold me the 3000MHz RAM, the 3200 is only $6 more expensive. n00b life. Surely it’s close enough, or should I swap it?

[JoeW]

It’s hard to give advice after you’ve bought the stuff. If you would have asked about mini itx builds before going to the store then it would be nice :)

3000 vs 3200 isn’t going to make a difference so you’re fine.

[Rare White Ape]

I did ask, back on page 54.

Also, it’s not too late as I’ve only bought a few things.

[Yw-slayer]

Swap the ram man. Surely AUD6 can't even get you half a portion of avocado toast??!! (although it can probably get you a rasher or two of bacon)

[JoeW]

Your post on 54 looked it was telling us what you were getting and the only thing you were on the fence with was the graphics card. I don’t 4K game so I don’t have an opinion on that.

I’ll try to post a reasonably priced itx build soon.

[Blerpa]

3000 vs 3200 is not going to do really any noticeable difference, actually the 3200 could have slightly slower CAS - it is the least cost effective upgrade on any PC build.
Actually since he is building up an Intel-powered PC he could have even used measly 2400mHz ram if on a tight budget... only Ryzen need, in order to not lose a lot of performance (even up to 40% someone says, but it feels pretty exagerated), at least 3000mHz ram exclusively in dual channel.

EDIT: https://www.eteknix.com/memory-speed-large-impact-ryzen-performance/

EDIT: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/96p79h/ram_3000_vs_3200/
As someone noted in the comments in this second link, 3200mHz can also cause problems with motherboards and voltage.

[JoeW]

So here's what I would get...and is very similar to my current build (a Micro Atx because I needed 1 pci slot to transfer my old MiniDV tapes to digital).

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X $180
ASROCK Fatality B450 Gaming ITX $84
Team T Force Vulcan DDR4 3000 2x8GB $89
Cooler Master Elite 130 Case $40
Cooler Master RM550X gold power supply $89
Samsung 970 EVO M.2 500GB NVME $115

Choose your video card. I have a RX580 because not a 4K gamer. It was $159.

Now I would build over time and took advantage of rebates and sales via newegg and did it all for a pretty good deal. I think after rebates you could get down to $700-750.

[drew]

I've tried (and failed) with the "build over time" practice. I just like seeing a pile of boxes show up at the same time (or over a couple days), and putting it all together.

That said, I've spec'd out a couple PCs for a co-worker and my brother in law, and it's given me the itch to build one for myself, but I really have no need. My current PC is only a year old...

[Rare White Ape]

Just pull yours apart then build it again, or build a really shit one out of cheap parts, or buy $200 worth of Lego and spend 8 hours building that.

Now I have a question to follow up on what Stephen said about CPU bottlenecking in VR.

I've had a cursory search looking at this but all I've found is that i5s are kick-arse bang-for-the-buck gaming CPUs and i7s are almost unnecessary.

I'd love more info on the how and the why. As far as I know the GPU has the biggest impact (and I understand I may be wrong, which is why I am asking), plus if the framerate isn't high enough then I'd just turn down the graphical settings. Right?

Basically I need to know if I really have to spend $400 on an overclockable i5, or over $500 on an i7, or if I can get away with a regular i5 for $280.

[JoeW]

Regular.

A good site for all the technical mumbo jumbo is Toms Hardware. They have a section on best gaming cpu for the money, best gpu etc etc.

[drew]

Just pull yours apart then build it again, or build a really shit one out of cheap parts, or buy $200 worth of Lego and spend 8 hours building that.

Now I have a question to follow up on what Stephen said about CPU bottlenecking in VR.

I've had a cursory search looking at this but all I've found is that i5s are kick-arse bang-for-the-buck gaming CPUs and i7s are almost unnecessary.

I'd love more info on the how and the why. As far as I know the GPU has the biggest impact (and I understand I may be wrong, which is why I am asking), plus if the framerate isn't high enough then I'd just turn down the graphical settings. Right?

Basically I need to know if I really have to spend $400 on an overclockable i5, or over $500 on an i7, or if I can get away with a regular i5 for $280.



Hah. I still have the Lego Saturn V that I got over a year ago, still un-opened. I have roughly 40000 bricks in bins as well....

As I have no real reason to build another one, it is about due for the full breakdown and cleaning routine (I tend to do that every 7-8 months).

#BEER

[Rare White Ape]

Should get the Lego Mustang. It’s about $500 cheaper than a PC overhaul.

[drew]

:up:

It's more that I have no room for any more Lego creations. Especially with two young felines that think everything from a shoe to a remote control is a toy...

[stephenb]

Re: VR performance - as with anything its a balance.

There are two prominent differences between VR and gaming on a single monitor. These have an impact on the CPU and GPU respectively.

1) VR requires projections from two different view ports to be drawn to the screen(s). The CPU is responsible for preparing all the draw calls that will be submitted to the graphics driver via the graphics API (DX11, DX12, Vulcan). These are used to build the scene and are typically submitted in batches via command lists. With a monitor you are drawing the scene from a single view port, the CPU has one set of draw calls to prepare. With VR this doubles or close to it. There are vendor specific extensions that can help reduce this load but very few games support them. Nvidia's implementation is called single pass stereo and was recently incorporated into iracing and has gone down very well, definitely increasing performance on my system in situations where I was previously being bottlenecked by the CPU (I have an i7 4930K@4.3Ghz).

2) VR typically requires the scene to be submitted at a higher resolution that that of the display(s) within the headset. This is to account for the warping of the image that takes place within the VR driver which results in parts of the image being discarded. The warping is done to correct for that which would otherwise be seen through the lenses and ensures you have a 1:1 pixel match in the centre of the image. Again their are vendor specific extensions to help with this, e.g. mutli resolution shading from Nvidia. Many people also favour additional super sampling in addition, i.e. increasing the resolution further, in order to help clean up the image, reduce alising. All of this requires a beefy GPU.

Games built from the ground up for VR tend not to struggle as much with these requirements as the developers develop with them in mind. Games where VR has been retrofitted, e.g. all the jucy PC racing sims you're interested in, often do. Particularly with the former. While this can be mitigated to an extent by turning down graphics details which impact the complexity of the scene being drawn, e.g. selecting low detail car models, track objects, you can't escape the fact you have to draw the scene from two different view ports!

And if that hasn't sent you to sleep I don't know what will :assclown: Links below should make things clearer.

https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/singlepassstereo
https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/multiresshading

[Rare White Ape]

Stephen thanks for the post. It’s very informative, but it didn’t put me to sleep, so you’ll have to try harder :p

What it did do, is convince me to wait a bit longer and get the unlocked i5. An i7 is just way out of the budget, but an i5 is great value for money when you consider what they can do. It’s just a shame that there’s not a lot of benchmarking that I’ve been able to find on how different CPUs run in VR.

I won’t be getting a VR display for a while (that comes way down the track after I get a GPU) so in the mean time I will get the basic system up and running and start learning the ins-and-outs of overclocking.

So next on the shopping list is a CPU cooler and storage.

I’ve heard good things about the WD M.2 drives and a 240GB one is super-dooper cheap so I’ll pick one of those up. I’ll just get a cheap 1TB mechanical for bulk storage.

Any recommendations on coolers? I’m considering the low profile Noctua because the whole build is going to be transplanted into a small form factor case eventually, or is it wiser on my part to get a bigger one with more capacity, since I have plenty of space in the case I’ve got?

[stephenb]

I think the unlocked i5 is a great choice :up:

I'm not up to speed on SFF builds. I currently use a Corsair 900D, a hangover from when I went full on custom water cooling - I was running GTX 780's in SLI. Maybe having a look on overclockers forums will give you some ideas: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forums/case-central.5/ Personally I do like the AIO's as you don't have to worry about RAM clearance.

[Rare White Ape]

I like the idea of going full pimp on a AIO like THIS BUILD (https://youtu.be/sYqqdcVrD2M) (I have the same case and everything) but it’s a bit overkill :p

[drew]

I've been using AIO coolers for about 5-6 years now (Corsair), and I don't think I'll turn back. I'm using the H100i in this one.

[Rare White Ape]

The time has come. I’m finally going to fit all this shit

https://i.imgur.com/bG4sDIv.jpg

Into this fucker

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

Wish me luck!

[Blerpa]

With your permission (or not) I'm going to fap to these latest pics!

[Rare White Ape]

Heh!

It’s all brand new Blerpa. Fresh hardware :rawk:

Here’s the case:

https://i.imgur.com/b9ARdTr.jpg

The clearance between the fan and the RAM was tight but the coolness of a beautiful ITX mobo makes up for it.

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

Only one problem with the build; the SFX power supply needs a longer run of cable to the motherboard so I’ve ordered an extension. I can’t screw it into the case properly so here it is hanging out temporarily! Luckily the side panel still closes over it. And yes, those are unexpected RGB lights on the back of the motherboard :lol:

https://i.imgur.com/0TzsLzK.jpg

It booted first time with all things showing as connected properly. My word is the SSD fast! It had windows installed within 15 minutes and every time an update needed a restart it only took 10 seconds to boot again. It installed Steam in about 5 seconds :up:

Now, I don’t have a GPU installed, so any video and graphics is relying on the onboard processing.

But I’ve found it does not like playing video at a smooth frame rate. I’m pretty sure a CPU like that can handle 4K/60 no problem, but YouTube and Netflix is a choppy mess even at 1080p. I didn’t have much time to investigate it last night so that’s tonight’s mission.

The other problem is getting the 5.1 audio output to work properly over HDMI. It doesn’t seem to be allowing me to select side speakers as my rear channels, and I get no centre and subwoofer. It might even be my TV’s pass through causing the issue.

More to follow…

[Yw-slayer]

The video and sound issues are most likely just incorrect drivers. So don't waste your time, rather, just install the discrete GPU and get on with it.

[Blerpa]

Can I suggest getting an audio card (internal or external - latter is better for less interference)? From what I've gathered from forums any decent sound card is better (and less fussy) than even the best integrated audio in the most expensive motherboard out there. That said I dunno if it is anymore like in the past when using a dedicated audio card would recover about 6-10 fps in games (integrated audio being so shitty it ogled part of the whole PC performance).
Creative (avoid Asus) for a mainstream choice, otherwise Focusrite (Scarlett?) or similar.
That case looks great!

[Rare White Ape]

The video and sound issues are most likely just incorrect drivers. So don't waste your time, rather, just install the discrete GPU and get on with it.

Nope the problem is Chrome itself. I'm narrowing it down, and I remember this from the last time I set up a computer with Chrome. A few years ago you had to disable Pepper Flash in the chrome:plugins menu, but they've changed it since then and I have to find out the current way fix it. It'll need fixing, because it'll still be shit with a GPU. Hell, my laptop plays 1080/60 YouTube videos and it's five years old. This is a software problem.

Netflix is smooth, although almost all of its content is shot in 24fps so I haven't been able to check its 60fps playback. They do have a series of test pattern videos but the image de-syncs badly with the audio for some reason, whereas Star Trek Discovery is perfect. I downloaded the new Intel graphics control panel drivers and that seemed to fix most problems.

And....... Netflix gives me 5.1 audio. The Windows sound test config menu won't give me 5.1 :|

I have also downloaded a couple of those 4K HDR shop floor demo reels and on the latest version of VLC I get solid 4K/60 HDR with only mild chop in the frame rate. They're great for making TVs look schmick but they only remind me that nobody should shoot cinematic live action content in 60fps anyway!

[Rare White Ape]

chrome:plugins?


chrome:plugins

[stephenb]

Booting first time, nice work :up: What GPUs are you eyeing up or are you going to wait for the first proper ones to be released on 7nm (Vega shrink doesn't count)?

[Rare White Ape]

Well, unless these new fancy cards appear within the next two months, I’ll be sticking to the plan and looking at a 2060, or a 2070 if there’s a good sale on one when I have the cash available.

[Freude am Fahren]

Damn this is a good deal...

https://www.microcenter.com/product/600162/x601-gaming-desktop-pc

i5 9600k
ASUS Strix Z390E Mobo
GTX 1070Ti 8GB
16GB 3200MHz RAM (good quality G-Skill)
500GB M.2 NVME (970 Pro)
Custom watercooling for CPU and GPU
Win10 Pro

For $1400! DIY it's like $2k. They also have a 9700k/2080 (non-Ti) version. It's identical other than the CPU and GPU, but is $1600 more!

Too bad they won't ship, and I have no Microcenter in FL.

Even though it's still a 1070Ti, not RTX, and "only" an i5, I think it'd be more than enough for me. And if and when I want to get hardcore with 4k or VR, I could upgrade the CPU and/or GPU and still be well under what it would cost to put together something similar DIY.

[Blerpa]

An i5 is enough to play videogames: to this day an i7 is useless, unless you use your pc for something else heavy than playing.
The 1070 Ti is good enough to play 2K, possibly up to 120Hz as monitor refresh rates go (or not Ultra setting 4K 60hz).
RTX is still a pretty useless gimmick (probably 2 to 3 years before it will matter).

[JoeW]

You can get all that on Newegg for about the same price and customize what you really want for even better prices. And you get the added benefit of not having to take it to your local micro center store for problems or warranty issues.

[Blerpa]

Damn, how is Newegg able to do all of that? I always read of outstanding deals and a lot of choices available by this firm. Too bad we don't get it in Europe.

[JoeW]

The best advantage over places that build it for you is you can get the items you really want...I’d rather have a Corsair or Coolermaster case for half the price of the Lian Li. And no one needs a Asus ROG Strix. I would get a Asrock or a non ROG Asus. You can pick the ram and power supply as well.

Those pre build places often use refurb stuff and you don’t get all the stuff the retail boxes would give you.

[Rare White Ape]

to this day an i7 is useless, unless you use your pc for something else heavy than playing.

And for that you’re better off with a Ryzen 7 anyway.

As for Newegg, they do have Int’l shipping if you’re prepared to wait a bit. I know they ship to Australia. Their pricing for a lot of stuff might be super competitive simply because of their size and market share.

But I found their prices are only marginally better than Umart, which is our local equivalent, if you factor in shipping and wait times.

[Freude am Fahren]

RTX is still a pretty useless gimmick (probably 2 to 3 years before it will matter).

Yeah, that's what I figure, but if I'm going to build something, I don't want it to be outdated in 2-3 years.


You can get all that on Newegg for about the same price and customize what you really want for even better prices. And you get the added benefit of not having to take it to your local micro center store for problems or warranty issues.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wZ6Kw6
I just built it on PC Parts Picker, and got $1757 (guessing on brand of GPU and PSU, so went with cheap options). And that's with a basic AIO for the CPU and air for the GPU. Once you factor in the water cooling, it's gonna be about $2k.

Now whether that water cooling is just for fun/looks/gimmicky, that's another argument.

Sure you could save money in a lot of places and make a "similar" spec. But for the actual parts you get here, it's a good deal.

Here's a build with the cheapest options I could find, and it comes out to just under $1400. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XbWKw6

I'd spend the extra $7 if I wanted this spec.

[JoeW]

I've heard too many horror stories about pre built computers from them using refurb parts. I'd rather build my own spec and get the full retail unopened boxes with all the accessories that come with them. And if you have any problem with their computer their warranty specifically says to bring it to a retail store. No thanks.

But good luck.

[Freude am Fahren]

Ah, that could certainly be a concern.

BTW, I'm not buying one. Closest store is about 600 miles away anyway.

No, but I am starting to look for good deals that pop up on components I want to build my system from. And it would be spec'd pretty similarly, I think.

[drew]

I've heard too many horror stories about pre built computers from them using refurb parts. I'd rather build my own spec and get the full retail unopened boxes with all the accessories that come with them. And if you have any problem with their computer their warranty specifically says to bring it to a retail store. No thanks.

But good luck.

To me, that's the best part. I like picking/choosing the bits, and putting them all together. It's kind of like custom Lego models, finding all the parts, assembling it, only cheaper.

[Yw-slayer]

And much more fun, since you can do stuff with it. Whereas Lego models just sit there.

[drew]

Well, in my case, I get to rebuild the Lego quite often, having two asshole cats.

[Yw-slayer]

Even worse.

[drew]

My current "predicament":

I re-purposed my 2014 Z97/I7-4790K/32GB gaming PC to a work computer (WAY overkill, but better than the 2010 Lenovo Shitpad they issued me). I also have a 2018 H370/I5-8600K/16GB desktop I built fer her work station (technically, home use, but it was used for work, because of fore-mentioned shitpad reference). She's since gotten a new job (remote), and I bought her a I7-8650 Dell G15 laptop, so she will have something to take to the office for meetings on the rare occasion she has to be "in-person".

I have a co-worker that's interested in buying my my Z97 (I also still have a 1080 sitting in a box). Which would leave me out of a computer at work. I have a few choices, if he buys it (rather I sell it):

1: Take the H370, which is already added to our company's domain, with all my Office/etc licenses in tact, and make it my work PC.
2: Use the H370 as a HTPC at home, get my current desktop added to the domain (WAY WAY overkill for work, Z370/I-7-8700K/32GB), build a new PC for home.

#1 should be the no-brainer. I'd actually come out with money (told him I'd sell it for $500 or so.
#2 Would cost money, but I'd get to build something. The only silly part is, I'm not sure I could build anything worth the cost/effort that will vastly out-perform this current PC...

I hate logic and reason.

[Yw-slayer]

#1. Eventually you'll get to build something with Ice Lak or 7nm Ryzen chips. No rush.

[Blerpa]

Keep the i7 8700k for now and wait for the new Ryzen chips!

[Rare White Ape]

They’re only about a month away…

[Rare White Ape]

Vroom vroom mother fuckers!

https://i.imgur.com/9vWDSa7.jpg

[Rare White Ape]

This is fuckin fantastic.

I can play Assetto Corsa Competitzione at 4K/60 with some settings turned down, or 1080/60 with it all cranked up to the max.

The Quake II RTX demo runs just fine at 1080/60, and it's a neat bit of fun to play.

And I'm playing Breath of the Wild on Cemu at 4K/60 (but with lots of screen tearing) and my God it's beautiful. Just... absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

I was initially planning to get a 2060, but the local PC parts store has the 2070 on sale for $760, down from $999, which is only $150 more than the regular price of the 2060.

BUT! You can't buy them separately. The cards are only available if you include them in a system build! I thought I could play dumb and buy it anyway, so I added it to my cart and did the purchase. It all went through OK so I trotted down the road to the shop to pick it up. The guy eventually looked into my order and pulled me up on that fact before he served me. I put on my best surprised face and said, oh rly? but then argued that I bought a whole PC worth of parts off them only two months ago. He looked at my account and saw that it was true and went, yep, that's good enough for me, and slid it across the bench. Happy days!

Here's a crappy pic of it all put together. My first PC build has been a fun one.

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

[Rare White Ape]

I found out that I can use Nvidia Control Panel to apply hax to the framerate output and force my TV to display 120Hz at 1080p.

So now I can play ACC at 80-100fps and the original Assetto at a solid 120fps.

[drew]

All this is not helping my urge to build a new PC...

[Yobbo NZ]

$760 graphics card? Holy hell.
I just, and don't choke too hard, built a nice little AMD X4 870K, overclocked to 4.6Ghz, Asus Cerberus GTX1050ti 4gb, with 16gb of DDR3.
Handles everything I've thrown at it so far, Football manager 2019, Motorsport Manager, Arma 2 & 3.
It should serve me well for a few years.

[drew]

I paid that for a 1080ti....

I've not built an AMD PC in about 20 years. The Ryzen is looking promising.

The EPYC, however, jesus tap-dancing christ....

[Yw-slayer]

Surely he meant aud760 and not usd760?

[Rare White Ape]

That's right.

But it's still a lot. Some New Zealanders may take a whole month to earn that.

[JoeW]

I hardly spend that much on the entire PC.

[drew]

I *almost* got the 2080Ti...almost.

I used a GTX 680 (4GB) for almost 5 years. At the time, it was $600....

I need therapy.

[Rare White Ape]

It’s perfectly fine, Drew. You work hard and you don’t have kids.

I recently spent $17k on my third motorbike and I don’t own a car.

That’s how we roll.

[drew]

...and, I don't give a fuck! (nor does she, apparently). I was looking at a new driver (golf) last year and tried a couple out. Liked one, the salesman said "so, you think you want it?" I hesitated (because it was $500), she says "just get it, don't be a pussy.'

I'm not sure the salesman knew what do think of that, but he got a sale.

[Yw-slayer]

No kids = Tons of dough to spend on whatever you want.

[21Kid]

No kids = Tons of dough to spend on whatever you want.
:mad:

[drew]

What falls in the "fucking nuts" category:

I found the same GTX I bought in September on Amazon (NOT eBay!) is $1299. I paid $790. I may eBay that shit for $1000 and get a 2080ti for a couple $100 more.

[Yw-slayer]

:mad:

Yeah man, 21 Kids generally = No dough.

[stephenb]

Looking sharp RWA, good to see it all come together :up:

[Rare White Ape]

Thanks Stephen. I've just been playing the Doom demo at 120fps.

Rock solid. I think I'm hooked. It feels so good to launch a new-ish title and not have to pick and choose which settings you use. Just drive it all up to ultra.

But my wireless mouse and KB could do with some attention (fuck, here we go, more money).

[drew]

My impulse is shit. I just got the 43" LG UHD. It's completely fucking ridiculous.

My "roommate" works remote again, so I bought her a Dell G5 laptop (8650 6-core, 16GB RAM, blah blah). I set up her new desk, and decided to let her use/have my two Samsung 32" UHD monitors, to be more efficient at it.


The funny thing is the 28" Samsung UHD I've had for about 4 years keeps finding its way back on my desk. It's been at the office, only to have purchased two more to replace it, it's been on her desk, only to return after I bought the LG, and I had a "spare" 32". For the sake of uniformity, I gave her the pair of 32s, so she didn't have a 28 and 32.

#FirstWorldProblems

[Rare White Ape]

There’s no better place to put this than here; Tetris Effect is going to be released in PC with VR support.

It’ll be an Epic Games Store exclusive, but it’s worth the effort if you’ve not played the PS4 version.

It’s one of the most incredible games I’ve ever played, now with unlocked frame rate and resolution support!

[Rare White Ape]

I've been tinkering with the video capture in my graphics card. This is what Wreckfest looks like recorded on my system at 4K and churned through the YouTube compression algorithm. Dang it runs well!


https://youtu.be/F1WUcBDpnzk

[Rare White Ape]

And here’s Assetto Corsa Competizione running at 1080p.


https://youtu.be/3foIw6UO4Iw

[Rare White Ape]

Righto.

I bang on about ray tracing a bit. I think it's a great thing.

On that subject, Mojang, developer of Minecraft, announced at Gamescom that they have partnered with Nvidia to release a ray-traced version of the game. It will be a free update for Minecraft PC players sometime in the near future.

If you own a RTX GPU.

But for now, there is a mod for the game that has been available for sometime now which adds user-made ray tracing and it looks beautiful.

And... some proactive geniuses have it running on an AMD RX 5700XT at over 50fps. Comparison to an RTX 2080 Super has it at 85-100fps.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt2iURehGkE

Obviously, in outdoor scenes with lots of stuff going on and near reflective water it can dip down to around 35fps, but its still above 30. If one was happy to do so it would be worth it to drop the settings and use a 30fps frame limit and have a solid, smooth game experience.

And yeah, it's just Minecraft - not exactly the most demanding game title ever made. Playing BFV on an RX 5700XT with ray tracing would cripple the poor thing. But it's still fun to play with! I'm pretty sure it would work just as well with a GTX 10-series GPU as well.

[Blerpa]

Now, if Minecraft Java edition would not lag like shit on 1.14.4 release... it is affecting a lot of users, me included. Even Optifine HD is not solving the issues.
It is right down unplayable.
And I've a PC able to run The Witcher 3 and Forza Horizon 4 with all set to very high or ultra at rock solid 60fps in 1080p (i5 4670k, 16gb DDR3 o.c. to 2166, RX 580 Nitro+ 8GB, games installed on a Crucial MX500 SSD...)

[Rare White Ape]

Can you not access the regular version? Or would you have to pay for it again?

[Yw-slayer]

I am thinking about building a Ryzen 7 3600 with 32GB RAM to replace my work PC, which is an i5-6500 with 16GB. The latter is no longer fast as I often open several hundred pages of PDFs at the same time in Acrobat, 4-5 Word documents, Outlook, and have AllwaySync and Spideroak running, and while it has a 970GTX it's pushing a 43" Dell 4317 and a 27" portrait Dell U2717 or something.

[Blerpa]

Can you not access the regular version? Or would you have to pay for it again?

Java edition is the regular classic version, all the others came after.
Anyhow I do own also the Bedrock (Win 10/Xbox) edition and the Pocket Edition (iOS/Android): those are limited and cannot install shaderpacks in them.
You can only put textures in it and fake shaders (which are actually simple resource packs made of textures) and there's no Optifine or mod for it.
Also Microsoft keeps those editions behind in version as, IIRC, the Bedrock edition is like on 1.12, for example.

And yes I paid for all of them. 20,95 euro for the Java (usually around 25), 3,95 euro for the Bedrock (Usually 29,99 or 49,99 euro accordingly to the packs included) and about 6 euro from my Google Playstore credit for the PE edition, so it's not like I paid much, but the better version is unplayable right now for me, which sucks majorly.

[Blerpa]

I am thinking about building a Ryzen 7 3600 with 32GB RAM

I suggest at least 3200Mhz ram if not better 3600Mhz, Ryzen in general does not like anything lower than 3000Mhz, to the point of having noticeable performance losses when going lower.

[Yw-slayer]

Yeah. Well, frankly, I'm unlikely to do so as I'm probably going to have to blow a ton of dough in Ibiza next month.

[Rare White Ape]

Shiiit boy

[Yw-slayer]

DATS RIGHT

[Yobbo NZ]

Want an entourage to follow you around? I'll offer for free.

[Yw-slayer]

Are you a hot bird?

[Yobbo NZ]

I could be......

[Yw-slayer]

Hmmm.

[Rare White Ape]

I’ve been playing Gears 5 tonight thanks to Game Pass on my pooter. It has all the graphical settings turned up to oblivion, with the optional stupid resolution texture pack installed, and it’s giving me a near-flawless 4K/60/HDR presentation.

There’s maybe a little bit of screen tearing, and the cut scenes hitch and stutter a bit. But my main problem is it freezing up my system at certain points. Hopefully that’ll be patched by the end of this week.

But otherwise it’s a freaking treat for the eyeballs. Gears 5 is a true showcase for anyone who wants to show off a fancy new tv or computer :up:

It also helps that it’s actually pretty good to play.

[drew]

I've had my 1080ti for a year....I'm getting an itch again.

CyberPunk 2077 looks pretty good. Maybe I should give ray-tracing a shot?

I wonder if people are still jacking up 1080 prices, if so, maybe eBay/2080ti is the way to go...

[Alan P]

So I ordered my new Graphics card today, MSI 2070S Triple fan edition. Thanks to Vouchers I got from work, total cost to me was £79!!

[Blerpa]

That's killer!!! Nice, you should be able to pull Quad HD 144hz no problem with that, or 4K 60hz with everything on High or Very High!
Interesting to see how much you'll be able to push it.

I ordered a NZXT puck to keep my headphone tidy and out of the way.
Also ordered a new pair of headphones, Coolermaster MH752, to replace my 20 euro old ones; unfortunately the package is late and I'm still waiting the delivery (goddamn Amazon, you are sucking more and more these days).

Eventually retired my Razer Diamondback Chroma wired mouse: form factor wise it was perfect, but the scrolling wheel always felt wonky and sometime lagging, while, the major culprit for the change, Razer Synapse, the software, sucks donkeys' arses.
A true abysmal experience, to the point that lately the software did not recognize the mouse anymore (pretty common among users of Synapse, judging from people complaining online), with no solution.
Tried reinstalling, reinstalling the drivers... to no avail: mouse works, but I'm completely unable to change led lights, but most importantly, DPI settings and personal profiles.
So, exit the Razer, enter the cheap Logitech G305 wireless mouse.
No led, no wire, just 10 grams heavier than the Razer and perfectly functioning - and with Logitech awesome step-by-step scrolling wheel.

3398

3399

[Freude am Fahren]

I really love my (wired) Logtiech G502. If I ever decide to go wireless, I'll go with logitech again. Plenty of buttons that seemlessly reassign tasks as I switch programs. Comfortable. Super responsive, and one of those buttons to change the wheel from clicky turn to smooth. And it's very smooth. The kind you can kinda "throw" into a scroll and let it go for a bit while you move your finger back to the top of the wheel.

I've been toying with the idea of doing a new build with a 9700K (or maybe 9900k) and 2070S, (or maybe 2080S). I can reuse a lot of what I have since I went all in back in '11 when I built it. Would really only need Mobo, CPU, and GPU. Maybe RAM too? I have 16GB, but I'm not sure about compatibility. RAM isn't that expensive though when I'm thinking about spending ~$1k on the rest. SSD's, HDD's, Power Supply, Case, Periphs, all good to go still. If I were home more to get use out of it, I'd do it, but I travel so much, not sure if I can justify it.

[Rare White Ape]

The best plan for upgrading isn’t to wait so long and do lots. You should do it a little bit at a time.

[Blerpa]

I'd go Ryzen 3600/x or 3700/x though, instead of Intel: cheaper, better and with decent stock cpu heatsink.
Obviously at the very least, in case of going the AMD route, you would need 3000mhz DDR4 ram, better to go with 3600mhz if possible, even.

[Alan P]

If your build is from 2011 then it'll likely be DDR3 which won't work with Ryzen or Intel 9x00 so that would need to be replaced too. As Blerpa says, Ryzen absolutely adores fast RAM so 3000MHz as a minimum but faster is better, if more expensive. I'd also consider a M.2 NVME drive as your boot drive too. The Sabrent Rocket ones are as fast as a top end Samsung yet half the price. https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rocket-Internal-Performance-SB-ROCKET-1TB/dp/B07LGF54XR

[Blerpa]

I'd get a 3600 minimum, an X570 mobo and 3600mhz ram (16gb are perfectly fine for games still), as Alan said I'd throw in a decent Sabrent as Nvme ssd and then the rest would be easy. Also an external sound card like the Focusrite Scarlett (but the 2nd edition, not the third one) to drive all my audio...

[Alan P]

New card fitted, Apex Legends now pegged at 100FPS in game (I'm yet to OC my monitor to the claimed 120Hz as there are many stories if it inducing a flicker after a few months.) and when you're in the drop ship and can see the whole map I'm getting around 85-90FPS. Not a huge improvement over what I had previously but Apex isn't a demanding game.

[dodint]

The best plan for upgrading isn’t to wait so long and do lots. You should do it a little bit at a time.

https://media.giphy.com/media/xT0BKwUV9bLhr8btRK/giphy.gif

[Rare White Ape]

;)

[Freude am Fahren]

:lol: missed that on the first go-around

Well done.

[dodint]

I rarely come in here but it was worth it this time.

[Freude am Fahren]

Made a little profit on an extra USGP ticket I sold on Stub Hub, so I decided to go ahead with the upgrade.

Intel 9900k
Asus Z390 board
2070 Super
32GB RAM
Sabret 1TB M.2 storage.
AIO Cooler

Maybe overkill on the CPU and RAM, but I'm thinking they'll be worth it with X-Plane and the next Flight Simulator. I plan on getting a VR headset soon too. I thought about saying fuck it and getting a 2080Ti, but came to my senses. This will be my 3rd x70 Nvidia GPU after 570 and 770. I think it's their sweet spot.

Also, I'm gonna be covered in unicorn vomit, it seems. Everything has RGB lol. Wasn't looking for RGB, everything was picked on spec and/or price. Only thing I kinda chose RGB over non was the RAM, since everything else had it :lol: Pretty sure I'm gonna set it all to dark blue or something and leave it.

Interestingly, everything except the SSD was bought at Best Buy. With tax being charged on Amazon and Newegg these days, Best Buy can compete, and they had stuff in stock, instead of waiting nearly a month (1.5 weeks for some things, but I'll be out of town for another 1.5 weeks by the time it would arrive). Didn't even think of buying there until I saw a few parts were cheapest there on PC Parts Picker. The rest could be price matched. And I have their card, so I could get 6% back in store credit.

Even ended up saving $40 on the RAM because the CPU cooler I bought was advertised online for about $8 less. When he went to fix it, he must have picked the RAM instead. :D


Now I need to figure out Windows. Can I call them up and get my license transferred to a new Mobo? Then I need to figure out what to put on the M.2 and what to keep on the 2.5" SSDs.

[Yw-slayer]

You won't regret 32gb ram. No one ever does.

[Alan P]

Made a little profit on an extra USGP ticket I sold on Stub Hub, so I decided to go ahead with the upgrade.

Intel 9900k
Asus Z390 board
2070 Super
32GB RAM
Sabret 1TB M.2 storage.
AIO Cooler

Maybe overkill on the CPU and RAM, but I'm thinking they'll be worth it with X-Plane and the next Flight Simulator. I plan on getting a VR headset soon too. I thought about saying fuck it and getting a 2080Ti, but came to my senses. This will be my 3rd x70 Nvidia GPU after 570 and 770. I think it's their sweet spot.

Also, I'm gonna be covered in unicorn vomit, it seems. Everything has RGB lol. Wasn't looking for RGB, everything was picked on spec and/or price. Only thing I kinda chose RGB over non was the RAM, since everything else had it :lol: Pretty sure I'm gonna set it all to dark blue or something and leave it.

Interestingly, everything except the SSD was bought at Best Buy. With tax being charged on Amazon and Newegg these days, Best Buy can compete, and they had stuff in stock, instead of waiting nearly a month (1.5 weeks for some things, but I'll be out of town for another 1.5 weeks by the time it would arrive). Didn't even think of buying there until I saw a few parts were cheapest there on PC Parts Picker. The rest could be price matched. And I have their card, so I could get 6% back in store credit.

Even ended up saving $40 on the RAM because the CPU cooler I bought was advertised online for about $8 less. When he went to fix it, he must have picked the RAM instead. :D


Now I need to figure out Windows. Can I call them up and get my license transferred to a new Mobo? Then I need to figure out what to put on the M.2 and what to keep on the 2.5" SSDs.

If you have access to another PC and an 8GB or bigger USB drive, download the installer tool (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10) and create a bootable USB drive that you can use to install windows onto your M.2 SSD. You may need to configure your BIOS boot order to do this initially.

[Freude am Fahren]

So I put together everything tonight. Took a while to figure out why I couldn't see any of my drives in BIOS to at least try and start up windows. Something about CMS UEFI Legacy something something.

Anyway, figured it out, and here I am on the new components (minus GPU and M.2 SSD). Started windows right up without issues, though it does say Windows isn't activated and gives some error in the menu for showing the product key, but everything seems to be working fine.

Now, I wonder if I install a fresh Windows on the M.2, if it will work??

Maybe if this is working, I keep this as my system drive and use m.2 for games.

[Rare White Ape]

I'd install Windows on whatever drive has the best transfer speeds. Of course, if the M.2 drive is an NVMe one, then it's a no-brainer, and whack it on that.

I know it's probably not a good thing to do, but I got my Win 10 key from Kinguin. They sell surplus keys from vendors.

Hey, at least it wasn't G2A. You can get keys from eBay too.

BUT! Try your existing key first. You might luck-out.

[Blerpa]

You can get keys even over Amazon.
And yes, NvME trumps everything else.

Just out of curiosity, how much did you spend?

[drew]

No such thing as overkill!

If you've got Windows currently installed and want to re-install it on the new HDD, I'd suggest the media creation tool. I've used it a number of times and it makes it virtually painless. It takes all the info on your current install, and installs it to a new drive, without the need of bullshit keys/activation, etc, etc.

[Freude am Fahren]

It was all about $1500

I think I'm going to just do a clean install of Windows anyway on the M.2 drive. All my games and such are on other drives, so it should be a somewhat easy process.

[CudaMan]

S'pose I'll throw my semi-hypothetical in here...

Let's say I wanted to build a new sim racing rig for about $800 (assume my existing case will work and I already have monitor etc). I'm out of the loop on current tech. What is important to spec these days? I'm still rocking a 2010 build with a 5870 and 4GB RAM... :lol:

- I heard last year that iRacing ran better on one type of chip, I forget which one... recently I've heard about a new Ryzen - does that change the landscape for iRacing?
- I've heard such great things about NVMe that it seems like a no-brainer if I can afford enough capacity in the build. [500GB minimum?]

I'd like to be able to handle triple screens and/or VR for sim racing.

[Rare White Ape]

I'd pick a 3rd gen Ryzen just because they'll have a lot of lifespan in them. They're a massive step above the Intel chips and at a better price range.

For the GPU, it's all up to you. I picked an RTX 2070 because I'm somewhat unashamedly a fan of the potential of ray tracing. That would be the minimum baseline if you want to play something like ACC (the new one) at 1080p as that game is very graphically intensive. I've not tried iRacing so can't comment, but it looks like it's easier to run than AC (the old one).

Maybe look at the Radeon stuff. The 5700XT offers similar performance to the 2070 Super for around the $400 mark, whereas a 2070 might hit you for $600.

I can run Assetto Corsa at a flawless 4K/60, which is the same amount of pixels as a four-screen setup, so that would have no trouble at all running triple screens, and potentially at super high frame rates.

So: 3rd gen Ryzen 5 and a 5700XT for $600, leaving you with $200 to spare on other stuff. You'll need 16GB of RAM and a motherboard. I think it could be done.

[Tom Servo]

I have definitely heard that iRacing doesn't need the hardware that many other games need for VR. I've heard of people getting it to work on lower spec than the official minimum requirement video card (a GTX 960). It looks great with my GTX 1080. Well, as great as anything can look on the Rift at any rate, framerates are awesome but it's still lower resolution with god rays and the screendoor effect.

[George]

Back in December of 2018 with a lot of helpful suggestions from you guys, I bought a PowerSpec G316 gaming computer from the one Microcenter store in Colorado. PowerSpec is Microcenter's store brand, and one of the sales pitches for buying one of their machines was/is that all the parts are in stock in their store.

Well, that's pretty convenient for them, I guess. Yesterday I returned the computer for the THIRD time in less than one year. It just shut down and wouldn't restart. Again.

The first time, they replaced the motherboard and the power supply. The next time they gave us a whole new machine. I don't know what they'll do this time, but I'm concerned about what's going to happen when my one-year warranty expires if this thing breaks down every three months.

The service department at Microcenter is great. They're very helpful. Yesterday we walked in literally five minutes before closing on a Sunday evening and the guy started tearing down the machine right then, hoping he could fix it while we waited. He couldn't, but his willingness to try is indicative of the service I've always had there.

It's just a shame I've needed so much of it.

[Freude am Fahren]

My 2700K and GTX 770 paired with 16GB RAM did triple screen (1080p) iRacing just fine. I think I had a few graphics options turn just down from all high, and I don't think it ever dipped below 30 fps even in the worst conditions. Usually I think I was up around 50-60.

So iRacing isn't that intensive to run triple screen. I think VR might be more taxing though.

[Tom Servo]

Back in December of 2018 with a lot of helpful suggestions from you guys, I bought a PowerSpec G316 gaming computer from the one Microcenter store in Colorado. PowerSpec is Microcenter's store brand, and one of the sales pitches for buying one of their machines was/is that all the parts are in stock in their store.

Well, that's pretty convenient for them, I guess. Yesterday I returned the computer for the THIRD time in less than one year. It just shut down and wouldn't restart. Again.

The first time, they replaced the motherboard and the power supply. The next time they gave us a whole new machine. I don't know what they'll do this time, but I'm concerned about what's going to happen when my one-year warranty expires if this thing breaks down every three months.

The service department at Microcenter is great. They're very helpful. Yesterday we walked in literally five minutes before closing on a Sunday evening and the guy started tearing down the machine right then, hoping he could fix it while we waited. He couldn't, but his willingness to try is indicative of the service I've always had there.

It's just a shame I've needed so much of it.

I wonder how much of it is the power supply. That tends to be one of the parts that computer builders cheap out on, but it's crucial to having a stable system.

[Freude am Fahren]

Just finished building a custom Ikea desk.

http://gtxforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=3414&d=1571722869
3414

Made up of two drawer parts and a counter top basically. Takes up the same amount of space as the old setup, except instead of the tower on the floor next to the desk, now it's on it. I'm just testing this setup out, as I know this case isn't exactly made to be on display, but I wanted easy access while I figure out the Windows situation and still need to install the M.2 and GPU. Cable management is a lot easier this way too. I'll end up putting it underneath, giving me a lot more desktop surface area. That's obviously the more obvious, and useful setup.

I've got two more ideas on the Windows front before I give up and buy a new key. First, I'm going to hook up my old Mobo/CPU to the SSD with windows on it and double check I had actually linked it to my Microsoft account. Then I'll do a clean install and see if I can do the "I changed my hardware" troubleshooting option, which currently doesn't work.

Then I'm going to hope I can find my Win7 key, which Microsoft support says should be sufficient for them to activate me, but I don't think I'll be able to find it.

I'd also like to go to some kind of UltraWide solution, if I'm going to go with VR for racing sims. I do love the triple for productivity, but the whole setup is very bulky as you can tell. The stand alone is like 20 lb. In the mean time I may look into finding a clamp to replace the base.

[Rare White Ape]

That's a nice desk setup. Yeah, an ultrawide would be the go. They're even viable as a sim racing screen.

Y'see, my fantasy projection of your life sees you getting a 49" ultrawide. It's the same width as my 55" TV that I use for racing, just half the height.

At the distance I sit to the screen while racing, my horizontal FOV needs to be set to 25 degrees. Narrow, but not too narrow. If I had an ultrawide mounted closer to me on a proper rig, I'd be able to swing that out to maybe 35 degrees. I'd retain the same vertical FOV, but the horizontal would be much wider.

I'm assuming you either clamp your wheel to the desk, or slide a seat underneath it to go racing. If you do, you'd biff the keyboard out of the way and drag that screen right up to the edge of the desk, and bask in the splendourous glow of a nice seamless, wide, fairly large display.

[Freude am Fahren]

Hmm, I'm not sure if I'd want to go Super Ultra Wide 32:9 or just regular Ultrawide 21:9

Not sure even the new rig can support 32:9 1440p. I think that's SLI territory :lol:

[Blerpa]

Not sure even the new rig can support 32:9 1440p. I think that's SLI territory :lol:

SLI and Crossfire are things of the past: useless waste of power from the PSU, few performance advantages, there are no more optimized drivers for them and most, if not all, modern games and programs are not compatible anymore with dual (or triple) card systems.
It's like this since at least 5 or more years.

Get the most powerful card your budget can afford and that's it.

[Rare White Ape]

TITAN RTX :hard:

[Blerpa]

Yeah baby!

[Alan P]

Ditch the three monitors and get a Samsung CRG9 (https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/gaming/49-crg9-dual-qhd-curved-qled-gaming-monitor-lc49rg90ssnxza/)

And you don't need a massive amount of horsepower to push it either. It's 5120x1440, 7,372,800 Pixels. Compare this to 4k, 3840x2160, that's 8,294,400 pixels to push. SO it's easier than 4k but with Freesync 2 on it you'll be best placed with a 5700XT or a Radeon 7.

[Freude am Fahren]

I was looking at that one, and LG has one too. Those and a couple 21:9 from LG. Not really prepared to spend that kind of coin on a monitor at this point though.

[drew]

The multi-monitor is for work, which is just on-board graphics (not buying a separate GFX for that). At home, it's the 43" and a 28", the 28 being fairly irrelevant.... (the LG is fucking enormous).

I could get a 2080, and put the 1080 in the work computer.... $800/11GB video card for spreadsheets. America, fuck yeah.

[Blerpa]

This is the moment when I realize that with a 50" tv and a 27" monitor I'm better equipped at home than Drew.
Also this is the moment when I realize I'm talking of a 4K tv and a 27" normal 1080p IPS monitor while Drew is talking of great top monitors in both cases.
LOL

[drew]

If I could justify it, I'd get another LG. But the physical space that requires is something my desk can't handle. 72" desk (1.83m) and 76" (1.93m) of monitor edge to edge.

I rarely use the 28" at all, usually only if I bring the laptop home from work, and use that with a spare cable hooked up to it.

[George]

Back in December of 2018 with a lot of helpful suggestions from you guys, I bought a PowerSpec G316 gaming computer from the one Microcenter store in Colorado. PowerSpec is Microcenter's store brand, and one of the sales pitches for buying one of their machines was/is that all the parts are in stock in their store.

Well, that's pretty convenient for them, I guess. Yesterday I returned the computer for the THIRD time in less than one year. It just shut down and wouldn't restart. Again.

The first time, they replaced the motherboard and the power supply. The next time they gave us a whole new machine. I don't know what they'll do this time, but I'm concerned about what's going to happen when my one-year warranty expires if this thing breaks down every three months.

The service department at Microcenter is great. They're very helpful. Yesterday we walked in literally five minutes before closing on a Sunday evening and the guy started tearing down the machine right then, hoping he could fix it while we waited. He couldn't, but his willingness to try is indicative of the service I've always had there.

It's just a shame I've needed so much of it.


I wonder how much of it is the power supply. That tends to be one of the parts that computer builders cheap out on, but it's crucial to having a stable system.

The PC was ready on Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours after I dropped it off. The guy said is was the motherboard and told me they replace motherboards every day.

I continue to be impressed with Microcenter, but I question their choice of motherboard suppliers if they're actually replacing them every day. The guy might have been exaggerating, but he seemed sincere enough to me.

FaF's desk is looking sharp. I wish I could keep a desk that free of clutter even long enough to snap a picture.

[Tom Servo]

That is surprising. I don't think I've had a motherboard fail on me, other than one getting fried by a crappy power supply.

[George]

Reading between the lines from your last post and this one, maybe I have a crappy power supply that's frying motherboards.

[Freude am Fahren]

FaF's desk is looking sharp. I wish I could keep a desk that free of clutter even long enough to snap a picture.

I had just finished putting it together. It was like that for about 5 minutes. :lol:

Also, I lied...

http://gtxforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=3416&d=1572034058
3416

At the full res, on highest everything (RTX on), it stays between roughly 50-70 FPS on the new Modern Warfare. Going to get my rig out and try iRacing next... :drool:

This does mean I'll be putting VR off a bit. But I maybe the options will be clearer a year from now? Who knows.

[Rare White Ape]

:drool:

[drew]

:up: I've never really checked out the "ultra wide" monitors, due to the short height (1440). But then, I could get two and stack them on top of each other...

If it wasn't for the $1300-1500 for the 49", I'd probably have bought one for work, due to the ridiculous 100-column spreadsheet we work in daily.

But since it seems that may not be an issue at all after a few weeks, I'll have all sorts of shit at home....

I may need to have a "yard" sale.

[Cam]

/me looks it up and down. Oh my, your size is... impressive.

[stephenb]

S'pose I'll throw my semi-hypothetical in here...

Let's say I wanted to build a new sim racing rig for about $800 (assume my existing case will work and I already have monitor etc). I'm out of the loop on current tech. What is important to spec these days? I'm still rocking a 2010 build with a 5870 and 4GB RAM... :lol:

- I heard last year that iRacing ran better on one type of chip, I forget which one... recently I've heard about a new Ryzen - does that change the landscape for iRacing?
- I've heard such great things about NVMe that it seems like a no-brainer if I can afford enough capacity in the build. [500GB minimum?]

I'd like to be able to handle triple screens and/or VR for sim racing. For iracing I'd definitely recommend a RTX 2060 or higher. They make use of Nvidia's simultaneous multi projection if running triples or single pass stereo if using VR. They've yet to incorporate the matching tech from AMD. For the CPU I'd get a Ryzen 3700X if you can afford it.

[CudaMan]

I just spent about 40 minutes researching and doing a preliminary build. Here's what I came up with at a little over $1k - more than I would like to spend, ideally.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3C9w6R

Lots of new acronyms to learn.

And soooo many Ryzens on PCPartPicker... I pinned the tail on the 5-3600 for this early stage scenario. :shrug:

I could cut some budget by halving the boot drive to 500GB. I'd like to install 2 or 3 sims to the drive for faster load times, hence the 1TB pick.

I'd also have to put more research into motherboards, as sound quality is very important to me. I bet they all have optical out but there's more to it than that, at least there was last I checked in 2010.

Memory speed I'm clueless on. I hear Ryzens like fast memory. 3600 seemed to be a value sweet spot on the PartPicker.

I took a wild guess on the power supply. The PartPicker estimated my build at 344W but that seems really low to me? My current (ancient) PC is running a 550W power supply.

With rebate, a regular RTX 2070 is $429 now. About the same as a 5700XT. Regular 5700s are high $300s. I may have to go to YouTube University to see if ray tracing is important to me. :)

Do I want Freesync or G-Sync for sim racing - or is either even worth it? Looks like you have to pick a team as monitors are one or the other not both. I'm still using a 60Hz 1080p 2ms panel...

[Rare White Ape]

This year Nvidia opened up G-Sync to allow it to be used on FreeSync monitors, as long as they meet a certain standard. And if you have a monitor that falls below that standard, you can still force it on and see how you go. It's a very pro-consumer move, and it may have something to do with variable refresh rate becoming part of the HDMI 2.1 standard, meaning it will be ubiquitous on mid-to-high tier TVs in the next few years.

And don't worry about optical audio. It is old tech. You'll want to be sending a bitstream to an amp over HDMI because it will have a much higher bandwidth and support more channels.

[Freude am Fahren]

I'm having some buyer's remorse with the CRG9. It's absolutely awesome to use in game, and super awesome for productivity, but the image is odd.

I may have a bad panel, but it seems like such a uniform problem, I think it's the type of panel. It's like there is a very faint texture to the image, almost like horizontal lines of the pixels are too apparent to my eyes? It almost looks like the whole image is printed on a piece of paper or denim or something. Really odd.

I don't notice it in games, but I really do on the desktop/chrome.

For the money I paid, I don't really want to compromise image quality. I'm thinking about swapping for the LG Ultrawide (regular, not super), for about $350 less.

I've got some thinking to do. And I'll need to do it without actually using the thing, since I'm out of town on work/USGP for two weeks.

[CudaMan]

And don't worry about optical audio. It is old tech. You'll want to be sending a bitstream to an amp over HDMI because it will have a much higher bandwidth and support more channels.
I guess surround sound might be nice on a sim to hear who is coming up behind you to overtake in your blind spot. But in an effort to avoid scope creep, I'll probably stick with 2-channel audio for a while. I'm very happy with my DAC which has only Toslink (optical) and Coaxial inputs.

Outside of a traditional large home theater receiver, the idea of an "HDMI amp" seems really strange to me. :)

FaF, if it's one of those things you "can't unsee" then it may bother you for a long time... In theory I get the curved screen idea for super duper ultra wide monitors, but a moire pattern (or whatever it is you're seeing) would visually annoy me too.

[Rare White Ape]

Ooop! I didn’t know you weren’t so equipped. You’ll be needing Toslink then!

I actually doubt (or to be more precise, I’m probably more sceptical) that a motherboard would have really bad audio, with digital audio being what it is. It would have to be truly bad before you noticed anything. But that’s a discussion for another thread.

Most enthusiast motherboards will generally spruik the quality of their audio chips anyway. If you’re getting one that supports the important gaming features of your CPU then you can be sure that it’ll be in a class of boards with good audio.

Edit: I just noticed your shopping list. The motherboard you have there doesn’t appear to have Toslink on its rear I/O.

[Blerpa]

I'm not sure if the discussion is properly focused about integrated audio in a mobo... but even very expensive mobo with integrated audio lose out, with noticeable difference, to my 80 euro Soundblaster Z.
Internal or external audio cards (FocusRite, Fiio, etc.) are always better than any integrated sound.
I'd buy a FocusRite Scarlett 2nd generation (with normal USB, not USB-C like in 3rd generation which can have problems according to some reviews and comments on Amazon) and never look back to integrated audio.
At least we are fortunate that it is not like in the past anymore where integrated audio did hit the framerate in gaming with an average loss of 8-10fps.

[CudaMan]

If there's still a place for my Asus Xonar DX on a current day ATX motherboard, then I won't worry about it. There's a noticeable sound quality difference between that and the on-board sound of my current mobo. It may be that on-board audio hasn't advanced much in SQ (I'm sure it supports more/newer formats natively) in the last 10 years.

Here's a question: my Antec case has front USB 2.0 ports. Is USB 3.0 a hardware difference at the port, or is it all in the motherboard? Ideally I wouldn't have to buy a new case just to get 3.0 front ports.


Edit: I just noticed your shopping list. The motherboard you have there doesn’t appear to have Toslink on its rear I/O.

Yeah I noticed that, too, later. Thanks! Mostly that build was to get rough ideas of where things stand today. It's very much subject to change!

[Rare White Ape]

Attention: everyone


https://youtu.be/lyDfhrHYz4w

[CudaMan]

Timely. I'll work on a chance to watch. Thanks!

[Rare White Ape]

No worries mate. That guys channel is chock full of great info. He’s a massive geek for small form factor builds too, and he’s dangerous to watch if you’ve got enough money for a small case floating around in your pocket :P

[JoeW]

Yeah I switched to mini and micro years ago. My last 3 builds have been mini itx or micro atx. I’ve ditched the monster tower cases primarily because I don’t use all the expansion slots or need 5 or more drives.

It’s funny that my current build has many of the same components he recommends in a few of his builds. I’m a good shopper apparently :)

[Rare White Ape]

Just a quick question about storage, if I may.

I've got in my PC:

- 240GB M.2 boot drive containing the OS
- and a 1TB mechanical storage drive, which has all my games on it

This weekend I'm going to buy a 1TB M.2 NVMe drive as my game storage drive, and keep the mechanical as an 'other shit' storage drive.

I want to know, is it easier to manually move my Steam folder to the new drive, or is it easier to clone the whole thing and assign it the same drive letter so that Steam still treats it the same way, and then wipe the mechanical before copying the rest back across?

And if I was to do the latter, what would be the way I go about that?

[Blerpa]

Honestly I would not know: when I got the SSD for the games I just uninstalled Steam, other game clients and all the games from the mechanical HDD, using Revo Uninstaller to be sure to not leave files behind, then reinstalled everything in the SSD, just to have everything new and fresh. :random:

[Yw-slayer]

Just a quick question about storage, if I may.

I've got in my PC:

- 240GB M.2 boot drive containing the OS
- and a 1TB mechanical storage drive, which has all my games on it

This weekend I'm going to buy a 1TB M.2 NVMe drive as my game storage drive, and keep the mechanical as an 'other shit' storage drive.

I want to know, is it easier to manually move my Steam folder to the new drive, or is it easier to clone the whole thing and assign it the same drive letter so that Steam still treats it the same way, and then wipe the mechanical before copying the rest back across?

And if I was to do the latter, what would be the way I go about that?

For some reason, I seem to recall that the former is easier. I think there's a Steam setting where you can "adopt" a game folder. That seems better than screwing around in Windows with cloning and stuff.

[Tom Servo]

I did a similar move, and as part of that I switched my Steam storage from C: to E:. I seem to remember I just copied everything over and then change the storage location somewhere in the Steam settings and that was that.

EDIT: Yep, pretty easy. Under Settings -> Downloads, there's a "STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS" button. You can just add the new location and set it as default - turns out I still actually have the old location in there too, looks like my SteamVR stuff is installed on C: still. There's also a builtin function to move games from one location to the other: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/move-steam-games-another-drive-folder

[Rare White Ape]

Oh good. I’ll look into that then.

It was just a giant fuck around to get it from my outgoing laptop and into my new desktop.

Maybe I just did it wrong!

[Freude am Fahren]

So I decided to order the LG 950F (https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-34GK950F-B-gaming-monitor) and compare it side to side (well, I can't actually fit them side by side lol) to the Samguns CRG 9 Super Ultrawide i had bought. LG has a better image quality mostly, but the Samsung does better HDR, and has that crazy real estate. Tough call, but I think the Samsung is going to go back. Just got the LG in last night, so I'll play with both this week before sending one back to Amazon. LG being on sale and $300 cheaper is also a nice bonus.

Samsung Pros:
ALL THE GIRTH.
Stand, aesthetics, cable management
HDR stuff on YouTube at least looks better.
No stupid power brick like the LG.

LG Pros:
Slightly higher Framerate at 144 instead of 120Hz, but honestly, I don't care much about that.
3/4 the price.
Better blacks, more constant image across the panel, and I haven't even played with settings. Just a bit blown out by default it seems.
Doesn't take up as much room on desk.
Not as taxing on GPU.

Thinking towards VR for flight and race sims makes the extra width less important, though I use the real estate for productivity too. The $300 saved could go towards a VR headset.

If LG made this exact thing at 32:9 for the same price as the Samsung, there'd be no competition I think.

[Yw-slayer]

I looked at getting the Xiaomi Surface 34" 144hz monitor as I can get it in HK for USD358. However, I have a perfectly good Dell U3415W (or maybe it's U3417W) that I'm using and which the Xiaomi is unlikely to be a major upgrade over. I am waiting for 4K HDR 21:9 or even wider monitors to drop to USD550 then maybe I'll upgrade.

I've also been looking at the crazy Bestbuy deals on the ASUS TUF and G731 notebooks, but shipping via MyUS seems a bit of a faff and it's probably better to support local stores given the tough time they've recently been going through.

[Rare White Ape]

Drive received.

https://i.imgur.com/6OapoXX.jpg

Drive installed.

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

Snugly hidden away on the back of the mobo there.

Now it is copping all of my games from Steam in a 2-hour transfer :shocker:

[Rare White Ape]

STILL a pain in the arse.

Seems I'm cursed to never be able to easily move my Steam installs, no matter what the tutorials say.

[drew]

Would it not be easier to just uninstall, then RE-install? Not all their games are cloud saves though, so I guess you'd have to fuck around with that too.

[Rare White Ape]

If you copy the data for a game across, you can be back an up and running in minutes without having to re-download. All the tutorials I see say that you just copy your whole install to a new drive (or in the case of Steam’s own help page, just two folders and steam.exe, delete the rest). Then when you log into Steam again it magically fixes everything up.

I found myself needing to do each game individually, fucking with install paths, reinstalling Steam twice (while accidentally having two on the go at once) and all sorts of ridiculous shit.

[Blerpa]

I'd re-install everything again as I did, to be certain.
Just try tricks with games with no cloud saves, in case.

[Freude am Fahren]

I had to do it once, I think I just installed steam on the new drive, then copied the old "steamapps" folder.

And the CRG9 went back to Amazon today. Other than some HDR oddities and smaller workspace, the LG 21:9 has been much better.

[stephenb]

Pulled the trigger on my next CPU last night, along with motherboard, RAM and an NVME drive for Win 10. Plus a few other bits and pieces which I need for the build or should that be rebuild I have planned :D

[balki]

Lots of talk about drives so I'm going to throw this in here:
Have a 120GB SSD (SanDisk SDSSDA120G) and CrystalDiskInfo says I have a 149x WAF
Host Writes : 1092 GB
NAND Writes : 160847 GB

What's up with that?

[stephenb]

Slotted in my new upgrades over the weekend. Went back to a custom loop for cooling the CPU which seems to have paid off so far as temps are nice and cool and I'm hitting the advertised boost speeds for the CPU.

3431

Now running a 3900X with 32GB 3200Mhz C16 RAM and 128GB NVME drive dedicated to the O/S. GTX 1080 and other drives, case, PSU carried over along with most of the watercooling parts. EK Velocity CPU block is new along with tubing and coolant.

Not got all my software back up and running yet but had time for a quick benchmark using Cinebench R20. Scores were: Single thread 528 pts, multi thread 7249 pts. Everything at stock.

[drew]

It's been ages since I've bench tested anything.

Now I'm intrigued.

[XHawkeye]

For grins and giggles R20 results for a stock 1700 w/ 16GB of 3200 MHz

Single = 332
CPU = 3180

[Rare White Ape]

i5 2700K

CPU 2607

Couldn't be bothered doing a single core test.

The score would be much higher if they didn't put a couch in the room.

[drew]

i7 8700k (4Ghz)

3417

Fuck that couch.

[Blerpa]

i5 4670K w/ 16GB 2133 OC

Single 379
Multi 1084

I didn't expect such a low multi score!

[drew]

I, apparently, need to get a 24-core Xeon....

[Blerpa]

Are you sure?
I think it's going to be too slow for you...

[drew]

Liquid nitrogen and overclocked to 6G. Fuck it.

[Alan P]

Hmm. i7 6700k 4GHz and I get 2192. I guess that's the Multi score? I have 4 Cores, 8 Threads.

[Rare White Ape]

Yep, looks like multi core.

Bear in mind my 2607 is on an overclocked 6 core i5 running 4.5GHz.

[drew]

If this job shit sorts itself out in a few months, I may upgrade, mostly because I just like putting PCs together.

But then I would have 3 desktops, and no idea what to do with them all...

I suppose I could put the 1080ti in the work box, and run the fuck out of spreadsheets with it.

An i9 and 2080ti could be fun....

[JoeW]

Not sure anyone has ever said “run the fuck out of spreadsheets” before.

[Freude am Fahren]

i9 9900k 5.0GHz, 4581 pts.

I don't see an option for single vs. multi thread like Cinebench R15. My scores there were ~2100/~220

[Freude am Fahren]

An i9 and 2080ti could be fun....

It is :p

[drew]

It's official, I'm a welfare recipient now. Axe came down yesterday morning.

Guess I have some time to catch up on some games now. :D

I may try to sell off some bits, or maybe I'll try to make a wall display with the monitors....

Might be a fun challenge to get 6 monitors synched up....

[stephenb]

i9 9900k 5.0GHz, 4581 pts.

I don't see an option for single vs. multi thread like Cinebench R15. My scores there were ~2100/~220

Go to File>Advanced Benchmark and the option will appear.

[Blerpa]

Anyone has experience with LG ultrawide monitors?
My AOC monitor is having problems and I could cash in some warranty refund... I've looked at the LG 29WK600 (FullHD+ HDR10 75hz IPS and Freesync).
I don't think I can afford a 1440p ultrawide and my system wouldn't be able to run games optimally anyway with that (i5 4670k, RX 580 Nitro+ 8GB).

[Freude am Fahren]

I have the LG 950f Ultrawide (1440p). I really like it. HDR isn't great, but it's only rated at HDR400, I think. But I've had 0 issues with it in 5-6 months I've had it.

I also had the Samsung doublewide monstrosity CRG9. 120hz, HDR10, 5760x1440, great looks, stand and quality. It was excellent in all ways except some odd texture look to the image that I could not look past. So I sent it back (and saved a buttload) for the LG. Given that I now mostly fly and drive in VR, I don't need the extra real estate. Well until this Covid nonsense. Now I'm working from home and had to breakout and extra 1080p monitor for productivity.

[Blerpa]

Yeah, the point is my AOC seems near to die (few times it does not start with cables in at PC start, it also shows from time to time coloured stripes on the panels for milliseconds and also the image is suddenly washed out, blacks are grey and so - I tried changing the RGB modes but no fix happened) and if they will refund me (hopefully, my monitor is not sold anymore) I'll have around 200+ euro to spend.
The WK600 in 29" guise is at 239 euro (the WK500 is around 30 euro cheaper but has no Display Port and no HDR, so I'd rather go with the 600).

I've been playing a lot of sims again and the lack of periferal view is annoying especially when I cannot see the side mirrors.
Also, been in quarantine, I've been playing Dungeons&Dragons as usual with my group of friends but online.
And it has been annoying to have the Jitsi page on the main monitor (6 people webcams) and Roll20 online site to play on my laptop by my side.

[21Kid]

I'm thinking about getting something for my son for his birthday. He's only gotten our hand me downs... And the laptop he's currently using is a good 7 years old. It's not even good at running minecraft. Let alone any other pc games. I don't know if I can even get him something within a reasonable price range for an 11 yr old though.

But he's going to be stuck at home for a while and I'd like to get him something

[Yw-slayer]

The new Ryzen laptops (both 3xxx and 4xxx series) appear to be... Wait for it...

[Rare White Ape]

Not Macs?

[Yw-slayer]

Nearly there...

[21Kid]

Sufficient?

[Blerpa]

Better than Intel. Tell us something new.

[Yw-slayer]

Incredible return, I'd say.

[Alan P]

Worthy of a purchase, should you be in the market for a high performance laptop?

[Yw-slayer]

Indeed, especially for the price.

[Alan P]

https://i.imgflip.com/3wt40a.jpg (https://imgflip.com/i/3wt40a)via Imgflip Meme Generator (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator)

[Rare White Ape]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

[Yw-slayer]

I think the forum's filter may still be in place.

[21Kid]

hmmm... Seems like I could get a decent Dell gaming desktop for a decent price. Anyone have any idea if the current ones are any good. Looking at an entry level one for around $5-600.

[GreatScawt]

Still patiently waiting for a 3080Ti announcement...

[Alan P]

Still patiently waiting for a 3080Ti announcement...

If they announce anything soon it’ll be the standard 3000 series. Ti announcement is usually after so they get all the idiots buying 3080 and then upgrading again. I’m more interested in AMD and big Navi and how that performs compared to its cost.

[21Kid]

Looks like Dell outlet is the way to go for my son's desktop pc. I don't suppose anyone has any discount codes, do they?

[Blerpa]

So, my 27" AOC monitor eventually died. Terminally. I kept emailing Amazon for the extension insurance I paid for, they finally caved in when I sent not one, but two videos of the monitor not displaying anything when booting up the PC.
So they offered me a monitor of similar specs and price (original price) or an amazon gift card refund of 144 euro (monitor did cost 205 euro in January 2018).
I got the refund, added the other gift cards I had and waited in order to snipe (very difficult these days) an LG 34WK650 monitor for 349 euro.

It's a 34 inches 21:9 Ultrawide 1080p monitor. IPS panel, with HDR10 (which sucks I seem to understand, but whatever), Displayport and Freesync 75Hz.
So it's basically a lenght upgrade on my 27" 16:9 60Hz IPS.
And it is not curved, thank god.

Problem is Amazon is so in chaos with deliveries in these last weeks that I haven't got yet a delivery date.
Still, I'm glad I manage to snipe one sold and sent by Amazon, which were rare. Other prices were 388 euro for Used ones in the Warehouse (with shitty conditions and missing accessories) or from 471 euro and up from third party sellers (crazy!).

I'm making do with my HP ultrabook (no gaming GPU) and the Xbox One S connected to the 50" 4k TV.
I tried connecting the desktop to the TV, easy peasy, but find tiresome to navigate Windows by the bed or from the other side of the room sideways from the desk - I'll wait.
But I'm pretty excited for the WK650 and cannot wait to check the LG IPS panel!

[Alan P]

Looks like Dell outlet is the way to go for my son's desktop pc. I don't suppose anyone has any discount codes, do they?
Actually using the web chat can sometimes get you a deal. They’re usually pretty eager to get a sale.

[drew]

I'm intrigued by the (unsubstantiated) specs of the 3080 (more-over the ti). I'm skeptically watching for more info.

If they decide to compete with AMD and keep it under $1k, I may have a genuine moral dilemma on my hands...

I got the 1080ti in September '18.... The itch is there. If/when I'm ready, I may go full-nuts and do a complete upgrade of everything. But that would leave me with a desktop I'd have no real use for...