Recommend me a new PC

[Cam]

I was writing a long post about why, but you don't need to know all that junk. I am out of touch with tech these days. I'm thinking of a new PC and I need options. I want to be able to play the latest sim racers. Budget: ~$1000. GO!

[JoeW]

Oh shit you just opened a Pandora’s box of so much nerd speak...

They are on their nerd websites designing their nerd builds for your budget right now!

[Rare White Ape]

Lucky for you, 3rd-gen Ryzen is here and it’s good. Assuming you've already got a useable case, power supply, storage etc that you can swap to a new build, I quickly specced out the following bits for CA$1008.

Ryzen 5 3600X
X570 motherboard
GTX 1660 Ti
16GB RAM


RAM:
https://www.newegg.ca/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820231941?item=N82E16820231941

GPU:
https://www.newegg.ca/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-1660-ti-gv-n166toc-6gd/p/N82E16814932131?item=N82E16814932131

Mobo:
https://www.newegg.ca/p/N82E16813144263?item=N82E16813144263

CPU:
https://www.newegg.ca/amd-ryzen-5-3600x/p/N82E16819113568?item=N82E16819113568

If you need to buy some other bits or want to get an SSD and stay within budget then you could scale back the CPU to a 2nd-gen Ryzen 5 and free up about $120. Either way it won’t impact your performance that much, although you will lose compatibility with all the fancy features on the new chipset, but it will still be a great gaming machine and an excellent workhorse for processing your videos for YouTube.

[Cam]

While I am not opposed to building my own from parts, pre-made is preferable. I would not mind just picking up a turn-key already assembled box.

[Tom Servo]

Not sure how long ago your last build was, but over maybe the past 4-5 years or so they've gotten insanely easy. So much is on the motherboard now, I only have two cards in my PC now, one to give me a few extra USB3 ports and the video card. SSD hard drives are so tiny (especialy the NVMe ones) that there's none of that battling over room/cables that you used to get. Add to that modular power supplies and cable management is a cinch. It used to take me a few hours to put together a machine, I think I put my last one together in like 20 minutes.

That said, if you find a good turn-key assembled box, you can often find a good deal on that since they're buying in bulk. I'd just make sure there's room to upgrade - those NVMe drives are getting cheaper and are insanely fast, and you're going to want room eventually for some monstrous video card.

[Rare White Ape]

While I am not opposed to building my own from parts, pre-made is preferable. I would not mind just picking up a turn-key already assembled box.

With this in mind, did you want to use it to double up as a video editing machine too? It can be tax deductible then, if your YouTube/Instagram stuff is generating some income. It might allow you to stretch the budget a bit ;)

[Cam]

Thanks for reminding me of that. Yes, it will be a video editing and art machine predominantly. I will need monstrous storage for raw video.

By the way, RWA, I live in the USA again.

[stephenb]

Similar to RWA. x570 motherboards aren't essential and probably overkill for a 3600x unless you need PCIe gen 4 storage capabilities. You should be able to get the Tomahawk Max motherboard by the time you buy, wasn't listed yet but is releasing right now. It has a larger storage chip for the BIOS which will allow it to run the full fat/fancy GUI that MSI have developed for the Ryzen 3000 series. Came to $1002 inc. rebates. You'll just need to add on O/S, presumably Win10.


3342

[Cam]

I hit the easy button and configured a system with Velocity Micro. Don't judge me! :lol: I had one of their PCs in the past and had a positive experience with their customer support. I know I could have saved a bit of money building it myself, but I am not concerned. I will not get it for a week or two.

Edit: I attached a screen grab of the specs, but the forum auto-shrunk it so small that it is illegible. :erm:

[Cam]

http://cameronporter.net/PC1.PNG

[Blerpa]

RAM with Ryzen must be, AT LEAST, 3000Mhz, if not better 3200Mhz. Under 3000Mhz you can have 40% performance loss, seriously.
Also, get 2x8gb, you will losing out going with only one stick of ram at single channel instead of 2 sticks going dual channel.
Single channel is a big no no.
8gb of ram is base minimum for gaming and it's not going to be enough for rendering videos and/or streaming.

Get a B450 motherboard, but it must be MAX or MAX PLUS, otherwise you would not be able to mount directly a Ryzen 3xxx on it.
Also, is that motherboard a Micro ATX one? Why? Unless you are going with a small case you should always go for normal ATX motherboards.

The Crucial MX500 SSD is fine, I use it two myself, one for the OS (250gb) one for the games (500gb).
For mechanical HDDs go for Toshiba or decent WD, at least 7200rpm, obviously.

GTX 1650 is a shitty video card: under the 1660 you go for AMD always. RX 580 8gb or RX 570 8gb. Also, 4gb in GPUs for modern games do not cut it.

[Cam]

It's already bought and paid for. It will be fine, really.

[Blerpa]

Oh, I didn't read properly!
Well, you can always upgrade it later, thankfully that is feasible with a PC!

So... congrats on the new PC! :cool:

[Cam]

:lol: Yeah, I was not clear that I actually bought it.

It will primarily be a work machine. I do most of my gaming on Xbox.

My ten-year old PC edits my video just fine. I could buy a "shitty" machine by today's standards and it would still be better than my current one. :lol:

[Alan P]

:lol: Yeah, I was not clear that I actually bought it.

It will primarily be a work machine. I do most of my gaming on Xbox.

My ten-year old PC edits my video just fine. I could buy a "shitty" machine by today's standards and it would still be better than my current one. :lol:

Out of interest did the builders make any recommendations about spec such as Blerpa above has mentioned? Like RAM speed?

An upgrade to the RAM isn't a massive expense though. https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820232742

[Cam]

It will be fine, really.

[Rare White Ape]

Same thing happened top me, Cam.

Ask for advice, you get crickets.

Buy a PC, and all these loveable souls come out of the woodwork and tell you what you should've bought instead :p

[Blerpa]

4 different people, you included RWA, suggested him what to buy, before, mind.

[JoeW]

I agree with Cam. For the money it will be fine.

Even doing all the changes Blerpa recommended above you might gain a second on boot up time. All your programs will run just fine. I guarantee you that under regular day to day computing loads you couldn’t tell the difference between your computer and a computer built with his changes.

[drew]

Having gone the NVMe "hard drive' route on this one, I will never use anything but, going forward.

[JoeW]

Same. Nvme rules.

[Cam]

I <3 you guys.

[Alan P]

Sorry if you felt we were being Preachy Cam, just trying to get your best bang for buck. :) It'll be a grand machine and that's no doubt!

[Rare White Ape]

Having gone the NVMe "hard drive' route on this one, I will never use anything but, going forward.

I've only got a lowly WD Green for my M.2 boot drive. It's nothing like NVMe but I am still smitten with it.

I've already filled my 1TB storage drive with games and other crap, so there's a good excuse to by a 1TB SSD for game storage.

[drew]

A few months ago I bought a Discology 218+ (I believe upon recommendation from one Joe W). I only have on drive in it (6TB, 1.5 left), after I offloaded everything we both have, to it.

When I bought her a Dell G5 for work, I instantly ripped out the stock 128GB M2 boot drive and put a 500GB in (later turning that 128GB drive into a super speed USB drive). Once I saw how quickly it booted up, I went right back to Amazon and got a 500GB Samsung 970 Pro for my main desktop.

That being said, I have spares all over the place:

Samsung 840 EV0 SSD, a 4TB WD Green (currently acting as backup drive in my work desktop), 3 (!) 1TB WD Blue 2.5, a 2TB WD USB3, and 2TB WD green 3.5.

If I pooled them all together, I'd be a little north of about 22TB. wtf

[dodint]

I <3 you guys.

I'm excited for you to be iRacing soon. ;)

[Cam]

You may kid, but I have actually considered it. You pointed me to that guy that basically designs liveries and uses the money to pay for iRacing. It is not outside the realm of possibility that I may try it at least. :D

[dodint]

You'd be great at it.

iRacing nearly always does a Black Friday promo and it's generally their best of the year. I'll pass it along when I see it.

[Rare White Ape]

That’s coming up soon isn’t it?

:thoughtfully scratches chin:

[Cam]

Hmm... seems they are dragging their heels a bit getting it assembled. Original ship estimate was Friday. In their defence, they do say to allow 5-10 business days.

[Cam]

It finally shipped. They took their damn time. :erm:

[Cam]

Finally got it. I only ordered it a month ago. I had a good experience in the past with Velocity Micro, so that is why I ordered from them again. I am not very impressed with their performance this time.

[dodint]

:(

How's the rig, otherwise?

[Cam]

Win10 will take a bit of getting used to. Haven't really had a chance to try anything yet. Although, I did install rFactor 2, but haven't run it. :D I am still setting things up. I had to order an adapter to connect my Cintiq to the video card (DVI-I to Display Port). It will take a few days to get here. I have to either network my old machine to my new machine to transfer files or install my old main HD in the new machine.

[Cam]

I did some solo laps in rFactor 2 last night with a controller. It was nearly undriveable, but it looked sweet. :lol:

[Alan P]

Win10 will take a bit of getting used to. Haven't really had a chance to try anything yet. Although, I did install rFactor 2, but haven't run it. :D I am still setting things up. I had to order an adapter to connect my Cintiq to the video card (DVI-I to Display Port). It will take a few days to get here. I have to either network my old machine to my new machine to transfer files or install my old main HD in the new machine.

I use a shell for the start menu to make it much more like Windows 7's. It's called Classic Shell. http://www.classicshell.net/

[Cam]

I just want to report that my new system runs rFactor 2 and iRacing beautifully. :D

I should also mention that the adapter I ordered never shipped. I cancelled the order and I'm working on getting it somewhere else. :rolleyes:

[drew]

I use a shell for the start menu to make it much more like Windows 7's. It's called Classic Shell. http://www.classicshell.net/

Interesting. That's what I cringed about when I first got on W10, all previous versions had "classic" settings....

I use "Quick Launch" a lot, and you have to manually set that up on 10 as well (although, having done it at least 30 times on various machines, I can type the path from memory...)

[Rare White Ape]

I gave up on using quick launch. It's a good idea and was very handy back in the day, but these days I just pin whatever apps I need to the taskbar.

[drew]

I'm just so used to using it, and setting it up first thing after a new install, I don't even realize I do it.

[Rare White Ape]

It's time to let go Drew.

[Yw-slayer]

Yes. Can't hold it back anymore.

[drew]

Never! Fuck. All. Of. You.

[Rare White Ape]

You can’t fight it, but we won’t fight you. When you do eventually decide to make the change, we’ll be here for you.

*hugs*

[drew]

I'm a stubborn motherfucker. :finger:

[Cam]

I ordered moar RAMZ!!1! I will be doubling my current 8 GB.