Any PC Builders Out There?

3D printers out there..anyone familiar with the Creality Ender 3D Pro? Looks like a decent machine and lists for $240, I have one new in box so gonna try for $200..reasonable?

 

Creality is a good brand. I can't say from experience on that model, but a coworker of mine just got the ender 5 and out of the box and assembled, it prints pretty dang good.
It's more about brand than price with these IMHO. I bought a clone of a clone for $160 a while back and it's taken a lot to get fine tuned to where bigger names are out of the gate.

 

I presume too it's like anything else, the more intense/detailed you want to do with it the more it will cost.

 

Not entirely. It's more or less, the more money you put into the initial investment, the better starting quality. You can DIY a 3D printer and fine tune and tweak it till the cows come home and get something close to the expensive ones. Like say Prusas. If you want to drop big money, those are idiot proof and print wonderfully. My cheapo clone of a clone, I can get to that point if I keep dropping money/time into it. Servos upgrades, firmware upgrades, frame upgrades, bed level sensor, high end extruder, etc. The more money on the initial investment saves you time vs cheap ones take more time and patience to tune settings and upgrade things that need it. Like I need to upgrade my belts because the cheapy ones stretch, but for now I'll print an X and a Y belt tensioner to get me by. Servo upgrades too if I want silent running or finer printing.

 

Makes sense, the less fiddling with it now or when you hit a point you need it to do something it can't do as presently constructed. I can't figure getting 200 for a new item that was 250 should be impossible.

 

Maximum guilt today. I gave in and bought my wife a 3060 from a scalper. Only $50 over MSRP but still, I broke down lol.

In all honesty she does a ton of transcription from home and the nVidia Broadcast feature let's her eliminate background noise in a bad recording on the fly and with excellent results. She was going to steal my 3090 if I didn't pony up lol.

 

So what's it been like trying to find components recently? I predicted these shortages, I think successfully, and built my PC around Oct/Nov, just before things started getting really hard to find. Is it still tough out there? I haven't really been looking.

 

Meh, the shortages have been pretty constant since the launch of the this generation of CPUs and GPUs. It was hard to find things 6 months ago and it's just as bad now. Maybe the only difference is scalping was a new issue in November so it was there but not really a focus of the hate or problems. Now though, cards are out there but they aren't ending up with gamers. Most are scooped up by bots for sale to miners or the highest bidder.

Ultimately you can still build a great system today with mild effort. People get caught up in the lack of Ryzen 5900X and 5950X processors, but you can find plenty of 5600X, 10600K, 10700K, and 10850K CPUs on shelves if you look hard enough. You can also easily snipe a GPU from a scalper locally for maybe $50-100 over MSRP if you don't mind getting a 3060Ti or 3070. It's only the 3080 and 6800XT that are nigh impossible to find for GPUs.

 

Plus there is still lots to laugh at. I mean it looks like Intel 12th Gen is a literal going to light on fire CPU which should be interesting. No one knows for sure if Intel is waiting to drop a new BIOS or maybe if the chip will look better as games are built for it. For now though, 11th Gen is looking pretty sexy.

 

It sounds like overkill for her needs but it's always nice to make mama happy.

 

FWIW, my bro replaced our moms computer last year with a refurbished Dell (we split the cost) that was not the newest but not that far behind.

It was reasonably priced and small form factor. She has been very happy with it.

https://www.dellrefurbished.com/

 

Haha do what you want. I build my own for me and my wife.

Her computer is 90% my last gaming one that is complete overkill for her (like I said earlier).

I work for a large government agency that buys Dells by the 10s of thousands per year. The fail rate is as good as any of the other pre-made brands.

Their refurbished stock is actually refurbished and tested.

I wouldn't use one for myself because I play in 4K on the latest games and they could never make a rig to keep up with what I need.

Mom though just wants to watch police chases and compare recipes.

 

It's mom, they do that.

We were texting each other earlier when a wild police chase was going on near LA.

In the middle of it she texts me that her computer is reporting that it has a virus.

Lucky for me my brother stays with them a couple days per week due to his work schedule.

He has the same job as I do. He can figure it out. Love you mom, have him fix it.

 

Honestly, sounds like a good plan. As said a modern hexacore CPU like the 3600 is going to be overkill for her for a long time, which is probably a good thing. Same with the ram.

I might keep an eye out for a cheap GT 1030 for her system. They can come fanless and obviously they aren’t powerful enough to attract attention during this shortage. That way you wouldn’t have to run power to the GPU or worry about a GPU fan failure with an older card. Something I try to manage when I build seniors PCs.

 

Anyone still waiting for a card should get in on this. Probably a better chance than the loaded Newegg raffles.

https://youtu.be/PEw6COB9xD0

 

sounds like a marketing scam to get people to turn on notifications and sub to his youtube

 

LOL yeah it comes off that way. That being said, I think Linus is honest that he isn't interested in becoming like Newegg Canada or something like that. For a long time he's shot straight on what companies are actually trying to do with their products and announcements. I'd take it at face value that while he will absolutely reap some not ignorable secondary profit off the sale of the cards and the follows on his channels, that he isn't doing this for the profit. He's doing it because he might make a little bit of money and he honestly wants more cards to go to gamers instead of miners or for profit black market sales.

 

Had this license plate in front of me at wendys drive through the other day. Thought it was funny.

 

I’m waaaaayyyyyy GPU bound


Side note, I want to try MSFS on my big screen in the living room, I don’t have Ethernet in the living room and no wireless card for my PC, does Ethernet over coax work well? There’s coax I can use that’s run exactly where I need it, and I really don’t want to put more holes in the brick exterior wall.

 

It works fine if you use good kit. This is one I've heard good things about.