Any PC Builders Out There?

I just finished this one.
Parvum S 2.5 case, i7, GTX 1070, EK, XSPC, & Monsoon watercooling products.

 

Clean!

 

How bout that nvidia stock?

 

They're making bank. The growth of online clouds and services combined with the jump in multicore performance means piles of servers are being built with Gaming and/or GPGPU's. I can't say though that I understand the roughly 20% stock jump they've had now over the last month. They could be under new threat from AMD and Intel this year, especially since Intel seems to be targeting data center parts with their GPUs.

 

Be gentle, I scrolled through the first few pages and don't know where to start.

Is this the right place to ask for reading material suggestions building a gaming pc and getting my foot in the door?

Not sure how quickly thing evolve and if older posts are still relevant

Thanks guys. Hi @Slashaar!

 

Yes sir. Everything PC related.

 

CPU guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2892TZEZidI
GPU guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoDPTJ-3qCM

If you don't have time to watch here is the short version.

Buy AMD Ryzen 3000 series. Intel makes zero sense at this point dollar for dollar unless you are doing absolutely nothing except gaming, and even then it doesn't make that much sense with zero upgrade path now. If you don't stream go for the 3600/3600x depending on if you can get a 3600x on sale for the same price as a 3600, which has happened a few times recently. If you stream go for a 3800x/3900x depending on the quality you want to stream. If you're new to PCs just use the included AMD cooler, they work pretty good and can be upgraded later.

For Motherboard, figure out your budget and go from there. Read reviews and pick something either X470 or X570 based that cools its VRMs well.

For memory any Ryzen 3000 series loves 3600 mhz memory. Buy a cheap 3600 mhz 2 x 8 GB (16 GB) kit or a more expensive RGB kit if that's your thing.

For GPU, figure out what monitor you're going to drive. If you go cheap 1080p 60 hz buy a 1650Ti. If you get a 1080p 144hz buy a 1660Ti/5600XT/2060 depending on sales, all are good and in that order of power. If you get a 1440p monitor go for a 5700XT or 2070 Super if you want high frame rates. If you go 4K, kiss your ass goodbye and blow your load on the 2080Ti. Brand wise I'd recommend either Gigabyte or AsRock. Powercolor seems to be making some good AMD cards right now too.

For storage... lots of options. Figure out how many games you want to keep on the PC at one time and your storage needs. The goto combo seems to be a NVMe 500 GB boot drive and a 2 TB game storage SSD. Personally I said fuck it and spent slightly more to just go with a 2 TB NVMe drive for faster load times. Either way is good and lots of in between options. Read SSD reviews, all are not equal and it's a complicated situation right now with several different types of cache and NAND flash storage in the wild.

For PSU grab something modular. Safe rule is to use a wattage calculator online and add 30% to whatever it spits out to get good efficiency. Easy rule is to just buy a 750 watt unit (or bigger) and forget about it. Try to get something 80 plus gold or better. My favorite PSUs are EVGA and Corsair.

For case buy whatever but make sure it's easy to work on and has good airflow. Add some fans for cooling and RGB bling if that's your thing, cable manage the hell out of it (lots of good guides on this) and you're done.

 

AMD has 90% market share out the door at retail for home builders, so I'd say AMD owns that market for at least this year. Ryzen 3000/Zen 2 really outperforms Intel dollar for dollar in day to day tasks while tying at gaming. Not much of a contest when AMD will offer an upgrade path to the next CPU they release and is cheaper with a decent included cooler.

 

Well then I know where my money is going in the coming months

 

Sweet. I must be doing alright. I've done a good amount of my own reading and I'm familiar with almost everything you listed. Memory wise that's about what I was looking at (blindly), and was already looking at the 5700xt.

I should add that I do need some actual computing power. Run a few scope programs with the ham radio that deal with a lot of digital mode conversion. It's not super heavy but I figured I should mention it.

I'm a "jet engine" welder by trade and part of me making the switch is to utilize better graphics for my failing eyes. I'm understanding there's a good compromise between frame rate and resolution and hoping it helps my situation.

All in all, I'm excited for this.

 

It'll hurt if you want the top end and go 3950x like I did. Nothing like a 16 core monster than will boost over 4.3 ghz all day long. Then again watching a home PC absolutely slay Cinebench R20 is also priceless lol.

 

If you need processing power and don't mind the cost jump right to the Ryzen 9 3950x. I have one and use it for image stitching drone images. It absolutely redefines "home PC" lol. It's more powerful than my works Xeon and Threadripper rigs that cost over $7K just 2 years ago.

If you go for the Ryzen 9 make sure to get a very good cooler and board. She's a power hungry bitch. Still runs cooler than a 9900K though lol.

 

Is it common to build heat sinks and cools? Part of what I do now. Probably similar size tubing. That would be fun.

I've been watching a lot of this fellas videos. This isn't necessarily what I was looking to build, just seems like he does a an ok job walking through these all and helps me figure out what $ gets you what tier of parts

https://youtu.be/gejkP3PhrCo

I figured at least $800-$1600 depending on what a newbie is going to really appreciate. I also like starting from the middle of the pack so I can appreciate things as the hobby grows for me.

 

No one builds their own heat sink. The design of blocks and heat pipes is a science now and there is no way to get up to retail performance with a home brew solution.

I stick to the main YouTubers for whatever reason, probably because I've watched them for so long. Linus, Jay and Tech Jesus (I always just call Steve that lol) seem to be the most in the know since they get to play with everything before release and they are still not bought off IMHO. Just yesterday Linus basically tore one of his larger sponsors, Corsair, a new one over their new air cooler being not so shit hot (pun intended).

That being said build a custom water loop is pretty fun and might be up your alley. Lots of folks do it and there is more parts selection available now then ever before. That being said a custom water loop for your graphics card and cpu will cost around $800 alone so maybe that's a do it next time sort of thing.

 

@m603holden Linus tried three times to build a heat sink lol. CNC or not their results were not good lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B1kjxO0sxM

 

Awesome. Thanks for the information. I do appreciate the patience.

 

Did I see somewhere that Linus is retiring?
It's been a blast watching his reviews all these years.

 

He made a live stream letting the community that he’s been thinking about retiring, essentially he has no plans to retire but will start stepping back on some projects to have more family time, he’s been telling his wife that he would slow down after “x” milestone and keeps moving the goalposts and he’s realizing he needs more family time.

 

@Sterdog so something like this but switch out the 3200 memory for 3600, and upgrade the power supply? Just in reference to the core components.
https://pcpartpicker.com/b/T9gwrH

I'll have to find some radio nerds to talk power supplies with. Have had issues, albeit not with computer psu, with noise. My radios are of the "hear a cricket fart in Russia" variety. Haha.