figmentPez
Staff member
And now I can't even talk to Woot customer service. I get put on hold and then the call hangs up on me.
[Rant] Tech Minor Rant Thread
- Thread starter DarkAudit
- Start date
It's really hard to say "Here's what you should buy regardless of budget" because the top end of budget is limitless, you can always spend more, but the amount you spend for the performance increased is going to have diminishing returns. Some people need those higher marks, some people don't, I'm going to guess you don't.
So instead, what's your budget you're looking to spend, and what are you looking to do. Mostly playing games? Are you keeping your monitor? What's the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor. Is it 4k? 2K? 1080p? What are some of your favorite games, or what are some games you'd really like to be able to play?
Gimme a short list of those answers and I'll see if I can come up with something. I really enjoy building and shopping for computers. Though do note that my opinions and Pats differ on what one should focus on, because I know he'll have some slightly different answers to what I'll give (hint, if your budget is really constrained I'm going to skimp a lot more on the cpu, he doesn't like to do that)
figmentPez
Staff member
That's why I said "bang for the buck". I'm trying to figure out what the god damn fucking price break is. Where does price to get more start to skyrocket? Where is the floor where saving a buck means loosing a lot of utility? Anything to help me narrow down the choices. FFS.
I'm too upset right now to answer more. God dammit. I'm not completely unaware of the concept that computers have a nearly unlimited price ceiling. I'm just trying to figure out what the current pricing curve is.
I'm trying to not take my frustration out on others, but I want to scream right now.
Well, for about $600 I can give you a parts list that will play just about any modern game at 1080p max settings no problem, and higher resolution at around medium settings with also no problem, though 4k is going to be limited if you care about that (I think 2k is the sweet spot).
For a thousand dollars, probably closer to around 1200 or 1300 dollars, I can get you a computer that does all that at 2K with max settings and full raytracing on (I can speak from experience that finding games that utilize ray tracing well can be hard but some, like cyberpunk, look damn cool) but also maybe you don't care about ray tracing or running at full resolution and would rather have that extra money in your pocket.
Lemme shop around a little, I'll put together some options.
GasBandit
Staff member
A Mid-tier LCD steam deck ($450) and dock ($40). Using your existing 1080p display, mouse, and keyboard.
A 1TB SD card in the above steam deck.
That should be sufficient for gaming, if you need media storage, I suggest a NAS or USB external drive
That depends entirely on what you're going to do with it. Latest, greatest, biggest, nastiest games on a windows system? Yes.
On a steam deck? No.
I haven't tried the cloud storage on it, but I have DEFINITELY done real monitor (1080p) gaming on my steam deck. The exact steam deck and dock I recommended above.
This is me, playing Doom (2016) and using halforums on my steam deck.
figmentPez
Staff member
NAS are expensive. Can you leave a USB HDD plugged in 24/7 and not have it die?
That's a make or break issue for me.
I agree with you, gas, that this is probably the best 'bang for buck' you can get with a prebuilt, but I also think Pez would hate it. No offense at all meant to Pez, I'm not saying he isn't technically handy, but I get the very, very strong feeling that he doesn't want to have to futz around with settings and tinker with things to get them to work. And while I love the steam deck, it is for tinkerers, not for people who just want something that will work.A Mid-tier LCD steam deck ($450) and dock ($40). Using your existing 1080p display, mouse, and keyboard.
View attachment 50013
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A 1TB SD card in the above steam deck.
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That should be sufficient for gaming, if you need media storage, I suggest a NAS or USB external drive
That depends entirely on what you're going to do with it. Latest, greatest, biggest, nastiest games on a windows system? Yes.
On a steam deck? No.
I haven't tried the cloud storage on it, but I have DEFINITELY done real monitor (1080p) gaming on my steam deck. The exact steam deck and dock I recommended above.
This is me, playing Doom (2016) and using halforums on my steam deck.
@figmentPez I'm going to make this easy for you. Buy this:
Is this the perfect gaming pc? Of course not, some compromises were made. Will you notice them playing at 1080p? (since that seems to be your monitor) I doubt it. You might want to upgrade the RAM at some point but that can always come later.
If you want a slightly higher spec machine to go above 1080p performance, try this:
Again, you'll want to upgrade the ram at some point, and the downside to this one is it's fuck ugly, but we don't care about looks, we care about performance. But if you're happy with 1080p I think the first one is a pretty darn good value.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yes, On my previous server, I left 4 USB HDs plugged in for about 4 years straight before they started to die (in the same order I got them). They're really, usually, just regular SATA hard drives with a squished-on USB adapter built in to the "case."
That Wal-Mart computer Poe linked might be the way to go if you absolutely have to do windows, which will make things like onedrive much easier to accomplish.
While I know you're not especially interested in building your own PC, I'd still suggest having a look at https://www.logicalincrements.com/ to see what kind of power you can expect for what kind of budget, and what trade-offs may or may not be worth it. Obviously when going with a pre-built PC you'll always be subject to some whims of whoever made it, and it'll be slightly more expensive bang-for-buck-wise, but it's still a good comparison point. Also because they do a fairly good job of rating their price builds for several types of use, e.g.:
Is that $80 more worth it? Not if you're only using it for web surfing, but for gaming, probably, yeah.
$120 more, but...no really big improvement. Worth it? Eh, maybe a bit more future-proof.
Are you going to be doing any 4K gaming, VR, rendering? No? Then everything above this is pretty much overkill at the moment.
Is that $80 more worth it? Not if you're only using it for web surfing, but for gaming, probably, yeah.
$120 more, but...no really big improvement. Worth it? Eh, maybe a bit more future-proof.
Are you going to be doing any 4K gaming, VR, rendering? No? Then everything above this is pretty much overkill at the moment.
A lot of my questions are going to relate to longevity. Is it more important to compute and play NOW, or do you want something that's "good enough" but that you can swap out a piece or two to keep you going for another few years? I tend to lean more towards the latter just because of the long-term benefits, but if you're willing to sacrifice a few years on the far end, you can still get 3-5yrs out of something less expensive.
My wife is waiting anxiously to go over Black Friday deals she has found before they expire in ten minutes or whatever, I will try to research some value parts once she has calmed down.
--Patrick
My wife is waiting anxiously to go over Black Friday deals she has found before they expire in ten minutes or whatever, I will try to research some value parts once she has calmed down.
--Patrick
Entirely IMO, some hastily compiled examples of "value" are:
CPU - AMD 5800XT (8 core) - $200
SSD - Decent 2TB SATA SSD 2.5in - $200
GPU - RTX 3060 12GB - $300
But throw a decent PSU and case in there and we're already talking about something north of $1000, and we haven't even gotten to RAM yet. So any place advertising a full package for under $1200 is probably worth it just to scavenge for parts. Of course, if they're giving it to you all in one box, you probably won't be paying the above "single-part" rates, so there's that.
--Patrick
CPU - AMD 5800XT (8 core) - $200
SSD - Decent 2TB SATA SSD 2.5in - $200
GPU - RTX 3060 12GB - $300
But throw a decent PSU and case in there and we're already talking about something north of $1000, and we haven't even gotten to RAM yet. So any place advertising a full package for under $1200 is probably worth it just to scavenge for parts. Of course, if they're giving it to you all in one box, you probably won't be paying the above "single-part" rates, so there's that.
--Patrick
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figmentPez
Staff member
I'm having such trouble with this because money is one of my major anxiety triggers. I really don't have a clue about my financial situation, or how to plan for my future. I've avoided thinking about money as much as possible for a long time because I've already been up to my eyeballs dealing with the stress of just keeping myself alive. I realize that I'm very privileged to be able to ignore money and still live in comfortable housing with a steady supply of food and entertainment. I can't expect anyone to make financial decisions for me, so I was hoping to get an idea of what "normal" people do when deciding how much to spend on a computer, so at least I could say I was being reasonable by some standard.
Demanding games I'm most looking forward to: Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Borderlands 4 and here's my Steam Wishlist
Realistically I have a huge backlog of games I could have been perfectly happy playing on my old system, so I don't really need something capable of doing ray-tracing and other cool stuff, but I'm very interested in playing with all that cool stuff. I just don't know if I can justify it.
Gaming is my main hobby, if only because it's the hobby I can most easily participate in. All my other computer related interests can be handled by just about any PC these days (streaming video, word processing, art via Inkscape, etc.) I'd probably stream if I had enough headroom to do so, but I play enough low demand games that I can stream with any computer.
---
Still waiting for a more general answer to:
2. What would you do to expand the storage on a system that only comes with a 1TB SSD?
I know that 1TB won't be enough storage for me. I was always running out of storage when I had a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. Still not sure if my 6TB internal HDD is actively dying, or if it just got wounded when I accidentally bumped my computer case while it was running.
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Any thoughts on this system: iBUYPOWER TraceMesh 7 Gaming Desktop - 14th Gen Intel Core i7-14700F - GeForce RTX 4060 - Windows 11 - 32 GB RAM - 2TB SSD - Black $1,000
My current monitor is 1080p 144Hz FreeSync. I'd love to upgrade to a higher resolution display, but... see above.
Demanding games I'm most looking forward to: Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Borderlands 4 and here's my Steam Wishlist
Realistically I have a huge backlog of games I could have been perfectly happy playing on my old system, so I don't really need something capable of doing ray-tracing and other cool stuff, but I'm very interested in playing with all that cool stuff. I just don't know if I can justify it.
Gaming is my main hobby, if only because it's the hobby I can most easily participate in. All my other computer related interests can be handled by just about any PC these days (streaming video, word processing, art via Inkscape, etc.) I'd probably stream if I had enough headroom to do so, but I play enough low demand games that I can stream with any computer.
You have not been playing Marvel's Spider-Man at 1080p 60fps on a Steam Deck. Now, I'm no stranger to playing games at lower than native resolutions, but if I'm not going to take advantage of the Steam Deck's portable nature, then it's not hard to find a desktop that can outperform it.
Probably something that's "good enough" in regards to the video card/RAM. Upgrading a processor sucks, IMO, and see below for how I already want more storage than most of these systems come with (though I don't really need it all in an SSD, I'm fine with swapping stuff on and off of other storage. I rarely play more than one big game at once.)
---
Still waiting for a more general answer to:
2. What would you do to expand the storage on a system that only comes with a 1TB SSD?
I know that 1TB won't be enough storage for me. I was always running out of storage when I had a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. Still not sure if my 6TB internal HDD is actively dying, or if it just got wounded when I accidentally bumped my computer case while it was running.
---
Any thoughts on this system: iBUYPOWER TraceMesh 7 Gaming Desktop - 14th Gen Intel Core i7-14700F - GeForce RTX 4060 - Windows 11 - 32 GB RAM - 2TB SSD - Black $1,000
Roughly the same performance as the first Walmart PC I linked you but for $300 more. You do get more cores for your money but I don't think you'll notice the difference for your use case. But it's not bad if that's what you want to go with.
figmentPez
Staff member
I will notice the 2TB SSD, though.
IMO, for a system that is intended for "gaming" these days, it would be completely reasonable to expect a quote of $1800-$2500 for a "decent" system.
1080p is still completely reasonable, no matter what you hear anyone else say, even the "1440p is the new 1080p" people. Time and time again, polls and informal research prove that gamers rank fps as more important than screen resolution, and it is easier to achieve 144fps with a modest graphics card at 1080p than it is at 1440p.
Pretty simple here, just add another drive. Whether you add it internally or externally depends on your purpose: Does it need to be always available to you while you use your computer? Does the speed with which you move stuff onto/off the drive matter? If so, add it internally. Whether you choose SSD or HDD depends on capacity, cost, and, as you already mentioned, vibration resistance. It also depends on intended purpose. Is it just additional storage? Is it also being used as a disaster backup? Many people make the mistake of believing that an external drive is somehow magically more reliable than a drive mounted inside of a computer, which is not the case. If you have something you don't want to lose (documents, saved games, game installers, TaleSpin porn, whatever), then your only real defense is to have that content stored in/on a minimum of TWO devices. So if transfer speed is not an issue, you might want to set your sights on two mechanical drives...a 2TB for inside the computer, and a (minimum) 3TB for outside the computer to hold a second copy of everything important from the first two. This is not an(other?) attempt to ratchet up your anxiety, I promise. I just get to witness (at my job and IRL) far too many people lose all their stuff waaay too often, and I don't want you to have to deal with that, and so I am taking the opportunity to again remind everyone that losing your stuff sucks and backing things up is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to avoid that mess.
tl:dr; Buy two drives. Make backups.
(conventional) SSDs are faster than HDDs by 4-5x when it comes to reading data. But they are 40-50x faster at finding that data (the so-called "random reads" statistic in the reviews you might see) which is where they really shine. These days a bare 2TB HDD can be had for ~$70, but since the price for bare 4TB HDDs is frequently only $5-10 more, it makes more financial sense to go for the 4TB. A (decent) 2TB (SATA 2.5in) SSD can set you back about $150, with a 4TB version costing $300 or more, so if you're considering getting a SSD as a second drive because you want faster transfers, or because you intend to work with multimedia files (e.g., video/audio editing) and want the faster access time, you just have to balance whether that increased speed is worth the noticeable increase in the price per gigabyte (drives are frequently ranked by review sites with "$/GB" so you can figure out the breakpoint of price v. capacity).
Why does iBUYPOWER make it so hard to look up their specs? Argh! Anyway...
...only real complaint (aside with their lack of transparency with the exact parts used AND of course their insistence on Win11) is with the RTX 4060, but that's NVIDIA's fault, not yours. The 8GB issue is a real thing, but it matters more to the people using screens 1440p and up than it will to you and your 1080p screen. The same caveats apply about checking for BIOS upgrades to ensure your CPU doesn't degrade prematurely, of course. And I guess after the last incident you would want to visit the websites of every single component in the machine to see whether they have updates for their respective bits as well. The rest of the system is fairly decent, going purely by the stated specs, and should easily be relevant for the 3-5 year "cushion" I like to see.
Oh, and I tend to hate tempered glass on cases, so you might want to use your crafting skills to apply a layer of window film to the inside surface of that case panel. If the glass never breaks, then you just have a nifty visual feature (depending on which film you choose), but if it ever does shatter, cleanup will be a LOT easier.
Anyway blah blah I really hope you get this all straightened out and we can start hearing about how wonderful it is to play something newer than 2022 at higher than 35fps.
--Patrick
figmentPez
Staff member
No so simple on my last prebuilt. It had two SATA ports on the motherboard, both were occupied. There were no extra drive bays inside the tower. To increase the storage on that one I had to replace one of the existing drives.
And you'll recall that the CyberPowerPC I previously got from Costco lied about how many drive bays it had, and I had to contact tech support to figure out what they were calling a 5.25" bay (spoiler: it was 4 mounting holes in the bottom of the case.)
I'm not making any assumptions about what upgrades I can make these days. Things changed too much since last built a computer. I've never installed something to an m.2 slot. (On my last PC the m.2 slot was filled with the WiFi/Bluetooth module.)
I previously had a 2TB external drive I'd been using for backup, and now have a new 4TB drive I intend to use for backup going forward. If I can't put a HDD inside my new computers case for some reason, I guess I'll use the old 2TB, now that I know external drives can be left on and running.
If you're out of ports, the additional drive doesn't have to be internal, though of course that would mean it's harder to boot from it (if that matters).
I agree that only having 2 SATA ports onboard is borderline neglectful these days, even though optical drives aren't as common now as they used to be.
There are some M.2 ports that don't support drives, basically being just glorified USB ports. WiFi cards will work there, but (most) drives don't.
--Patrick
I agree that only having 2 SATA ports onboard is borderline neglectful these days, even though optical drives aren't as common now as they used to be.
There are some M.2 ports that don't support drives, basically being just glorified USB ports. WiFi cards will work there, but (most) drives don't.
--Patrick
figmentPez
Staff member
Deciding factor: It's in stock at the local Costco and I won't have to put up with the gamble of shipping again.
EDIT: Will be going to get it on Monday. Hopefully it doesn't sell out over the weekend.
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figmentPez
Staff member
I used to build my own PCs. I spent so much time researching parts, and learning all sorts of tips and tricks. Back then I thought I'd always build my own.
But it's been at least a dozen years since I built my last system. It was a Core 2 Duo but I can't remember what Radeon card it had. I built it with one card, but then the PSU died taking that video card and the HDD with it, and I ended up replacing the two-slot card with a single slot from the next generation, or something. Lot of waiting for RMAs and refunds with that build.
I think that was the build where I got it all assembled and it wouldn't boot at first because I had too many stand-offs installed and one of them was shorting the motherboard.
Also, it had an optical drive, but I'm pretty sure that connected via some sort of dedicated (proprietary?) connector. I think it was a laptop drive that was basically built into the case.
Games were almost always CPU bound, but I still played Marvel's Spider-Man at over 40fps with 1080p and medium settings. Well, after the RAM upgraded to 16GB and the SSD to 512GB.
There's zero chance I could have built my own system for that cheap. There would have been a lot of other advantages, but I would have had to pay for them.
---
Also, thinking of nostalgia for old systems. I remember the first time I assembled my own. It was an Athlon XP 1600+ with a Radeon 7500. I went with the Radeon because it was the best for dual monitors. I sacrificed having DX8 compatibility so I could run a 19" CRT and use my old 17" CRT as a secondary (ah, the days of Trinitron). Interestingly enough, it turned out I got generally better gaming performance because of it. The 7500 was excellent for DX7 gaming, and a lot of early DX8 cards couldn't run DX8 games very well.
I think I eventually upgraded the video card to a Radeon 9600XT, which was an impulse buy and not one of my better tech purchases.
But it's been at least a dozen years since I built my last system. It was a Core 2 Duo but I can't remember what Radeon card it had. I built it with one card, but then the PSU died taking that video card and the HDD with it, and I ended up replacing the two-slot card with a single slot from the next generation, or something. Lot of waiting for RMAs and refunds with that build.
I think that was the build where I got it all assembled and it wouldn't boot at first because I had too many stand-offs installed and one of them was shorting the motherboard.
The crazy thing was that, despite the limited expansion options and lackluster amount of RAM, it was a crazy good deal. In 2017 I got an i5-6400 with an RX480, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, 1TB HDD, WiFi, & Bluetooth for under $500 (including tax and shipping). Absolutely insane, at the time, to find a desktop computer that cheap with an SSD and a high end graphics card. It was refurbished, but it was mostly stable (though I had to clean it out regularly to avoid overheating, and near the end of it's life I had to overvolt and underclock the GPU to play some games without crashing).
Also, it had an optical drive, but I'm pretty sure that connected via some sort of dedicated (proprietary?) connector. I think it was a laptop drive that was basically built into the case.
Games were almost always CPU bound, but I still played Marvel's Spider-Man at over 40fps with 1080p and medium settings. Well, after the RAM upgraded to 16GB and the SSD to 512GB.
There's zero chance I could have built my own system for that cheap. There would have been a lot of other advantages, but I would have had to pay for them.
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Also, thinking of nostalgia for old systems. I remember the first time I assembled my own. It was an Athlon XP 1600+ with a Radeon 7500. I went with the Radeon because it was the best for dual monitors. I sacrificed having DX8 compatibility so I could run a 19" CRT and use my old 17" CRT as a secondary (ah, the days of Trinitron). Interestingly enough, it turned out I got generally better gaming performance because of it. The 7500 was excellent for DX7 gaming, and a lot of early DX8 cards couldn't run DX8 games very well.
I think I eventually upgraded the video card to a Radeon 9600XT, which was an impulse buy and not one of my better tech purchases.
figmentPez
Staff member
New PC has been acquired, and partially set up.
Motherboard is an ASUS Prime B760M-A AX6, and I've already updated it to the latest firmware.
SSD is an ADATA Legend 800 Gold 2TB. Haven't updated it yet, but I don't know if it needs anything either.
Any other specs you guys are interesting in knowing?
Should I install Asus Armoury Crate? Opinions online seem to be mixed on if it's useful or bloatware.
Going out to Trader Joe's with my mom and sister today, so I don't know when I'll get to put the new PC through it's paces.
GasBandit
Staff member
I personally would not bother, but I also would not chastise you for deciding to do it yourself. I've had Asus' software packages actually come in handy maybe... twice. And I've been using ASUS gear for 20+ years.
figmentPez
Staff member
This new mouse is something else.