Build your own computer guide
- Thread starter Bonhomme Richard
- Start date
I sure hope not. All this coronavirus-fueled scalping is getting to the point where, just like oil/gas and telecom industries before them, I'm worried the scalpers will deliberately start to take actions in order to prolong the current situation just so they can keep their profit margins nice and high for as long as possible.
--Patrick
No doubt they will. But modern day graphics and games really don't need a lot more improvement - while they're will always be people chasing that one extra shiny pixel, the pressure to upgrade really isn't what it was 1990-2010. If they push prices that high it may well result in a crash... Guess we'll see who can survive on office boxes, laptops and mining rigs alone.
I wish you were right, but with games/software starting to require specific minimum revisions of SSE/AVX/FMA/DirectX or whatever, Anyone running Broadwell (2014) or older is gonna hit a point where they have to upgrade because the software makers are deliberately choosing to leave them behind.
Heck, with all the scalpers jacking up prices, I want to know if there's even such a thing as an "Apple Tax" any more.
--Patrick
I had heard that this is a bad time to build a new PC but I would still like to build my first one by the end of year if possible. I am looking to stream games for the most part with a budget of $1500-$2k. Any suggestions on parts for a build? I'm willing to use last gen parts too if that helps to keep things in budget.
That's enough for a GPU. Barely.
GasBandit
Staff member
Right now the only way to get a decent gaming rig with a good GPU for under 2k is pretty much to buy a laptop. All the discrete GPUs are still being gobbled up by crypto miners and scalpers. It's a real mess.
But here, have a look at this:
ASUS TUF Gaming F17 Gaming Laptop, 17.3" 144Hz Full HD IPS-Type, Intel Core i7-11800H Processor, GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB DDR4, 512GB PCIe SSD, Gigabit Wi-Fi 6, Windows 10 Home, TUF706HE-DS74 - Newegg.com
Buy ASUS TUF Gaming F17 Gaming Laptop, 17.3" 144Hz Full HD IPS-Type, Intel Core i7-11800H Processor, GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB DDR4, 512GB PCIe SSD, Gigabit Wi-Fi 6, Windows 10 Home, TUF706HE-DS74 with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
It's $1300, has a 3050ti and 16gb of ram - not future proof, but definitely good enough to stream 1080p gaming, and entry level (non-streamed) VR.
You heard correctly.
There are quite a few used GPUs coming onto the market as China cracks down on mining, but most of those are cards that have been rode hard and put away wet, as they say. DA's not too far off the mark, since the best values in the GPU market these days are either the 8GB AMD "Polaris" (RX 4x0/5x0) or NVIDIA 1060 6GB cards. And when I call them "best value" it's because they're "only" going for double the MSRPs they were released at FIVE YEARS AGO.[A budget of $1500-$2000 is] enough for a GPU. Barely.
Prices on CPUs seem to be getting closer to "normal," but there's still quite a ways to go before we're back to pre-pandemic levels. If you're going to be streaming then you probably want 8-core, and best value mainstream 8-core CPUs are going to be Ryzen 7 5800X or Core i7-11700K (though the Core i7 draws noticeably more power than the Ryzen) and the Ryzen 7 5700G or Xeon W-1370P are essentially identical in performance if you can't find either of the first two. All of 'em are probably going to go for around $400 or so not counting a fancy cooler. Motherboards are $200-300. RAM isn't supposed to come off its high prices for another few months. SSDs are still kinda high but you can get decent 2TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe drives for $250-$300 (and really you don't need PCIe 4 drives yet). Basically you're looking at about $850-$1100 for a desktop build minus a graphics card, but then you gotta tack on the cost of whatever GPU you can manage to find, which will probably add anywhere from $700-$2500. Radeon 6700 XT or 3060 Ti are probably the most affordable current-generation cards, but they're currently going for $600-700 IF you can find them. Don't get the 6600 XT, though. It's not garbage, exactly, but it is a disappointment.
--Patrick
Thank you all for the input. I guess I'll just have to keep waiting and keep saving up money
GasBandit
Staff member
And I just noticed that laptop I posted also has a thunderbolt port, which is nice. A thunderbolt dock can take a lot of the sting out of laptop ownership, as it lets you have a single plug for your home setup (multiple monitors, keyboard, mouse, game controllers, ethernet port, headset, other USB devices, etc).
I use one at work and I've really been considering getting one for home, except the cheapskate in me balks at paying for something for work out of my own pocket.
I use one at work and I've really been considering getting one for home, except the cheapskate in me balks at paying for something for work out of my own pocket.
Many (most?) computers that come with Thunderbolt (rev 3 and newer) ports will also let you attach a GPU externally (software permitting) for when you want to switch to Serious Gaming Mode, and while TB3+ is technically a slower connection than having that GPU installed internally, it'll still be better performance than whatever graphics chips usually come inside of laptops.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
Those external GPU enclosures start at around $400 though, don't they? Kind of a good way to blow the budget, though a viable option for the people who absolutely need to have a laptop that they also want to game on, and want to be able to upgrade the GPU in the future, and for whom money is no object.
Decent ones can be had for as little as $250, and what you get is a box containing a fan, a slot (or two) for the card(s), a power supply and board to translate between PCIe and Thunderbolt, and sometimes additional USB or Ethernet ports. This does not factor in the cost of the GPU, of course, which is still going to dwarf the cost of the box itself. Yes, these "eGFX" boxes are usually associated with people who want to "supercharge" their otherwise anemic laptop so they can game, but they're also used by people who take their laptop into the field to get the data, but then take it back home to process, or by people who want to add additional NVMe storage, video capture/processing cards, and the like. It's not JUST for graphics cards, y'know.
I think the people that want to stream but for whom money is no object are instead going to build one of those systems that's two computers in one case, where they put two computers in their computer so they can stream while they game.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
You really don't need a second computer to stream unless you're streaming VR (or streaming a console, if you count the console as the "first computer"). Especially if you're using an NVidia GPU.
For 1080p streaming, even my 1060 3 gig can handle simultaneously streaming and playing.
Really, I think if I could just find a cost effective way to go up to 32 gigs of RAM, I'd be set for the next few years. But I'm using four 4-gig sticks now, filling all my ram slots. So I'd have to chuck those and buy four 8-gig sticks (or two 16-gig sticks) and the cost is nnnyyeghhh... and I curl my toes at 16 gigs of perfectly good RAM just getting yanked and doing nothing.
For 1080p streaming, even my 1060 3 gig can handle simultaneously streaming and playing.
Really, I think if I could just find a cost effective way to go up to 32 gigs of RAM, I'd be set for the next few years. But I'm using four 4-gig sticks now, filling all my ram slots. So I'd have to chuck those and buy four 8-gig sticks (or two 16-gig sticks) and the cost is nnnyyeghhh... and I curl my toes at 16 gigs of perfectly good RAM just getting yanked and doing nothing.
SK hynix NVMe drives on sale over at Amazon. $60/108/224 for 500MB/1TB/2TB
I wanted to mention this, too. The SK Hynix "Gold" drives have been a really good value in both SATA and NVMe since they came out, but their biggest drawback has been that the line was only available up to 1TB. As of last week, though, they finally introduced the 2TB model they've been promising, and announced they were putting the whole lineup on sale the very next week (which is now). They're only PCIe v3.0 (not 4.0), but they perform well, they're all single-sided, have a 5yr warranty, and they're TLC (instead of QLC).
--Patrick
Do y'all think the upcoming Intel ARC graphic cards will be worth looking into/early adopting? It seems interesting to me because I've always had intel CPUs in my computers. I thought about switching to Ryzen for my build but if Intel is gonna enter the GPU field competitively, I wouldn't mind staying blue
GasBandit
Staff member
It's all conjecture at this point. Intel has historically put out top shelf processors and rock bottom awful GPUs. Until I start seeing benchmarks for the ARC (first one will be called "Alchemist") up on videocardbenchmark.net, I'm going to take their claims that it will be similar to a 3070 with the world's hugest grain of salt.
figmentPez
Staff member
It's not just performance I'm skeptical of, I'm wondering about what Intel's drivers and control panel options are going to look like. I have a feeling people are going to complain less about AMD's drivers when they see Intel's.
I WANT to properly respond to this, but there's no point because it would just be a continuation of screaming into /dev/null.
--Patrick
I am so glad I got my rx 5700 xt for cheap, before the market crashed. Too bad i gifted my 480, including all the old parts of my pc, to a friend of mine. Build her a budget pc from the parts. But hey, I converted her from console to pc and now we play dont starve and stardew valley together.
Was first tempted to use raise money to upgrade the CPU on the B450 Tomahawk desktop. With other sales and a possible bonus coming, I'm now thinking of just going (mostly) new with an X570 motherboard and a Zen 3 CPU. GPU replacement is currently out of the question, so the RX 580 will get scavenged out of the old box when and if this happens.
Dude, I'm trying to put together a brand new 2021 Rocket Lake system, and this is the same thing I'm going to have to do.
--Patrick
WHY!?
To quote Tech Jesus, "WASTE OF SAND." If you haven't already bought the CPU, stop. Just forget the 11th gen even exists.
I think I was having overheating problems with my last desktop bc florida but I didn't have the tools or experience to test every part individually to see where it was failing. Bought a laptop instead but the hinge broke and it's tearing the screen off now
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The 6700XT MSRP is $479. Good luck finding one for under a thousand anywhere.
Fuck crypto.
Hell, I haven't felt the need or urge to replace the 1070 I bought years ago. I very briefly considered upgrading my mb/cpu when the i5-7600k turned out not to be win11 compatible...and then I said "who cares?" Win 10 is working fine for me, and the types of games I play also work just fine. I bought these with the expectation they'd last me a good long while. Looks like they're going to last me a bit longer yet.
Paid $230 for the CPU and $394 for the graphics card in 2017. Looks like it was money well spent.
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We already sorta had this discussion.
To more specifically answer your "Why?" though, it's because that seems to be the only way to get PCIe 4.x alongside guaranteed ECC support and without the USB issues plaguing the X570 boards.
My second choice is Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G, but again, difficult to acquire at the moment (and does not have PCIe v4 support, only PCIe v3).
--Patrick
If there is an Xmas bonus this year, and if it's anything like last year's if there is, I'll be in the market for a CPU upgrade. The 5900X is currently on sale, at a price-per-core that makes it the best value of all the 5000 series Ryzen CPUs.
BUT...
If I just upgrade the CPU, it's still saddled with a B450 motherboard and an RX 580 GPU. Meaning a lot of wasted potential left on the table. The 5600X is the lightest hit to the wallet, but doesn't bring as much bang for the buck. Decisions, decisions...
BUT...
If I just upgrade the CPU, it's still saddled with a B450 motherboard and an RX 580 GPU. Meaning a lot of wasted potential left on the table. The 5600X is the lightest hit to the wallet, but doesn't bring as much bang for the buck. Decisions, decisions...