Build your own computer guide

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
PatrThom said:
Building a new system? Make sure you go at least hexacore.
Not building a new system? Consider whether upgrading to a minimum of 16-32GB RAM, switching to an NVMe-based SSD, or upgrading the GPU to a GTX1660 Ti or better will make enough of a difference, and if the answer is that none of them will, then it's time to put all upgrades on hold until you can build a new system with at least 6 cores.

--Patrick
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Eh, looking at their graphs, I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion. I have to chuckle when they call 30fps "unplayable." I remember when 12fps was acceptable in a First Person Shooter.

But I will say, if you plan to do anything VR, you DO need a beefy-ass processor. My recent upgrade from an i5-4670 (quad core) to an i7-4770 (4 core 8 thread) has really made the oculus behave much nicer - and that was just a tiny step up.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
upgrade from an i5-4670 (quad core) to an i7-4770 (4 core 8 thread) [...] was just a tiny step up.
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The difference in clock speeds is very minimal (max 100MHz difference, or about 2.5%, and only when at max turbo boost), but the fact that the 4770 supports twice the number of threads (due to SMT or "Hyperthreading" as Intel calls it) should bring a performance increase of about 30% in multithreaded workloads (those that can take advantage of 5 or more threads). And yeah, that ain't chump change.

--Patrick
 
Far

Far

GasBandit said:
That's a smexy beast.
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That's the hope. I'm having an internal struggle regarding whether to pick up white modular ps cabling as well.


Not really, its gonna happen. I'm just trying to pretend I'm having a quandary about ordering $60 cables...
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Just two bits of advice:

- The 660p is a QLC drive, meaning it has lower endurance and speed (1700MB/s) than, say, a TLC Samsung 970 Pro (3200MB/s) However, the 660p does have the advantage of being a LOT cheaper.

- ALL of the LGA1151-based processors are limited (by Intel) to 16 “direct” PCIe v3.0 lanes (ones which attach directly to the CPU), which they usually expect will go to one x16 slot for a GPU, or perhaps split x8/x8 between two slots to allow XFire/SLI with two GPUs. This means that EVERYTHING ELSE that is not connected to one of these two blessed slots has to share the slower DMI 3.0 link between the CPU and the rest of the motherboard. All the USB ports, the LAN port, the sound, the M.2 slot, any other PCIe slots, and all the SATA ports have to share that one ~4GB/s link. Probably not an issue with the 660p (because it’s too slow...yay?), but installing any faster M.2 drive might be enough to make your LAN/SATA/sound/etc hiccup due to bottlenecking that bus.

For this reason, consider mounting your M.2 drive on a PCIe x4 carrier board and installing it into that second “blessed” slot. Experimentation by people with more time and connections than myself has shown that the performance difference between running a GPU at x8 or x16 is at its absolute worst a paltry 1%, so if you’re willing to sacrifice maybe 1-2 FPS off your graphics, you could noticeably increase the speed/responsiveness of your SSD. This means the board has to be ok with putting something other than a GPU in that second slot, though. Most are, but not all.

—Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Far said:
stuff like this always eludes me.
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Don't feel bad, it eludes most people, because most people don't realize that it would even matter. Heck, back before SSDs, it usually didn't matter, because it would take 8-10 HDDs ganged together before you would hit the kind of bandwidth demands you can get today from even one "average" NVMe SSD. It means having to find a board's "block diagram," which will look something like this:

Intel-Xeon-E-2100-Platform-Cover-696x431.jpg

(This one is generic -- no slot assignments, etc. Incidentally, I know it says "Xeon" on it, but this is essentially the exact same layout as the Z390 that's on the board you chose)

Once you've found it, you can see the paths data will have to take moving from place to place, and trace which slots are hooked up to what chip, and then make some decisions about where your components should be installed in order to cut down on traffic bottlenecks. The motherboard makers don't always make this easy. The manual for that Gigabyte board, for instance, does NOT include a block diagram, so you just have to figure out which slots go to what based on the part that explains "This is shared with this, plugging in an M.2 card will disable SATA ports 0 and 1 and slot 4" kinda stuff.
Far said:
the carrier board you're referring to is one of these guys right?
https://m.newegg.ca/products/N82E16815256024
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That's the simplest kind, yes. Just make sure it's x4. There are also ones that come with heatsinks and/or fans (M.2 cards can get very hot), ones that come with onboard splitters/switches to let you load two cards at once, and even utterly ridiculous ones that let you load four simultaneous cards. Trouble is, once you start getting into the multiple ones (or even fast enough single ones), that's when you could potentially start hitting those bottlenecking limitations I was talking about IF you don't plan ahead of time which slot(s) you'll be using.

--Patrick
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
The GTX 1650s are out, and they seem to perform slightly better than 1060s, and only cost around $150.

So if you are looking to build or upgrade a budget gaming rig on the super cheap, this is it. This is your moment.

Amazon product
 
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PatrThom

PatrThom

And I still hold to my opinion that the only real reason to get a 1650 is because you don't have the budget (either power OR cash) for a 1660Ti.

--Patrick
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

GasBandit said:
The GTX 1650s are out, and they seem to perform slightly better than 1060s, and only cost around $150.

So if you are looking to build or upgrade a budget gaming rig on the super cheap, this is it. This is your moment.

Amazon product
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No, it's not. "Dead on arrival" -- Hardware Unboxed.


"Is Nvidia even trying?" -- JayzTwoCents


Also "Dead On Arrival" -- Gamers Nexus


Smart money buys an RX 570.
 
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PatrThom

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
No, it's not. "Dead on arrival" -- Hardware Unboxed.
"Is Nvidia even trying?" -- JayzTwoCents
Also "Dead On Arrival" -- Gamers Nexus

Smart money buys an RX 570.
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570? Heck, you can get full RX 580’s for ~$160 now. Spend the extra $10 and treat yo'self.

EDIT: Here's another relevant nugget about the 1650 launch (for those who didn't watch any of the above videos):


No Press drivers? No way to test it ahead of time? Then how can we possibly get an idea of its performance?
...though I suppose that does give us some indication of its performance, since they clearly don't want anyone to know how good the card is(n't) prior to launch.

—Patrick
 
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PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
Incidentally the goto "solid performers" right now are the 1TB WD Blue and the SanDisk Ultra 3D, which are pretty much the exact same drive wearing different clothing (WD and SanDisk are the same company now). Both can be had for < $300 and come with a three-year warranty.
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They might have been $300 a year and a half ago, but the 1TB Blue SSDs can now be had for $125-$150 (depending on revision WDS100T1B0A v. WDS100T2B0A with the 2B0A being less expensive), you can now buy the 2TB model of the 2B0A for ~$225 (the 1B0A version only goes up to 1TB), and reports are that a 4TB version is imminent (though it is being listed for ~$625).

So yeah, if you are still using SATA for your daily driver, it's DEFINITELY time to consider stepping up.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

If the latest sidechain vulnerability news has you worried about going with Intel for your next build (which is understandable), you may be interested to know that the fastest AMD CPU for gaming right now* is the Threadripper 2920X, with benchmarks showing it roughly equivalent to that of the (six year old) Intel i7-4770. On the plus side, the 2920X is a newer architecture and has 3 times as many cores as the 4770, but it also requires just over twice the power and costs a little over twice as much. The current darling of non-exotic gaming CPUs is the Intel i7-9700k, which will give you 8 cores that perform ~25% faster than the 4770/2920X for a price that is almost smack in the middle between the two and a power budget only a smidge over that of the 4770, though the 9700k is, of course, a chip that's on Intel's vulnerability list.

EDIT: If you're looking for something less exotic than a Threadripper CPU, the Ryzen 2700X is the best-performing of the "Consumer" lineup and isn't that far behind at about 98% as fast as the 2920X.

--Patrick
*Under the assumption that gaming benefits most from single-thread performance, that is.
 
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Soupy

Soupy

Not a builder or hardware guy by ANY means, so I need some advice. My rig is dying and my wife said 'just order a new one'. I did a few searches and came across this. Any thoughts? I've seen similar rigs on newegg.ca as well or I could just go back to dell/alienware but I feel like i'm paying for the name there.

Feedback appreciated!
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Well, for starters, at this point in history, I wouldn't buy any new AMD-based rig built around any of the pre-Zen CPUs.
If it says it is using an AMD CPU but doesn't say it's using a "Ryzen," "Epyc," or "Threadripper" CPU, you can immediately remove it from consideration.

--Patrick
 
grub

grub

It also is still running DDR3 which is 12 years old, so it won't last much longer.

Another $200 would get you this, which is much newer and will probably last longer.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

The price points for the ones I would consider seem to hover right around US$1100, nothing close enough to the $800 of the TigerDirect one linked earlier.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
If it says it is using an AMD CPU but doesn't say it's using a "Ryzen," "Epyc," or "Threadripper" CPU, you can immediately remove it from consideration.
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Let me add that on the Intel side of the fence, I would only be considering systems powered by 6xxx-series (Skylake) CPUs or newer.
But no matter which camp you pick, I would also skip anything that is not at least 4 full cores, 6 if you can get it.

--Patrick
 
Far

Far

IMG_20190601_012730_224.jpg


IMG_20190531_225755_338.jpg


Mostly done, specs are almost what I'd posted earlier but I dropped a bit off the ram, down to 3200's instead of the 3600 I had and I've yet to buy the M.2 drive, next week.

No trouble during set up, booted first try and runs great so far. Messed a bit around with overclocking it but I'm not gonna go crazy. It's already running like a beast without it.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Just a quick note because I don't remember if anybody ever brought it up before or not, but there's a site called pchound that really comes in handy for figuring out a pc build

http://pchound.com

and it can give you vBcode output so you can paste it in a forum for feedback, for example:

PC Hound Part List - June 2019 AMD good build

CPU: AMD AMD Ryzen 5 2600 ($149.61 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B450 AORUS PRO WIFI ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) TridentZ RGB Series ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 06G-P4-2061-KR ($349.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 750W FOCUS Plus 750 Gold SSR-750FX ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital 500GB BLACK SN750 NVMe WDS500G3X0C ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 100R CC-9011075-WW ($54.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $974.54
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound
 
Terrik

Terrik

GasBandit said:
Just a quick note because I don't remember if anybody ever brought it up before or not, but there's a site called pchound that really comes in handy for figuring out a pc build

http://pchound.com

and it can give you vBcode output so you can paste it in a forum for feedback, for example:

PC Hound Part List - June 2019 AMD good build

CPU: AMD AMD Ryzen 5 2600 ($149.61 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B450 AORUS PRO WIFI ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) TridentZ RGB Series ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 06G-P4-2061-KR ($349.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 750W FOCUS Plus 750 Gold SSR-750FX ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital 500GB BLACK SN750 NVMe WDS500G3X0C ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 100R CC-9011075-WW ($54.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $974.54
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound
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Neat site, but why do I never get any compatibility matches for PC coolers?
 
Terrik

Terrik

That's pretty much all I needed to see. Especially since the i9-9900k is on a dead-end socket, and at the very least, you can upgrade to the next version of Ryzen chips without having to replace the motherboard
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit



tl;dw: Ryzen Zen 2 marginally worse than intel at gaming, but slaughters the competition at productivity/content creation.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Terrik said:
That's pretty much all I needed to see. Especially since the i9-9900k is on a dead-end socket, and at the very least, you can upgrade to the next version of Ryzen chips without having to replace the motherboard
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I know. So glad I didn't start building the Intel system I'd been musing, for two reasons:

1) The Xeon E-2176G I was considering up 'til now (second bar from bottom in pic above) is competitive, but it is (slightly) more expensive (when you can even find one) and has only 6 cores compared with 8 in the 3800X (which is the CPU I'm considering now). Plus there's that whole Intel speculative TLB Spectre/Meltdown/etc vulnerability thing.

2) All Kaby/Coffee Lake-based Intel chips (such as the 2176G) only have 16 PCIe lanes attached to the CPU, which means that if you want the fastest possible performance, you have to cut your GPU down to 8x so you can use the remaining 8x to attach your SSD(s) directly to the CPU in order to keep them from getting bottlenecked/choked by having to share bandwidth with everything else in the system (USB ports, SATA ports, sound card, Ethernet, etc).

blockdiag.png


The Ryzen 3k I/O allows for twenty total PCIe lanes, which means you can have a full 16 lanes for your GPU and 4 more lanes left over for your main high-performance SSD. Plus (on X570 at least) all those lanes are PCIe 4.0, which means they're twice as fast as Intel's. Additionally, on X570 that bottleneck connecting the CPU to the rest of the system is also PCIe 4.0, which means the bandwidth bottleneck I mentioned earlier has only half as much of an impact.

In short, unless some sort of early-adopter time bomb gets discovered, there's just so many reasons right now not to go with Intel (for a gaming build, at least). Graphics cards might be another story, pretty sure NVIDIA's 2070 Super and 2080 cards are still on top for now.

DarkAudit said:
I still haven't had a chance to check Navi reviews yet. Maybe over breakfast tonight.
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Most recent benches I've seen show 5700xt neck-and-neck with 2060 Super/2070 Standard.

--Patrick
 
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Terrik

Terrik

PatrThom said:
I know. So glad I didn't start building the Intel system I'd been musing, for two reasons:


In short, unless some sort of early-adopter time bomb gets discovered, there's just so many reasons right now not to go with Intel (for a gaming build, at least). Graphics cards might be another story, pretty sure NVIDIA's 2070 Super and 2080 cards are still on top for now.


Most recent benches I've seen show 5700x neck-and-neck with 2060 Super/2070 Standard.

--Patrick
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Eh the 2080ti is still top dog, and I'm going to build a system, you can bet that's going to be included.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Terrik said:
Eh the 2080ti is still top dog, and I'm going to build a system, you can bet that's going to be included.
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Well sure, if you're just going to throw $$$ at it for more FPS, the RTX 2080 Ti is still ~20% faster than the 5700XT, IF you're GPU-bound, that is.

--Patrick
 
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