Build your own computer guide

PatrThom

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
I bought the 1660 Ti. I am happy that you receive it so well.
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At this moment in time, for what it offers, the 1660 cards are (again, excepting the specific things I call out in the post I linked) as much of a no-brainer as picking the Ryzen R5 3600 for a CPU, and right now the 1660 cards are the Toyota Corolla of graphics cards. If someone were to ask me, "I don't know what I need, what should I get?" then those are the two answers you're almost guaranteed to immediately receive, because by asking that sort of question you have already told me you are probably not the kind of person who is going to worry about things like ECC memory, GPGPU computing, Twitch streaming, etc. :)

--Patrick
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

PatrThom said:
Also going to add that the previous generation 1070, 1070Ti, 1080, and 1080ti actually perform better than any of the 1660 cards (though they do use more power), so if you find a sub-$200 deal on one of those, consider grabbing it.
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I bought a card quite some time ago, and remember spending about $300 (and considering it a good deal at the time) but didn't remember what I had...just opened dxdiag--it's a 1070. I guess It was a good deal after all ;)
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

PatrThom said:
Also, how did you test your power supply to see if it was working? I ask because a computer PSU is designed to not turn on unless it can tell it is actually plugged into something. You can't just plug a PSU into a wall outlet and then plug in a fan or something to see if it's working, you have to do something like this in order to get it to actually fire up.

--Patrick
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It was plugged into the mb at first. Hmmm, flaky at best, it would start spinning some then quit shortly after trying the wire trick. I'll stick with safe then maybe with all the new stuff. :)
 
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PatrThom

PatrThom

The lowest priced 1070-and-above card I could find doing a quick search was a refurbished reference-design 1070 for 199.99.
I was hoping the prices for that generation had fallen further than that by now, but 1080Ti cards even NOW appear to still be going for almost $500 or more, yeesh.

--Patrick
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Doom Eternal was the first (and currently still only) game I can't run on full-bore ultra settings at 1080p on my 1060 3 gig.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
DO NOT get a Vega 56 or Vega 64 for gaming. Yes, they will perform better than either of the 1660 cards, but they do so at something like twice the power/heat budget of the 1660s.
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...also I discovered it appears AMD declared the Vega 56/64 to be end-of-life sometime last July, so I have no idea what that's going to do to prices for the cards now that they've technically been out of production for almost a year.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Tiger Tsang said:
Well got to looking at the dvdrw on the old system. They have the old style connecter and no SATA, new MB is all SATA, oh well.
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New SATA DVD-RW price ~$20-30
v.
SATA<->IDE adapter price ~$20-30

Looks like your wallet may not be able to tell the difference.

--Patrick
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

PatrThom said:
New SATA DVD-RW price ~$20-30
v.
SATA<->IDE adapter price ~$20-30

Looks like your wallet may not be able to tell the difference.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Well not knowing if they'd work, I just spent 30 more bucks and got a blu ray writer. But I think other than whatever gpu i get in a couple of months i'm set.
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

any recommendations on moving most of my info over to the new computer. Various setups, favorites, various games not under steam or gog etc?
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Not really. If you're moving to Windows 10 you'll have to reinstall all of them from scratch anyway because of the newer folder structure.

--Patrick
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

I was not paying the most attention when I bought my case. It does not have any space for optical drives. The drivers for the mobo is on cd.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Tiger Tsang said:
any recommendations on moving most of my info over to the new computer. Various setups, favorites, various games not under steam or gog etc?
Click to expand...
Most Steam or GOG games should be reloaded as they mostly all have cloud saves anyway. If you want, I can give you access to my Dropbox. I'm only using about 37 GB of the 2 TB I pay for, so you'd have plenty of room for your pictures and files until you moved them to the new place.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
I was not paying the most attention when I bought my case. It does not have any space for optical drives. The drivers for the mobo is on cd.
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Fortunately there is nothing saying you have to actually mount the optical drive into the chassis.
Just plug it in and set the naked drive atop a pile of books or something next to your build until you get what you need off it, then remove it.

Can also get USB<->SATA adapters for cheap if you want to keep it on standby in case something like this happens again.

--Patrick
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

I have the adapters. Even an external case I can drop one into. I just assumed the case had a swing out front. I also did not plan on putting a drive on it. It just bothers me that there is no choice. The new case is even larger than my current one.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
It just bothers me that there is no choice.
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Apple may get most of the flak for this (since they were probably the first large mfr to drop it) but really the reason optical media is going away is because even an 8GB dual-layer disc just isn't sufficient any more for people's data storage/transfer needs, and since the assumption is that everyone these days has at least 60Mb/s home Internet (which is A LIE, but that's another story), there's almost no point since that's about a 20min download.

Speaking of which, reinstalling the OS on my computer was an absolute joy because the Ethernet port doesn't work without drivers, but to get them you had to go to their website, but you can't go to their website without Ethernet...etc. Luckily sneakernet still works.

--Patrick
 
Bones

Bones

PatrThom said:
Apple may get most of the flak for this (since they were probably the first large mfr to drop it) but really the reason optical media is going away is because even an 8GB dual-layer disc just isn't sufficient any more for people's data storage/transfer needs, and since the assumption is that everyone these days has at least 60Mb/s home Internet (which is A LIE, but that's another story), there's almost no point since that's about a 20min download.

Speaking of which, reinstalling the OS on my computer was an absolute joy because the Ethernet port doesn't work without drivers, but to get them you had to go to their website, but you can't go to their website without Ethernet...etc. Luckily sneakernet still works.

--Patrick
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and that is why I keep both a dvd and blu-ray in my computer(and I am one of those old weirdos that demands everything on physical media...)
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

Heh, live and learn, need a mount for my ssd. All the parts aren't here anyway :)

And now whether to go with liquid cooler or the one that came with.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

One of the most common mounting solutions for SSDs tends to be double-sided tape.
The boot drive for my NAS computer is suspended by the tension from the power/SATA cables and a piece of packing tape looped around a part of the frame.
People talk about SSDs' speed and lower power consumption, but you never see stuff like "I mounted it with pipe cleaners!" in the advertising.

--Patrick
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

Hmmm doing some research, I should probably just junk the liquid cooler. It never got to get used much before whatever died in the old PC, died. But it is fairly old.

The current big SNAFU is my OS was scheduled for this week, and now it's currently showing May 1.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
To be honest, Tiger, I've really never found a genuine need for liquid cooling. I mean, if you're planning to do some insane overclocking maybe... but I've been air cooling (in Texas!) for forever and the only heat issue I ever had was back on my old 8800 GTX running Crysis, and that was because it was factory overclocked.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Tiger Tsang said:
The current big SNAFU is my OS was scheduled for this week, and now it's currently showing May 1.
Click to expand...
You can always download and make your own installer, and then just wait to activate it until your box comes. The key is all you're really paying for, anyway. Well, and the physical medium, but that's only a small fraction of the price.
GasBandit said:
I've been air cooling (in Texas!) for forever and the only heat issue I ever had was back on my old 8800 GTX running Crysis, and that was because it was factory overclocked.
Click to expand...
Yeah the only reasons I've ever considered liquid cooling were either because I was contemplating an exceedingly hot chip (either inherent or overclocked) or because my goal was to make the machine the quietest it could possibly be. To date, I have never needed to go with liquid cooling to meet either of those goals, I've always managed to find something conventional that did the job.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Just FYI, you don’t need a Windows key to download the .ISO. Microsoft obfuscates the Hell out of it, but the downloads are still accessible without one.

—Patrick
 
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