Building a gaming PC

[C-Man 27413]

2 hours ago, Doc Reeves said:

It’s not as intimidating as it may sound, it’s just tuning your ram. There’s some real easy walk thrus on YouTube and other boards.  Check it out if you have time it’s pretty straight forward. at best it could really unleash your system at least it’s a fun nuance to do with the kid. 

He'd already fixed the display settings by the time I mentioned it to him. Not sure about the RAM.

[atomheartbevo 90143]

19 hours ago, C-Man said:

I’m just glad the fucking thing turned on!!!

You really should have built an early '90s 486 with him, complete with lots of jumper settings, and lots of blood, thanks to cases designed by sadomasochists.  He would have been swearing like a sailor in no time.

[Capn81 388]

Good stuff, C-man! Hitting the power button for the first time is always exciting and borderline scary.

[seven 1368]

14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

You really should have built an early '90s 486 with him, complete with lots of jumper settings, and lots of blood, thanks to cases designed by sadomasochists.  He would have been swearing like a sailor in no time.

This is one thing I wasn't expecting with the build I did over the summer. I don't think there was a single jumper setting in the whole thing. They really have made the process so much simpler. 

[atomheartbevo 90143]

10 minutes ago, seven said:

This is one thing I wasn't expecting with the build I did over the summer. I don't think there was a single jumper setting in the whole thing. They really have made the process so much simpler. 

Not having to consult a tiny, poorly-printed image of the front-panel connectors is pretty nice.

Today's BIOSes are amazing as well.

And not wondering if you are going to shatter the CPU trying to install it.

[elfenix 34396]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:08 AM, atomheartbevo said:

Not having to consult a tiny, poorly-printed image of the front-panel connectors is pretty nice.

Today's BIOSes are amazing as well.

And not wondering if you are going to shatter the CPU trying to install it.

486s often didn't have heat sinks (or maybe had a small one glued on) so that wasn't as much an issue as it was with later stuff. 

i swear i had a 486 with PCI slots that i'd picked up at the dallas first saturday sale.  left it in an apartment when i moved.  former roommate might still have it somewhere in his house.  that'd make a very interesting retro gaming box. 

[atomheartbevo 90143]

4 hours ago, elfenix said:

486s often didn't have heat sinks (or maybe had a small one glued on) so that wasn't as much an issue as it was with later stuff. 

i swear i had a 486 with PCI slots that i'd picked up at the dallas first saturday sale.  left it in an apartment when i moved.  former roommate might still have it somewhere in his house.  that'd make a very interesting retro gaming box. 

You thinking of VESA Local Bus (VLB) or extended ISA or whatever (EISA) or even MicroChannel?  I don't recall seeing or working on many consumer desktop 486's with a PCI slot (of course we were pushing and using MicroChannel stuff).  I know 486-class consumer PCs with PCI slots exist - but I want to say they were more common with the AMD and Cyrix 486 clones right as Pentiums were taking off, because there was something about VLB conflicting with PCI, and maybe they left out VLB or something.  I know Intel had PCI support at the end of the 486 run, but we were already getting into Pentiums by then, and they seemed to be associated with PCI.

That was just some really odd times. Early Pentiums didn't seem as fast as the last of the 486s (and were expensive as hell), all kinds of driver issues, multiple memory standards on the same motherboard, the various 486 clones, etc.  Intel was going through a crisis - they ended up cranking out some more 486s at the same time they were trying to get people to move to Pentiums, because AMD/Cyrix were cleaning up on the low-end.

On a side note, as I mentioned,  I am trying to replace my 10 year-old big-ass tower with Intel Q9550 setup with something smaller and future-proofish, and one of the things I needed to take care of was making sure I could read 5.25 floppies, and low and behold, somebody makes a USB interface that works with 5.25" floppy drives.  It's expensive, but it exists.

I may keep that Q9550 setup and migrate it to a small tower (had the big-ass tower to deal with a lot of drives) since it can read 5.25 floppies, SCSI stuff, and I have a Colorado 250mb setup in it for old tapes.  It's too fast/modern for a retro gaming box though.

[atomheartbevo 90143]

Probably for another thread, but hit up the 8-Bit Guy and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLx053rWZxCiYWsBETgdKrQLazy Game Reviews channels on YouTube if you want to lose many hours of your life.   They do cover running old PCs in the modern era if you want true retro gaming goodness.

8-Bit Guy has been doing tours of tech historic sites in Texas, covering where various game and tech/computer companies got their start.

This covers 3D Realms

Spoiler

 

 

[elfenix 34396]

You thinking of VESA Local Bus (VLB) or extended ISA or whatever (EISA) or even MicroChannel?  I don't recall seeing or working on many consumer desktop 486's with a PCI slot (of course we were pushing and using MicroChannel stuff).  I know 486-class consumer PCs with PCI slots exist - but I want to say they were more common with the AMD and Cyrix 486 clones right as Pentiums were taking off, because there was something about VLB conflicting with PCI, and maybe they left out VLB or something.  I know Intel had PCI support at the end of the 486 run, but we were already getting into Pentiums by then, and they seemed to be associated with PCI.

it was definitely a PCI slot.  put a voodoo3 in it. 
 
 
microcenter seems to have put their 9700Ks on clearance, price down to $219 for 8 cores, no hyperthreading but damn near 5 GHz boost clock.  you'll want a beefy cooler with it - though it's a 95W processor boost can go well over that. 

Edit: apparently was $200 last month and it's also the final upgrade for that socket. An AMD 3600 at the same price with a 500 series board will offer an upgrade to a 5000 series processor in the future tho imho upgrade potential is a bit overrated.
Edited January 22, 2021 by elfenix

[atomheartbevo 90143]

2 hours ago, elfenix said:

it was definitely a PCI slot.  put a voodoo3 in it. 

Holy shit, my memory maybe fuzzy, but that was like a really late 90s card going into a mid- or early 90s PC with a 486.  That had to be fun to setup, but the games that took advantage of it were awesome.

I think all of the Voodoo 3s had AGP versions as well.

On a side note, some of the DOSBOX builds/branches have early 3dfx support.  It's on my list of things to do once I get my new PC built - setup a proper DOS environment.  I would like to do full retro hardware, but I just don't have the room.  I have a C64 and TI-99/4A setup with a Commodore monitor, and an old 1980s-era Mac, but that's about it for pure computer hardware setups.

Edited January 22, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[Captainant 28004]

4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

On a side note, some of the DOSBOX builds/branches have early 3dfx support.  It's on my list of things to do once I get my new PC built - setup a proper DOS environment.  I would like to do full retro hardware, but I just don't have the room.  I have a C64 and TI-99/4A setup with a Commodore monitor, and an old 1980s-era Mac, but that's about it for pure computer hardware setups.

You should check out building a MiSTer if you want old stuff but with an HDMI output. It's a homebrew build on an FPGA board that fully runs a gate-for-gate replication of old hardware and consoles. There's open source cores out there for everything from a PDP-1 to a neogeo cabinet

Edited January 22, 2021 by Captainant

[C-Man 27413]

How common is it to get a faulty SATA cable? I hadn't noticed this before -- mainly because I'm not the one playing around on it -- but his second HD isn't showing up in Windows. Did some Googling and the 2 TB drive is showing up under Devices and also in the Boot path on BIOS but when I try to add the second hard drive to Windows, it isn't located in "Disk Management." Sounds like it might be a bad SATA cable -- or bad SATA port.

[atomheartbevo 90143]

On 10/26/2020 at 9:31 AM, Captainant said:

$300 5600x

 

 

[elfenix 34396]

8 hours ago, C-Man said:

How common is it to get a faulty SATA cable? I hadn't noticed this before -- mainly because I'm not the one playing around on it -- but his second HD isn't showing up in Windows. Did some Googling and the 2 TB drive is showing up under Devices and also in the Boot path on BIOS but when I try to add the second hard drive to Windows, it isn't located in "Disk Management." Sounds like it might be a bad SATA cable -- or bad SATA port.

it happens.  i don't think i've had one in a while but i have swapped cables troubleshooting before. 

 

houston microcenter had a ton of 3070s and 3060Tis this morning, all evga. walked in after noon and grabbed a 3060Ti ftw3 ultra for $499.  didn't feel like the price diff to the 3070 ($600) was worthwhile. 

Edited January 24, 2021 by elfenix

[atomheartbevo 90143]

17 hours ago, elfenix said:

it happens.  i don't think i've had one in a while but i have swapped cables troubleshooting before. 

houston microcenter had a ton of 3070s and 3060Tis this morning, all evga. walked in after noon and grabbed a 3060Ti ftw3 ultra for $499.  didn't feel like the price diff to the 3070 ($600) was worthwhile. 

Meanwhile in Austin, we have a Fry's that seems half-empty most of the time.

Well, it's been a long time since I was in it (last year sometime), but the selection was bad, like CompUSA's last 6 months or so bad (and I know, I worked as a hardware tech at a CompUSA when things went down the drain, and we were the only profitable part of the store at times).

[elfenix 34396]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Meanwhile in Austin, we have a Fry's that seems half-empty most of the time.

Well, it's been a long time since I was in it (last year sometime), but the selection was bad, like CompUSA's last 6 months or so bad (and I know, I worked as a hardware tech at a CompUSA when things went down the drain, and we were the only profitable part of the store at times).

walking into fry's in the last few years has been sad.  that place used to be jam packed most weekends, had decent prices on computer stuff and nearly everything else.  people used to say it was what best buy should be.  nowadays i have no idea how it's in business.  i also have no idea how best buy is in business, tho i suspect they get paid to showroom. 

[atomheartbevo 90143]

3 minutes ago, elfenix said:

walking into fry's in the last few years has been sad.  that place used to be jam packed most weekends, had decent prices on computer stuff and nearly everything else.  people used to say it was what best buy should be.  nowadays i have no idea how it's in business.  i also have no idea how best buy is in business, tho i suspect they get paid to showroom. 

Our Fry's used to be jam packed, with long lines at the registers, etc., and it was a great place to kill a lunchtime - always seemed to have new stuff all across the store, and really good deals on CPU/motherboard combos.  Fry's has become Radio Shack on a much larger scale - a lot of stuff people aren't buying, leaving you to wonder how they are in business.  

I've heard a few times that this or that company or person or whoever was going to turn Fry's around, but if they couldn't do it during a pandemic when a shitload of people needed (or wanted) a lot more computer and home entertainment stuff, then I don't know if they ever can.

I'm kind of surprised that Amazon or NewEgg hasn't made some kind of play for Fry's, since they could use them both as a retail outlet, and as a warehouse for the shipping side, but then again, both of those companies were around before Fry's, and will be around long after.

Best Buy does a shitload of service stuff, and they sell a lot of appliances, cell phones, TVs, etc.  They seem somewhat picky about their in-store computer stuff for the most part.  And I believe they price match a few places.

[LonghornSean 4037]

So I'm thinking about setting a up a PC. Never built one before and haven't "computer" gamed since using the family desktop (gateway/dell/etc) circa 2005, sans a few graphically shitty experiences on laptops in the interim. But there's some games I can't play or just don't get a good experience with on console that I would love to dip my toes into. Not really thinking fast-paced multiplayer games initially (I play some of those on Xbox with buddies), leaning more towards simulation and city building kind of games (Cities Skylines, Transport Fever 2, etc).  

After reading this thread, watching some youtube videos, and playing around on PCpartpicker, it seems like the GPU market is a bit nutty right now, no? In terms of overall budget I'm thinking in the $1200 range. So based on that should GPU be something like $500? So perhaps I'm buying too much than what I need for those, but I'm not opposed saving a few hundred or alternatively leaving myself room to upgrade later or jump into more graphically intensive stuff.

Obviously I know I'll need peripherals too, OS, mouse, keyboard, etc, but I threw everything else I think I need together for about $750, sans video card (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LX4bGq).

Surly advice? What newbie mistakes am I making? Is there some availability of older video cards that would work for what I want but I'd have capability to upgrade down the line when the market settles down?

[elfenix 34396]

@LonghornSean only thing that you might change is the PSU.  lots of graphics cards take two pci-e lines nowadays.  while the cables have two connectors on them, you're not supposed to plug both connectors on a line into the same card.  melted a connector on a seasonic supply doing that. tech support back to me: "did you plug both connectors into the same card?"

Edited January 25, 2021 by elfenix

[atomheartbevo 90143]

1 hour ago, LonghornSean said:

Surly advice? What newbie mistakes am I making? Is there some availability of older video cards that would work for what I want but I'd have capability to upgrade down the line when the market settles down?

You picked a Micro-ATX board - you could dial back a bit on the case - both in price and size.

As somebody who has played a lot of Cities Skylines, you might be eying another 16GB in the future to take it to 32GB.   It's an awesome sim, but some of the assets/DLC can really hammer the machine, and RAM helps.  But that mobo has 4 memory slots, so you can run 16GB and see how it goes.

 

[LonghornSean 4037]

4 hours ago, elfenix said:

@LonghornSean only thing that you might change is the PSU.  lots of graphics cards take two pci-e lines nowadays.  while the cables have two connectors on them, you're not supposed to plug both connectors on a line into the same card.  melted a connector on a seasonic supply doing that. tech support back to me: "did you plug both connectors into the same card?"

Thanks. As a total newb not sure I totally follow, but you mean depending on the GPU maybe get a power supply with separate cables?

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

You picked a Micro-ATX board - you could dial back a bit on the case - both in price and size.

As somebody who has played a lot of Cities Skylines, you might be eying another 16GB in the future to take it to 32GB.   It's an awesome sim, but some of the assets/DLC can really hammer the machine, and RAM helps.  But that mobo has 4 memory slots, so you can run 16GB and see how it goes.

 

Thanks, yeah I'll look at smaller cases. And will keep that in my mind for the RAM.

 

Still have to figure out my strategy for the graphics card. I'd like to get something that will be sufficient for a while but so much seems to be out of stock or on offer for well above MSRP.

Edited January 25, 2021 by LonghornSean

[atomheartbevo 90143]

7 hours ago, LonghornSean said:

Still have to figure out my strategy for the graphics card. I'd like to get something that will be sufficient for a while but so much seems to be out of stock or on offer for well above MSRP.

Cheaper 3060s out in late February so maybe will bring some prices down, or at least lead to a sell off of 20x0 cards, which would meet your requirements.  

I'm in the same boat    Going to build a mini-ITX setup, and just use my old GTX 660 and then be patient   

 

[elfenix 34396]

7 hours ago, LonghornSean said:

Thanks. As a total newb not sure I totally follow, but you mean depending on the GPU maybe get a power supply with separate cables?

 

the cable circled in red is the pci-e power line.  it plugs into the power supply also circled in red.  you can see the line has one connector at the top, that's to the supply, and two at the bottom for the cards.  the other three detached cables are for hard drives, 2 SATA and 1 old fashioned molex. 

 

 

looking around a bit more, even seasonic now has using 1 line for a graphics card as "standard" though it's recommended that you use 2.  and now on sale: https://www.newegg.com/seasonic-core-series-core-gm-550-550w/p/N82E16817151243

[LonghornSean 4037]

What about something like this for the graphics card: PowerColor VGA - AXRX 580 8GBD5-3DH/OC for $359.99? Too much for couple years old card?

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071DF8V4V/ref=crt_ewc_title_srh_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3UQFZV91RE0UX

 

edit: here's my latest potential build https://pcpartpicker.com/list/z3CGt8

Edited January 25, 2021 by LonghornSean

[atomheartbevo 90143]

LonghornSean, I may do the MicroATX thing (would save me a few hundred overall in motherboard, PSU, memory, and case costs, for not much bigger size), and this is the case I keep coming back to - Cooler Master Q300L - $50 (NewEgg has it for $50 shipped, with a $10 rebate).

It's slightly smaller, and it has an acrylic side.  I don't know when it became a thing, and I know it's probably fairly safe, but I am paranoid about cases with glass sides.  I have two small kids running around, and it would be out of the way, but still somewhat accessible.  I'm still amazed our TV has made it through everything.

I am just so glad to be done with big-ass cases, now that the hard drives are tiny, and the motherboards are smaller without losing features.

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[seven 1368]

That's a pretty cool case, I like all the front panel stuff being on the side since that's how you actually display them now. 

[C-Man 27413]

So we're having a bit of an issue with my son's machine. He's back at my ex's this week and that's where the computer is going to "live" permanently. He called me last night to tell me that it kept closing out his games in the middle of play and rebooting. I told him I can't troubleshoot over the phone and couldn't promise I'd know how to do anything in the first place but I'd try. I went over there this afternoon and what happens is during a gaming session, a few mins in the machine just closes the game and Windows reboots entirely.

I called a good friend of mine who has built more than a few machines and is kind of my go-to on this. I also Googled and it appears what might be happening is the GPU could be overheating. Thoughts? I was able to get into the diagnostics included in Windows 10 to check component "vitals" and saw the GPU was running like 38 degrees C but he wasn't gaming. I made sure the drivers were up to date and had to head back to my house. I asked to fire it up later and let me know what happened. Same shit. He wasn't sure how to check the GPU temp while he was playing one of his games.

[satyanash 14931]

Sounds like you need to undervolt your son's GPU.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Before you get into more complex stuff try updating all your drivers and bios from the manufacturer website. It could be a software conflict. Also, just double check airflow and that all your fans including the one on the GPU are running. If it has variable speeds it might be cutting out when it tries to bump up to higher RPMs. Could just be a loose connection.

Try playing the games on the lowest settings to see if you still have the issue. if you do then and all the fans are running it’s probably not the GPU overheating. 
If you isolate the GPU you may need to send it back and get a replacement. Duds are part of the process sometimes 

[Captainant 28004]

9 hours ago, C-Man said:

So we're having a bit of an issue with my son's machine. He's back at my ex's this week and that's where the computer is going to "live" permanently. He called me last night to tell me that it kept closing out his games in the middle of play and rebooting. I told him I can't troubleshoot over the phone and couldn't promise I'd know how to do anything in the first place but I'd try. I went over there this afternoon and what happens is during a gaming session, a few mins in the machine just closes the game and Windows reboots entirely.

I called a good friend of mine who has built more than a few machines and is kind of my go-to on this. I also Googled and it appears what might be happening is the GPU could be overheating. Thoughts? I was able to get into the diagnostics included in Windows 10 to check component "vitals" and saw the GPU was running like 38 degrees C but he wasn't gaming. I made sure the drivers were up to date and had to head back to my house. I asked to fire it up later and let me know what happened. Same shit. He wasn't sure how to check the GPU temp while he was playing one of his games.

I've seen an issue like this before that came from using a PCI power line for the CPU power. The connectors are the same and the machine can boot, but it'll be unstable and crash whenever the CPU is under load because it won't get enough power. Aside from that, I'd check all your power connections (on both ends if it's a modular power supply), unseat and reseat all your RAM units and the GPU, and double check for GPU sag. Basically make sure that all the non-socketed connections are solid.

I'd also throw in some CPU temp monitoring, if he's got an AMD chip he should be able to use the Ryzen Master utility from AMD to monitor/log his temps to capture a crash state. CPU overheating from an improperly seated cooler could similarly lead to instability during high load (read: gaming) situations

[pearlandhorn 3333]

9 hours ago, C-Man said:

So we're having a bit of an issue with my son's machine. He's back at my ex's this week and that's where the computer is going to "live" permanently. He called me last night to tell me that it kept closing out his games in the middle of play and rebooting. I told him I can't troubleshoot over the phone and couldn't promise I'd know how to do anything in the first place but I'd try. I went over there this afternoon and what happens is during a gaming session, a few mins in the machine just closes the game and Windows reboots entirely.

I called a good friend of mine who has built more than a few machines and is kind of my go-to on this. I also Googled and it appears what might be happening is the GPU could be overheating. Thoughts? I was able to get into the diagnostics included in Windows 10 to check component "vitals" and saw the GPU was running like 38 degrees C but he wasn't gaming. I made sure the drivers were up to date and had to head back to my house. I asked to fire it up later and let me know what happened. Same shit. He wasn't sure how to check the GPU temp while he was playing one of his games.

He running an AMD or Nvidia card? If AMD, go in to the Radeon software and see if Enhanced Sync is turned on. If it’s on, turn it off. 
 

Ive has the same issue with my GPU and turning off enhanced sync fixed my issues.

[elfenix 34396]

On 1/25/2021 at 12:38 PM, LonghornSean said:

What about something like this for the graphics card: PowerColor VGA - AXRX 580 8GBD5-3DH/OC for $359.99? Too much for couple years old card?

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071DF8V4V/ref=crt_ewc_title_srh_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3UQFZV91RE0UX

 

edit: here's my latest potential build https://pcpartpicker.com/list/z3CGt8

that card is 4.5 years old now (RX 580 ~ RX 480) and shouldn't be more than $129.  unfortunately we live in a world where that exact card made a lot of people a lot of money and continues to make money.  the 4 GB cards should be much cheaper because mining has passed by them.  should get similar 1080p performance from an nvidia 1060 3GB card as well, which haven't been useful for mining in a long time.  each of those can be had well under $100 on ebay.  they're not what you want but they're good placeholder cards until you can luck into a 3060 for MSRP. 

[elfenix 34396]

10 hours ago, C-Man said:

So we're having a bit of an issue with my son's machine. He's back at my ex's this week and that's where the computer is going to "live" permanently. He called me last night to tell me that it kept closing out his games in the middle of play and rebooting. I told him I can't troubleshoot over the phone and couldn't promise I'd know how to do anything in the first place but I'd try. I went over there this afternoon and what happens is during a gaming session, a few mins in the machine just closes the game and Windows reboots entirely.

I called a good friend of mine who has built more than a few machines and is kind of my go-to on this. I also Googled and it appears what might be happening is the GPU could be overheating. Thoughts? I was able to get into the diagnostics included in Windows 10 to check component "vitals" and saw the GPU was running like 38 degrees C but he wasn't gaming. I made sure the drivers were up to date and had to head back to my house. I asked to fire it up later and let me know what happened. Same shit. He wasn't sure how to check the GPU temp while he was playing one of his games.

he can use occt to stress test various components granularly.  

i'd wonder if the heat sink is properly seated on top of the CPU.   

[Hmbre97 6333]

If it were me, I would install MSI Afterburner. You can see temps, fan curves, clock settings, etc. You can also set all kinds of overlays so you can see real time GPU stats while playing, including temps. That way he can fire up a game and see what the GPU is doing.

 

Also, you could use some sort of remote support software to help him remotely. Teamviewer is easy enough to use.

[C-Man 27413]

He has an AORUS GeForce RTX 2070 for the GPU (Nvidia). He has an AMD Ryzen for the CPU. One thing I'll mention there is that we oriented it incorrectly at first and took it off and flipped it around. It was probably off the motherboard for an hour or so while I tried to determine the best way to orient it. The thermal paste was already on the connection point. Any potential issues there with it not being on there for about an hour or so? Remember he used it without any problems whatsoever at my house (a week ago Monday) and didn't start having issues until he got things set up at his mother's the following Sunday. In other words, it ran flawlessly for six days. He changed a few settings but I'd need to ask him exactly what he did -- wondering if any hardware/heat issue can take a few days to rear its' head or if it's more likely something he's done as an adjustment.

Thanks for all the suggestions and guidance. Lots of informative stuff. I appreciate it.

[Hmbre97 6333]

Could be someting needs to be reseated. Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, I worked for Dell providing support for new customers with the specific task of finding out of box issues for machines shipping out. I've seen all kinds of weird shit happen because a gpu or stick of ram became SLIGHTY unseated during shipping. Might be worth just reseating everything.

Also, what was not oriented correctly when you first put it together? The CPU itself? If so, that socket is keyed and I'm wondering if maybe a pin got bent. Still though, it probably would have caused issues from the start and not worked for 6 days.

[LonghornSean 4037]

2 hours ago, elfenix said:

that card is 4.5 years old now (RX 580 ~ RX 480) and shouldn't be more than $129.  unfortunately we live in a world where that exact card made a lot of people a lot of money and continues to make money.  the 4 GB cards should be much cheaper because mining has passed by them.  should get similar 1080p performance from an nvidia 1060 3GB card as well, which haven't been useful for mining in a long time.  each of those can be had well under $100 on ebay.  they're not what you want but they're good placeholder cards until you can luck into a 3060 for MSRP. 

Thanks, yeah that's what I figured. I think 1080p is gonna be fine for now so I'll look into that 1060. Can't browse Ebay on my work network, but man, just looking at pcpartspicker nothing available for less than $329.

[Hmbre97 6333]

1060 3 or 6gb is solid. Also look for a GTX 1650 Super. Performs about the same and can be find for $160ish new. That's what I bought to hold me over until I can source a 3080.

[atomheartbevo 90143]

5 hours ago, elfenix said:

that card is 4.5 years old now (RX 580 ~ RX 480) and shouldn't be more than $129.  unfortunately we live in a world where that exact card made a lot of people a lot of money and continues to make money.  the 4 GB cards should be much cheaper because mining has passed by them.  should get similar 1080p performance from an nvidia 1060 3GB card as well, which haven't been useful for mining in a long time.  each of those can be had well under $100 on ebay.  they're not what you want but they're good placeholder cards until you can luck into a 3060 for MSRP. 

When I was revamping my parts list this month, I had to do a hard pass on a newer video card, and looked up my 2012 EVGA GTX 660 (Superclocked!), and the damned thing was selling for $65-$75 on eBay.  Yeah, it's DX12, and it kept up with a couple of generations after, and it still shows up as the minimum video card on quite a few games that came out years later, but...

 

[Captainant 28004]

4 hours ago, C-Man said:

He has an AORUS GeForce RTX 2070 for the GPU (Nvidia). He has an AMD Ryzen for the CPU. One thing I'll mention there is that we oriented it incorrectly at first and took it off and flipped it around. It was probably off the motherboard for an hour or so while I tried to determine the best way to orient it. The thermal paste was already on the connection point. Any potential issues there with it not being on there for about an hour or so? Remember he used it without any problems whatsoever at my house (a week ago Monday) and didn't start having issues until he got things set up at his mother's the following Sunday. In other words, it ran flawlessly for six days. He changed a few settings but I'd need to ask him exactly what he did -- wondering if any hardware/heat issue can take a few days to rear its' head or if it's more likely something he's done as an adjustment.

Thanks for all the suggestions and guidance. Lots of informative stuff. I appreciate it.

Did you use fresh thermal paste and clean off the CPU and heatsink contact points before reseating the heat sink? I don't know how to explain it working fine for a while and then shutting down randomly after a move, but it's possible that it was making juuuuuust enough thermal contact prior to the move, and all that jostling unseated it or opened up a gap somewhere

[C-Man 27413]

Just talked to him a few minutes ago. He cranked up the fans and it appears to be working like it was before. I'm going to have him use some of the diagnostic tools so he can track the temps when he's doing his heaviest gaming.

[LonghornSean 4037]

5 hours ago, Hmbre97 said:

1060 3 or 6gb is solid. Also look for a GTX 1650 Super. Performs about the same and can be find for $160ish new. That's what I bought to hold me over until I can source a 3080.

I know it's for more than what you said ($259), but is a listing like this legit when it doesn't show the packaging? https://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1650-SUPER-4GB-GDDR6-PCIe-w-1x-HDMI-1x-DisplayPort-1x-DVI/254834935514?hash=item3b555886da%3Ag%3AswsAAOSw4IJgAMJ2&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=1500|1000

Edited January 28, 2021 by LonghornSean

[Hmbre97 6333]

2 hours ago, LonghornSean said:

I know it's for more than what you said ($259), but is a listing like this legit when it doesn't show the packaging? https://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1650-SUPER-4GB-GDDR6-PCIe-w-1x-HDMI-1x-DisplayPort-1x-DVI/254834935514?hash=item3b555886da%3Ag%3AswsAAOSw4IJgAMJ2&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=1500|1000

I would stay away from it because it looks like a card from an OEM build. The cooler isn't great and if you can wait a little bit, it could be had cheaper elsewhere from a known vendor for a better card.

 

https://www.shopblt.com/item/evga-04g-p4-1357-kr-geforce-gtx-1650-super/u086_04gp41357kr.html

 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Hmbre97

[atomheartbevo 90143]

If you want actual numbers why we can't get 30x0 cards.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/scalpers-have-sold-50000-nvidia-rtx-3000-gpus-through-ebay-stockx

Quote

Scalpers have sold close to 50,000 Nvidia RTX 3000 graphics cards on eBay and sneaker site StockX, often at double the normal pricing, according to new analysis. 

It’s no secret the RTX 3000 graphics cards are getting resold at insane prices. However, a Chicago-based data engineer named Michael Driscoll has been tracking sales on eBay using a computer script to understand the full scope of the scalping. 

On Tuesday, he provided an update on the RTX 3000 sales after previously reporting scalpers had sold 15,224 units on eBay back in early December. The number has since shot up to 39,064 units across all RTX models from the 3060 Ti to 3090. 

 

eBay sales

StockX sales

 

[Continental Op 3934]

Is this cryptofags or is it something else?

[atomheartbevo 90143]

On 1/26/2021 at 11:55 PM, C-Man said:

So we're having a bit of an issue with my son's machine.

This is probably not the issue, but when you were installing the CPU cooler, did it have a piece of plastic that you removed from the heatsink surface?  The HSF I just received had a plastic liner on it, presumably to keep it smooth/clean until thermal paste is applied.

Also, doing a deep dive on video cards and PSU requirements, @elfenix mentioned something - if you have a power cable with an extra pigtail/dongle, do not plug both into the same card.  Plug two different PCIE cables into the card of it has two power cable inputs.

 

Edited January 29, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 90143]

2 hours ago, Continental Op said:

Is this cryptofags or is it something else?

whynotboth.gif. Actually, three problems.

1. Crytopcurrency types are trying to buy the latest and greatest, and they are using bots to get them at MSRP or lower.
2. A lot of people were buying GPUs up before Trump's tariffs kicked in on December 31st, driving the prices up 25% for cards being imported starting on the first of this month (not sure if the tariff has been yanked yet).  I've heard the tariffs affect computer cases as well.
3. Apparently PC building has undergone a renaissance of sorts, thanks to the pandemic (helped by performance rising and prices dropping over the past year).

 

[elfenix 34396]

On 1/27/2021 at 6:26 PM, LonghornSean said:

I know it's for more than what you said ($259), but is a listing like this legit when it doesn't show the packaging? https://www.ebay.com/itm/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1650-SUPER-4GB-GDDR6-PCIe-w-1x-HDMI-1x-DisplayPort-1x-DVI/254834935514?hash=item3b555886da%3Ag%3AswsAAOSw4IJgAMJ2&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=1500|1000

as said above, that screams OEM system pull.  unbranded fan and single slot, despite being 2 slots tall, are pretty telltale. 

[Capn81 388]

Thanks, yeah that's what I figured. I think 1080p is gonna be fine for now so I'll look into that 1060. Can't browse Ebay on my work network, but man, just looking at pcpartspicker nothing available for less than $329.

You still looking for a 1060 6gb?

[atomheartbevo 90143]

8 hours ago, elfenix said:

as said above, that screams OEM system pull.  unbranded fan and single slot, despite being 2 slots tall, are pretty telltale. 

I'm waiting on the 3060s to change things at the end of February, either help with prices of older cards, or to just be available.

But I've seen folks talking about being careful when buying cards that were potentially used for mining off of eBay, because they are stressed incredibly hard.

And then there's this, about temps being a lot higher than people knew, when mining:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hwinfo64-adds-gddr6x-temp-monitoring-rtx30series

The former hardware/IT tech in me says "yeah, avoid those cards used for mining, as you don't know what the hell was done to them."

What are your thoughts?