Building a gaming PC

[BurntOrange&White 39960]

Just buy a pre-built and swap out the RAM and memory to something better. 

 

Find the right GPU/CPU/MOBO combo and the rest is fairly cheap currently

 

https://www.newegg.com/abs-ali487/p/N82E16883360082?Item=N82E16883360082&Description=gtx 3090&cm_re=gtx_3090-_-83-360-082-_-Product&quicklink=true

https://www.newegg.com/skytech-st-prismii-0144-ne-prism-ii/p/N82E16883289077?Item=N82E16883289077&Description=gtx 3090&cm_re=gtx_3090-_-83-289-077-_-Product&quicklink=true

Edited February 23, 2021 by BurntOrange&White

[VABuckeye 2472]

I've found prebuilts for $1499 with a 3060 ti in them.  No need to spend $3700 to get the video card.  I an do better than that on Ebay.

[Deej 76897]

Rest in peace, Fry's.

 

http://frys.com/?fbclid=IwAR2g1VIQ7_MecfCqfZ0pStwcBdmW1RXc2vT99ydWxby5E5KLY-M57j50b9s

[Jersey Man10 3539]

It was a long time coming.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

42 minutes ago, Jersey Man10 said:

It was a long time coming.

A decade, at least here in Austin.

If they have any sales, we can all pick up the latest 8 year-old technology though!

[atomheartbevo 89777]

Yay, more cards we can’t buy!

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89777]

Feds going to look at chip shortage.  Not necessarily going to do anything, but at least study where the problems are.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/biden-admin-plans-executive-order-to-address-chip-shortage-woes/

Quote

The White House is launching an effort today to ease the global semiconductor supply crunch affecting a wide array of other industries, but any boost the administration can provide is likely to be on the far side of many more months of shortages.

President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order this afternoon aimed at "securing America's critical supply chains." The order will address several challenges in the US supply chain, according to a fact sheet from the White House, with a particular focus on pharmaceuticals, mineral resources, semiconductors, and large-capacity batteries. 

The order is a sort of combination of every US politicians' favorite rallying cry—"more American jobs"—and an acknowledgement that shortages and production challenges in critical supply chains really have had a profound effect on the nation, especially in the past year. It calls for an immediate 100-day review that will "identify near-term steps the administration can take, including with Congress" to identify where the vulnerabilities in these supply chains are and what regulators or legislators can do to increase US manufacturing of these critical components.

In addition to the short-term review, the order also calls for a yearlong examination of risks and vulnerabilities in six other US technology supply chains: defense, public health, information technology and communications, energy, transportation, and agricultural tech.

 

[atomheartbevo 89777]

On 2/23/2021 at 7:32 AM, BurntOrange&White said:

Just buy a pre-built and swap out the RAM and memory to something better. 

Find the right GPU/CPU/MOBO combo and the rest is fairly cheap currently

On 2/23/2021 at 8:31 AM, VABuckeye said:

I've found prebuilts for $1499 with a 3060 ti in them.  No need to spend $3700 to get the video card.  I an do better than that on Ebay.

Dell seems to be a pretty good deal with availability of 30x0 GPUs, if you are careful with selections and/or find the right discount.  The XPS line has some 20x0s, their low-end G-Series gaming line has 30x0 series.  The problem is they have memory/CPU/power requirements that kick the prices up into the $1,200+ range.

And their thermals/ventilation and CPU cooling, etc. are absolute shit, particularly the XPS's.

$1,200 gets you a 3060 and this: https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/gaming-and-games/dell-g5-gaming-desktop/spd/g-series-5000-desktop/gd5090g520s?view=configurations&configurationid=c47c970d-5232-4348-9f9c-a6dc89249b9e

There is a temptation to pick one up, and then swap out the video card for something cheap (or use onboard graphics) and sell it.  Having a warranty still attached helps with the price.

[VABuckeye 2472]

I have a 1080ti or two that I could use to make that swap.  🙂

[atomheartbevo 89777]

8 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

I have a 1080ti or two that I could use to make that swap.  🙂

You would be better off selling those on eBay, separately. 

If the Dells didn't have such shit cooling for the cheapest PCs you could get with a 3060 or 3070, I'd happily pick one up and use it, but I'm not going to drop $50 on a new CPU cooler, and then Dremel the shit out of the case.  And that's before we get into the shit-show with their memory.

[Captainant 27726]

It's fucking wild to think that I bought my 1080ti two years ago for $600 and I could turn around and sell it for probably even more now. Same thing for my wife's hand-me-down 1070. 

I'm still able to play most games at 1440p ultra 60+fps, but I'd really love to snag a 3080 before 2022. I guess I'll settle with upgrading my secondary monitor since it's getting a little long in the tooth

[atomheartbevo 89777]

If you are building soon, check your case prices - some are going up due to the tariff prices.    The one I was about to order shot up from $80 to $100, and that's their main price - I asked Amazon support about it, and they didn't get into details, just said that is the "new" price.  CamelCamelCamel says the same - it was $80 since launch, shot up to $85 when it sold out briefly last year, dropped back to $80 and then all of the sudden up to $100.

Hopefully the fucking tariffs get repealed soon.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

Fuck, I had everything planned out, but getting the CPUs I want, and GPU....uggh.  And tariffs are starting to kick in, raising prices on various things.  Talked to a friend who works at a major electronics retailer (corporate, not in-store, so he sees a bit more than the sales folks), and they aren't even really sniffing the new CPUs or GPUs for in-store sales for months, like through the summer is what he said.  I did mention to him that people were pretty pissed that their online stock went from "coming soon" to "sold out" in the blink of an eye, and thought it was odd, and his response was "yeah, it's a problem that we've been trying to fix for a few years, both with more inventory, and dealing with bots, and nothing is changing."   I don't know how they aren't able to get more in-store than say Microcenter.

Went back, looked at the games I want to play, CPU is not the issue for those games, GPU is, picked up a Ryzen 3700x (wanted 65W, want a lot of cores for virtualization and some other stuff I plan on doing).

Now I'm trying to find a card that will last a few years.  Like trying to find a unicorn.  

I'm looking at 1060s.  Not so new as to be insanely priced.  Lower power-consumption than GTX 980 and RX 580 (trying to keep heat down in the case, probably mini-ITX).  Enough of a jump over my 8 year-old card to make it worthwhile.  Can handle VR (I'm flirting with getting an Oculus Rift S).

 

[Tailgate 3022]

Haven’t played PC in a while since my PS5 arrived.

Did connect it to NiceHash to mine Bitcoin.

Started super bowl weekend and ~$100 so far.

\m/

[Captainant 27726]

6 hours ago, Tailgate said:

Haven’t played PC in a while since my PS5 arrived.

Did connect it to NiceHash to mine Bitcoin.

Started super bowl weekend and ~$100 so far.

\m/

How much power have you used doing all that hashing? 

[Captainant 27726]

Also holy fuckballs Houston microcenter just got restocked, 25 3070's, two 3080's, some 3060ti's... If only they weren't $150 above original MSRP

[Tailgate 3022]

11 hours ago, Captainant said:

How much power have you used doing all that hashing? 

I will find out. I only have one 1080 in there and will look at bills year over year for a couple months and see. I can't imagine it's using a lot.

[Captainant 27726]

2 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

I will find out. I only have one 1080 in there and will look at bills year over year for a couple months and see. I can't imagine it's using a lot.

I know 1080's have a 180W max rated TDP, so probably around 250-300W for the whole computer I'd imagine. Comes out to around 1KWh of power a day? Shit should I have been mining on my 1080ti all this time lmao

[BurntOrange&White 39960]

5 hours ago, Captainant said:

Also holy fuckballs Houston microcenter just got restocked, 25 3070's, two 3080's, some 3060ti's... If only they weren't $150 above original MSRP

150 above msrp isn't bad at all really.

[Jersey Man10 3539]

3070s are running in the 1000s right now its ridiculous. 3080 around 1500 lmao.

[VABuckeye 2472]

22 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

150 above msrp isn't bad at all really.

When you consider there's a 25% tariff in place it makes sense.

[VABuckeye 2472]

I think I'm just going to pop a 780ti in my new build and ride it out for a while.

[BurntOrange&White 39960]

4 minutes ago, VABuckeye said:

I think I'm just going to pop a 780ti in my new build and ride it out for a while.

I'm kind of glad I have the 2080 and didn't wait for these cards to come out when I built. 
 

 

Also thinking of selling my current rig.

Intel 8700k CPU

EVGA 2080 GPU

Asus Prime Z390-A MOBO

Corsair Vengeance 4x8gb 3000 RAM

750 gold power supply(Corsair or EVGA Brand - Can't recall which brand off the top of my head) 

Corsair Hydro Series h100 series liquid CPU cooler.

 

I'd keep my memory out of it.

[VABuckeye 2472]

I have a gamining PC at home with a 2080ti.  I want to put a 3060ti in the mini-itx build I'm making for my office.  Honestly though, a 780ti will be just fine for now for what I work on.  It's just email, word docs, spreadsheets and blueprints.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

On 3/2/2021 at 9:42 AM, Captainant said:

Also holy fuckballs Houston microcenter just got restocked, 25 3070's, two 3080's, some 3060ti's... If only they weren't $150 above original MSRP

3 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

When you consider there's a 25% tariff in place it makes sense.

Yeah, that's the tariff kicking in - Microcenter is still not marking them up even more like some retailers are.  Supposedly the current administration is looking at ditching those tariffs, but they are here for the time being.  I notice it's affecting used GPUs on eBay, since now that the new stuff is even more expensive with tariffs (before scalpers), people selling slightly older stuff are moving their prices up to take advantage of the desperate types who want cards now.  It's fucking ridiculous to see a 2-3 year-old card that is more expensive than it's original MSRP.

Really wish we had a Microcenter here.

Bigger problem, outside of tariffs and scalpers, is that most of the various card makers have been moving their card prices up.  I won't screw up y'alls YouTube algorithms again, but I think Jay2cents or whatever has a video on the pricing with the 3060s.  Not just the tariff stuff, but the card makers, and he calls out the 3060 makers on this, have basically said "fuck it" to NVIDIA's suggested prices.  I want to say that basically EVGA is the only one that has a half-decent price on their new 3060s.

Edited March 3, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89777]

3 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

I think I'm just going to pop a 780ti in my new build and ride it out for a while.

It's going to be a long while unfortunately.  I keep kicking around a 970/980, or more likely an RX 570 (which seems to be a sweet spot as far as price and games I want to play).

I don't want to pay $175+ for a card that came out 3.5 years ago, but here we are.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

AMD announced a $479 Radeon RX 6700 XT, coming out March 18.  Focused on 1440p gaming and competing with the 3070.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16526/amd-announces-radeon-rx-6700-xt-1440p-gaming-479-march18

Quote

With the launch of the RX 6700 XT set to take place on March 18th, AMD is looking to put as many video cards into the channel as possible. This means that AMD and its board partners will simultaneously launch both AMD’s reference card, as well as the partners’ custom cards. Typically for AMD the reference cards come first, so the company is pitching this as a way to get more cards on to retail shelves than they would otherwise be able to do.

Quote

Curiously, AMD has only mentioned selling the reference card on their own website, so we may be seeing AMD take a page from NVIDIA’s book and internalize the distribution of reference cards, leaving the board partners to only ship custom cards. Normally, AMD has board partners resell the reference card as well around launch time, however for various reasons this is not typically done over the long term, as board partners prefer to sell their own cards anyhow.

Quote

Finally, AMD has stated that they’re also going to be priming more OEMs than usual with the RX 6700 XT as a third pillar of sorts to better ensure some kind of ongoing retail availability of the card. Despite AMD’s best efforts, retail RX 6700 XT cards are virtually guaranteed to sell out within hours (if not sooner) due to how starved the video card market is. So the company wants to at least give customers another avenue towards getting a modern video card by supplying it as part of a complete system, especially as crypto miners seldom buy whole OEM systems.

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89777]

On 2/28/2021 at 12:48 PM, atomheartbevo said:

Went back, looked at the games I want to play, CPU is not the issue for those games, GPU is, picked up a Ryzen 3700x (wanted 65W, want a lot of cores for virtualization and some other stuff I plan on doing).

Well fuck me, of course I buy a 3700x last weekend, and then the 5600x dropped down into the $370s last night, and today it's at $355.  I can still return the one I bought (unopened, waiting on the rest of my parts), but the company selling and shipping the 5600x is at 80% customer approval or whatever, and the former ebayer in me is skittish about such companies.  Their return policy says to refer to Amazon's policy, but Amazon's policy says to refer to the 3rd-party's policy.

These are the lowest prices according to CamelCamelCamel, so maybe something has happened with supply and if they hold for a few days, I can find somebody selling directly through Amazon (or rather shipping from Amazon).

[BurntOrange&White 39960]

10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

AMD announced a $479 Radeon RX 6700 XT, coming out March 18.  Focused on 1440p gaming and competing with the 3070.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16526/amd-announces-radeon-rx-6700-xt-1440p-gaming-479-march18

 

 

wasn't the 3000's series prices supposed to competitive? I'll believe MSRP prices when I see them.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

7 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

wasn't the 3000's series prices supposed to competitive? I'll believe MSRP prices when I see them.

The problem is the MSRP may not take into account the tariffs, in which case those cards will have an MSRP of $479, but due to the December 2020 tariffs, actually start at around $600 or thereabouts.

Wish the new administration would get off their asses and reverse those tariffs.  It's not punishing China at all.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

17 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

These are the lowest prices according to CamelCamelCamel, so maybe something has happened with supply and if they hold for a few days, I can find somebody selling directly through Amazon (or rather shipping from Amazon).

Forget what I said, it looks like almost all of these little companies pushing out 5600x's in the $340s - $350s on Amazon don't actually have them on hand, and are drop-shipping them.  Which is why they say orders take at least 3-4 days to ship, and take 10-14 days (or more) to arrive.

[elfenix 34331]

8 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

wasn't the 3000's series prices supposed to competitive? I'll believe MSRP prices when I see them.

3070 seemed like a pretty decently priced card when it was announced. 3060Ti at basically the same speed for $100 less even moreso. 

although that was in relation to the price jacking that nvidia had done with the 2000 series cards.  the GTX 970 came out at $329, for example.  i got a 1070 in september of 2017 before mining was a thing for $349.*  then the mining craze happened and the 10 series cards were nearly all gone for a year.   

 

 

*well, mining was a thing and i returned it because the computer became unusable when mining and i wanted to do that to defray the cost of the card (ah $50 ethereum prices).  if i'd have realized i could have turned down the mining intensity i'd be a much wealthier man right now. 1070s were kinda the tits for mining. 

Edited March 4, 2021 by elfenix

[elfenix 34331]

On 3/2/2021 at 11:35 AM, Tailgate said:

I will find out. I only have one 1080 in there and will look at bills year over year for a couple months and see. I can't imagine it's using a lot.

my 1080 isn't particularly efficient.   i did the usual -max on the core, bump the ram by a GHz, reduce the power limit by 30%, etc., and it's doing about 24MH/sec for about 220 KH/watt.  as opposed to my tweaked 480 at about 320 and my 3060ti at 350. 

[atomheartbevo 89777]

If you are after a 5600x, supposedly AMD is catching up in production, and even shipping them

https://www.amd.com/en/direct-buy/5450881700/us

Unfortunately you may not find out until your order is submitted as to whether they are still in stock at that moment.

So just skip Amazon for now, and play the lottery on AMD.com

[elfenix 34331]

On 11/22/2020 at 2:40 AM, elfenix said:

don't spend more than $400 on a 2070S.  the (ostensibly) $499 3070 demolishes the 2070S.  3x00 series is short on stock now but absent some bitcoin runup they will become more available.  also the new AMD parts are competitive in the $500+ market for a change. 

 

look at this dumbass

[BurntOrange&White 39960]

14 hours ago, elfenix said:

look at this dumbass

You were almost right....if everything went the opposite l

[TexasEd 8071]

whoa. Just fell into a gaming PC. Fastest thing I've ever owned.

This thing is decked out like a server with i7 8700, 64GB RAM, 500GB SSD (m.2 Class 40), 2TB Data drive and Nvidia GEFORCE RTX 2060 Super

So far gotten Fortnite running like a champ and my daughter is using the Minecraft Education edition to learn basic coding skills.

[VABuckeye 2472]

3 hours ago, TexasEd said:

64GB RAM

No offense but that’s just dumb. 

[TexasEd 8071]

4 minutes ago, VABuckeye said:

No offense but that’s just dumb. 

What part of "I fell into" did not compute?  It came that way, no out of pocket cost to me.

[LosIllini 91]

Crazy time to try to build a PC (for a relative => home office, Office apps, surfing, no gaming).  Last two builds (home office and htpc) were AMD Ryzen, and run rock-solid, so trying to stay in the AMD family.

Lot of price gouging (Ryzen processors with built-in graphics are sold out, or way overpriced), and even low-end gpus are unavailable.

Think I'm going to have to go Intel- either 10400 or 10700 w/ built-in graphics, and call it a day.

[VABuckeye 2472]

9 hours ago, TexasEd said:

What part of "I fell into" did not compute?  It came that way, no out of pocket cost to me.

I should have been clearer.  Dumb of the PC builder, not you.

[immamac 42914]

9 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

No offense but that’s just dumb. 

Depends, if you are only using it for gaming then yeah it is dumb, but if you are using it to do other stuff or want to run VM's or do lots of video editing or sound editing or whatever 64GB is really nice to have. can confirm.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

14 minutes ago, immamac said:

Depends, if you are only using it for gaming then yeah it is dumb, but if you are using it to do other stuff or want to run VM's or do lots of video editing or sound editing or whatever 64GB is really nice to have. can confirm.

I am sorta regretting I didn't get 64GB, as I do have a handful of VMs I run here and there, and being that my new PC is a mini-ITX case and mobo, I only had two slots.  

32GB seems fine for now, but I've actually pushed close to 30GB with Cities Skylines.

[TexasEd 8071]

32 minutes ago, VABuckeye said:

I should have been clearer.  Dumb of the PC builder, not you.

Yes, and my response was poor.  In hindsight I wish I had written, "Yep, dumb for what I'll use it for but that's how it came. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" 

30 minutes ago, immamac said:

Depends, if you are only using it for gaming then yeah it is dumb, but if you are using it to do other stuff or want to run VM's or do lots of video editing or sound editing or whatever 64GB is really nice to have. can confirm.

Pretty sure that was what it was used for before.  I might look into that for fun.  Back in the day I used to run virtual machines, dual boot configurations and network servers on machines with a quarter of the memory this one has.  

I have a few middle school kids so maybe we can use it to help them learn about setting up development environments too instead of just for gaming.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

I mentioned earlier, AMD.com has been selling 5xxx CPUs for MSRP, and I've noticed over the last week, they seem to be getting more and more in stock and/or they are staying in stock for longer than 30 seconds.  

If you want a new video card, NewEgg has been getting them in here and there late, late at night (or early morning depending on your view).  They've had small numbers of cards in stock for more than 10 minutes at times, and I've seen it almost every day this week.   ItsHappening.gif

NowInStock doesn't pick up a lot of them from what I've seen, and neither did some of the notification services (or by the time you get the notification and get to NewEgg, they are sold out).

I made sure to stay logged in (fast checkout - they can sell out in the cart), checked at random hours of the day (best times for me were late at night/early in the morning), and I had a page bookmarked for their video card section, with a filter set to "Sold by NewEgg", which means no major markup, and I had it set to 6GB and 8GB cards.  A couple of nights in a row, late at night, and early one morning, I've seen new cards in stock (have not seen any 30x0's though).  Multiple times I was set to hit payment and then got the notice that the GPU had sold out.

NewEgg has also had refurbished/used video cards pop in to stock here and there with decent prices and warranties, but I've been leery of buying a card that was possibly used hard for mining, and I'd rather just spend $100 or so more for a new card, since this is something that will last for several years.

Anyways, I finally picked up a decent 2060 after passing on some slightly-cheaper 1660s.  Unfortunately, unlike the refurbs, the new cards do have the 2020 tariff factored into the price, and the tariff still hasn't been walked back yet, so yeah, 2060s are running $379 or so and up, and 1660s have been in the mid-$300s ( I think I saw some around $330).   I decided not to wait for the 3060s and the new AMDs later this month, as they will still have the tariff pricing as well.  A 2060 is more than enough for all of our games, and I'm not paying $500 + tax for a video card.

But yeah, if you are willing to check often, and be ready to buy, you can get a new card from NewEgg, and while it still has that shitty tariff pricing, it's not fucking $600+ for a 2060 or anything like with 3rd parties and eBay.  

Even with NewEgg's limitations on cards, I can see how scalpers can still make decent money - almost every night this week, there's been one or two cards I could have bought and turned around and sold for $200 profit.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

31 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

I have a few middle school kids so maybe we can use it to help them learn about setting up development environments too instead of just for gaming.

Or have them run their Bittorrent sessions in VMs, so that when they trade Linux ISOs, they are somewhat confined to the VM until they can be checked out for any nasty stuff.

If I had 64GB, I think I'd be running Proxmox at the moment, and running everything else out of there.

You should teach your kids Proxmox and Docker, that's what the cool kids seem to be using.

[LosIllini 91]

Still going back on forth on a home office AMD vs. Intel build (and, sorry to muck up the gaming pc thread).  But, looks like MicroCenter has a pretty good price on the Ryzen 5 3600s, which would work.  Still can't find and decent priced Ryzens w/ graphics.

Any recs on an available/ usable graphics card comparable to Intel's (10500-10700 series) built-in graphics, that I can throw into a microATX build?  Going to have to pull the trigger in the next week or two.

Edited March 14, 2021 by LosIllini

[Jersey Man10 3539]

3600 is average. You can get something better for similar price.

[atomheartbevo 89777]

7 hours ago, LosIllini said:

Any recs on an available/ usable graphics card comparable to Intel's (10500-10700 series) built-in graphics, that I can throw into a microATX build?  Going to have to pull the trigger in the next week or two.

You can always build a system around one of the Intels with built-in graphics, and then decide on a GPU later on down the road.  Only issues with the Intels, for what I am assuming about your purposes, is that they are not as compatible with older/newer CPUs.

One thing to consider on your build, as far as future-proofing, is how big will your case actually be?  Or rather, what GPUs will it take?  Some micro cases, and a lot of the mini-ITX cases, will not take the (full) length when it comes to GPUs.   In my mini build (Cooler Master NR200, 14.8" Long x 7.28" Wide x 11.5" inches), I picked a case that could take up to a 330mm GPU.

 

[LosIllini 91]

Thanks everyone (and, sorry to hijack the gaming build thread, but, this is where the good advice is).  Fwiw- Ended up going pretty simple w/ the new build. 

Microcenter had a pretty good price on Intel/ mobo combos, so, ended up building a 10700 system/ Asus PRIME B460M-A, 16GB ram, 500GB Samsung m.2 drive, and 4TB WD Blue drive for backup.  Updated an old Win7 Pro license to Win10 (no problem using the Win7 key).  Sticking w/ onboard graphics for now.  CoolerMaster N200 case, so, should have plenty of room later on for a GPU, if necessary.  For a family member that isn't going to be doing much gameplaying/ graphics anyway, but, wanted throw in some futureproofing.

Would have loved to have put together another AMD build, but, all onboard graphics processors were either unavailable, or inflated; and, I couldn't find a cheap GPU. 

Comparing to my current desktop, which is a few years old- Ryzen 7, 2700, windows 10, 16GB, ssd.  New machine boots superfast, and feels alot quicker surfing.  I'm guessing that my Windows 10 is probably a bit bloated at this point.  May have to reinstall clean, but, pita to do.