- Post your list, rate other user's, ask questions in general.
- Always state the purpose of your PC, your budget, AND YOUR COUNTRY if outside the USA. If you are asking for improvements, clarify whether you want to lower price, or improve specs or build quality.
-If you see any other build advice or part list threads, please politely direct them here.
Lets talk about normal case fans whats the RPM acceptable for cooling a normal PC before going into full retard overkill mode? maximum of 1200-1500? if I have the option between 120mm and 140mm, is there a point in going for 140 over 120?
Landon Howard
how the fuck can ram have such a big impact on gaming? Am I getting meme'd here
Jonathan Gutierrez
Perfect, I was looking for a thread like this.
tl:dr: Should I wait until Cyber Monday / Christmas shopping season to buy and build a gaming computer, or just do it today?
I'd like a gaming computer now so that I may play Blizzard's games, such as Overwatch, Diablo III and World or Warcraft. Possibly League of legends.
In any case none of those are big-ticket games (save for maybe Overwatch) when it comes to graphics, so I'm not expecting to run multiple GPU's or get premium stuff. I would like to get a cheap water cooling system and an i7 processor though.
I'm not on too strict a budget and wouldn't mind spending near $1500.
Michael Cooper
Only works for pos-coded games.
Luke Foster
bethesda can't do anything right
Henry Roberts
The game treats system RAM as extended VRAM for things not yet on screen, and does it heavily. Constantly swapping huge chunks of data in and out of RAM so it needs the extra bandwidth. It would likely keep scaling well beyond 3000mhz if the CPU in question could handle it.
Other titles do it, just not to the same absurd degree. The Witcher 3 shows the same behavior. The difference is The Witcher can justify it since theres a lot of high fidelity textures and tons of detailed geometry. Fallout in contrast looks like garbage.
Lincoln Sanchez
iirc ram is one of those things where you either have enough, in which case it's not noticeable at all, or you don't have enough, in which case you'll experience all sorts of terrible things.
>how do i know if i have enough ram?
Open your system monitor during a normal usage session (so when you have your commonly used apps open, like skype, a million porn tabs, visual studio, whatever, all at ocne) and look at your ram used. Do you have 4 - 8 gigs of spare ram? If you answered yes, then you probably have enough to play most games *while* all that shit is open.
Either way 16 gigs should be enough for anything but x-treme 3D modeling / animation / film editing
Ryan Cooper
it's a bethesda game, aka a fucking mess of code and optimization you shouldn't even be playing it above 60fps anyways youtube.com/watch?v=r4EHjFkVw-s
Oliver Smith
Overwatch ran like a charm during the beta on my GTX 660+Intel i3. It's pretty well made.
What are you looking for in terms of waiting time? You say you're considering waiting till the end of the year, so does that mean you're not particularly fussed if it takes you that long, and maybe already have something up and running at the moment? In that case I suppose you could wait yes. But I don't think there will be many improvements in technology over that time. Intel and AMD are only coming with new products in 2017, and that's a long way from now.
If you want to get a nice computer, you can just go for it and not bother reading all the advertising in December. If you know you're going to be upset about some deals several months down the line, then wait. If, on top of that you want a 7700k instead of a 6700k, then wait till 2017. I mean, maybe it'll only be January before those are released.
Are you also interested in what would be a good setup?
Logan Ward
>The game treats system RAM as extended VRAM for things not yet on screen, and does it heavily if you had a gpu with more VRAM would that help as well? 16 gigs is enough ok thanks
Landon Hernandez
>if you had a gpu with more VRAM would that help as well? Maybe. It could be that the engine isn't dynamically partitioning things to send to system RAM, and the content it swaps over there is static. So it would keep relying on your system RAM even if you had a GPU with an infinite amount of VRAM.
Jose Bailey
I cannot test VRAM+Bethesda for you, but I guess so? The graph doesn't really tell what exact settings were used. Maybe all the LoD settings were completely maxed out beyond use.
Landon Wright
You imagine it works a bit like swappiness in the Linux kernel? Then I guess a game made by Fallout devs would require tons of VRAM before it will start behaving normally. The 980 is 4GB right?
Adam Adams
Anons I am interested in the new APUs for living room build when they hit consumer market. Purpose is to have console-like device to play movies, play games and browse the web from couch.
Would PicoPSU be good for this setup or I should just get regular smaller form factor PSU?
>higher-end bristol ridge APU, most likely a 35W part with low profile cooler >ITX mobo with m.2 SSD and DDR4 >media content on NAS
Also what OS would you recommend? I want to run emulators as well, does that limit me to OS? I would rather save the money and go free Linux.
Cameron Jones
>Intel and AMD are only coming with new products in 2017, and that's a long way from now. Ok. I was equally concerned with the potential savings I'd lose by buying now than later, as I was concerned with the opportunities I'd miss out on by buying now, rather than potentially getting something better later. So that cancels one of my reasons to wait.
>Are you also interested in what would be a good setup? I was looking @ logicalIncrements.com and it seems I can build a great gaming PC for $1000 to $1200 (and that includes an SSD).
I'd like to use water cooling though because my house gets very hot (no insulation nor AC) and I've actually fried 3 GTX 460's
Evan Young
Harddrives really are the hardest fucking thing to buy, arent they? Seems like everything fucking fails after a year nowadays
Jeremiah Cruz
not to be an ass but if you keep regular backups this isn't really a problem
Colton Flores
HGST
Tyler Walker
So you have a backup car also?
Those things should work at least during their warranty after 6 decades of development ffs.
Robert Gomez
External Hard drives.
Gavin Robinson
just buy japanese drives i.e toshiba or hitachi
everything else is memes
Dylan Edwards
I see no reason why a picopsu wouldn't be able to power a small system like that. There's not much information about the new APUs out yet, but it looks like your standard stuff. So I see no reason why PicoPSU wouldn't be fine.
Linux will work great for movies, emulators and all that, but obviously won't be suitable for running DX11 games. On the plus side, with AMD's new open source driver move, it should work quite well out of the box! Still, a Windows license is only as much as you pay for it.
I wonder how much watercooling is going to do for you. I imagine you'll be going for a GTX 1060 or a 1070, and they are quite different to the old Fermi chips. Those things were hot even in cold locations. But we're on Sup Forums, so it could just be for the fun of it.
And don't forget that you might want to choose parts depending on your needs rather than a guide. You might already have a PSU, a case. You might want to plan for possible future upgrades and go for a single stick of 8GB of RAM and place an identical one in a few years time. Or if you have current storage you could opt to go for a smaller SSD, but have it be NVMe.
The last HDD that failed on me was an IDE 20GB disk many many years ago. Now it's cheap USB storage that fails on me.
I just checked, and Western Digital only gives the minimum amount of warranty they can get away with. I wouldn't trust them with my data. But I cannot find the warranty on Toshiba drives, HGST gives 3 years which is good. HGST isn't even worse in terms of cost.
Xavier Collins
>mfw when build I thought was dead just POST'd
Now time to organize all these cables.
Adrian Taylor
It really is /pcag/ - PC Assembly General
Josiah Walker
>new 144hz monitor >set the setting to 144hz >mouse now glides like a knife on warm butter So this... Is the power... Of PC
Isaiah Brown
When I was like, 6 or something, in 1996-7, or somewhere, fuck if I remember, my absent father told me he was going to build me a computer.
He didn't.
Now I'm assembling my own computer. Fuck you, daddy. I made it. Fuck you.
Colton Jones
>4tb hgst drive is 2 dollars cheaper than a 3tb wd drive i dont get it
Jace Gomez
It really is /pcag/ - PC Autism General
Blake Russell
How sad/good is it that 64gb microsd things are like $25 each. Makes me want to buy a c201 and libreboot it and never use it because it doesn't fit my use case.
Liam Peterson
IS it realistic to aim for a 300 bucks price tag (completely new build) when all i want to do is basically just replace my phenom x4 with a current-gen CPU+mainboard and all the other parts in the new build (ram,gpu,periphery et al) save for the hdd and psu maybe (+tower of course) would be basically just shit-tier low cost parts which i would then replace with their equivalents from my current build?
Also when are next gen CPU's coming out
Henry Morales
Early 2017. Asus H110M-A D3 + Intel Core i5-6400 That should still work fine with your existing DDR3 memory. You can use all components you already have, except for the motherboard and CPU of course. And it's quite cheap.
Jack Harris
I have never had a harddrive fail on me. Some of my oldest ones are about 6 years old and they are doing fine and dandy. You sure your cooling setup keeps them from getting too hot?
Zachary Scott
I wonder what the real DOA & failure rates are for bare drives shipped to end consumers.
Chase Robinson
Scrub questions incoming.
1/. If I only need a 400w PSU but I buy a 650w one to allow for future upgrades........ will I have any issues?
2/. Anti-static wristbands....... yay or nay
3/. Soundcards...... do you need one or do most mobo's have a "basic" one kind of built in?
John Rogers
Regarding static: Can I just dismantle my old machine, plug in the power supply and rest my foot on it? How often would I need to do that? Am I gonna get lekchecuted?
Brayden Ortiz
>1/. If I only need a 400w PSU but I buy a 650w one to allow for future upgrades........ will I have any issues? No issues. >2/. Anti-static wristbands....... yay or nay They're cheap; get one if it makes you feel more comfortable. >3/. Soundcards...... do you need one or do most mobo's have a "basic" one kind of built in? You don't need a sound card. All motherboards except for server boards have built-in audio.
What are you saying?
Nicholas Smith
g r o u n d i n g
Grayson Ross
But I have no idea what you're trying to say. Put your case down, make sure the screws for board elevation are fitted so the board doesn't touch the case directly, then put in your CPU, fan, GPU, storage, add SATA cables, fit RAM (hold it by the cooler if you're worried), plug in power cables and close the case.
Hudson Perez
built in audio is usually shit
Colton Lee
Thanks. I reckon I'll go with the rm650x then.
Does anyone know if there is a good website to go to to check if you will have any bottlenecking issues between a CPU and GPU?
Carson Murphy
but don't I need to be g r o u n d e d for s t a t i c
I have l i t t l e m o n e y to fuck things up, you know?
Carson James
Some related stuff, but memory timings, not memory speed
It's okay. It's usually better to get better sound output (headphones, speakers) than to mess around with marginal improvements and C-Media drivers.
If the 650W PSU will make you more comfortable, then go ahead. The bottlenecking depends on the application. For database servers your storage or RAM can easily bottleneck you. The OP's post for example has a weirdly programmed game as an example where RAM can be a bottleneck. Usually you're well off with an i5. Me and my SO both have very different CPUs, an i3 versus an i7 and you can definitely notice the i3 bottlenecking on some games we play together, but whether you really need an i7 over an i5 unless you're going with a GTX 1070 or higher? What parts are you planning on?
What's wrong with your typing?
Charles Ross
So I have 32 GB of 2133 MHz DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX (2 sticks of 16 GB).
I do a lot of hi-res Photoshop, but I planned on playing Fallout 4 eventually and the Elder Scrolls VI: Hammerfell. Did I screw up? Would I have been better off with 16 GB @ 3000 MHz?
I'm worried because I already had to RMA the ram about 1 month after building the rig. I have a GTX 1070/6700K but it doesn't do 4K very well even with older games like Borderlands 2? Not sure if this rig is going to last as long as my old i7 920/GTX 285. That one is 7 years old and it's still going strong. Maybe I should have waited a few more years or until it died?
Getting some buyer's remorse after only a couple of months with it. It's not packing nearly the same punch as my old rig did when I first built that.
Owen Foster
need a big mousepad, but those razer crap is 30 euros. where to find them cheap?
Charles White
You'll lose approximatey .1 frame per second compared to similarly-clocked ddr3. :^)
Don't play games at 4k resolution. No card can handle it, no matter how expensive. Play it at a lower resolution with the same aspect ratio and upscale. Just sit farther away from the screen.
Julian Morris
In order until it helps: 1. Get the latest NVIDIA drivers from their site, make sure to use clean install during custom setup. 2. Use sdi-tool's Lite package to sort out any driver issues you might have. 3. Check benchmarks to see if you're actually supposed to be running 60fps@4k 4. Use Rivatuner/Afterburner to see what part of your system doesn't get fully utilized in-game. Google around or ask questions. 5. Check your BIOS to see if XMP memory profiles are activated. 6. Update BIOS 7. Cry
John Clark
is a 330w psu enough for an i3 6100 and a gtx 750 ti
Angel Lee
Oh and turn off anti-aliasing at 4k for crying out loud!
Jaxon Ramirez
Thanks, will try these out, but I think I'm going to do #7 first.
Ethan Hernandez
AA with 4K looks so good even on a 1080p monitor. There's no jaggies at all. Especially games with bad AA like Borderlands and Battleborn. Overwatch can get away with it, but it still looks better in 4K with AA than 1080p with AA.
Benjamin Thompson
1080p + good AA should be enough for any screen I mean if you have a huge 4k display you should sit far enough from it that aliasing or scaling isn't and issue
Michael Gutierrez
Source of test? Pretty sure this is onky an issue if you have a shit gpu
William Murphy
AA with 4K looks so good even on a 1080p monitor.
>downscaling 4k to 1080p
>no jaggies
Thomas James
yes
Nathaniel Campbell
The random deals that pop up on sites like newegg and best buy throughout the year are about the same as most black friday/etc deals
Luis Roberts
>what is interpolation
MSAA and SSAA basically render the scene at a higher resolution then downscale it by combining(averaging) blocks of pixels into a single pixel
Jack Sanders
Due to reasons beyond my control I am forced to switch from an ethernet connection to a wireless connection for my desktop. It's been a while since I've looked into wireless adapters, is a PCI-E adapter still the best option or have USB adapters caught up now?
Would this be overkill?
Bentley Turner
No, I have a 27" 1080p 60 Hz monitor, but certain games, especially the Borderlands series or Battleborn only have FXAA, but even then the jaggies are still there plus the screen got blurrier.
The difference between 1080p and 4K is very noticeable for me, with or without AA. With 1440p I can tell the difference, but the jump to 4K is so much better, it really hurts having to drop to 1080p after being so close to it. All I need is maybe 20 or 30 FPS more for it to be playable.
Sebastian Diaz
o
Jaxson Bennett
you can try enforcing AA from the nvidia control panel
Evan Roberts
This: But you have to see it to believe it. It makes so much difference. It just sucks how much of a performance drop it costs. It really does remove the jaggies, especially if you add some AA on top of the 4K. Even if the monitor is only 1080p.
Kayden Scott
Those TP-Link PCIe adapters are still king I guess. Can't see what exact chips they use in the new Archer AC adapters though. There never was a competitor to those. And of course USB wifi sucks.
Easton Price
>With 1440p I can tell the difference I meant can't. 1080p and 1440p look almost exactly the same to me. It feels like 1080p with slightly worse performance.
Doesn't work with Unreal for some reason. With Borderlands, forced MSAA or any other AA is incompatible, and the option is greyed out. Works for other games though.
Nathan Jenkins
>want to make use of cheap sandy bridge EP xeons >mainboards still cost 300+
Camden Edwards
Was thinking i3 6100 with a GTX 750 Ti. But I may jump up to a GTX 950....... also considering waiting an extra week or so and upgrading to i5 6400....... but that's more than what I should be really spending.
Hunter Gray
yeah, if the game uses deferred rendering MSAA is incompatible without inducing graphical bugs. The only solution is run the game at a higher res (use DSR if the monitor doesn't support bigger res), or post processing AA
FXAA is generally shit, but there are more presets and other post processing AA techniques(for example SMAA I heard it is pretty good) than games present
There are programs that inject custom post processing AA but I don't have any information on them
Carson Clark
Thanks, I will stick with TP-Link, I'm actually considering the TP-LINK Archer T8E AC1750 now. Arghh.... I just want more antennas. I just hate having to have wireless connection now...
Nathan Roberts
Dear /pcbg/.
Im planning to buy new PC since few months, hold myself for whole summer due to all the crap with new GPU models and their prices and release dates.
Now, I cant decide about what GPU I want - RX 480 Nitro+ 8gb (overclocked) or GTX 1060 6gb. Both are costly in my country (1400-1500 PLN), but Im afraid if RX 470 will be enough in longer run.
Which one would be better option?
As for other parts, I kinda want to stick to i7-6700k as CPU. Most popular coolers from logicalincrements are not available in Poland, like Cryorig M9i. If I would be able to lay hands on Evo 212 or Scythe Mugen 4, would it be good option too?
As for PSU, would Corsair CXM 650W 80+ fit?
Also, about motherboard, in case of DDR4 ones, which one would be better: Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 or Asus Z170-P or MSI Z170-A Plus?
Sorry for asking so many questions and thanks for any reply.
Samuel James
Ah, that's right. There's SweetFX Injector I think. I avoided that on my older rig because it killed performance, but I could definitely use it on the new rig. I remember there was an old video for it working with Borderlands 2 to give it MSAA or something. I'll have to look that up.
Can I just get a 1070 or do I need to just start fresh? What can I salvage?
Brody Watson
>**Consider 3000MHz DDR4 in your new build**
Fuck that, just RMA'd some DDR4-3000 that wasn't stable even when running at 2133.
Serves me right for buying CorShit.
Gavin Reed
Like The Witcher 3 you mean?
Bentley Cruz
Ha, I just finished RMA-ing my 2133 Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM. So there's definitely a widespread problem with it then? It's not just me?
Ethan Price
I have two sticks of 3200MHz Corsair Vengeance in my machine and run them at 3333MHz with the same timings.
Justin Wood
You should probably check your budget first and foremost. General rule of thumb is: the product you can afford is more expensive than the product you will buy. Perhaps you will want to keep the i3 and go for a GTX 1050 instead. Or get an i5 instead of the i3. If with one those options you're overspending, then what about rent, food, kids, insurance, car, phone, you name it?
Some budget tips are to go for a H110, H170 or B150 chipset on your motherboard. They have their limitations, like the H110 will only house one GPU and 2 RAM slots, but the price is quite a bit lower.
Windows does not have to cost anything (not sure how much you can say on Sup Forums), and else there are cheap licenses on Reddit.
Samuel Roberts
(((higher is better)))
Austin Williams
You could choose to spend upwards of $450 replacing your CPU, motherboard and RAM, or spend that money on a 1070 but have it run in PCIe2.0 which you won't notice and won't affect performance.
Jordan Torres
Haven't looked into it but one of the sticks of LPX 2x16GB DDR4-3000 caused system hard freezes whenever it was installed. Always passed memtest though.
Mason White
Dude, most modern components have protection against that, they're highly unlikely to be destroyed simply from static discharge. If you're that worried about it, don't wear socks, or clothes even. Hack safely, hack naked.
Jaxon Price
I have two sticks of 4 GB RAM in my computer right now. There are two empty slots left over.
I want to buy two 8 GB sticks.
Can I put these two 8 GB sticks in alongside the 4 GB ones for a total of 24 GB RAM? Or is mixing two different RAM sizes a bad idea?
They're 2400 G Skill Ripjaw sticks and I have a ASRock B150M Pro4S MB which only supports 2133, which means they're downclocked(?), if that makes any difference.
Julian Jones
Sure, go ahead. But I don't see the point. Why order a higher clocked dual channel kit, in order to set it to single channel and downclock it? Is it also not less expensive to get one stick of 16GB 2133?
Cooper Bennett
Hm. The Crucial CT2K8G4DFD8213 (2*8GB DDR4 2133Mhz) is actually cheapest.
Ryder Rogers
Keep looking user. Sort by lowest price and look for the cheapest ones that are "for parts not working".
Ensure there's no visible damage, ascertain the reason for selling as is. If it's a "does not boot" description you're likely in luck and have a seller who doesn't know what they're doing. Do a little research on the board, ask the seller some questions, if you're confident you know the seller is simply an idiot you'll get a working board for cheap.
I got a p9x79 pro for 125$ and all it needed was a 13$ bios chip. Also got a e5-1650 v2 for 150$ because the seller tried testing it in a non compatible dual cpu dell. There are also some sellers who simply pull boards from non working systems and sell them as is for next to nothing. Those are a bit riskier, but if the price is right, you can often save a lot of cash or flip it for a nice profit.
Daniel Taylor
great tips user, thank you
Asher Garcia
IIs a phenom II quad core the best am2+ cpu I could get?
Blake Rodriguez
Buy grounding bracelets
Grayson Edwards
Worthless test eithout giving CAS latency. Taking latency into account ddr3 is better for the price
Robert Wright
At the time, the 2400 was on sale for cheaper than the 2133 for whatever reason.
You're saying I should mix the RAMs?
Jacob Ortiz
The theme of this thread seems appropriate to ask,
If I have DDR4 2133 MHz corsair vengeance RAM should I upgrade? When I bought this RAM I was under the impression that clock speed really didn't matter for gaming or normal application.
I bought my RAM the first week skylake existed because it was DDR4 and from a reputable brand without much else thought. I've recently been curious if it's holding my system back at all. My PC has high specs - 6700k, gtx 1080(right now, probably downgrading to 1070), 2x SSDs in raid0, etc. so my PC is pushing speed everywhere else. I just don't want to spend $200 on a DDR4 3000mhz kit if it isn't going to make a perceivable difference in gaming/computing.
Michael Jenkins
Yeah, sad that the 2680 v2 es chip wasn't as great as I had anticipated, learned the hard way that Intel started locking down the bclk harder than Fort Knox. And the 1680 I wanted was just too expensive. But even at the 300$ going rate for 1650 v2, with a nice 4400mhz oc you'll have the single threading of a stock 4790k, with the multithreading of a stock 5960x.
Mine runs nice a cool on a Nh-u12s with a pair of gentle typhoons strapped to it. Could go higher with ease, but 4500mhz proved unstable during a stress test due to thermal throttling. Those chips will not exceed 70c, theyll shut off cores to stay below that temp and performance becomes erratic. For my use case, I'm sure I would never max out all 12 threads for any extended period of time, but 4400 is plenty to be honest.
1090t or 1100t are the best phenoms.
Depends on the games you're running, only a handful of games actually have significant benefits from faster memory. It has always made a difference, just hasn't been this significant since ddr3 first came out.
Justin Rodriguez
You could mix if you want. It won't be an issue for your computer.
I highly doubt you'll see much of a difference in any way, shape or form. Check overclocking forums maybe. And then take the information there with a grain of salt. Not a spoon full of salt, but understand that some things can be placebo.
Charles Lopez
>video game console building general
Carter Williams
My budget isn't a huge issue, it's more just that I don't want to overspend in a "buying a ferrari to just do trips to the shops" kind of way. Also if I waited a few more weeks I could get a way better build (just started a new job with better pay and my old employer owes me around $2000 in unpaid holiday pay)
I had actually planned on a H170 Pro and was thinking of just getting an OEM version of windows 7 for $50.
Cheers for the suggestions though man, I'll do a little research on the GTX 1050
Zachary Hill
That does sound sensible! It won't hurt making a thread on pcbuildingwhatever reddit too just before purchase. Maybe they're far more into gaming than I am and know if an i5 is worth the extra.
Luke Thompson
Is this a good build for a guy with limitless amounts of money and no life other than gaming to live?
You're a fucking retard who doesn't understand how memory latency works. Latency is a factor of both timings and clock speed. A stick of 3200MHz DDR4 with 16-16-16-36 timings for example would have identical latency to a stick of DDR3 1600MHz with 8-8-8-18, but also much higher bandwidth on top of that.
There are quite literally no downsides to DDR4, and tech-illiterate pieces of garbage like you need to stop misinforming people.
Henry Ortiz
>implying Sup Forums isn't a consumer electronics board