The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Sky]

non-crazy lead times and minimum markups. If you can’t wait any longer you can try one those:

Underpromise, overdeliver?



Ship date is still May 19, but it looks like it moved through production nicely. Estimates I saw were 4-6 days, this one was less than 3.

We'll see how quickly the transit department moves, and then it's on to the stunning bunglers, Fedex. So I guess it could still be mid-late May....

edited to add: estimated arrival by 8pm tomorrow but I fully expect Fedex to bungle stunningly. Still, though. 

[Velorath]

Additionally what big budget game releases are on the horizon worth upgrading a PC for? Cyberpunk came and went. I don’t see one game still scheduled to release in 2021 that screams to me that I need all the ray tracing I can get up in this bitch.

I played Cyberpunk at 720p. On a 4k display. C'mon, man.

A 3080 isn't going to fix what was wrong with that game.

[Sky]

7 days from order placed to delivery. Not a standard config, I changed most of the basic standard options. I'm impressed with the transaction thus far! I don't know what magic combination of events had to happen to get that kind of quick build and delivery, but I couldn't be happier (esp with a vacation coming up!).

I probably won't get to stretch it out until this weekend, but it is nice to have the option to bounce over to the old pc (since I've only ever kept upgrading with old parts, so I've never had 2 PCs in the house!). The biggest downside is that I pondered leaving for the day after lunch...and the old lady thought it was a good idea and took the afternoon off to sleep at my house. That's just wrong.

Fans and new paste tube probably won't arrive until Saturday, so I'll likely run some tests stock to set a baseline. Only planning on making the rad push/pull, adding a second front intake, and swapping the oem fans out for better ones. May need to think about the grill by the lower back side, the extra intake might mess with what I think is a passive intake for the gpu fans. Initial plan was maybe an angled fan bracket, but I think the mobo is thin on pwm fan headers.

[Mandella]

I know why I want a 30xx card, but why are the rest of you even bothering?  My 2080 super card destroys every game it has to run in pancake mode, and most things in VR as well.  I wouldn't even consider a 30 series card for normal gaming.

I hear ya. I'm fine with "low" res gaming (ha ha at me ever considering 720 low res), but the damn 2080s are about as rare and overpriced as the 30 series.

But I do want to get into VR later (wanted to much earlier) and a hefty card would be nice. But right now I'd happily settle for a 20 series.

What are some of those apps and such that alert you to sales you guys keep talking about?

Edit: Holy crap. I'm actually considering a gtx 1060 for ~$400.00. Everything else is a grand or over. And it does look like my old 970 is failing. I've replaced mainboard, cpu, and memory and am still getting a hard crash on most graphics intensive games.

[Sky]

16350 in Time Spy before touching anything in hard- or software, not even fan curves and whatnot. Not a bad start! (I haven't benchmarked the old dusty rig, but that combo hasn't cracked 6500 on that test) I don't expect that to improve too much, my upgrades will be more about keeping the pc quiet and stable than pushing the bleeding edge.

Dell was surprisingly slow in charging my credit card, thought I got away with one...but the charge hit this morning. I guess I had to actually pay for my pc. Aww.

As far as stock notifications, I've forgotten pretty much all the stuff I used, since I gave up soon after black friday. There was one that generated a notification when a webpage was altered that was fairly reliable. There are a few sites you can follow that can set up notifications, and a few accounts on twitter.

FWIW, none of it mattered. I had the store pages for each sku I was contemplating, all my info loaded on the site (I normally don't store cc info), and refreshing my logins. This was my daily routine for a couple months. I even had a 3080 in my cart once, which, though it timed out in payment on the initial try, let me start directly from my cart screen after that. You have literally seconds from getting the notifications to complete checkout. I gave up and bought an Alienware. As far as I'm concerned, there is no pc building hobby for the time being.

[Tale]

As far as I'm concerned, there is no pc building hobby for the time being.

Congrats on your new machine! "Modding a prebuild" instead is sounding fun. In the era of the Voodoo 1 and 2, I wrote a feature story for a PC magazine where I turned an office desktop into a 3D gaming machine (basically just changed CPU, RAM, 3D card and Sound Blaster) and it was the mag's most popular article.

I can't believe the 3070 I bought in the Black Friday sales is now worth way more than I paid for it. I'd cash in, but I bought a 3440 x 1440 ultrawide monitor (from the Chinese military or something) and they're superb together.

[Reg]

What do you guys do about transferring data from the old system to the new one? I've almost convinced myself that buying an external hard drive is the way to do it. I could leave all of my media on the external and just move the rest of my files piecemeal to the PC.

[Sky]

You don't have a NAS? Most of the data, I just leave on the old drive and slap it as a data drive in the new pc. Nowadays, most stuff I worry about losing ends up on the NAS anyway, so it's just a matter of copying over a few more transient things like game settings and saves. The biggest change this time is that I'll put that old drive back in the old pc.

As expected, got a little throttling in Cyberpunk at 4k/ultra everything, both cpu and gpu. Definitely worth doing some cooling upgrades here. But I mean also it runs well at 4k ultra everything, stock, so....I'm already happy with where it is. The real test is GTA V  I'll also be interested when I get around to modded minecraft, which should be interesting as a java program. Can a 2021 PC run full shaders and 256x textures, on top of a couple hundred janky-ass mods?

[Cyrrex]

Not even clear what spec you ended up with?  But GTA should be no problem, that shit old.

[Trippy]

It is old but at 4K a 3080 will just reach 60 FPS stable.

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3618-nvidia-rtx-3080-founders-edition-review-benchmarks

[Cyrrex]

It is old but at 4K a 3080 will just reach 60 FPS stable.

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3618-nvidia-rtx-3080-founders-edition-review-benchmarks

Average FPS was 99, and if I recall the GTA settings, that is with tons of useless shit turned up.  Pretty sure I was getting close enough to 60 at 4k with my old 1080.  Not technically at Ultra, perhaps, but resolution trumps a lot of those other settings.

That said, maybe my memory is failing me.  Might have to download it and see.

[Trippy]

Yeah but who wants to play at 60 FPS average with constant dips into the 30s? That would suck.

Edit: better to just lock it to 30 at that point

[Sky]

Yeah but who wants to play at 60 FPS average with constant dips into the 30s? That would suck.

Edit: better to just lock it to 30 at that point

This right here.

[Cyrrex]

Yeah but who wants to play at 60 FPS average with constant dips into the 30s? That would suck.

Edit: better to just lock it to 30 at that point

I don’t think it did dip quite so much, except maybe during the odd violent explosion.  Anyway, I just loaded a save and ran a bench mark.  Easily getting averages between 100 and 110, with the odd dip to about 90.  Most things maxed out I guess, didn’t look through everything.

A better conversation might really be about what sacrifices one is willing to make.  For me, resolution and fps (above 60) are king, I will sacrifice almost everything else to get those running well enough.  Doubly so if it is VR.

[Mandella]

I am one of those oddballs that can handle a fairly low framerate with no problem. As in I hardly notice it. So I always crank up the resolution and particle effects and all that to give me what others see as a very pretty slideshow.

Also even more sure it's my aging GTX 970 that is failing, as turning off post processing and all lighting effects possible slows down the frequency of crashes. Still searching around for a graphics card that is at least as good as the old one that is not outrageously pricey. Thing is, I can pay a grand for a card without missing any meals next week, but I just refuse to, dangit.

Might have to go second hand.

[Trippy]

Alienware R12 ordered. Fiancee asked if I was going to spend the next year and a half debating it before buying 

Might want to check that you didn't inadvertently auto opt-in to a monthly warranty service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_8ovOjhN1Q&t=70s

[Sky]

Alienware R12 ordered. Fiancee asked if I was going to spend the next year and a half debating it before buying 

Might want to check that you didn't inadvertently auto opt-in to a monthly warranty service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_8ovOjhN1Q&t=70s

Steve is a drama queen. Rather than do an actual investigative piece that tried different configs to see where that subscription default was triggering and actually be helpful and professional, he went for clickbait and just slapped that story up as a newsbit, then the video.

I do indeed check all the various options as I buy, mine was defaulted to the basic 1yr free plan when I purchased. When he did the news teaser on YT, I checked again, and the R12 configurator was still defaulting me to basic 1yr free.

It sucks because there was a likely a decent article there, but he just did the lazy. I got downvoted for pointing out the discrepency, of course, because that's the world we live in now.

By the way. I didn't click through your link to know it was Steve. It's effect drama, though I wish he'd stick to the bench.

[Trippy]

I don't see the clickbait. I picked a semi-random Ryzen build and went to Configuration:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/gaming-and-games/alienware-aurora-ryzen-edition-r10-gaming-desktop/spd/alienware-aurora-r10-desktop/wdryzr10v30h?view=configurations

And I see the monthly subscription auto-selected just like the video documents:



If you didn't get it that's cool but the warning is legit.

[eldaec]

Might vary by your location, this sort of thing often depends on consumer regulation.

And sadly defaulting to a subscription scam is fairly standard practice where the law doesn't prevent it.

[Sky]

I have zero complaints and I think I got a pretty damn good deal.

So far, my main complaints are that the backplate of the gpu doesn't have much clearance (I'd like to add some fins to the back of the vram, the gddr6x runs hot) and the mobo is finicky about fan model (basically needs either stock or one specific sku of corsair maglev...which has had stock issues for at least a year). Let me say up front, these are niggling complaints, it's a 4k/60 beast of a pc and this is more about getting it as quiet as possible because it sits in my living room. Peak gaming on the R12 generates about the same noise (pre-modding) as my old pc, but for most stuff it's silent or nearly so (so PGA or NFL are silent except the weird Madden screen menu fan ramp-up, it does the same thing on the PS4 Pro but it's a jet engine and I have to force-quit the app, so definite improvement there!). I don't think anything has dipped below 60 frames at the 1% low threshold, it's smooth af.

I have a couple of the correct fans on backorder, until then I've run a test upgrade of the front fans. Since the mobo is also stingy about fan headers, I need a couple y-splitters to add 2 more fans (+1 front intake, convert rad to push/pull). This actually works out perfectly, as I can run any fan on the slave side. So for now I'm using the stock fans as masters.

I also did a repaste of the gpu heatsink. Imo it's more or less required for these Dell custom 30xx cards. The heatsink side of the memory is just plate on plate (two sides have stickers as insulators, even!), apparently the backplate is a hs for those because it has beefy thermal pads on the back...but see my previous comment about the lack of clearance (the psu sits right over it). The repaste netted me a pretty solid -10C improvement on the vram.

The intake and rad fan upgrades are more about helping the gpu vent its hot air more effectively. The 11700 runs nice and cool, no complaints at all there. The gpu runs on the high side of what I'm comfortable with, but still well within specs. Playing around with fan curves to dial in noise/cooling balance. Only an issue on demanding (and/or unoptimized, I'm using 7 Days to Die and GTA V as tests heh) titles at 4k/ultra. 7 Days on my quieter fan curve will run at 92C vram, which can hit peaks of 98. The gpu itself runs 10C cooler than the memory, so it's warm but not worrisome there, throttle is at 110C and risk of failure starts at 120C. So without the repaste, it was still 10C shy of the throttle threshold on the gpu (after setting a decent fan curve). I made a more aggressive fan curve as a test and can keep the vram under 90C, but it's pretty loud (but again, about the same db as my old PC).

It's a nice little case, even with such a hot generation of hardware. A few little projects help a lot with that, and it's actually nice as a project pc. I could easily pull back a couple settings in those two mentioned titles and never worry about tweaking it, but again, it leaves something there to customize and tweak, which is nice for an old school builder. Very happy with my decision this time around, and with supply issues looking to extend for at least a couple more years, I'm glad I jumped off the fence when I did.

[Cyrrex]

Is it correct that it has a 3060 gpu?  I am not clear on the specs of your new toy.

[Sky]

It's a 3090. Great card, just need to balance thermals with noise, in a small case that's not set up great for thermals. But it's not as bad as it's made out to be, honestly the main problem is how hot gddr6x (the 60/70s run gddr6, the 80/90s run the X spec) runs. The gpu itself, the cpu, ambient case temps, all perfectly fine.

[Cyrrex]

It's a 3090.

Sploosh!  Except with semen.

[Sky]

Finished the initial thermal stuff, even fans are out of stock but I found a vendor who was marking them up $4/ea Close enough at this point, vs waiting a month or two.

Basically what I said in my last post. My only complaint about the pc is how hot the gddr6x memory runs. The case was already cool (albeit on the upper end, but with such hot components, it was understandable). Now it's well ventilated and running relatively cool...except that darn vram. I've got it down to 90-94C as a normal high temp with some peaks to 96 or 98. That's another 4C avg, by far the biggest impact was repasting the gpu (which is why I'm thinking of revisiting that job to ensure it was done really well). That's what immediately put temps in the 90s rather than 100s, and the commonly accepted ceiling for running the 3090 is 100 on the vram (with throttling starting at 110, damage at 120).

I can push the cooling to a stable 88C on the vram, but the freq of the fans doesn't work for me. Of course I could get it cooler if I pushed the fans harder, but quiet is king. Right now it feels loud during 7 Days (where I'm straining to hear zombie footsteps on a dark quiet night), but pushing about as hard in GTA V it fades into the background noise of the game. So I think that's about as far as I'm going to get in this case, with these components. I wouldn't mind adding an intake next to the gpu, but there's no room for a 120mm and the only header left I don't think I can pwm control (I may bolt one on the outside of the case if I can pwm control it, I think I had a fan with a potentiometer kinda thing inline, just holding one there at full blast dropped another 2-4C on the vram). Really after the initial gpu repaste, the vram was the only temp I was even checking regularly.

The nice thing is I was pretty happy right out of the box. So getting the avg vram temps down 14-18C with minimal effort has made me pretty dern happy. Guess I should note I use 7 Days and GTA V because their huge draw distances, textures, and ability to push out lod makes them beasts. I've loaded up a few more titles with nice graphics and it just brushes them aside easily. The 3rd part of the venn after quiet/cool is locked 4k/60 (as mentioned previously, dips under 60 are not cool). And this is a pretty rock solid 4k/60 box, looks soooo good.

Now I just wish I could tie the pwm fan control to different thermistors on a per-header basis. Seems silly not to! I think if I could get the front header to read the vram temps, or have a side fan that could pull in more cool air when I hit 90C...

[Mandella]

So as I was talking about above after replacing mainboard, cpu and memory I was still have hard lockups. I finally managed to get a replacement 970 to install.

Still crashing. Ran scans and diagnostics on the harddrives, seemed okay. Full virus checks and reloads of the operating system, driver updates etc. Still locking up.

Replaced the power source. No more lockup.

What is funny is that I am the guy always telling friends that "It might be your power source" when they are complaining about random issues with their respective machines.

Oh well, the only thing I regret is the video card, since it isn't an upgrade. The new CPU is absolutely kicking it for Kerbal Space Program, and I play that a lot. And one of my employees definitely lucked out when I just dumped a box of perfectly good, if somewhat outdated, parts on him.

So anyway, check your power source first, folks.

[Sky]

Glad to hear you got it squared away. Are you running a UPS? My power here isn't too bad, but now and again weird stuff would happen, so I put in a UPS (big enough to handle basically my whole media stack: pc/tv/receiver). Haven't had any problems since, and it's saved me a couple times during power outtages.

[Chimpy]

Don't ever skimp on power strips for your computer, even if you don't have a UPS.

I had multiple cases when I was doing desktop support where a person's machine had weird problems and it was the cheap (and old) power strip they were plugged into causing the problem.

[Mandella]

Thank you both for reminding me. I *do* have a UPS, but it is old and the battery is pretty much run down. I shouldn't be trusting the surge protection either.

Ordering a new one now.

[rattran]

Picked up a new UPS at costco, let it charge for 24 hours, got everything hooked up.
Fast forward to last night when we had the first power outage, no power from the battery ports. After far too much time on hold with tech support they agree it's a problem, and will allow me to ship it back to them sans batteries for testing. So back to costco it goes instead.

[Endie]

Picked up a new UPS at costco, let it charge for 24 hours, got everything hooked up.
Fast forward to last night when we had the first power outage, no power from the battery ports. After far too much time on hold with tech support they agree it's a problem, and will allow me to ship it back to them sans batteries for testing. So back to costco it goes instead.

When I got my UPS (from my wife for Christmas: what a sweetie) the first thing I did was yank out the power to the back of it to see what happened!

[Trippy]

The first batch of Intel's new 12th gen Alder Lake architecture CPUs have been announced and priced (in 1K quantities). The Alder Lake design is a significant departure from previous generations in that it has two types of cores -- performance cores and efficiency cores -- rather than a single (performance) type. This is similar to how some of the ARM CPUs have high-performance and high-efficiency cores. Release date is November 4th. The new CPUs also support PCIe 5.0 (Gen5) and DDR5.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16959/intel-innovation-alder-lake-november-4th

It's going to be tricky to benchmark these things but Intel is claiming faster performance and / or lower power usage compared to 11th gen Rocket Lake CPUs, which wouldn't be hard given how bad Rocket Lake is in terms of performance to power.

Based on the 1K pricing it looks like the i5-12600KF ($264 for 1K pricing) with 6 perf & 4 eff cores (16 threads) will be competing against the AMD 5600X with 6 cores / 12 threads (~$299) while the i7-12700KF ($384 for 1K pricing) with 8 perf & 4 eff cores (20 threads) will be competing again the AMD 5800X with 8 cores / 16 threads (~399).

Edit: added AMD core counts

[Sky]

Intel and Nvidia both need to get their shit together when it comes to power draw. It's craaaazy high. Two PCs ago I had such a lean machine with the 2500k and 460, I could have a farm of them, on a watt-for-watt basis.

[Trippy]

That's what you get for getting a 3090.

[Chimpy]

Honestly, if it wasn't for legacy compatibility and lack of enough options in the server form factor we were looking for from Lenovo we would have switched to EPYC from Xeons at work.

I have no plans on ever buying an Intel chip for a personal PC purchase again. AMD has their shit together on both price and performance while Intel is just playing the equivalent of the "no one ever got fired for buying Cisco" card to keep themselves profitable.

Ryzen CPUs are pretty amazing since they first showed up, and I can't see the landscape changing too drastically in the next couple of years.

[Sky]

That's what you get for getting a 3090.