Reply to: New PC build

[Smartie]

Looks sweet that. What about the graphics card though? I thought putting an old card in a modern motherboard is missing some serious power? I notice on my task list that certain apps use the GPU so having whizz bang everything and then an old card would really throttle performance? At a guess I'd the new items will be ready for an upgraded GPU and make use of it and you are missing a trick?

If/when I need a new one. Spent £800 on the updates which isn't bad after 7 years.
So far the GPU fans have not spun up, so it's not exactly working hard.
I don't do much PC gaming any more - spent far too much time in World of Warcraft, pushing the guild into the top tier of world rankings. Bit of Age of Empires sometimes.
Have the use of Adobe Creative Suite so if my photo processing taxes it, it can be easily changed.

[Stevep42]

I'd go with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D or an Intel i5-13600K. AMD runs cooler and is great for gaming and general use, while Intel has better single-core performance but runs hotter. If you’re concerned about Raptor Lake’s heat, a good AIO or high-end air cooler (like the NH-D15) is a must. For motherboards, B650 (AMD) or Z790 (Intel) should give you good upgrade potential. Keeping the GTX 1070 for now is fine if you're not doing heavy gaming.

[eek]

Looks sweet that. What about the graphics card though? I thought putting an old card in a modern motherboard is missing some serious power? I notice on my task list that certain apps use the GPU so having whizz bang everything and then an old card would really throttle performance? At a guess I'd the new items will be ready for an upgraded GPU and make use of it and you are missing a trick?

The new items are ready for a better video card when you can actually get 1

I suspect the price of the rest of the PC will be roughly the same as the GPU.

[northernladuk]

Looks sweet that. What about the graphics card though? I thought putting an old card in a modern motherboard is missing some serious power? I notice on my task list that certain apps use the GPU so having whizz bang everything and then an old card would really throttle performance? At a guess I'd the new items will be ready for an upgraded GPU and make use of it and you are missing a trick?

[Smartie]

It's all done, built over a weekend in-between the rugby.

AMD Ryzensets 7 9700X Processor
ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi AMD Ryzen AM5 ATX motherboard
Coolermaster master liquid 240 processor cooling
2 x 16Gb Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 RGB LED memory
2 x 2Gb Samsung 990Pro NVMe drives.

Old case, graphics, drives.

Bought most of it on Amazon except the memory which oddly was cheaper at Argos. Weird.

[quackhandle]

My 14 yo lad does this, he has built my poc/VMs server, my dads pc, his own gaming rig and a few for his mates.

He uses https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ which shows which components are compatible with each other and where to get them from.

For my own server it was nice to click the link and hey presto all the bits are in the Amazon basket.

He had said that his next rig will be AMD cpu and gpu as they are just better. (not sure who he thinks will be paying for it mind).

qh

[Uncle Albert]

ta, and all the other bits??
i can't find a good buildyerown site anymore, too many chinese knockoffs (especially on amazon, - pages of them in every search FFS)

Overclockers? I haven't used them for a few years but they used to have some decent stock.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/

[sadkingbilly]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/2tb-m-2-ssd/s?k=2tb+m.2+ssd

ta, and all the other bits??
i can't find a good buildyerown site anymore, too many chinese knockoffs (especially on amazon, - pages of them in every search FFS)

[WTFH]

where do you get those prices?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/2tb-m-2-ssd/s?k=2tb+m.2+ssd

[sadkingbilly]

Thanks, looking at it a Ryzen 7 9700X chip runs cool - just need to pick a suitable motherboard with the right sockets etc.
Surprised how cheap everything is, especially memory, though I guess I shouldn't be.
Processors, MBs etc same kind of price as 10 years ago so a lot cheaper in real terms.
32Gb memory for £100, 2Tb NVMe drives for the same price. I'll have 2!

where do you get those prices?

[Paracelsus]

Aye, most things are still quite cheap relatively. Except high-end graphics cards which have gone from ~£400-500 back in the early 00s to thousands now... but they are also exponentially more capable - back in the day, your full-fat card would get you running Oblivion at 45fps or whatever, now you can do realistic lighting or run an LLM locally

[Smartie]

Definitely go with AMD for CPU. They've been much better for a few generations now - very fast, much cooler and less power draining.
Intel have usually managed to keep the single-threaded performance crown, but only by pushing absurd amounts of power through the chips. So pretty much the only audience for for which their high-end chips make sense is competitive gamers who are happy to spend 200 watts of power/heat going from 170 to 175 fps in a shooter.

Thanks, looking at it a Ryzen 7 9700X chip runs cool - just need to pick a suitable motherboard with the right sockets etc.
Surprised how cheap everything is, especially memory, though I guess I shouldn't be.
Processors, MBs etc same kind of price as 10 years ago so a lot cheaper in real terms.
32Gb memory for £100, 2Tb NVMe drives for the same price. I'll have 2!

[Paracelsus]

Definitely go with AMD for CPU. They've been much better for a few generations now - very fast, much cooler and less power draining.
Intel have usually managed to keep the single-threaded performance crown, but only by pushing absurd amounts of power through the chips. So pretty much the only audience for for which their high-end chips make sense is competitive gamers who are happy to spend 200 watts of power/heat going from 170 to 175 fps in a shooter.

Even a low to mid-range chip - when combined with an NVME SSD - is enough for the majority of what people use PCs for to be tulip off a shovel fast.
If you want high-end gaming, 3d rendering, high-res video editing/streaming, then go for a full-fat one, otherwise middle of the road will do.

Cooling - a good quality air cooler like a Noctua or similar is enough, they are so good now that watercooling is mainly used for either aesthetic reasons or cooling top-end Intel/overclocked chips.

[Smartie]

I used to build my own PCs - and built them for my kids as well - but last time I needed to upgrade, I bought a gaming PC which is specifically designed for the consumer to upgrade as an when. Liquid cooled, which is nice. It's very quiet.

I had to get a new one as the switch from the front of the case of the old one to the mobo failed. I did get a new case and put the old shebang into it and it works fine now, but I like the pretty colours of the gaming PC.

A switch is a very simple device - opportunity to add a 'Diet Coke' call button :-)

[gables]

Had a brief look at the hacks but it's probably time for an upgrade anyway.
Trouble is once the processor needs changing it's the motherboard, memory, cooling etc.
Can keep the Case, PSU, graphics, drives (though I need a bigger SSD boot disk).
Have an old case that the old stuff can go in to be repurposed for something.

Likely I'll end up with an AMD processor that use less power and run cooler than Intel so likely quieter, compatible motherboard and 16-32Gb memory (for photo processing).
Onboard bluetooth would be handy for wireless headphones and no doubt there have been a few other upgrades over the past few years.

Shame I can't put it on expenses anymore :-)

Yep the hack got me installing W11 as an in-place upgrade as I wanted to see how it performed and the result was great, also gave me a system disk for new mobo.

I've only used Intel and did think about AMD, but as I was going to use my existing W11 disk I stuck with Intel. The mobo I went for has built-in WiFi (6) and Bluetooth which might prove handy. I didn't really need 32GB (2*16GB) but the ASUS compatibility pages didn't show the 2*8GB Corsair option, good excuse for more and for a bit of fun I went RGB to match the SSD :-)

I'm not a gamer but just for fun I bought from GOG a whole load of DOOM, which takes me back to 1994 :-)