The PC thread

[Stadler]

WOW, pretty cool!  That looks like it could launch missiles!   

[faizoff]

@pg1067 That's awesome! Glad it powered up on first go, and yeah that power supply switch threw me off the first time as well. Congrats to you and your son. It must've been so much fun to build with him.

I guess some cases don't have a pin for grounding which must've been the difference between the 3-pin and the 4-pin. I haven't built a PC in many years so the RGB thing is kinda new to me and I really don't think I'll get used to it. Quick question as I'm curious, I noticed the video card covers the chipset fan when placed in the first slot, I wonder how the temperature on the board is with that chipset fan placement?

[cramx3]

Very awesome!  Got that same AMD cooler, I think it looks so cool.  You can install the software that came with the motherboard to customize the lighting on it. 

Being that my motherboard, CPU fan, and DIMMs all have the rainbow look, I'm actually really wanting to get the EVGA graphic cards on the new line because they also have the rainbow colors.  Fruity sure, but I think it all looks cool when it's all pulsating together. 

Welcome to the world of building a PC. In time you'll be looking forward to doing it again.

[The Walrus]

Ain't nothing fruity about colors. I waste a lot of time playing with mine - some of the effects are really cool, I should take a video tonight 

[faizoff]

I assume you guys keep your case on the desk to the right in view of all that crazy colors display. I keep mine on the floor to the left so no point in having those colors on.

[cramx3]

Ain't nothing fruity about colors. I waste a lot of time playing with mine - some of the effects are really cool, I should take a video tonight 

Yea, I like it, I'm just joking.  I can customize it to be more of a single color but that's boring.  it's definitely fun to play around with when you first set it up, but I've got all my colors locked in now including the keyboard, mouse, and headset. 

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

HOLY SHIT, IT WORKED!!!!!!!

We were a bit confused with the fan connections mentioned in faizoff's post since the plugs from the fan are 3-pin, and the motherboard spots marked are 4-pin, but my son figured that out during the day yesterday.  He also did a bit of "cable management

Then the graphics "card" arrived yesterday -- a couple days ahead of schedule -- so we popped that in and hooked it up and then took it into my son's room for the moment of truth.

He plugged it in and then hit the power switch on the case...  and nothing happened, which we kind of both expected.  He then remembered that there's a power switch on the power supply (which I didn't know) and flicked that on.  Immediately, something on the motherboard lighted up, and then he hit the power switch on the case and the whole damn thing lighted up!  By the time I went to bed, he had Windows and Norton installed.  The ONLY negative was that he had a Funko Pop figure that he wanted to put in the case, but the head was too big.  Oh well.

The first picture below is obviously pre-graphics card, and the others are post-completion and post-startup.  THANKS AGAIN, YOU GUYS (and my son specifically said to let you know he also said thanks)!

Awesome! Glad it worked without any issues! The first PC build you do is always the most stressful, being worried about breaking an expensive part or not knowing what to do if it doesn't work correctly. I know that's how it was with my first build 20 years ago. 

[pg1067]

I guess some cases don't have a pin for grounding which must've been the difference between the 3-pin and the 4-pin. I haven't built a PC in many years so the RGB thing is kinda new to me and I really don't think I'll get used to it. Quick question as I'm curious, I noticed the video card covers the chipset fan when placed in the first slot, I wonder how the temperature on the board is with that chipset fan placement?

One of the first screens was sort of a status monitoring screen, and the temperature was one of the things displayed.  It seemed ok (after 5-10 minutes or so), and everything felt reasonably cool to the touch (before we put the tempered glass panel on).  He is contemplating adding another case fan just in case.

You can install the software that came with the motherboard to customize the lighting on it.

Yeah...that was one of the first things he was fiddling with.  By the end of the night, I think he had everything fixed on green (go Celtics!).

I assume you guys keep your case on the desk to the right in view of all that crazy colors display. I keep mine on the floor to the left so no point in having those colors on.

At the moment, it's on his desk with the glass panel side in full view.  If it were me, I wouldn't give a rip about any of that, but I'm not an 18-year old anymore, so what do I know.

The first PC build you do is always the most stressful, being worried about breaking an expensive part or not knowing what to do if it doesn't work correctly. I know that's how it was with my first build 20 years ago. 

That was the thing.  We weren't so much worried about breaking something, but I had every expectation that something wouldn't work, and I'm not sure either of us had much of an idea what we'd do if that happened.  Frankly, I'm pretty sure that would have happened if not for faizoff's explanation of the wiring.

[Chino]

The ONLY negative was that he had a Funko Pop figure that he wanted to put in the case, but the head was too big.  Oh well.

If you want, take some dimensions and give me an idea of that he's into. I'll 3D print something he can put in there as a decoration (no charge). I stuffed an Apollo astronaut and an Independence Day fighter (hard to see) in mine:

[The Walrus]

I posted a picture of my setup before but honestly the video does it proper justice. I quite dig the cosmic aquarium vibe of my bedroom. I found this quick video on my phone, so this is literally what it's like laying in bed at night, every night. Weird? Maybe, but I love it 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn7_hme1bEM

[cramx3]

I posted a picture of my setup before but honestly the video does it proper justice. I quite dig the cosmic aquarium vibe of my bedroom. I found this quick video on my phone, so this is literally what it's like laying in bed at night, every night. Weird? Maybe, but I love it 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn7_hme1bEM

spacey... is that tied into your computer or just a separate light?

here's my current set up with my keyboard behind my keyboard    I have so much fun banging the keys (since I have no idea how to actually play) after getting a kill in Call of Duty 

[The Walrus]

  It's a separate light, a projector set on the floor. The only difference now is that my piano is set up in front of the computer desk. And I know it's full sized, but your keyboard looks so tiny when it's sitting in front of the other keyboard for some reason 

[cramx3]

It is tiny and yet it's more than enough for the noob that I am    It's a basic Casio SA-76 I got for free due to a work screw up in the system that awarded me with a 5 year anniversary award when they merged systems.  I told them about it, they said it was cancelled but a month later a keyboard arrived at my house.  Mine now and boy do they have no idea the way I'm using it 

[The Walrus]

No, I meant the computer keyboard, it looks strangely small even though I know how big it is. But that's awesome

[cramx3]

No, I meant the computer keyboard, it looks strangely small even though I know how big it is. But that's awesome

Oh  yea, the keyboard actually is a good size.  I love having the 5 extra keys too, Stadler was asking in the gaming thread about creating macros and that's a great usage for those extra keys.  I have one simple one that just types out my email address, since that may be the one thing I type the most.

[faizoff]

Are those pure gaming keyboards? are they mechanical? I've been thinking of getting a mechanical one but am unsure about how loud they can get.

[cramx3]

Are those pure gaming keyboards? are they mechanical? I've been thinking of getting a mechanical one but am unsure about how loud they can get.

Yes it's mechanical and while people who buy these typically game with them, it's definitely just an all around solid keyboard that can be used for anything.  You can program any key on it for whatever you want.  But at over $100 you might be able to get a solid mechanical keyboard for cheaper if you don't want the LEDs and extra keys and the fast response times.

[XJDenton]

I'd do yourself a favour and also try out the switches if you go mechanical. Some people don't get on with particular switch types (MX reds, being linear, take a lot of getting used to if you are used to more "clicky" switches).

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

So the 3090 seems to be a beast but not worth it unless you have a really really beefy rig. It also seems like a 3090 Ti is on the horizon.

[faizoff]

It's being touted as a 8k gaming card which really irked Steve from Gamers Nexus, his video goes into some benchmarks with true 8k settings and shows how abysmal the performance is on what it was being touted as.

Other than that aspect of the card, pretty much everyone says it's a beast of a card. Though when you game in 4k 60 fps the performance gain from the 3080 to 3090 is not worth the cost by the looks of it.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

It's being touted as a 8k gaming card which really irked Steve from Gamers Nexus, his video goes into some benchmarks with true 8k settings and shows how abysmal the performance is on what it was being touted as.

Other than that aspect of the card, pretty much everyone says it's a beast of a card. Though when you game in 4k 60 fps the performance gain from the 3080 to 3090 is not worth the cost by the looks of it.

Yea I just saw his review, it's pretty brutal. The fact that they marketing the card as a 8K ready card when it's clearly not and also, who the hell owns a 8K TV?

[cramx3]

It's being touted as a 8k gaming card which really irked Steve from Gamers Nexus, his video goes into some benchmarks with true 8k settings and shows how abysmal the performance is on what it was being touted as.

Other than that aspect of the card, pretty much everyone says it's a beast of a card. Though when you game in 4k 60 fps the performance gain from the 3080 to 3090 is not worth the cost by the looks of it.

Yea I just saw his review, it's pretty brutal. The fact that they marketing the card as a 8K ready card when it's clearly not and also, who the hell owns a 8K TV?

Yea, 8k is just not a thing yet really.  I feel like 4k hasn't even been fully adopted yet (including myself, and even though I want a 3080 I dont think I'll upgrade my monitor until after).

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

It's being touted as a 8k gaming card which really irked Steve from Gamers Nexus, his video goes into some benchmarks with true 8k settings and shows how abysmal the performance is on what it was being touted as.

Other than that aspect of the card, pretty much everyone says it's a beast of a card. Though when you game in 4k 60 fps the performance gain from the 3080 to 3090 is not worth the cost by the looks of it.

Yea I just saw his review, it's pretty brutal. The fact that they marketing the card as a 8K ready card when it's clearly not and also, who the hell owns a 8K TV?

Yea, 8k is just not a thing yet really.  I feel like 4k hasn't even been fully adopted yet (including myself, and even though I want a 3080 I dont think I'll upgrade my monitor until after).

I've installed exactly 2 8K TV's this year for clients. Both were in high end theaters and both cost $60,000 (just for the TV, the theaters in question were both over $250,000 in total). And no, they are not using them for PC gaming  They are also impractical for everything. Yes they will upscale non 8k content to 8k, but it's still not 8k....

[ErHaO]

Downsampling from 4k to 1080p can be a big improvement over native 1080p for many games (depends on the image quality of a game). Maybe running at 8k and downsampling to 4k can have some benefits? Though personally the jump from 1080p to 4k is very nice but not the gamechanger 720p (or 900p) to 1080p was (and the jump before that, from SD to HD, was offcourse massive).

I imagine the benefit from 4k to 8k will be even less impressive.

[The Walrus]

I'm just glad we're at a point in gaming where almost all games look really good no matter what you're playing them on. The jump between graphics tiers doesn't seem nearly as extreme as it was 15-20 years ago which is a great thing.

[ReaperKK]

I always find it funny going back and playing old games only to realize I remember them looking way better than they did. Like I'm applying some sort of graphics filter on my memories lol.

[Orbert]

  Mentally upscaling them.  At the time, they were awesome, cutting edge, so that's how we remember them.  I do the same thing, with movies and TV shows, too.  "Hmm... I don't remember it looking this cheesy..."

[faizoff]

The itch to upgrade my PC got to me sooner than I thought.


With the looming announcement of Zen 3 this week, I thought I'd get ahead and buy an older CPU while reviews, availability and sales settle down for the new CPUs. I'm looking for the equivalent of the Ryzen 9 3900X which might be called the Ryzen 9 5900X from the looks of it.


With the Nvidia launch being problematic with stock availability I didn't want to experience that scenario and went ahead snagging deals as they came.


I got a used Ryzen 7 2700X for $120 to tide me over. I'll be getting the newer Ryzen 9 a few months down the line.


Got a new board, RAM and an NVMe SSD.


List is:
-Ryzen 7 2700X with Wraith Stealth cooler
-MSI Tomahawk X570 (This board is in so much demand, it's crazy I was able to get for the retail price, has high end components usually found on a $300-400 board)
-G.Skill 64 GB 3200Mhz DDR4 RAM (Overkill but had a great deal on it)
-Sabrent Rocket Q 2 TB NVMe Gen 3 PCIe SSD (speeds of 3200 MB/s (read) and 2900 MB/s (write))!


I've retained the rest (Video Card, Monitors, case, keyboard, etc..)














Even though the CPU is from 2018, it's crazy fast!

[The Walrus]

Kickass, dude 

[faizoff]

Definitely my man!

I used to be blown away with the old SSD SATA III speeds but the new one is something else. And it's already a generation behind! PCIe gen 4 SSDs are already out with twice the speed of my current one.





Windows installation took less than 5 mins total. The downloading of updates and selecting options took more time than actual installation. Will wait a few years before switching to a new gen 4 SSD as the main C drive.

[cramx3]

Very cool! Yea the jump to NVMe is a nice one

[faizoff]

Looks like the demand for the 3080 and 3090 cards are at an insane level which is why they're virtually always out of stock and shortages are expected well into next year. I wouldn't have thought an $800 and $1500 card to be that much in demand. I can only imagine how crazy it will be for the 3070 once that launches.

"The 3080 and 3090 have a demand issue, not a supply issue," said Huang. "The demand issue is that it is much much greater than we expected — and we expected really a lot."

"Retailers will tell you they haven't seen a phenomenon like this in over a decade of computing. It hearkens back to the old days of Windows 95 and Pentium when people were just out of their minds to buy this stuff. So this is a phenomenon like we've not seen in a long time, and we just weren't prepared for it."

"Even if we knew about all the demand, I don't think it's possible to have ramped that fast. We're ramping really, really hard. Yields are great, the product's shipping fantastically, it's just getting sold out instantly," said Huang. "I appreciate it very much, I just don't think there's a real problem to solve. It's a phenomenon to observe. It's just a phenomenon."

[cramx3]

It makes sense though, there's a huge leap in power on these that makes even the owners of the last gen want them, and essentially anyone who can afford it wants it for those gains, including myself.  They made a product that is really strong at a price point, that while expensive, is actually really good value compared to previous gens. 

[ReaperKK]

Cram you nailed it 100%. I'm going to pick one up when it eventually comes in stock but I don't see that happening any time soon.

[cramx3]

Cram you nailed it 100%. I'm going to pick one up when it eventually comes in stock but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Yea same.  I'm not going to refresh websites constantly, I don't need it that bad, but I do want to upgrade to one once they are readily available.