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Upgrading an old build seems unreasonable since I'll have to change everything except for the Case, HDD's and maybe PSU (primary HDD storage seems like is almost done after 8 years of usage, but should I re-use PSU for the new desktop?)
What is your budget?
Around 1300$ plus/minus a bit (ofc spending less is better)
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1920x1080
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
CS:GO, Witcher 3, Metro series, some Blizz games, RDR2, mid settings for competitive games, high for solo games at best
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Photoshop/graphics/render activities and for my work mostly. Having a relatively powerful processor + GPU + 32GB of RAM + SSD primary drive is a good thing. Motherboard with WiFi adapter will be a plus
Do you intend to overclock?
Nope
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
No
Do you need an operating system?
No
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Probably yes, 24 inch, at least 75Hz with low output delay. This will be a part of another additional budget, so that's in a few months
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
No specific requirements, prefer Intel processors for use
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Ukraine
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
No retailer preferences
P.S. Guys, thanks once again for your advices! Previous build proposed in this topic had a great performance for it's relatively cheap price, hoping for the same this time Will be happy to see different opinions as well
How much rendering are we talking. Time sensitive?
5600X+MOBO+32GB RAM+1TB SSD = 300+150+150+100, $700 for the rendering part.
Hello all! I have not put a computer together since I was debating between Pentium II & Pentium Celeron processors, to give you an idea of how out of the game I am. Now, as an adult, I'd like to try to get back into all those computer games I've missed over the years. I take it this has been asked a million times before so please feel free to link me to an existing answer. I'm unsure if I actually enjoy them, so the idea here is:
=> Can you recommend a build / pre-built computer that would 1) allow me to play most games on the market now 2) allow for upgrades if it turned out I'm into this thing
What is your budget?
500 - 1000 EU => If there is a compelling case to be made for spending slightly more, to allow for the 2nd part of my request (upgradability), then I'll do it. Ideally you could recommend a cheaper option where I could 1) play on MAX settings for some older game (I assume budget makes this impossible for new games) as, again, I'm not sure I want to spend 1500EU to find out I'm more of a PS4 kind of guy.
What is your monitor's native resolution?
2560 x 1440 Dell U2722D
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
SC2 at ultra? FPS like Doom? Really I want to try the PC games I've missed while on my console binge the last 10 years
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing. Have work computer for all other tasks.
Do you intend to overclock?
No - unless you insist I do
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Considering I don't know what this is, almost certainly not,.
Do you need an operating system?
Yes. If it's easier, you can consider this outside of the budget.
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
No - have monitor keyboard & mouse..
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
No preferences save for wanting it to be quiet if that's an option.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Germany
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
On September 09 2021 18:26 MeSaber wrote: In todays market you dont get a gaming PC for $500. What you get for that is at most an iGPU that is slower than GTX 1030 (a passive GPU).
You can buy a used one and hopefully get a good deal from that with $500 and it will be more than enough to play all old games.
Newer games will require a newer card for 1440p.
Interesting. I didn't consider buying used. Anyone in Germany (Berlin) have any success buying a used PC ?
On September 09 2021 18:26 MeSaber wrote: In todays market you dont get a gaming PC for $500. What you get for that is at most an iGPU that is slower than GTX 1030 (a passive GPU).
You can buy a used one and hopefully get a good deal from that with $500 and it will be more than enough to play all old games.
Newer games will require a newer card for 1440p.
Interesting. I didn't consider buying used. Anyone in Germany (Berlin) have any success buying a used PC ?
Minimum you would want is 1050Ti for gaming. I personally play with 750Ti which is half as good as 1050Ti. Works fine for playing SC:R and some other non-fps games in 1080p 144+FPS.
On September 09 2021 19:21 MeSaber wrote: What sites do Germany use to buy PC hardware new/used?
Probably ebay kleinanzeigen for used stuff. The search function is horrendous, but unlike normal ebay there are actual second hand items from actual people on there. Mostly used for buying local stuff, but you can filter by people willing to send their stuff via mail.
Searching will be a bit more annoying, but on the other hand that also means that you have a chance of actually getting some really good deal.
Get a new CPU and fix the GPU part later. No reason to buy crap CPUs when the new ones are so much better for cheap. The only real problem is the GPU part. Get a good deal on a GPU and its set.
Get a new CPU and fix the GPU part later. No reason to buy crap CPUs when the new ones are so much better for cheap. The only real problem is the GPU part. Get a good deal on a GPU and its set.
Ooof! Thanks for that info. I feel way over my head, haha! Back in the day, us old timers could just look at the biggest number processor and consider that the best (Pentium III crushes the Pentium II) and now you're telling me I can't use that heuristic! Stop confusing us geezers Intel!
edit:
I am too lost in this used market. With my budget (500 - 1000 EU), what is likely the best graphics card I can afford in a system. My plan is to search Ebay for computers with said card, and buy the computer if it's in my price range. Or should I center my choice around something else?
Prebuilts arent as price bloated as shopping a discrete videocard. If you can find a good GPU in prebuilt you can go for that. I would post here before buying though to be sure you dont get something completely crazy 😂
If its really a new PC you want and money is an issue you could also save one more month or two and hope GPU prices are slightly lowered or raise your budget. GPU prices really are insane atm.
Dont Germany have something like pricerunner.com but for de?
So these three(4) components are your brain (CPU,Mobo,RAM) and i wouldnt budge on these as they are currently the best of the best for cheap, roughly 260+130+70+40= €500. Thats ~$590
The optional way to go would be 11400F ($150) which can match 5600X but for a lot cheaper, it suffers from a very small L3 cache though, currently it seems like only Sweden have this cheap price so its currently not an option for you.
The reason you want 5600X as your minimum is when you later might buy a better GPU you will be bottlenecked by a worse CPU than if you went with the best option on the market right now. GPU prices will decline at some point and people will upgrade to even better or newer cards, if you then sit with a worse CPU your new GPU wont really help you. GPU performance ramps up pretty quickly through the years and it doesnt take long until CPU bottlenecks in some way (either by max frequency or amount of cores(6 as a minimum today)).
As for main storage you should utilize the M2 slot as it frees up space in your case and is a major speed boost compared to SATA for your OS and installed games/software.
There might be better price/performance but of knowledge this SSD is superb in terms of cache storage AND speed. Google for performance numbers and compare sustained speeds, you should want a drive with sustained speeds for saving large projects.
Solid mesh case which needs an extra fan (move the rear fan to front and add an Arctic P12 to the rear) but after that its a performance winner. There are other mesh cases but not as good and cheap as this one. Check reviews on YT (Gamers Nexus).
With power we dont screw around. Here we go for quality over anything else and very thoroughly tested products.
GPU: ... What you are looking for: at least 6GB VRAM (which is pretty much any card 1660S and up) this has importance for newer games and their HD textures. You want a GPU with two(2) or more fans, two is optimal though and three fans usually have quite a markup for it ($75-150). It doesnt necessary make it that much better either, when it comes to cooling it is all about exchanging hot air for cool air, ie move air through your Case fast and keep your room as cool as possible.
What to skip: any card with one fan, their heatsink is usually too small for the performance of the GPU-unit.
Cards to consider:
1050Ti: ~€200, 4GB VRAM, 75W, double the performance of my own card 750Ti (i would be happy with this 😂) this is not a card for new games but it is at least usable in most games on lower settings in 1080p. Good to use until GPU prices drop.
1660Super: ~€450, 6GB VRAM, 125W, this card should in theory cost ~$200 now so yeah you can see how insane prices are from this. Double performance of 1050Ti, now you start being able to play stuff with somewhat reasonable settings instead of low. You might wanna use low in some FPS games to get 144Hz usable though, check YT per game per card to see performance numbers.
6600XT: ... ~€600, 8GB VRAM, ~160W, an ok card but more expensive than the performance it gives over 1660S. 21% difference is not worth it imo, go for 3060Ti as final card upgrade.
3060: ... ~€600, 12GB VRAM, 170W, this is imo a shit card and totally out of proportions of what is actually needed. You will never use this much VRAM (unless some niche case) and even if you did you will have zero FPS to utilize it properly.
3060Ti: ... ~€700, 8GB VRAM, 200W, 55% faster and 55% more expensive than 1660S. Get this if you want best performance on the market without destroying your wallet (3070Ti, 3080Ti etc...).
Conclusion being: look at used cards and have current insane prices in mind for what is a good deal. Dont buy any crap card. Check its power efficiency; perf/watt (very important to not kill your PSU) and compare performance per dollar. Also compare to what you are currently using if its twice as good or just slightly, maybe you need to wait until newer cards come out before its worth an upgrade. Upgrading for 20% better card is just meh.
Consider if you need 144 FPS (144Hz monitor) or just 60. If 60 its way easier to get away with just a few minor changes in graphics settings on nearly any card.
1440p is mainly for newer cards or RTS:ish games to get reasonable FPS.
On September 11 2021 11:54 MeSaber wrote: Prebuilts arent as price bloated as shopping a discrete videocard. If you can find a good GPU in prebuilt you can go for that. I would post here before buying though to be sure you dont get something completely crazy 😂
If its really a new PC you want and money is an issue you could also save one more month or two and hope GPU prices are slightly lowered or raise your budget. GPU prices really are insane atm.
Dont Germany have something like pricerunner.com but for de?
So these three(4) components are your brain (CPU,Mobo,RAM) and i wouldnt budge on these as they are currently the best of the best for cheap, roughly 260+130+70+40= €500. Thats ~$590
The optional way to go would be 11400F ($150) which can match 5600X but for a lot cheaper, it suffers from a very small L3 cache though, currently it seems like only Sweden have this cheap price so its currently not an option for you.
The reason you want 5600X as your minimum is when you later might buy a better GPU you will be bottlenecked by a worse CPU than if you went with the best option on the market right now. GPU prices will decline at some point and people will upgrade to even better or newer cards, if you then sit with a worse CPU your new GPU wont really help you. GPU performance ramps up pretty quickly through the years and it doesnt take long until CPU bottlenecks in some way (either by max frequency or amount of cores(6 as a minimum today)).
As for main storage you should utilize the M2 slot as it frees up space in your case and is a major speed boost compared to SATA for your OS and installed games/software.
There might be better price/performance but of knowledge this SSD is superb in terms of cache storage AND speed. Google for performance numbers and compare sustained speeds, you should want a drive with sustained speeds for saving large projects.
Solid mesh case which needs an extra fan (move the rear fan to front and add an Arctic P12 to the rear) but after that its a performance winner. There are other mesh cases but not as good and cheap as this one. Check reviews on YT (Gamers Nexus).
With power we dont screw around. Here we go for quality over anything else and very thoroughly tested products.
GPU: ... What you are looking for: at least 6GB VRAM (which is pretty much any card 1660S and up) this has importance for newer games and their HD textures. You want a GPU with two(2) or more fans, two is optimal though and three fans usually have quite a markup for it ($75-150). It doesnt necessary make it that much better either, when it comes to cooling it is all about exchanging hot air for cool air, ie move air through your Case fast and keep your room as cool as possible.
What to skip: any card with one fan, their heatsink is usually too small for the performance of the GPU-unit.
Cards to consider:
1050Ti: ~€200, 4GB VRAM, 75W, double the performance of my own card 750Ti (i would be happy with this 😂) this is not a card for new games but it is at least usable in most games on lower settings in 1080p. Good to use until GPU prices drop.
1660Super: ~€450, 6GB VRAM, 125W, this card should in theory cost ~$200 now so yeah you can see how insane prices are from this. Double performance of 1050Ti, now you start being able to play stuff with somewhat reasonable settings instead of low. You might wanna use low in some FPS games to get 144Hz usable though, check YT per game per card to see performance numbers.
6600XT: ... ~€600, 8GB VRAM, ~160W, an ok card but more expensive than the performance it gives over 1660S. 21% difference is not worth it imo, go for 3060Ti as final card upgrade.
3060: ... ~€600, 12GB VRAM, 170W, this is imo a shit card and totally out of proportions of what is actually needed. You will never use this much VRAM (unless some niche case) and even if you did you will have zero FPS to utilize it properly.
3060Ti: ... ~€700, 8GB VRAM, 200W, 55% faster and 55% more expensive than 1660S. Get this if you want best performance on the market without destroying your wallet (3070Ti, 3080Ti etc...). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNBJkRhLsA
Conclusion being: look at used cards and have current insane prices in mind for what is a good deal. Dont buy any crap card. Check its power efficiency; perf/watt (very important to not kill your PSU) and compare performance per dollar. Also compare to what you are currently using if its twice as good or just slightly, maybe you need to wait until newer cards come out before its worth an upgrade. Upgrading for 20% better card is just meh.
Consider if you need 144 FPS (144Hz monitor) or just 60. If 60 its way easier to get away with just a few minor changes in graphics settings on nearly any card.
1440p is mainly for newer cards or RTS:ish games to get reasonable FPS.
Just want to say that I highly appreciate the help! I just found out I'm moving so I'm pushing my purchase for a month or so. Will post when I get my new computer.
From your information, it looks like I'll be spending the money to get at least a 3060 GPU and 5600X CPU.
Probably a stupid question but if I have a failing Radeon GeForce GTX 970 and a Radeon RX 580 lying around is it possible to replace the GTX 970 with the RX 580? No clue how compatibility works.
On October 03 2021 08:27 KwarK wrote: Probably a stupid question but if I have a failing Radeon GeForce GTX 970 and a Radeon RX 580 lying around is it possible to replace the GTX 970 with the RX 580? No clue how compatibility works.
RX 580 is newer, so I see no reason why your PC can't support it. Only issue you may have is if you rely on DVI-D for GTX 970, then your other video card doesn't seem to support it. You have to use HDMI or DisplayPort from what I see, especially if you're hoping for more than 60 Hz and your monitor is capable. Check if your monitor supports HDMI or DisplayPort.
When I switched from GTX 980 to RTX 3080 my only issue was monitor because DVI-D was deprecated, so I had 60 Hz max. So I had to buy a new monitor since I upgraded a lot of components anyway, and I also wanted to increase resolution a bit.
On another topic, I'd say I'm quite pleased with 2560x1440 for my RTX 3080. It's a decent balance between performance and resolution. 4k would have killed fps in certain games... Perhaps RTX 4000 series with its rumoured 2 or 2.5x performance boost would be ideal for 4k gaming. I'm currently using LG 27GP850-B and I'd say it's good value for money for €456 that I've paid.
Well, not that the performance increase will matter if the GPUs end up all being taken by cryptominers and scalpers. My PC isn't the best, but I'm glad I bought a new PC before all this craziness happened.
On October 08 2021 13:54 Rizare wrote: Well, not that the performance increase will matter if the GPUs end up all being taken by cryptominers and scalpers. My PC isn't the best, but I'm glad I bought a new PC before all this craziness happened.
Yeah, i am hoping that people are currently building new chip factories due to this nonsense, and i can buy a new GPU in 1-2 years. Until then i am probably stuck with what i got, which is sadly already pretty old. I am kind of at the point where i would usually start looking into building a new PC, but with what is going on with GPUs right now, it seems like a bad time to do so.
On October 08 2021 13:54 Rizare wrote: Well, not that the performance increase will matter if the GPUs end up all being taken by cryptominers and scalpers. My PC isn't the best, but I'm glad I bought a new PC before all this craziness happened.
I remember reading about new factories that are expected to open in 2022-2023, so it would be perfect timing for next GPU generation. Also, I'm glad I managed to buy RTX 3080 directly from ASUS's Amazon shop back in July. Perhaps it was 100-200 euros more than US + VAT price, but overall it seems a good deal considering GPU prices are said to be worsening once again. And having a new PC with an old graphics card isn't great long-term. :D
Edit: I usually play SC2 and sometimes CS: GO, but since video cards are so expensive compared to my last one 6 years ago, I decided to play some games at 1440p at max settings to push my video card a bit. Here is list so far: - Doom Eternal (with Ray Tracing). Really good game, I recommend it :D - Need for Speed Heat, good graphics and if you're into car racing games - Horizon Zero Dawn - kinda ok. I'm not that into open world games it seems - Control - sci-fi & psychedelic. If you're into horrors / scary stuff.. Not my type, but I finished main missions. - Metro: Exodus - I tried it but I didn't like it very much.
Out of all these, I'd say Doom Eternal is well optimised, interesting story (at least for me) and good graphics (remember to turn RT on).
And here is my hardware as well as monitor so I'm not offtopic: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/KFJpt8 Also, I had to make changes to top panel of Cooler Master H500P case because it didn't have good airflow. It's not perfect but it looks good enough.
I heard the same as well, shortage shouldn't be as much of an issue toward end of 2022/2023. Not that I was planning to upgrade PC beside storage with new SSD, my plan was to keep using current PC as long as possible and then buy a brand new one with better components. My I5-8600K and GTX 1060 6GB are doing well, but it shows that I didn't plan for big recent games like Doom Eternal. I learned as well that for recording, it doesn't seem like 1080p 60FPS is an option and the best I can do is 720p 60 FPS. Just for future reference, would a I7 be best for recording 1080p at 60FPS? From my understanding, my current limiting factor is 6 cores isn't enough and no hyper-threading for one core to act as two.
No ray tracing option for me since I don't have a RTX card so hope you're enjoying it with good performance.
On October 03 2021 08:27 KwarK wrote: Probably a stupid question but if I have a failing Radeon GeForce GTX 970 and a Radeon RX 580 lying around is it possible to replace the GTX 970 with the RX 580? No clue how compatibility works.
Yeah, there's basically 100% compatibility with graphics cards for motherboards. They all use PCI-e and the PCI-e versions are all backwards compatible, though I expect you'd pretty much have PCI-e v.3 16x for your first slot on pretty much every board since it's been around so long. Basically if you can run one graphics card you can run any other. Anything that falls out of that standard would be super niche and not applicable here.
Hey, i just realized that my pc is slowly driving me insane. The noise is so loud, i hear it through the headset. So i checked the system and realized, that most of it is my GPU ventilator, not the case vent or the cpu vent...
Can anyone of you give me a recommendation how to proceed with this? I have a Radeon R9 290 (from Saphire) with 3 ventilators in the cooling department. The middle one is off. The left one is LOADASFUCK and the right one seems to be okay. Playing a highly GPU intensive game like Imperator: Rome, super intensive, the GPU heats up to 87 °C and the vents are going nuts. I am having a fairly spaceous high tower, but i am not sure if getting a third party GPU vent is the way to go. Also, i am not sure if i even should. The GPU is old. It does what it is supposed to do, but maybe it's easier to simply buy a new card for ~ 200€. Would you recommend to someone with some knowledge in pc building to install a new GPU vent himself? Let a shop do it? Buy a new GPU?
Maybe i need to first increase the airflow through the tower? I am currently using one case vent to get air in, but none to get it out. So i guess the system is pretty hot overall.
EPT
Will be happy to see different opinions as well
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/xLfOsxU.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/0noWyUe.jpg)
