Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 737

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Simberto

Germany12028 Posts

July 20 2022 15:49 GMT

#14721

Thanks for the input!

Changed the PSU for now, and added a cooler, if only for noise reduction.

What do i gain from getting the faster RAM? From what i can tell, the i5-12400 can only deal with RAM up to 3200. Are there any problems or gains from adding faster RAM?

Edit: Now it looks like this:
https://www.mindfactory.de/shopping_cart.php/basket_action/load_basket_extern/id/6d51e322188d43c263fa806470b2b27e27b478a541f5921c3e0

With faster RAM being contemplated.

Cyro

United Kingdom20344 Posts

July 20 2022 16:29 GMT

#14722

It improves the CPU performance for tasks where it needs to operate on large amounts of data because the cores can do useful work on that data rather than sit around waiting for it to be delivered. Games top the list there, actively using a lot more data than most programs. L3 cache is really impactful for them (e.g. on the 5800x3d, or between different Intel CPU's) because it addresses the same problem - sufficient cache basically replaces the need for fast memory.

The tricky part about RAM is that it's quite reliant on the motherboard chosen, the RAM chips / pcb's you have and of overclocking knowledge to make sure that it can operate at speeds which are overclocked above JEDEC speeds (3200 22-22-22 for DDR4 or 4800 40-40-40 for DDR5 on Alderlake). Factors like the amount of memory ranks per channel that you have and the amount of effective banks / bank groups per channel also have a big impact on performance and stability but are poorly understood and advertised.

Because you mostly don't want to deal with that stuff i would say don't worry about it with an i5-12400, maybe get a DDR4 3600 XMP.

Filling more than 1 memory slot per channel (so 2 sticks here) makes it harder to run higher clocks so i wouldn't recommend it.
A full loadout is guaranteed to work at ~JEDEC 2933 clocks and timings but that is really slow so i wouldn't recommend it either.

Beyond that budget when you are introducing DDR4 vs DDR5, mem OC etc it's a huge mess with the exception of the 5800x3d which i highly recommend for people who aren't OC experts.

We actually got into a really stupid position over the last 10-15 years where we can get these gains of +30% or even +50-100% from RAM OC on outliers because stuff that should be running in cache just isn't for lack of capacity. A lot of it has to do with the Intel monopoly (not being threatened on game performance and thus not bothering to try to improve it) and Intel's 5 year delays on the better-than-14nm manufacturing processes. On the bright side we're getting explosive performance gains when correcting that.

Cyro

United Kingdom20344 Posts

July 20 2022 19:38 GMT

#14723

Milestone btw. 3080's are back down to launch day pricing

3080 TUF @ £700. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-geforce-rtx-3080-tuf-gaming-oc-v2-lhr-10gb-gddr6x-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-46u-as.html

They are gimped for hashrate and also 2 years later the tech is worth a few hundred ££ less than it was in 2020 IMO, but it's something at least.

Rizare

Canada593 Posts

July 20 2022 19:50 GMT

#14724

I got a RTX 3060 as an upgrade from the GTX 1060. I wish I could have gone for the RTX 3070 FE but it wasn't available a few months ago. From what I've been hearing, it's nice for GPUs to be available again at MSRP but people are disappointed that's the price after 2 years.

Cyro

United Kingdom20344 Posts

July 21 2022 00:25 GMT

#14725

On July 21 2022 04:50 Rizare wrote:
I got a RTX 3060 as an upgrade from the GTX 1060. I wish I could have gone for the RTX 3070 FE but it wasn't available a few months ago. From what I've been hearing, it's nice for GPUs to be available again at MSRP but people are disappointed that's the price after 2 years.

Definitely. The only reason any graphics card is worth £700 (or "midrange" being £400) is because of the newness factor so it's a terrible buy to get it for the same price 2 years later. That's an entire major generation. Price has to plummet sooner rather than later and going from 150% to 100% of MSRP doesn't count.

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

July 22 2022 05:25 GMT

#14726

On July 21 2022 00:49 Simberto wrote:
Thanks for the input!

Changed the PSU for now, and added a cooler, if only for noise reduction.

What do i gain from getting the faster RAM? From what i can tell, the i5-12400 can only deal with RAM up to 3200. Are there any problems or gains from adding faster RAM?

Edit: Now it looks like this:
https://www.mindfactory.de/shopping_cart.php/basket_action/load_basket_extern/id/6d51e322188d43c263fa806470b2b27e27b478a541f5921c3e0

With faster RAM being contemplated.

If its for the same cost you have no reason to not buy 3600Mbps. If you ever change CPU you are certain to be able to use 3600Mbps at the minimum (even though im pretty sure you can run 3600Mbps with the 3200Mbps RAM too).

In the end you will always need to tune the timings to get the most performance out of your RAM anyway.

Pre-configured XMP does little to no good for 2nd/tertiary timings, which is the part that matters (i.e, they are set way too loose for stability reasons).

If you will try to find your best possible values you should definitely visit BuildZoid for information:

cazzsquatch

11 Posts

July 28 2022 10:09 GMT

#14727

Is this a mistake price or am I missing some glaring problem with this computer? I though a 3080 was roughly the price of this entire system?

https://www.saturn.de/de/product/captiva-highend-gaming-i68-122-gaming-pc-32-gb-91756007.html

2ndly: how does one install an O/S these days without a disk drive? If I boot this thing up, can I still connect to a network and buy Windows?

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

July 28 2022 10:54 GMT

#14728

On July 28 2022 19:09 cazzsquatch wrote:
Is this a mistake price or am I missing some glaring problem with this computer? I though a 3080 was roughly the price of this entire system?

https://www.saturn.de/de/product/captiva-highend-gaming-i68-122-gaming-pc-32-gb-91756007.html

2ndly: how does one install an O/S these days without a disk drive? If I boot this thing up, can I still connect to a network and buy Windows?

Well it doesnt say which 3080 it is. Could be a worthless one.

Also the case is pretty useless in terms of thermals.

2ndQ: You make a bootable flash-drive using Windows 10 download that is free (from their own homepage) with RUFUS.
https://rufus.ie/en/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Simberto

Germany12028 Posts

July 28 2022 13:39 GMT

#14729

Still looks like a pretty good deal if you only use half the components. Mainboard + CPU are ~300€ for those alone. PSU is also not shit and ~80€ on its own.

If you value the cheapest 3080 they can find at 400€, you are getting a good deal. Case is shit and should probably be exchanged for something with airflow.

Nothing else is explicitly named, so expect everything to be the cheapest shit they can find. What is a bit scary are the connections. I assume that those are those of the mainboard only, because if they have found a 3080 which has only one HDMI and one VGA connection and nothing else, that would be pretty impressive.

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

July 28 2022 14:46 GMT

#14730

On July 28 2022 22:39 Simberto wrote:
Still looks like a pretty good deal if you only use half the components. Mainboard + CPU are ~300€ for those alone. PSU is also not shit and ~80€ on its own.

If you value the cheapest 3080 they can find at 400€, you are getting a good deal. Case is shit and should probably be exchanged for something with airflow.

Nothing else is explicitly named, so expect everything to be the cheapest shit they can find. What is a bit scary are the connections. I assume that those are those of the mainboard only, because if they have found a 3080 which has only one HDMI and one VGA connection and nothing else, that would be pretty impressive.

I beg to differ on the PSU part. Its rated C tier and speculative: https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

Also doesnt mention wattage.

You should call them and ask what every part is then make a decision on that information.

Its not a buy without knowing exactly what you buy and if the hardware you dont wanna use are sellable.

Most prebuilds uses crap that are proprietary and frowned upon on the after market.

The memory is most likely 2400Mbps and will bottleneck the CPU. This would have to be changed for max performance.

The Motherboard: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-B660M-B-DDR4/Overview

Comes without any form of VRM cooling so it will run hot and could in worst case bottleneck the CPU. It would also not be suitable for a CPU upgrade in the future. Worthless mobo on after market.

cazzsquatch

11 Posts

July 29 2022 14:33 GMT

#14731

In case anyone cares / is interested, I'm guessing the PC I posted was a bug / glitch as it didn't allow me to add-to-cart. I am now in an email war in order to be recompensed with a coupon somehow

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

July 29 2022 17:51 GMT

#14732

Good luck

Simberto

Germany12028 Posts

July 30 2022 16:32 GMT

#14733

So, i went ahead and built this PC. Exchanged the MSI 3080 for a Gigabyte 3080, because it was ~100€ cheaper.

This was my first experience building a PC from scratch, but i have tinkered a lot with my previous one. It was surprisingly fun, and really not that hard. Even putting in the CPU, which everyone always says is very scary, didn't feel scary. Now it works and is incredibly silent. The only thing that is loud is the GPU at full power, everything else is basically a whisper. There were a few hickups and lessons i learned, in case someone is interested.

The mainboard handbook is amazingly useful for figuring out where to attach all the small weird cables.
The Freezer 34 already came with a LG1700 Upgrade kit, so i wasted 4€ there to get a second one.
The cooler is probably overkill for my CPU, as even at full load it never needs to go above 70% to stabilize the temps at 70°C or so. On the other hand, this means that CPU + cooler are basically completely silent no matter what.
You should have a second PC available while doing this. I needed to install LAN drivers before being able to access the internet, which would have been impossible without a second PC to put those LAN drivers onto a USB stick.
Configuring the case fans was a bit annoying, due to two reasons: The case has a fan hub, but only if a fan is plugged into port one of said hub does the mainboard get any feedback from what is going on with those fans. That is inexplicably not the case by default. And secondly, there is a slider for fan speed on the PC case (Why?). M does not stand for mainboard control, but for medium speed. So no matter what i set up in bios simply never reached the fans.
Convincing the bios to run my RAM at 3200Hz was not easy, i needed to try a few different settings
There was some weirdness going on with the Display port at some point. I still haven't figured out why, but it didn't send a signal. Now it is fixed, but i don't know why either.
I haven't managed to get the POST beep codes going. For some reason my beeper seems to not work here, i may need to get another one somehow. I like the satisfying "beep" when the PC launches and everything is okay. It is a bit scary with how silent it currently is.

Overall, i am both very happy with the result and the process. I would greatly recommend to anyone even slightly tech-interested to build your PC yourself. It feels nice knowing exactly which parts are connected how and why.

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

July 31 2022 05:09 GMT

#14734

Could you post a picture of the fanhub IC? Both sides. If it lets the PWM signal pass, you should run it on H(Full speed, non resistance mode). if this isnt the case you will have to move connectors to mobo chassi fan slots that have 4pins. You could mount many on same slot up to 1Amp. Like 5 fans ish.

What slots did you put RAMsticks? Usually its A2+B2 furthest away from CPU slot.

For CPU temp you want as low as possible to save on lifetime. 70 is ok in full load. Did you run prime95? You should double check with others using the same CPU and air cooling. If it shows way lower temps you might want to redo the thermal paste for another try. It will also show if your previous paste was good coverage (you will see this on CPU cover when you change paste, memorize it). The lower temps with good paste and pressure the slower/silenter you can set your CPU fan curve.

Use HWinfo64 to take your measures.

Check the beeper with a multimeter to see if its broken. Its not that necessary to have as you got the POST screen telling you the same thing.

As for LAN drivers i think W10 has some generic ones so you shouldnt need it to get access. The proper drivers is a good install ofc.

Simberto

Germany12028 Posts

July 31 2022 10:17 GMT

#14735

Hm, i wrote an answer, but somehow it got lost. Most of those above are not problems i currently have, they were all solved. In order:

The case fans now work correctly, it was just necessary for one of them to be connected to fan slot 1 in the fan hub, now they communicate with the motherboard and i am happy.
I slotted the RAM sticks into the slots that the mobo manual told me to.
Correct temps: I ran prime 95 + furmark gpu stress test simultaneously.
Top temps (from HWInfo) after about 10 minutes: CPU 64°C; GPU 69°C; System 52°C. CPU + case fans are at this point running at ~70%, GPU fans close to 80%, with my current settings. Temps have stabilized.

I will play around with the beeper a bit more. I just like the satisfying beep on system startup telling me everything is fine.

The generic W10 Lan drivers did not work. The PC could not connect to the LAN. After i installed the correct ones via USB stick, the problem was solved.

SC-Shield

Bulgaria891 Posts

July 31 2022 11:53 GMT

#14736

Congrats on new PC Simberto! The only thing that got me confused is why you didn't go for M.2 PCI-E 4 disk storage, a.k.a 6000+ mb/s read but maybe you don't need that many. I usually go for very fast storage nowadays to start everything quickly, be it simply Windows or games when they need to load stuff.

Simberto

Germany12028 Posts

July 31 2022 12:31 GMT

#14737

On July 31 2022 20:53 SC-Shield wrote:
Congrats on new PC Simberto! The only thing that got me confused is why you didn't go for M.2 PCI-E 4 disk storage, a.k.a 6000+ mb/s read but maybe you don't need that many. I usually go for very fast storage nowadays to start everything quickly, be it simply Windows or games when they need to load stuff.

Ah, i guess even faster drives exist. I didn't really know that there is a difference between the M.2 things. Anyways, this things is ages faster than anything i am used to. Maybe in a few years, once the storage is filled, i will get an even faster one for my second M.2 slot.

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

July 31 2022 13:30 GMT

#14738

Those drives dont have much use + they overheat pretty fast without proper cooling. You would use such a drive if you need professional storage speeds between A and B.

As for latency to access its negligible difference.

SC-Shield

Bulgaria891 Posts

July 31 2022 15:11 GMT

#14739

On July 31 2022 22:30 MeSaber wrote:
Those drives dont have much use + they overheat pretty fast without proper cooling. You would use such a drive if you need professional storage speeds between A and B.

As for latency to access its negligible difference.

It's easy to cool M.2. Some motherboards come with thermal pads. If a motherboard doesn't supply any, an aftermarket cooler costs in the range of €6-15 depending on brand and quality. E.g. be quiet! MC Pro is one of expensive ones imho.

Also, your argument could be applied to SATA 6 SSD vs M.2 NVME. Why do you need M.2 NVME drive when old SSD runs Windows fast enough? In my opinion, M.2 PCI-E 4 makes sense for gaming because games get bigger and more demanding. While there is no "future-proofing" with hardware, it definitely helps to go for the highest, e.g. PCI-E 4, to increase longevity of build unless you plan to have short upgrade cycles.
Also, that drive doesn't go in bin if you decide to upgrade in a few years time, you may still reuse it and M.2 PCI-E 4 is definitely affordable. E.g. Crucial P5 Plus (2 TB) is €230 on Amazon on discount if you look for a budget option with a high enough capacity. As for myself, I'm using Samsung 980 Pro (2 TB).

Either way, I think Simberto would do fine with PCI-E 3. If anything, it would only affect his games' loading time but it should be still quick.

Edit: Samsung 980 Pro (2 TB) is €247 on Amazon, so not much difference in price.

MeSaber

Sweden1235 Posts

August 01 2022 00:08 GMT

#14740

The biggest difference that you will feel is going from HDD to SSD for windows+games+file transfer.

When it comes to SSD vs SSD its not that big difference in feel but a improvement in side by side comparison.

If you have the space for m2 available and the SSD isnt too much more expensive than the most common SSD on sale then go for it. Paying double the price for kinda same visual performance makes no sense in my head unless you are a PRO who knows its necessary to save time (file transfers).

Yea most mobos have one heatsink already and when it comes to big file transfers its a must unless you dont care about throttling. But if you dont care about throttling you really dont care about performance in the first place and should buy any SSD that isnt pure garbage but reasonably cheap.

So conclusion: if its a new SSD with top notch performance you should buy it if its not too far off from regular SSD prices. Overpaying for SSDs is just waste of money for something you cant visually measure, like expensive RAMsticks.

Why not to care too much about it for gaming:

[image loading]

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