Desktop Computers

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Hey pals, been a few years (nearly 10 lol) since I've built a completely new PC. I don't follow hardware much at all anymore. As a result I'm not really sure what sources for benchmarks/charts is good these days. Anyone use a site like pcpartpicket to make a base build or anything similar?

I'll likely take a week or two to try to read up and get a general idea of where things are right now price/performance wise, but is something like the below a reasonable starting point? Less than an hour into seriously considering this so haven't put much effort in.

Guidance/suggestions are appreciated. Will read back through last few pages as well.

Im guessing your price point is ~1500?
 
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Lanx

<Prior Amod>
60,615
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Hey pals, been a few years (nearly 10 lol) since I've built a completely new PC. I don't follow hardware much at all anymore. As a result I'm not really sure what sources for benchmarks/charts is good these days. Anyone use a site like pcpartpicket to make a base build or anything similar?

I'll likely take a week or two to try to read up and get a general idea of where things are right now price/performance wise, but is something like the below a reasonable starting point? Less than an hour into seriously considering this so haven't put much effort in.

Guidance/suggestions are appreciated. Will read back through last few pages as well.

never heard of OLOy, i did some digging seems they want to be called owl? they are a chinese company and reviewers have them as solid memory, don't expect crazy overclocks but if you run them at factory settings or xmp, you'll be good

you might want to just pony up for a gen4 nvme

the toughpower gf1 is rated high by the powersupply nerds, so you should be good there too

i rock the same cooler, it's nice, install is a bit tricky on a tigher case, but your p500 should be fine, theres a lot of room there, also you can just install the cooler outside the case and bring it in that way.
 
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Denamian

Night Janitor
<Nazi Janitors>
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Hey pals, been a few years (nearly 10 lol) since I've built a completely new PC. I don't follow hardware much at all anymore. As a result I'm not really sure what sources for benchmarks/charts is good these days. Anyone use a site like pcpartpicket to make a base build or anything similar?

I'll likely take a week or two to try to read up and get a general idea of where things are right now price/performance wise, but is something like the below a reasonable starting point? Less than an hour into seriously considering this so haven't put much effort in.

Guidance/suggestions are appreciated. Will read back through last few pages as well.


I have the same CPU with the wifi version of that mobo and have been happy with it so far, though I haven't played around with overclocking. Don't know shit about that RAM or SSD and I've never even heard of that RAM brand. Everything else looks solid, but if you look around you might be able to find a 3080 for not much more.

I also have the same case, though I replaced the default fans with Noctuas. It's solid and roomy, though when you pick it up, make sure you grab the bottom of the actual case in the front. It's easy to accidentally grab the bottom of the mesh front, which will come off with a little force and you'll drop the whole damn thing.
 
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Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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never heard of OLOy, i did some digging seems they want to be called owl? they are a chinese company and reviewers have them as solid memory, don't expect crazy overclocks but if you run them at factory settings or xmp, you'll be good

you might want to just pony up for a gen4 nvme

the toughpower gf1 is rated high by the powersupply nerds, so you should be good there too

i rock the same cooler, it's nice, install is a bit tricky on a tigher case, but your p500 should be fine, theres a lot of room there, also you can just install the cooler outside the case and bring it in that way.
oh i wanted to doublecheck w/ you when i say xmp, that is for intel which also means docp for amd (which is what you'll have)
(i remember you said you were "out of the loop" for a few years), but we all universally say xmp cuz it came out first (it just gives you good memory timings)

heck your bios might even look like this
DOCP-in-Bios.jpg
 
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Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
2,605
4,143
Guidance/suggestions are appreciated. Will read back through last few pages as well.
We are shortly before generational cycles (AMD coming out with AM5 CPUs with DDR5 support, next generation graphics coming in October/November). If you don't want to hold out:
  • If you don't plan on overclocking or upgrading for long-term (which is pointless, because of the generational cycle), an X570 board may be overkill, and you could go with a cheaper B550 board.
  • Memory can be an iffy thing. You should check the board manufacturers website for their support list, to get a feel which memory brands they check their boards with. For the board on your list:
  • Zen 3 CPUs prefer dual ranking, so if you only buy 2 modules they should be dual ranked. This may be hard to find out.
  • Personally, I wouldn't buy a Thermaltake PSU after having that brand literally explode a capacitor next to me while checking a friends PC because of crashes, which killed the board + CPU + HDD. Also don't buy Gigabyte PSUs. My personal list is: Seasonic, Enermax, and maybe bequiet. I have currently ordered a Corsair PSU for my "recycling" buildm, though.
oh i wanted to doublecheck w/ you when i say xmp, that is for intel which also means docp for amd (which is what you'll have)
Interestingly, its only called DOCP on ASUS boards. My Gigabyte AM4 board also calls it XMP. Well, in the BIOS settings its actually called "Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)":

Screenshot 2022-08-13 130726.jpg
 
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Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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We are shortly before generational cycles (AMD coming out with AM5 CPUs with DDR5 support, next generation graphics coming in October/November).
This right here, Flobee Flobee . If you can hold out till maybe December? I am guestimating that you would get whats a 2100-2300 dollar PC right now for the same price point you're going after at ~1500-1600 then.

But.. if you're intent on purchasing now. Here are the changes I suggest and this is me* trying to stick as closely to what you want in terms of size and price. The CPU can come down to the 5700X and you can do a slight overclock to raise it to the speed of the other one. The Noctua cooler will handle the the difference in temperature easily cause its not a piece of shit. Mobo is fine cause it has PCI4 - but you're going to have to update the bios when you get it, so make sure you're comfortable with that. I think you're skimping a bit too much on the memory, but if Im forced into that price range - I trust G.Skill more than ching chang walla walla bing bang. The Samsung Evo has a better life expectancy than your other ching chang option and will take full advantage of that PCI4 from the Mobo. GPU is whatever - I think you could find a higher end one with more memory for not much more (but it depends on your monitor, too. 3070ti is fine if your monitor is mediocre.) No experience with the case, but people seem to like it. Changed your power supply up to not only a more reputable brand, but also one that actually has a 6+2 for the video card.

I'm unsure what fans come with the Phantek but I'm thinking you may need one or two more.
Example.jpg
 
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Flobee

Vyemm Raider
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Awesome, thanks guys! That sample I posted was a generic build for the ~$1500 price point, not married to anything on that list was just trying to get a baseline to work from. I'm willing to wait another couple of months for the new generation release because that does typically drop prices although I do have some concerns about supply issues but suspect we still have some time on that. Daidraco Daidraco thanks for speccing that our for me, gives me some things to consider!

More generic question on the AMD/Intel comparisons. From what I'm reading right now AMD/Radeon are ahead at the highest end right now, but midrange the price/performance is similar? I've gone with Intel/Nvidia the past few builds just because they've been consistently ahead but not against changing that up. I don't think I've used AMD since like the Athlon 64 and Radeon since the 9800 in the early 2000's. Presumably driver support is better now, and the only real concern is price for performance.
 
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Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,425
1,622
Hey pals, been a few years (nearly 10 lol) since I've built a completely new PC. I don't follow hardware much at all anymore. As a result I'm not really sure what sources for benchmarks/charts is good these days. Anyone use a site like pcpartpicket to make a base build or anything similar?

I'll likely take a week or two to try to read up and get a general idea of where things are right now price/performance wise, but is something like the below a reasonable starting point? Less than an hour into seriously considering this so haven't put much effort in.

Guidance/suggestions are appreciated. Will read back through last few pages as well.

Do you have a price point? Id change to 5800X3D - go for a 3080 FE from BB - and PCIE Gen4 NVMEs since youre on X570 - 1TB XPG Blade, WD SN850 or 770, or Samsung 980 Pro.

However as mentioned new AMD will drop in a few months along with new /everything/ in a sense. If youre not planning to upgrade for another 10 years id say push it to $2000 and get a AMD 6950XT for GPU. That should put you right around $2000 and will give you performance and enough vram to hopefully last that long. However 8GB of Vram i dont see doing well for the next 3 years let alone 10.

More generic question on the AMD/Intel comparisons. From what I'm reading right now AMD/Radeon are ahead at the highest end right now, but midrange the price/performance is similar? I've gone with Intel/Nvidia the past few builds just because they've been consistently ahead but not against changing that up. I don't think I've used AMD since like the Athlon 64 and Radeon since the 9800 in the early 2000's. Presumably driver support is better now, and the only real concern is price for performance.

AMD is ahead thanks to 5800X3D as far as gaming cpu perf, however GPU wise the 3090TI beats all of their current offerings. However from a cost/perf view the 6900XT and 6950XT are better buys usually. a 6800XT at retail may be the best cost offering possible at the moment but im sure you can find good deals on a 6900XT - the Red Devil Ultimate can get a 3090 a run for its money and cost noticeably less.

To quickly answer your question AMD price/perf is much better than Nvidia and 5800X3D beats all of intels offerings but only for gaming. AMD cpu + AMD gpu will give you SAM for a small perf increase as well.

If you can wait 3 months then wait 3 months and build - nothing is coming out that i can think of to warrant building right now unless you have nothing to play on.
 
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Tmac

Adventurer
<Gold Donor>
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I'm constantly running out of HD space for my Plex server, so I figured I'd finally pull the trigger on a NAS. This is what I'm looking at:

x 2

Is the NAS overkill as far as CPU/RAM are concerned or could I get away with something cheaper?
 

Denamian

Night Janitor
<Nazi Janitors>
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I'm constantly running out of HD space for my Plex server, so I figured I'd finally pull the trigger on a NAS. This is what I'm looking at:

x 2

Is the NAS overkill as far as CPU/RAM are concerned or could I get away with something cheaper?

I use a NAS for my Plex storage as well (QNAP TS 251) and the only thing I regret is not getting a 4 bay.
 

Denamian

Night Janitor
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Why's that?

I'm running 2 8TB drives in it now and based on how quickly I'm filling it, I will need more storage by early next year. I could get a USB enclosure addon, but that would be a separate volume from what's on the NAS.

Looking at the 4 bay version of the NAS you linked, it's only $100 more. You can just run 2 drives for now and have room for 2 more when you need to expand.
 

Tmac

Adventurer
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I'm running 2 8TB drives in it now and based on how quickly I'm filling it, I will need more storage by early next year. I could get a USB enclosure addon, but that would be a separate volume from what's on the NAS.

Looking at the 4 bay version of the NAS you linked, it's only $100 more. You can just run 2 drives for now and have room for 2 more when you need to expand.

Gotcha. Thanks for the advice. I updated my order and got the 4 bay NAS.
 
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Xexx

Vyemm Raider
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My NAS has 20TB on drives and a couple plugged in drives as well. My local NAS keeps all full sized bluray disc on it. My cloud server also host plex and it only has 4TB of space so it cycles through alot of content.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
60,615
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I'm constantly running out of HD space for my Plex server, so I figured I'd finally pull the trigger on a NAS. This is what I'm looking at:

x 2

Is the NAS overkill as far as CPU/RAM are concerned or could I get away with something cheaper?
bb has 12tb reds for 220, thats a way better deal per tb

of course if you can wait, you get better deals if you scour slickdeals or you want to shuck and external drive