Tmac
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Desktop Computers
- Thread starter brekk
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Jovec
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FWIW, I sent in RMA RAM to G.Skill last week. 2x16GB DDR4 3600 CL16. Process went smooth, and just got the replacement today. Bought in Oct 2024 for around $65, retail today is around $250. I've bought G.Skill almost exclusively for the past 15 years, so I'm glad they honored their warranty without issue.
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The only RMA I ever had to do for RAM was G.Skill and it was completely painless. Glad to hear that's still the case.
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This is probably the wrong place to ask this, but I’m moving my gaming PC downstairs for couch gaming on the big screen. Moonlight was too laggy. My wife still wants to have an office pc for cloud word processing and internet browsing. I’m thinking a mini pc is the best way to go and I want it to be as cheap as reasonably possible since she won’t use it for anything important and already has a Chromebook she says is “too slow”.
I’m so out of the loop with pc stuff nowadays and the crazy ram prices. Any recommendations on a budget mini pc for simple word processing and internet browsing? I was going to just hit up Amazon and grab the first thing in the $200-300 range I could find that looked decent to me, but that’s probably stupid on my part.
tldr: recommend a budget mini pc simply used for non-gaming tasks like internet browsing and Google Docs/slides etc.
I’m so out of the loop with pc stuff nowadays and the crazy ram prices. Any recommendations on a budget mini pc for simple word processing and internet browsing? I was going to just hit up Amazon and grab the first thing in the $200-300 range I could find that looked decent to me, but that’s probably stupid on my part.
tldr: recommend a budget mini pc simply used for non-gaming tasks like internet browsing and Google Docs/slides etc.
Lanx
<Prior Amod>
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1. does it need to be small/cute/mini/sff?
2. can it just be a regular pc, just move it out of the way
3. is it going to the tv in your living room? the tv above the fireplace?
4. and your wife wants to use it to print out recipes?
5. are you gonna connect it to the big tv and have a secondary office/browsing monitor? cuz browsing for shit on the couch w/ huge font is different than purpose browsing
you said youre moving the gaming pc down already, is it staying there?
can you get by w/ an appletv/nvida shield?
also a big reason why htpc/living room or just kitchen pcs fail is b/c your internet sux, either you have slow internet or your wifi is garbage, i mean just think about it, you want a kitchen pc to look up google docs or browse a website, if your wifi sux, it's gonna "feel slow"
first test out how your wifi situation is, go dl wifiman and map it out
Thanks for the reply. Maybe I wasn’t clear or I’m misunderstanding you, but the good pc is going downstairs hooked up to my big tv permanently. Im looking for whatever would be easiest to put back into the office hooked up to the monitor in there for my wife to use when she needs to type stuff for work or wants faster internet browsing, as in tabs opening/swapping, then she gets on her slow Chromebook. She just wants to sit at a desk and have snappy efficient usage as if I had left the expensive desktop in there. Fiber 100gig up/down on eero mesh WiFi that has those speeds throughout the house.
something like a Nvidia shield might work, although I am not that familiar with those. I tried moonlight if that’s similar but it was from the pc to an lg c4 which I’m sure is weak compared to the shield.
something like a Nvidia shield might work, although I am not that familiar with those. I tried moonlight if that’s similar but it was from the pc to an lg c4 which I’m sure is weak compared to the shield.
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darkmiasma
Blackwing Lair Raider
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If you’re near a Microcenter go get a Mac Mini. Otherwise any small pc will probably do it. I have 2 from GEEKOM Mini PC & Laptops of Power & Creativity - GEEKOM and they work great.
One replaced my old Dell R710 server as my homelab before the price of memory went nuts and the other I gave to my parents to replace their aging PC last Christmas.
One replaced my old Dell R710 server as my homelab before the price of memory went nuts and the other I gave to my parents to replace their aging PC last Christmas.
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I just bought one of these. You can probably get cheaper if you're ok with less ram. They should be more than powerful enough for all the office/non-gaming needs. This bad boy is beefy enough to run a hypervisor with multiple operating systems
This one has 16gb, mor than enough for bousing and office suite. and it's $70 cheaper. https://ebay.io/m/v1kq3v
Hatorade
A nice asshole.
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https://www.microcenter.com/product/711400/powerspec-g765-gaming-pc thoughts? Prob.add another stick of ram.
Those seem really nice, I'm just wary of buying used for electronics. I was leaning towards a
Beelink MINI S12 Pro Mini PC, Intel N100 Processor, 16G DDR4 RAM+500G SSD
on Amazon for $340, but who knows.- 1
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Completely understandable. I bought a used zen 7513 which ended up having two bad cores. Not much you can do 3-4 months after buying it. it is a crapshoot, hence the discount.
Lanx
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thats actually 6000 ram tho, most prebuilts are getting away w/ 5200ram, so if you do add more it'll cost you
Lanx
<Prior Amod>
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i had a nuc or mini pc in my workout treadmill
my wife deemed it too slow, so i hooked up a phenom2 instead, much more enjoyable. i think my nuc was also a n100, they are really limited, i would never buy a nuc/media type pc ever again.
i would actually go the
Quevy
route and find a used business desktop or something, i mean those are pretty good deals and since they are business workstations, they have a smaller cuter chassis- 1
Fucker
Log Wizard
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It's fine for today's market. This is Microcenter's own brand....so not junk.
The B850 is the budget chipset, but that only impacts plugging in lots of drives. The first M.2 slot runs at PCIe 5.0 x4. The second is PCIe 4.0 x4, and the third is PCIe 4.0 x2, so the third slot has lower maximum bandwidth. You can plan for 3 internal NVMe SSDs + 4 SATA drives = 7 storage devices total, without needing an expansion card. In terms of NVME speeds, you won't notice at all.
Also, B850 supports a maximum of 64GB of ram. Budget doesn't mean junk or low end. Gigabyte makes nice things. AIO cooling. Who cares. I bought a big one for $80, took 10 minutes to put in. If it blows out, I will swap it out.
RTX 5080 is a nice unit. I just have a 5070TI and it is smooth.
I wouldn't worry about adding 32GB more unless you know you need it. You won't need it for gaming.
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Kirun
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Don't listen to this man.
32GB is fine if all you do is launch a game and absolutely nothing else. But if you want to have Twitch or YouTube playing on a second monitor, keep a bunch of browser tabs open, stream a movie, or do literally anything else in the background, you're going to start feeling the limitations of 32GB on Windows 11.
I went with 32GB back when DDR5 was still relatively new, figuring it would be more than enough for the foreseeable future. In hindsight, it's one of my biggest PC-building regrets. I'd much rather have the extra headroom than constantly wonder what's eating up my memory. Especially with the prices then compared to now - which are only going to get worse in the short-term.
And it's only going to get worse as more games launch in increasingly unoptimized states, with development teams seemingly relying on AI-assisted "vibecoding" rather than doing the actual work required to optimize their games.
32GB is still usable, but 64GB is quickly becoming the sensible choice for a high-end gaming PC.
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Fucker
Log Wizard
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So...you play video games while watching people playing video games on Twitch and also stream Netflix? You keep 3241 browser tabs open because you can't understand bookmarks? You have all this shit going on, but on a low-end CPU too, I bet....and think RAM trumps context switching or moar cores.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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I mean, if a 7800X3D is "low-end", sure?
I play mostly play BDO and listen to music on YouTube while in Discord with the homies - typically no more than 10 tabs open and I'm usually sitting at 70-85% memory load, depending.
Fucker
Log Wizard
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Get the extra stick. rtx 5080 going to be a big chunk of that. They have a 5070ti version? Might be able to shave some cash off and still get really good performance. And I'd guess shop around some unless microcenter works best for you. Just checking around some other prebuilder sites and places like StarForge also offer some good products with standard cases/components for about what the MC system costs but a lot more options.
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