PC Custom PC
- Thread starter BioFringe
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BioFringe
New member
It's funny (not really) because as early as 2019 if I had asked that question the response would have been...
"Don't buy a pre-built. Build your own. Watch a YouTube video. It's easy, less expensive and will be better overall."
Oh, how times have changed so quickly.
Thank you all for the informative replies. My research has shifted to a different focus now. Let's see if I can get something that would satisfy my desires. Not just for a system with certain parts but I've been building systems since the 80s. This will be a first (well, since the first and only store bought system that I had at 16).
"Don't buy a pre-built. Build your own. Watch a YouTube video. It's easy, less expensive and will be better overall."
Oh, how times have changed so quickly.
Thank you all for the informative replies. My research has shifted to a different focus now. Let's see if I can get something that would satisfy my desires. Not just for a system with certain parts but I've been building systems since the 80s. This will be a first (well, since the first and only store bought system that I had at 16).
Jugginator
Moderator
I know right lol, even in the first part of 2020.
I would like to add I would stay away from Cyberpowerpc, I've never been impressed by their build quality (crappy motherboards, etc.), and several years ago I picked up a prebuilt from them and it died (mobo, cpu fried) after the psu shorted out a week after warranty expired. Really the only one I can feel comfortable saying do it would be NZXT, although I've never heard of bad stuff with CUK/Digital storm/Origin
Good luck. I have been looking for a 3070 for 6 months. I gave up and started looking for a prebuild because the bottleneck and.....
gave up that route as well because they are price gouging the @%$# out of everyone now. I really need a new system, this one is 7 years old. This build has been extremely frustrating.
JCrook1028
New member
rupalimittra
New member
You know the GPU situation is bad when Jay makes a tutorial on how to buy a prebuilt
I've built every PC I've owned since I was 12, but man it's tempting to go pre-built for what I need right now....
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BFT2020
Well-known member
I got extremely lucky when my power supply went out last year in October. I was able to get everything I needed for my computer around Oct/Nov. Though I did go with a 2080 and didn't even look / wait for the 3000 series GPUs (I never buy the latest generation when I build the computer, I always go with the previous GPU - so far been fortunate enough to get many years out of my computer before I have to upgrade).You know the GPU situation is bad when Jay makes a tutorial on how to buy a prebuilt
I've built every PC I've owned since I was 12, but man it's tempting to go pre-built for what I need right now....
SylenThunder
Community Moderator / IT Guru
This video just came out a few minutes ago.
rupalimittra
New member
Watching Jay's videos made me realize one thing sooner than later : no matter the industry, companies will always find a way to screw you over and make more profit off of you, the sooner you realize this, the better it will be for you as a consumer since you will be able to notice those schemes and work around them whenever it is possible. Shop wisely peeps!rupalimittra said:Acer, Dell, and HP.... Avoid at all costs. Even if you're just trying to score an "ok" GPU, they usually ship with a custom model that has that manufacturers specific ROM dragging it down. (Also may or may not have adequate cooling)
I've had good luck with CyberPower and CUK (Computer Upgrade King). You are usually going to get a good value there, and they build quality systems. iBuyPower used to be good, but their quality control has been dropping lately. Still a good choice if you're mostly looking for components though.
You can also take the route of build-to-order systems like NZXT, Build Redux, Digital Storm, or Origin. (There are probably others. This is just want I could think of off the top of my head.)
employee monitoring softwareJayz did a vid on things to check/avoid recently as well.
You know the GPU situation is bad when Jay makes a tutorial on how to buy a prebuilt
I've built every PC I've owned since I was 12, but man it's tempting to go pre-built for what I need right now....
SylenThunder
Community Moderator / IT Guru
New video with yet another list of reasons to avoid Dell like the plague.
Alienware used to be reasonably good gaming systems. Then Dell bought them out. At least this one actually has a PSU, and not a laptop brick.
Alienware used to be reasonably good gaming systems. Then Dell bought them out. At least this one actually has a PSU, and not a laptop brick.
JCrook1028
New member
Yea, that was a hilarious system, the other pure Dell system they did at the beginning was just as bad.
BioFringe
New member
1 Year Anniversary Update...
I've given up and decided to just buy a PC from a System Integrator (not a pre-built system). Not sure which one I'll use as I just started the deep dive research process but there are at least 10 good ones to choose from. This will be the first system that I haven't built myself in over 30 years so I'm a bit sad about that but I think waiting for over a year is good enough. How much more could you ask from a PC Gamer?
At any rate, for anyone that would be interested in helping me to seal this deal, I'll probably post a couple of specific question here over the next week or so while I try to figure this all out. The thing that has me hung up right now is picking out the CPU since the 12th gen is right around the corner. I have decided to go with Intel (I know, I know) and I don't care about overclocking the CPU so I had the choices down to 3... the i5 10600, the i5 11400 or the i5 11600. I'm pretty certain that I can't go wrong with any of those choices (I'm upgrading from a 1st gen i9) but now that the 12th gen has entered the mix I'm not quite sure if I should go for that or not. Prices seem reasonable but it would require several other part upgrades that cost even more money (DDR5 RAM and Z690 Motherboard in the least). My current frame of mind is to get the 10th gen CPU with the intention of upgrading to a 11th gen i9 down the road. I think that that should last me a long time between the two chips.
The GPU that I'm going with is the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti which will probably be the Founders Edition since that's what I expect most of these sites will offer.
Lastly, concerning the PSU, it looks like it will either be 750W or 850W at the end of the day.
Any thoughts or insights are welcome and Thanks Roland for not banning me for bumping this thread (again)...at least not yet
I've given up and decided to just buy a PC from a System Integrator (not a pre-built system). Not sure which one I'll use as I just started the deep dive research process but there are at least 10 good ones to choose from. This will be the first system that I haven't built myself in over 30 years so I'm a bit sad about that but I think waiting for over a year is good enough. How much more could you ask from a PC Gamer?
At any rate, for anyone that would be interested in helping me to seal this deal, I'll probably post a couple of specific question here over the next week or so while I try to figure this all out. The thing that has me hung up right now is picking out the CPU since the 12th gen is right around the corner. I have decided to go with Intel (I know, I know) and I don't care about overclocking the CPU so I had the choices down to 3... the i5 10600, the i5 11400 or the i5 11600. I'm pretty certain that I can't go wrong with any of those choices (I'm upgrading from a 1st gen i9) but now that the 12th gen has entered the mix I'm not quite sure if I should go for that or not. Prices seem reasonable but it would require several other part upgrades that cost even more money (DDR5 RAM and Z690 Motherboard in the least). My current frame of mind is to get the 10th gen CPU with the intention of upgrading to a 11th gen i9 down the road. I think that that should last me a long time between the two chips.
The GPU that I'm going with is the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti which will probably be the Founders Edition since that's what I expect most of these sites will offer.
Lastly, concerning the PSU, it looks like it will either be 750W or 850W at the end of the day.
Any thoughts or insights are welcome and Thanks Roland for not banning me for bumping this thread (again)...at least not yet
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Fox
New member
12th gen Intel... I don't know... I think they faked their benchmarks once again like they always do. They benchmarked while using Windows 11 when that version of Windows crippled AMD's performance by up to 25%. Given that Intel claims to be equal or up to 30% better... it doesn't take a genius to figure out what they did. Also, equal to me means possibly slower given the handicap. Also, as usual, Intel is preventing reviewers from releasing any benchmarks on the internet until the product is available for purchase, which is just such a scammy way of doing things.
For the record, the handicap has recently been patched.
I personally would still stick with Ryzen simply because you know exactly what you're getting when you buy it. I'd also avoid DDR5 right now since it's still new with bad latency and as new / better ram releases, those ddr5 motherboards will be older and therefore might not support the better ram properly anyway. Essentially, always wait a year for things like that to get proper support. Also, the new PCI-E gen whatever # we're up to now is still pointless as we haven't reached the limits of the current gen or possibly even the gen before that one with GPUs.
https://www.digitalstorm.com/ Is a decent site to shop at for sort of building a PC as you can pick and chose from a small selection of parts you want, just not really the name brand you prefer unfortunately. Also, expect increased pricing for any PC nowadays. May not be as bad as the GPU scalpers on ebay or whatever, but it's still pretty bad with buildable PC websites too.
EDIT: Ok, after reading more of your post, if you're stubbornly going to stick with Intel, then you might as well wait for 12th gen Intel 12600KF on a DDR4 based motherboard. Even if it happens to not be as fast as AMD's, it'll at least be faster than 10th and 11th gen Intel CPUs.
I don't know why anyone would waste money on an i9 (or Ryzen 9), unless you actually do a lot of non-gaming heavy CPU based tasks. 4 to 6 cores is plenty for any game allowing more budget for the GPU. And in case you didn't know, RTX 3060 TI is equivalent to RTX 2080, I think the only major difference is that it uses less power.
For the record, the handicap has recently been patched.
I personally would still stick with Ryzen simply because you know exactly what you're getting when you buy it. I'd also avoid DDR5 right now since it's still new with bad latency and as new / better ram releases, those ddr5 motherboards will be older and therefore might not support the better ram properly anyway. Essentially, always wait a year for things like that to get proper support. Also, the new PCI-E gen whatever # we're up to now is still pointless as we haven't reached the limits of the current gen or possibly even the gen before that one with GPUs.
https://www.digitalstorm.com/ Is a decent site to shop at for sort of building a PC as you can pick and chose from a small selection of parts you want, just not really the name brand you prefer unfortunately. Also, expect increased pricing for any PC nowadays. May not be as bad as the GPU scalpers on ebay or whatever, but it's still pretty bad with buildable PC websites too.
EDIT: Ok, after reading more of your post, if you're stubbornly going to stick with Intel, then you might as well wait for 12th gen Intel 12600KF on a DDR4 based motherboard. Even if it happens to not be as fast as AMD's, it'll at least be faster than 10th and 11th gen Intel CPUs.
I don't know why anyone would waste money on an i9 (or Ryzen 9), unless you actually do a lot of non-gaming heavy CPU based tasks. 4 to 6 cores is plenty for any game allowing more budget for the GPU. And in case you didn't know, RTX 3060 TI is equivalent to RTX 2080, I think the only major difference is that it uses less power.
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BioFringe
New member
Thanks for the insights Fox, very much appreciated.
I'll reconsider the Intel vs AMD for the CPU. You make a lot of good points but for me it's very difficult not buying from the same company in which my last product from them lasted 11 years. I figure that in the least, from me anyways, they deserve a bit of brand loyalty and I just have this feeling that if I switch to AMD I'll have bad luck that will cause me to regret the decision. I know that on paper with all things considered AMD is the way to go to be sure so I'll reconsider. And yes, you're not the first to consider me stubborn but aren't we al?
I only mention the i9 to show that with the parts that I'm considering there's still room to grow if need be down the road. My current system is an i9 but that's from a time when they weren't that expensive.
In regards to graphic cards...There are several that I would consider even from the 1000 series but most of the sites that I've looked at that allow you to pick your own parts only offer 3000 series cards to choose from. There are a couple that offer some cards so I'll look hard at them before buying.
Lastly, you have convinced me to avoid the 12th gen for now and all of the new parts that go with it. There's just no reason for someone in my position to be worried about all that right now and to be honest it just caused a headache. I'd rather stick with hardware that has been run through the trials a bit before going full steam ahead with absolutely brand new tech.
The only other thing that is holding me up is choosing between Windows 10 and Windows 11. I haven't found a site yet that offers a choice as so far all of them either offer one or the other. I'd rather stick with Windows 10 so if others tell me to stick with that I'll avoid the sites that only offer 11.
Oh and I'll be checking out Digital Storm today. It was on my list of 10 sites to look into and I'm pretty much only doing two a day until I pick the winner. Thanks again for all your help over the past year.
I'll reconsider the Intel vs AMD for the CPU. You make a lot of good points but for me it's very difficult not buying from the same company in which my last product from them lasted 11 years. I figure that in the least, from me anyways, they deserve a bit of brand loyalty and I just have this feeling that if I switch to AMD I'll have bad luck that will cause me to regret the decision. I know that on paper with all things considered AMD is the way to go to be sure so I'll reconsider. And yes, you're not the first to consider me stubborn but aren't we al?
I only mention the i9 to show that with the parts that I'm considering there's still room to grow if need be down the road. My current system is an i9 but that's from a time when they weren't that expensive.
In regards to graphic cards...There are several that I would consider even from the 1000 series but most of the sites that I've looked at that allow you to pick your own parts only offer 3000 series cards to choose from. There are a couple that offer some cards so I'll look hard at them before buying.
Lastly, you have convinced me to avoid the 12th gen for now and all of the new parts that go with it. There's just no reason for someone in my position to be worried about all that right now and to be honest it just caused a headache. I'd rather stick with hardware that has been run through the trials a bit before going full steam ahead with absolutely brand new tech.
The only other thing that is holding me up is choosing between Windows 10 and Windows 11. I haven't found a site yet that offers a choice as so far all of them either offer one or the other. I'd rather stick with Windows 10 so if others tell me to stick with that I'll avoid the sites that only offer 11.
Oh and I'll be checking out Digital Storm today. It was on my list of 10 sites to look into and I'm pretty much only doing two a day until I pick the winner. Thanks again for all your help over the past year.
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JCrook1028
New member
Personally I'd stick with Win 10. We all know how these Windows release are, 11 is gonna suck, bad. Unless you're really desperate I'd absolutely not breaking your pattern, Build the system yourself even if it means using your old gpu for another year. The value is pre builts, even with selecting the parts, simply is not there. I recently built my system (Ryzen7 3700x on an Asus x570 mb with 16 gig ddr4 3200 and a Seasonic 650 watt 80+ gold) and went to 15 select parts sites and every single one of them was a ripoff both in price and in lack of name brand parts options. I waited 6 months in EVGA queue for a 3070 til I couldn't stand it anymore then caved and paid too much for a 3060 ($629, same as I'm in queue for a 3070 for). I figure the shortage is gonna be another 6 months at least. I'm still in the queue so will probably buy the 3070 when my number finally hits and sell the 3060 for whatever I can get for it at the time. Up to you ofc but just my 2c. Go AMD and build it yourself. Don't ever buy cutting edge tech and especially never early adopt any new Windows release.
Fox
New member
Windows 10 will be expiring / losing support soon (I don't remember the exact date, but it's not too soon either), forcing us all to migrate over to 11 just like they did with Windows 7. So, just keep that in mind. At least updating to 11 is free, so there's no reason to beta test their junk.
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Boidster
New member
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