PC Custom PC

I only somewhat recently replaced my ancient Logitech G5 mouse from 2007 and yellow-ish Compac keyboard from like the 90s or something because the keyboard was an eye sore and the mouse, well, ppl were making fun of me for it. Otherwise, they're still in perfect working condition and I kept the G5 mouse cuz apparently they sell for over $300 online, apparently there's still a demand for them, and I can see why... it's still an awesome mouse.

Only the cheap mice and keyboards and Razor / Microsoft products break often, good products don't.
you can always disassemble your mouse and send it to a car paintshop, they can cover it with nice powder paint coating and you'll get kinda new mouse for almost no money.

 
...Wait for Nvidia 3000x series to appear and get one of those! ...SATA for primary storage? Why?  PCI-E can be quite faster. Samsung 970 EVO would be a good choice. ...For monitor I strongly suggest ... the best possible ... just pick the best suiting for you in range from 27 to 34 inch
Hmm...you may have missed this:

BioFringe said:
total budget is $1500
The 3070 will eat 1/3 of that budget and the 3090...well, he could sit the pretty card on his desk and dream of the day he gets to attach it to something. 🙂 For someone on a budget it might be smarter to wait for the 3xxx to come out and then buy a 2xxx when prices drop. He would lose bragging rights, of course.

 
Please wait for the 3000 series to come out. I just bought an RTX 2070 Super OC last year, but it's getting handed down to one of my kids as the RTX 3070 will be the same price ($499) as what I just purchased (very satisified) and edging out the performance of a 2080Ti for the same price along with some new features. I consider the RTX 3070 to be a no-brainer.  Gamers Nexus just put out a video the other day with PSU estimated: 700 -800 Watts for the 3070/3080 with standard "Custom" gaming setups which is very reasonable in my opinion. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I second waiting for the 3000 series to come out but not for the few stated reasons: wait because the other cards' prices will drop. There's no point blowing most of your budget for a card and then needing a really good PSU which will eat a lot more budget up and leave very little for your mobo/ram/cpu/case/cooling/monitor(if needed)/Windows(if needed). Better to get a heavily discounted older card that will do completely fine for whatever you want to throw at it which will enable you to invest a lot more into the rest of the system.

 
Thanks again for the responses. The budget is going to be my biggest determinate as to what I ultimately decide on. But I will check everything out starting at the top.

My current system is a work horse. Built with a CPU & Motherboard that could last a decade (and it did) with an upgrade to RAM and Video Card somewhere in the middle. That's pretty much what I'm looking to do here. I may not be able to get the best VC now but if I focus on the CPU and Motherboard that won't be a problem to upgrade down the road.

Thanks for the insight on the SSD, I think I understand better now. Monitor is a bit trickier for me because I've never been one to worry too much about super big or super resolution. I play a lot of games where graphics just don't matter and I've been extremely happy with 1080p. Most likely, whatever monitor I get it will probably allow me to dabble in higher resolutions but for the most part I'm a 60 FPS VSync gamer. As a matter of fact...I've been know to be very satisfied with an FPS capped at 30 so I'm not sure how getting a higher refresh rate monitor will help me. If I'm going to cap with VSync or even Half-VSync why get a 75Hz monitor? Of course, that's a serious question as I'm open to all suggestions and insight.

Thanks again everyone. Much appreciated.

 
Yeah don't forget higher refresh rate monitors will burn out faster, too. And you, to be honest, don't need all of that unless you plan on playing twitch-shooters such as CSGO competitively. Even so, 60hz works fine.

 
Thanks for the insight on the SSD, I think I understand better now. Monitor is a bit trickier for me because I've never been one to worry too much about super big or super resolution. I play a lot of games where graphics just don't matter and I've been extremely happy with 1080p. Most likely, whatever monitor I get it will probably allow me to dabble in higher resolutions but for the most part I'm a 60 FPS VSync gamer. As a matter of fact...I've been know to be very satisfied with an FPS capped at 30 so I'm not sure how getting a higher refresh rate monitor will help me. If I'm going to cap with VSync or even Half-VSync why get a 75Hz monitor? Of course, that's a serious question as I'm open to all suggestions and insight.
Definitely got for an NVME/M.2 SSD. My load times in 7 Days are mere seconds versus a few minutes on an HDD. And it helps with performance.

Resolution and size are 100% up to your own eyes. Personally, I don't like 2k and up as a long-term play resolution because too much pretty and sharpness kills my eyes after a bit, I like a happy 720 - 1080 (although 2k/4k/8k is really really pretty lol). As far as refresh rates, FPS, etc., I do recommend at least staying at 60FPS and using something like Freesync or something outside of games if possible. To explain a bit more... maybe this will help ya (yes, it's based on CSGO but the theory is the same, and no you don't need to max your FPS when playing solo stuff or a game like 7 Days, it's just the theory of it all; I normally don't go for videos on research but a lot of people are visual learners and this is a visual thing lol):



 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for the videos. I'll check them out this afternoon. I am in fact a visual learner so they could help. I'm like you in that higher resolutions hurt my eyes after a short period of time and anything over 60 FPS always seemed like overkill to me. Oh, and I don't plan on ever playing twitch games competitively and like I mentioned, I'm not a graphics whore...though I do appreciate beautiful graphics it's never been a must for me. Stability and Performance must come first and I'm always willing to sacrifice graphical fidelity and FPS for both. I also don't like a lot of the high end graphic options either...Can't stand Bloom, Depth of Field, High Shadows, etc. I'm pretty much a High Texture, High Detail with most other options lower or disabled. If I want to see something beautiful I'll just stare at my better half :)

 
Having a 120 or 144 Hz monitor is like stepping into another world, but I don't think they're at all important for slower games like this. Are they nice? absolutely. Should you focus on them? absolutely not.

 
Hah lol I'm the same way. I like crisp, clean textures and none of the jazz. Shaders are nice to have up there, too. I will say that 60 FPS is so good to have, and anything above that is vital for twitch-shooters but other than that, it just gives you a buffer to drop FPS and stay above 60 I guess lol. But, I do like keeping my refresh/fps the same to reduce screen tearing. Although I hate the input lag 99.99% of games cause with their native V-sync, so I never use it. And you're welcome. The first one in particular showcases it, the second is more on the refresh rate.

 
Monitor is a bit trickier for me because I've never been one to worry too much about super big or super resolution. I play a lot of games where graphics just don't matter and I've been extremely happy with 1080p. Most likely, whatever monitor I get it will probably allow me to dabble in higher resolutions but for the most part I'm a 60 FPS VSync gamer. As a matter of fact...I've been know to be very satisfied with an FPS capped at 30 so I'm not sure how getting a higher refresh rate monitor will help me. If I'm going to cap with VSync or even Half-VSync why get a 75Hz monitor? Of course, that's a serious question as I'm open to all suggestions and insight.
I too tend to cap my fps to 60 or 72 depending on game even though I have a 144Hz G-Sync 27" 1080p monitor. I personally think 60fps is minimum for me these days cuz I can see the stutters in frame at anything lower than that. Personal preference I guess. Also, do note that a 27" screen at arm's reach is the absolute limit for 1080p resolution without making everything look all pixelated and ugly. So if you want to go bigger than 27", 1440p is my recommendation. 4k is kind of dumb unless you have a 40+ inch monitor at arm's reach and have the expensive hardware to run it.

Also, if you hate screen tearing, G-Sync is the way to go... or at least freesync as there's no added input lag from G-Sync (don't know much about freesync  though). This then allows you the option to disable the v-sync feature completely. I hate it too.

And based on your replies... I do now recommend forgetting about the RTX cards completely since you're not interested in high graphics settings anyways. I do recommend you wait for the prices to drop down a bit for the older cards to save a bit of money, and I would maybe recommend a GTX 1660 or if you're in a good location and are a bit lucky, a used GTX 1070, GTX 1080 or RTX 2060, RTX 2070. Ryzen 5 (any generation) is really all anyone needs for most gamers, but if you can get a 2600 or 3600, it'll give better memory support. B450 motherboard. Samsung Evo SSD (M.2 or sata, no difference). 650 watts bronze PSU or better. 16GB of ±3200MHz ram. Great balance in performance allowing you to spend more on a nicer monitor and accessories.

This is the case my sister just bought... very inexpensive while still looking quite nice and has great airflow... might interest you as well:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaKMTdWd_sI

 
Last edited by a moderator:
While you are shopping i thought I'd throw my case in here for you. Researched cases for months and ended up here. Looks great, MASSIVE AIR FLOW, lots of room and just all around the best case I ever had. The price is a joke for what you get. 

http://www.phanteks.com/Eclipse-P600s.html

Also, I ended up getting the Rog Strix 2060 super and it's a beast, highly recommended.

 
Update:

I've decided to take everyone's advice and wait for a bit to see what happens with all the new releases. Safe to say that it's been a cluster f... in the industry over the past month and it's getting even harder to follow whats-what. Going to wait a bit longer until the 3060 and 3070 get released, then I'll make a decision on GPU & CPU...the rest should fall into place after that.

Biggest change over the month is that I've decided to build only 1 system as my current system is good enough for the types of games that my other half plays so she'll get a hand me down and I'll get a new system. The new budget for 1 system is $2000 for everything except for a keyboard and mouse pad (since I love my current ones).

If any one would like to chime in with their thoughts on the current situation in the GPU & CPU markets please do so. I'm very interested to hear what others think about what is going on and what I should do about it. In all honestly, the 30 series looks nice and the price points are reasonable but with such crappy stock availability among other issues I've read about the 20 series at discounted prices is starting to look pretty nice. Thoughts?

Thanks again to everyone that has offered their help. Much appreciated.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
@BioFringe Good decision. The new Ryzen CPU´s look pretty good, but it was just a presentation by AMD, we need to wait for the independent benchmarks. AMD was pretty honest with the benchmarks when presenting the last generation tough.

The new Nvidia RTX 3000 is a paperlaunch, more likely to win some money at a slot machine than getting a RTX3000. They said the situation won´t change until 2021 (and didn´t name a specific date, not even wich quarter....). 

28th of October AMD presents their GPU line up, let´s all hope they can compete and deliver. Ryzen 5000 CPU´s should be in stores on Nov. 5th.

I personally wait with upgrades until after christmas. Usually you get some sweet deals in the first few days after christmas.

@stample is right about watercooling. Unless you go custom watercooling a good air cooler will outperform most AIO´s. If you don´t mind spending a bit of money on cooling, i would recommend a Noctua cooler. They provide a new montage system for free if you change your CPU and the old one doesn´t fit the new socket. Also they are pretty good and silent.

A case with good airflow is also importnant. Watch Gamers Nexus on YT for in depth case reviews.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Right now is probably the worst moment to buy something new.  With all the releases, it's probably better to wait a month or 2.

Depending on your budget, it might be better to aim for last generation, depending on price changes.  7DTD might not be crazy optimized(yet), but you don't need the latest and greatest either, especially on the CPU side. Until last year, I was still gaming on a FX 8350. I upgraded to a Ryzen 5 3600, but I haven't seen much difference to be honest. Maybe on some compute-intensive game (like mega factories in Factorio), but other than that, not much to write home about.

About resolution,  getting 2K was nice...  on a 27". If you're on a 22", that would be overkill. And below 32", 4K is probably overkill too.

As for GPU,  AMD is presenting their new one next week.  They had a benchmark preview of it earlier this month (when presenting their new CPU)suggesting it was competitive with the 3080, and there are speculations suggesting that the number presented wasn't even for their biggest GPU.  I guess we'll know next week.  I'm running the 5700XT so... I'll probably skip this generation.

About Intel vs AMD...  Yeah, AMD didn't compete with intel at the high end...  But they were always competitive in the rest of the spectrum (Except maybe the bulldozer era). There was people claiming "AMD is slower" and I was like "At any price point I care about, AMD is faster!". So, the fact that AMD now compete again with Intel in the high end isn't all that relevant to me because this is at a price point I don't really care about. I guess I just prefer value to flair.

 
@Mastermind Switching from an I5 4460 to a R5 3600 i had avery noticable difference in horde nights or when there is a larger number of zombies  Same for my mate who came from a FX8350 too. This game is CPU intense especially in horde night. 

You are propably in the GPU Limit so you don´t notice it. For 1080p there is a lot of a difference.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
stample said:
Since you mentioned watercooling, thought I'd share this.  I just saw it a few days ago, and was surprised at how well good airflow works, and can even be better than watercooling (and certainly lasts longer).  I'm starting to really like Linus Tech Tips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23vjWtUpItk
Yes, and way cheaper too. I have been using an Evo 212 for years with extreme overclocking, and with a positive-pressure case the temps are always nice. The Evo 212 is very similar to the Noctua he uses in that video, and about a third of the cost.  The Noctua fans are better though, and I have since upgraded the Evo's fans.  Next time I get one, I'll be getting the Noctua.

While the new AMD GPU's may be capable, we all saw the @%$#-show with the 5700. Over a year later, and they're still having driver issues that are un-resolved. Developers are having to bend over backwards to fix games to run on them properly. This has been a staple of ATI cards for as long as I can recall, and AMD buying ATI didn't change a thing. There is a good reason Nvidia is near 75% of the GPU market.

AMD's new line of CPU's is looking real interesting. And with Intel's underwhelming results in their last two generations, I don't see them improving much this time around. Hell, their videos advertising their latest generation mention AMD more than themselves.

 
And with Intel's underwhelming results in their last two generations, I don't see them improving much this time around. Hell, their videos advertising their latest generation mention AMD more than themselves.
2 generations? I think it's more like 4 generations (soon to be 5) being pretty much the exact same technology but slightly tuned and OC'd better, and will likely once again require yet another new motherboard for it just because Intel is Intel.

 
2 generations? I think it's more like 4 generations (soon to be 5) being pretty much the exact same technology but slightly tuned and OC'd better, and will likely once again require yet another new motherboard for it just because Intel is Intel.
Well, 7th and 8th gens at least overclock pretty well enough to make them worthwhile.  I agree though that Intel has been a bit lackluster for a while. It was amazingly frustrating to see that the 10th gen wasn't any faster than the 9th gen, and in some cases was actually slower. I don't see the latest to have much of a change regardless of the new architecture. They showed real promise in the 3rd gen by going to 6-core CPU's, but then went right back to 4 for reasons I cannot fathom.  Upgrading does kick you in the ass with each generation having a different socket. Sometimes even within the same generation. AMD definitely made the right choice there.

 
Back
Top