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[Hazardous Metal]

This one is a very popular model, been out for a while though.

Check out the AOC and Acer models as well. I only have personal experience with the Ben Q, so can't comment on those.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B2HH7G0/?tag=neogaf0e-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BV1XBEI/?tag=neogaf0e-20


Edit: also, on the BenQ you can select the model without the useless Switch thing and save $70. Might be affordable for you without that. All it does is make it easier to scroll through the settings and switch profiles. Waste of $$.

Thanks for the help! Going to have to figure out what's the best fit for me but that's a great starting point.

 

[sono]

What would be the best memory kit for a Z270 Kaby Lake build?

I have AORUS GA-Z270X Gaming 7 motherboard. I want to start with 32G ram , board can go to 64G

Great performance is most important factor first of course cost is in there somewhere.

Thank you.

 

[Weevilone]

What would be the best memory kit for a Z270 Kaby Lake build?

I have AORUS GA-Z270X Gaming 7 motherboard. I want to start with 32G ram , board can go to 64G

Great performance is most important factor first of course cost is in there somewhere.

Thank you.

I would say the performance sweet spot is likely 3600. You can push above even over 4000 with select motherboards but anything above 3600 and you rely on having a good integrated memory controller in your CPU, as well as doing plenty of tweaking. Don't expect to set XMP over 3600 and have it just work even if all the ratings line up (esp at 32GB). I have a 32GB 3866 kit that I'm running at 3600 with tighter timings. It does perform better at 3866, but it takes more voltage and such.

I'd say it's likely the price sweet spot is probably 3200, maybe even the price/performance. I honestly haven't shopped for 3200's.

 

[sono]

I would say the performance sweet spot is likely 3600. You can push above even over 4000 with select motherboards but anything above 3600 and you rely on having a good integrated memory controller in your CPU, as well as doing plenty of tweaking. Don't expect to set XMP over 3600 and have it just work even if all the ratings line up (esp at 32GB). I have a 32GB 3866 kit that I'm running at 3600 with tighter timings. It does perform better at 3866, but it takes more voltage and such.

I'd say it's likely the price sweet spot is probably 3200, maybe even the price/performance. I honestly haven't shopped for 3200's.

Thank you. Can you link the 32GB 3866 you are running on e.g amazon.

 

[LordAlu]

would i be stupid to drop £550 on an R7 1700X/Asus Prime X370 Pro if i'm just playing games? i currently have a 6700K at 4.5GHz. also i'm only playing at 1080/1440p 60fps.

part of me is saying just to keep my current PC until it starts struggling (i7-6700K/16/1070) but these new ryzen cpu's look promising and i love new stuff

Yes. Your setup is pretty much ideal for what you're targeting right now, and I would say you'd see practically no improvement gaming wise if you went that route.

 

[Weevilone]

Thank you. Can you link the 32GB 3866 you are running on e.g amazon.

http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-3866c18q-32gtzkw

I verified that kit was on my motherboard's QVL list at 3866, but I didn't realize that GSkill has their own QVL list so good idea to check both. Still, the memory controller in your particular CPU comes into play so things get dicey the higher you go. Currently I'm 100% stable at 4.8GHz and 3600 on RAM, can stress test all day. I think the CPU would do 5GHz ok too if I'd delid it. However, I have a boot issue like 1 out of every 20 boots, where it seems that my OC is unstable in some way. As long as I get thru boot I am fine. One of the Newegg review touches on this (and it's not mine) too. I don't think it's the RAM in particular, but I suspect BIOS updates might be needed to tweak the boot process (Asus Hero).

Also, the price increases are real. I paid $320 for this kit like 5 weeks ago and now it's ~$370.

 

[rrs]

i5 2500k @ 4.1
2x4GB DDR3 1600 MHz
GTX 960 Ti 4GB (factory OC'd)
2 SSDs and a HDD

So, nothing extremely valuable in there by today's standards, but it'd suck to have to replace it all if it gets fried. Anyone have a suggestion for a new modular PSU based on what I have in there? Ideally, I'd want something that'd allow me to upgrade within a couple of years, but I never will go beyond a single GPU, so my thought is that a good 500-600w PSU would be plenty for my needs. I think a pre-emptive PSU upgrade might be a good plan for me here since my old one is 7 years+ now and isn't exactly an amazing brand anyway.

Is a Corsair CX650M PSU for $45 (after rebate + buying from my local Microcenter) decent? Reviews seem solid. I'm just so out of touch with parts manufacturers these days that I'm not sure if Corsair is a reliable brand for PSUs.

fine, but has cheaper parts and can't take high case heat that well. How about this instead? You can also check out this list for good stuff

 

[hamster3 3]

I'm looking to upgrade from my 960 to a 1060 this weekend. Are there any brands to avoid? Which are the best?

 

[Übermatik]

Ok PC GAF, I need a hand.

I'm looking to build a PC sometime this year, though the sooner the better. My five year old Macbook is finally dying and I'm desperate to kick start my work.

To give you an idea of what I need, I'll outline the purpose of this build - where priority descends from top to bottom of the list:

1. 3D modelling and rendering
2. Game development (UE4)
3. Digital art + Design
4. 1440p gaming (not 4K)
5. Video editing and VFX
6. 'Deep dream' neural networking and other experimentation

From here I'm totally open to any builds/ideas you guys have. That said, I've done some looking around and come to a few loose conclusions. If Ryzen is all AMD promises it to be, should I be looking at an overclocked 1700X? And would a GTX 1070 fit the bill? If either of these are better replaced with a competitively priced part with similar performance, then let me know.
As for a motherboard, RAM, PSU and cooling etc., I'm in need of some compatible recommendations. To demonstrate my ineptitude, I cooked up a pcpartpicker list that lacked a motherboard, case and fan yet still costs too much:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700X 3.4GHz 8-Core Processor (£389.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£105.59 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.12 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition Video Card (£379.61 @ More Computers)
Total: £917.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-23 16:47 GMT+0000

Now seeing as I'd hoped to hit way under the £1000 mark, I'm more than willing to compromise here and there to get it down to something nearer £500, ~£800 max. Maybe a 1700X/GTX1070 isn't quite as affordable as I'd hoped, all things considered?
It's also worth mentioning that I'm willing to skimp/pass on additional storage/peripherals and drives, so that means no optical drive, no external storage and no mouse or keyboard. A monitor is also non-essential at this point in time, as I have a spare one to use for now.

So that's sort of it. How can I whittle this down to the most cost effective build? Are my performance dreams too lofty? Where can I afford to cut corners?

Thanks in advance for your help, GAF!

 

[Jabronium]

Ugh, so ready to build a new rig and retire my 2500k, but I know I really should wait a few months and see what else is coming out later this year.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Ok PC GAF, I need a hand.

I'm looking to build a PC sometime this year, though the sooner the better. My five year old Macbook is finally dying and I'm desperate to kick start my work.

To give you an idea of what I need, I'll outline the purpose of this build - where priority descends from top to bottom of the list:

1. 3D modelling and rendering
2. Game development (UE4)
3. Digital art + Design
4. 1440p gaming (not 4K)
5. Video editing and VFX
6. 'Deep dream' neural networking and other experimentation

From here I'm totally open to any builds/ideas you guys have. That said, I've done some looking around and come to a few loose conclusions. If Ryzen is all AMD promises it to be, should I be looking at an overclocked 1700X? And would a GTX 1070 fit the bill? If either of these are better replaced with a competitively priced part with similar performance, then let me know.
As for a motherboard, RAM, PSU and cooling etc., I'm in need of some compatible recommendations. To demonstrate my ineptitude, I cooked up a pcpartpicker list that lacked a motherboard, case and fan yet still costs too much:



Now seeing as I'd hoped to hit the under £1000 mark, I'm more than willing to compromise here and there to get it down to something nearer £500-£750.
It's also worth mentioning that I'm willing to skimp/pass on additional storage/peripherals and drives, so that means no optical drive, no external storage and no mouse or keyboard. A monitor is also non-essential at this point in time, as I have a spare one to use for now.

So that's sort of it. How can I whittle this down to the most cost effective build? Are my performance dreams too lofty? Where can I afford to cut corners?

Thanks in advance for your help, GAF!

Well, I can't add a motherboard because PCPartpicker is having issues right now, but I was able to draft this together.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£319.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£105.59 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£44.90 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.12 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card (£334.98 @ Novatech)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23 ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.48 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£53.51 @ Aria PC)
Total: £927.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-23 17:42 GMT+0000

It's a few pounds more expensive than it reads because of postage on the 1070, but that only comes to around £340.

As to the motherboard, your main option while remaining close (though still above) the £1000 mark is to grab a B350 motherboard. Here's the main one I can in stock right now, to give an example:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...am4-ddr4-micro-atx-motherboard-mb-69l-as.html
Which at £88, puts you at around £1020 on the overall cost of your build, a bit above or below depending on what exact models you may get - there are cheaper PC cases for example, but they're not exactly fond to look at. Similarly, cheaper PSUs, but you always have to be wary of cheaping out there.

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

Can SSD's show signs of failing before they finally die?

I tried to start my PC this morning and it wouldn't boot from my SSD, I'd just get a black screen saying that I needed to put in bootable media and restart.

Going to the BIOS, the SSD still showed up, it just didn't work. I only now got it working again by booting the Windows Boot Manager for the SSD. It ran the drive repair and then booted up fine, but it took doing that 3-4 times before it suddenly worked. I honestly thought it dies completely so I already ordered a new SSD from Amazon, but if the SSD isn't at fault then I might send it back (save me $170 I wasn't planning on spending this month).

I've had the SSD for about 4 years (a Samsung 840 Pro), but to my knowledge when an SSD goes bad it just dies completely and doesn't have issues like this, but I could be wrong.

SSDs can have issues but before a new disk you can try using different cable and SATA port, update BIOS and disk firmware (download Samsung Magic; easy to do through there).

So I have an i7 4820k, running at 3.9 ghz, 32gigs of RAM, 1070 strix. Any reason to upgrade my chip and mobo? I'm mainly gaming on it, playing WoW, Witcher, Overwatch and things like Fallout 4 and Dishonored 2.

Hell no. I'm running 2600k on stock clock and cooler. Have a 1080 Hybrid and a Dell Ultrawide 34". Bunch of latest games (FH3, Watch Dogs 2, BF1, RE7, BattleFront) on 3440x1440 and either max or near-max with no issues.

Unless it's really far out into the future, just swap your GPU and you can probably keep the 4820k and mobo for a while.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

mainly for gaming purposes .

I would be pairing it up with my current 980 ti and i 7 3770 ( which may also get replaced )

Any particular reason for the motherboard replacement in that regard? Old one died?

 

[Übermatik]

Well, I can't add a motherboard because PCPartpicker is having issues right now, but I was able to draft this together.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£319.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£105.59 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£44.90 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.12 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card (£334.98 @ Novatech)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23 ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.48 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£53.51 @ Aria PC)
Total: £927.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-23 17:42 GMT+0000

It's a few pounds more expensive than it reads because of postage on the 1070, but that only comes to around £340.

As to the motherboard, your main option while remaining close (though still above) the £1000 mark is to grab a B350 motherboard. Here's the main one I can in stock right now, to give an example:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...am4-ddr4-micro-atx-motherboard-mb-69l-as.html
Which at £88, puts you at around £1020 on the overall cost of your build, a bit above or below depending on what exact models you may get - there are cheaper PC cases for example, but they're not exactly fond to look at. Similarly, cheaper PSUs, but you always have to be wary of cheaping out there.

This is a great starting point, so thank-you for that! I actually revised and edited my post to bring the budget down, where something around the £500, ~£800 max mark would be preferable. What could be cut/changed from your build to achieve this? A 1060 and a an i5?

 

[Thorgal]

Any particular reason for the motherboard replacement in that regard? Old one died?

i suspect it is close to dying yes .

and i eventually wanted to upgrade anyway .

 

[Thraktor]

This is a great starting point, so thank-you for that! I actually revised and edited my post to bring the budget down, where something around the £500, ~£800 max mark would be preferable. What could be cut/changed from your build to achieve this? A 1060 and a an i5?

A RX480 or GTX1060 would be able to do a respectable job at 1440p if you're willing to dial down a few settings compared to the GTX1070. You could also easily upgrade at a later date.

Given the list of uses you have for the PC, it looks like Ryzen would be the best option CPU-wise for you, as it should comfortably outperform an equivalently priced Intel in every category but gaming (and even that is up in the air until proper benchmarks hit). If you're willing to wait a couple of months one of the 6 core Ryzens might be a good option.

One thing I'd recommend you to do, if at all possible, is to move up to a 250GB SSD at a minimum (and even go NVMe if possible). A 120GB C: drive will fill up very fast, and if you're working on any multimedia stuff you will want to keep all your working files on the SSD rather than the HDD (you can move files to the HDD when you're finished working on a particular project, but trying to do something like video editing from a HDD will be painfully slow, regardless of how fast a CPU you have).

 

[JonnyDBrit]

i suspect it is close to dying yes .

and i eventually wanted to upgrade anyway .

Well, see if it can hold out long enough for the mainstream Ryzen CPUs to hit, and see how that affects pricing? Otherwise, draft plans for a complete CPU+Mobo+RAM overhaul - probably based on a Kabylake i5 at minimum - in case it goes early.

A RX480 or GTX1060 would be able to do a respectable job at 1440p if you're willing to dial down a few settings compared to the GTX1070. You could also easily upgrade at a later date.

Given the list of uses you have for the PC, it looks like Ryzen would be the best option CPU-wise for you, as it should comfortably outperform an equivalently priced Intel in every category but gaming (and even that is up in the air until proper benchmarks hit). If you're willing to wait a couple of months one of the 6 core Ryzens might be a good option.

One thing I'd recommend you to do, if at all possible, is to move up to a 250GB SSD at a minimum (and even go NVMe if possible). A 120GB C: drive will fill up very fast, and if you're working on any multimedia stuff you will want to keep all your working files on the SSD rather than the HDD (you can move files to the HDD when you're finished working on a particular project, but trying to do something like video editing from a HDD will be painfully slow, regardless of how fast a CPU you have).

Listen to this man. He is smarter than I am.

 

[RumblingRosco]

fine, but has cheaper parts and can't take high case heat that well. How about this instead? You can also check out this list for good stuff

Thanks. I am still deciding on whether I want to put the money and effort into swapping out a seemingly OK PSU, but if I do, I'll go with the SeasSonic you recommended. It is only ~$10 more than what I listed but is fully modular and seems to be a bit more reliable, which is worth the $10 difference IMO.

 

[Mystic654]

My new Case has just arrived ( Just as finished building my 4K Gaming PC). Now time to build my new Main PC.

 

[RoninChaos]

I would say no

SSDs can have issues but before a new disk you can try using different cable and SATA port, update BIOS and disk firmware (download Samsung Magic; easy to do through there).



Hell no. I'm running 2600k on stock clock and cooler. Have a 1080 Hybrid and a Dell Ultrawide 34". Bunch of latest games (FH3, Watch Dogs 2, BF1, RE7, BattleFront) on 3440x1440 and either max or near-max with no issues.

Unless it's really far out into the future, just swap your GPU and you can probably keep the 4820k and mobo for a while.

Preciate the responses!

 

[Bob Coffee]

I'm looking to upgrade from my 960 to a 1060 this weekend. Are there any brands to avoid? Which are the best?

Made that very same upgrade a month or so ago, I went with the evga ssc 1060. Its about a 50+% perfomance boost over the 960. If you want to be a bit more future proof the rx480 8gig is also a good choice as it has a slight edge in dx12 stuff.

 

[Übermatik]

A RX480 or GTX1060 would be able to do a respectable job at 1440p if you're willing to dial down a few settings compared to the GTX1070. You could also easily upgrade at a later date.

Given the list of uses you have for the PC, it looks like Ryzen would be the best option CPU-wise for you, as it should comfortably outperform an equivalently priced Intel in every category but gaming (and even that is up in the air until proper benchmarks hit). If you're willing to wait a couple of months one of the 6 core Ryzens might be a good option.

One thing I'd recommend you to do, if at all possible, is to move up to a 250GB SSD at a minimum (and even go NVMe if possible). A 120GB C: drive will fill up very fast, and if you're working on any multimedia stuff you will want to keep all your working files on the SSD rather than the HDD (you can move files to the HDD when you're finished working on a particular project, but trying to do something like video editing from a HDD will be painfully slow, regardless of how fast a CPU you have).

Ah yeah, my original list had a 250GB SSD, didn't notice JonnyDBrit had knocked that down a notch!

Do you have any advice on a particular Vendor to get a 1060 from, and what the best storage combo may be? Here's an altered list below:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£319.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£105.59 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£89.98 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.12 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB GT OCV1 Video Card (£209.98 @ Novatech)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23 ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.48 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£53.51 @ Aria PC)
Total: £847.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-23 21:06 GMT+0000

Sat at £847.65, I'm still keen to drive the price down even more if possible!

Listen to this man. He is smarter than I am.

I'm thrilled to have Thraktor on board, it must be said!

 

[Unkle]

Random troubleshooting question (I couldn't find a dedicated thread) but nowadays (have had the PC two months) when I boot up a game it automatically runs at 24fps-ish despite what the settings say.

A quick reboot fixes it every time but that's rather annoying to have to keep doing that. Anyone had anything similar?

 

[LilJoka]

Random troubleshooting question (I couldn't find a dedicated thread) but nowadays (have had the PC two months) when I boot up a game it automatically runs at 24fps-ish despite what the settings say.

A quick reboot fixes it every time but that's rather annoying to have to keep doing that. Anyone had anything similar?

Crytek game by any chance? Or all games?

 

[Khaz]

Is stuttering and all over the place FPS an indication of a dying GPU?

 

[LilJoka]

Is stuttering and all over the place FPS an indication of a dying GPU?

Not really, usually you get artifacting which is very obvious.

Have you monitored the GPUs clock speeds, temperature and usage using MSI Afterburner?

 

[Unkle]

Crytek game by any chance? Or all games?

Haven't tried everything, but Resident Evil 7 and Overwatch are two of the main culprits.

 

[Chezzymann]

Okay I'm trying to plan out building a PC for 3D rendering in maya/mental ray/arnold, with creative cloud editing and light gaming on the side. I need it to be around $750. I dont care about having much space because I dont play many games, usually just have 2-3 not so big games downloaded at a time. I'm just using a 1080p monitor I already have if thats important. Is this a good build? I dont know much about the specifics like how compatibility or fast memory speeds work, I just modified another person's build on this site a bit to better fit my needs. So if anythings messed up lemme know.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jHggKZ

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Okay I'm trying to plan out building a PC for 3D rendering in maya/mental ray/arnold, with creative cloud editing and light gaming on the side. I need it to be around $750. I dont care about having much space because I dont play many games, usually just have 2-3 not so big games downloaded at a time. I'm just using a 1080p monitor I already have if thats important. Is this a good build? I dont know much about the specifics like how compatibility or fast memory speeds work, I just modified another person's build on this site a bit to better fit my needs. So if anythings messed up lemme know.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jHggKZ

Depending on how long you're willing to wait, I would suggest waiting for Ryzen benchmarks to come out. If the 1700 proves to actually beat out the 7700k in gaming performance as much as it apparently does in cinebench benchmarking, that would prove the much better value choice at only 30 dollars more than the 6700 you're looking at right now.

 

[Chezzymann]

Depending on how long you're willing to wait, I would suggest waiting for Ryzen benchmarks to come out. If the 1700 proves to actually beat out the 7700k in gaming performance as much as it apparently does in cinebench benchmarking, that would prove the much better value choice at only 30 dollars more than the 6700 you're looking at right now.

I'm probably going to try and get it in may, would that be long enough?

 

[sono]

http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-3866c18q-32gtzkw

I verified that kit was on my motherboard's QVL list at 3866, but I didn't realize that GSkill has their own QVL list so good idea to check both. Still, the memory controller in your particular CPU comes into play so things get dicey the higher you go. Currently I'm 100% stable at 4.8GHz and 3600 on RAM, can stress test all day. I think the CPU would do 5GHz ok too if I'd delid it. However, I have a boot issue like 1 out of every 20 boots, where it seems that my OC is unstable in some way. As long as I get thru boot I am fine. One of the Newegg review touches on this (and it's not mine) too. I don't think it's the RAM in particular, but I suspect BIOS updates might be needed to tweak the boot process (Asus Hero).

Also, the price increases are real. I paid $320 for this kit like 5 weeks ago and now it's ~$370.

Thank you. Amazon uk are charging >£400 GB

I found ebuyer seems to have the best price £364.94 for the same spec inc RGB

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

Sorry if this is off-topic, but I couldn't find a more general PC-Community thread.

Anyone here using a Dualshock 4 to play on their PC? I tried connecting one, but DS4Windows refuses to update or install drivers. (Tried excluding it from my antivirus/shutting off windows defender, still didn't help.) I read somewhere that apparently Windows 10 "anniversary" update causes some sort of issue with the controller. Is that the culprit? Any workaround for this? Or any other program at all? My PC won't recognize the controller at all.

 

[Weevilone]

Thank you. Amazon uk are charging >£400 GB

I found ebuyer seems to have the best price £364.94 for the same spec inc RGB

If I had it to do over again, I'd probably buy a GSkill 3600 kit if it was cheaper. When I bought mine, I would have only saved $20 on the 32GB kit so I just bought the higher spec. Going faster (at that time) was more than $100USD extra so it was sort of a sweet spot.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

I'm probably going to try and get it in may, would that be long enough?

Undoubtedly, given Ryzen releases at the start of March. Hell, if you're waiting till May, you might get lucky and Vega GPUs hit.

 

[Kito]

I've had to return a number of components in my first PC build, but I'm happy with the replacements and I think I have a nice, quiet system now. My only regret is the Fractal Nano case. In hindsight, I would've gotten a smaller, windowless case with GPU vents for an open-air style card.

CPU: Intel i5-6600 (£199.99) Intel i5-7600 (£209.99)
CPU Cooler: NZXT X41 (£79.99) NH-9DL (£42.99)
Motherboard: Gigabyte H170N-WIFI (£90.05)
Memory: Corsair DDR4 LPX 2x8GB (£96.58)
Storage: 2.5" Samsung EVO 250GB (£86.98)
Video Card: Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB (£215.99) NVIDIA GTX 1060 FE (£275.00)
Case: Fractal Nano S (£57.35)
Power Supply: Corsair VS550 (£42.80) EVGA 550 G3 (£84.99)

Total: £869.73 £943.93

i5-6600 was a (presumably) refurbished one when I payed for new.
X41 had a click noise thanks to uncontrollable pump rpm.
VS550 and RX480 had faulty, noisy fans even at idle.

 

[Anarki]

Ah yeah, my original list had a 250GB SSD, didn't notice JonnyDBrit had knocked that down a notch!

Do you have any advice on a particular Vendor to get a 1060 from, and what the best storage combo may be? Here's an altered list below:



Sat at £847.65, I'm still keen to drive the price down even more if possible!



I'm thrilled to have Thraktor on board, it must be said!

RX480 8GB £182.99 - http://www.awd-it.co.uk/asus-radeon-dual-rx-480-gddr5-8gb-oc-vr-gaming-graphics-card.html

EVGA 500W PSU £37 - http://www.awd-it.co.uk/evga-500w-80-plus-certified-psu-power-supply.html

 

[Celcius]

My new Case has just arrived ( Just as finished building my 4K Gaming PC). Now time to build my new Main PC.

Congrats, welcome to the Caselabs club!
Which model did you get?

 

[Kito]

EVGA 500W PSU £37 - http://www.awd-it.co.uk/evga-500w-80-plus-certified-psu-power-supply.html

Seconded. Not only cheaper but a far better brand than Corsair.

 

[lostsupper]

Sorry if this is off-topic, but I couldn't find a more general PC-Community thread.

Anyone here using a Dualshock 4 to play on their PC? I tried connecting one, but DS4Windows refuses to update or install drivers. (Tried excluding it from my antivirus/shutting off windows defender, still didn't help.) I read somewhere that apparently Windows 10 "anniversary" update causes some sort of issue with the controller. Is that the culprit? Any workaround for this? Or any other program at all? My PC won't recognize the controller at all.

Are you trying to use Bluetooth or usb?

 

[Yappadappadu]

Last week I posted about new hardware possibly being responsible for the death of two of my old HDD's.

I found out that the uefi bios/Win 10 are able to properly see the first HDD by first booting the computer with the HDD only hooked to the power cable.
Running Win 10 I then reconnect the mainboard cable, reboot and I can see all partitions of the HDD.
Anyone with an idea what could be the reason? Could this have to do with the mainboard after all?

 

[Nostremitus]

Sorry if this is off-topic, but I couldn't find a more general PC-Community thread.

Anyone here using a Dualshock 4 to play on their PC? I tried connecting one, but DS4Windows refuses to update or install drivers. (Tried excluding it from my antivirus/shutting off windows defender, still didn't help.) I read somewhere that apparently Windows 10 "anniversary" update causes some sort of issue with the controller. Is that the culprit? Any workaround for this? Or any other program at all? My PC won't recognize the controller at all.

Are you trying to play Steam games? Steam supports DS4 natively, just plug it in. No extra drivers required.

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

Are you trying to use Bluetooth or usb?

USB.

Does it matter that it's not an official PS4 USB cable? Just using other USB cables I already had that fit in the socket. (Controller doesn't appear under Devices and Printers either.)

Are you trying to play Steam games?

Nope, vanilla games out of Steam.

 

[Mystic654]

Congrats, welcome to the Caselabs club!
Which model did you get?

This is THW10, I have another CaseLabs case (SM8, It's my Gaming PC).

 

[lostsupper]

USB.

Does it matter that it's not an official PS4 USB cable? Just using other USB cables I already had that fit in the socket. (Controller doesn't appear under Devices and Printers either.)



Nope, vanilla games out of Steam.

First step is to try another micro usb cable. Windows should make a "usb connection" noise when you plug it in.

 

[Khaz]

Not really, usually you get artifacting which is very obvious.

Have you monitored the GPUs clock speeds, temperature and usage using MSI Afterburner?

Some info about the old config first: it's a 7600 GT on an Athlon 64 3700+ (socket 754, nforce 4) with 2GB of RAM. I'm running Windows 7 on it temporarily, I'll install XP soon. The install is fresh from two weeks ago, on an SSD and a secondary HDD. Oh and an Audigy 2 ZS too.

I suspected a failing video card as I noticed a couple of weeks ago that its fan died. It may have died years ago, but I never noticed it before. As such, its idle temp is about 70C, load at 100C, which never happens except with Furmark. Furmark can push both the CPU and GPU to 100% but it's the only software I tried that seem to be able to.

Because I didn't look at the numbers first, I'm now waiting for a 8800GT. But it may not solve my problem.

It happens in every game, I have a "tick" every second where it's like skipping a frame. I noticed it in Sin (the old fps) and in Pinball FX2, two games showing good fps that have an intro with a smooth scrolling.

ioquake3 is a mess, with the framerate oscillating between 70 and 90, and frequently dipping to 30 or so, taking down the audio output with it. CPU is at 100% and the GPU is at 0%.

The introduction of Half-Life 2 (waking up in the metro) starts at about 100fps, then dips progressively to about 30, oscillating between 20 and 40. CPU is at 50% unstable, GPU is at stable 6%.

Lost Coast stress tests starts at 18fps on the beach and goes up to about 50 in the church. Still a slight stutter but the slow fps refresh of the Steam overlay doesn't show it. I end up with a result of about 32fps overall, a number that doesn't really vary when I drop all the video options to a minimum. GPU is at about 18%, CPU is 100%

Pinball FX2 behaves more normally, with a GPU at about 55% and a CPU not always at 100%. This game has vsync.

So, yep. The card sort of works, but not always, but not randomly either with a consistent behaviour depending on the software running.

 

[M3z_]

Cross posting in case anyone is interested.

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Samsung 850 EVO m.2 500GB SSD x2 - $110 Shipped ea.

 

[Vipu]

Haven't tried everything, but Resident Evil 7 and Overwatch are two of the main culprits.

Do you have gsync screen?
I think I have heard some problem like this with those.

 

[LilJoka]

Some info about the old config first: it's a 7600 GT on an Athlon 64 3700+ (socket 754, nforce 4) with 2GB of RAM. I'm running Windows 7 on it temporarily, I'll install XP soon. The install is fresh from two weeks ago, on an SSD and a secondary HDD. Oh and an Audigy 2 ZS too.

I suspected a failing video card as I noticed a couple of weeks ago that its fan died. It may have died years ago, but I never noticed it before. As such, its idle temp is about 70C, load at 100C, which never happens except with Furmark. Furmark can push both the CPU and GPU to 100% but it's the only software I tried that seem to be able to.

Because I didn't look at the numbers first, I'm now waiting for a 8800GT. But it may not solve my problem.

It happens in every game, I have a "tick" every second where it's like skipping a frame. I noticed it in Sin (the old fps) and in Pinball FX2, two games showing good fps that have an intro with a smooth scrolling.

ioquake3 is a mess, with the framerate oscillating between 70 and 90, and frequently dipping to 30 or so, taking down the audio output with it. CPU is at 100% and the GPU is at 0%.

The introduction of Half-Life 2 (waking up in the metro) starts at about 100fps, then dips progressively to about 30, oscillating between 20 and 40. CPU is at 50% unstable, GPU is at stable 6%.

Lost Coast stress tests starts at 18fps on the beach and goes up to about 50 in the church. Still a slight stutter but the slow fps refresh of the Steam overlay doesn't show it. I end up with a result of about 32fps overall, a number that doesn't really vary when I drop all the video options to a minimum. GPU is at about 18%, CPU is 100%

Pinball FX2 behaves more normally, with a GPU at about 55% and a CPU not always at 100%. This game has vsync.

So, yep. The card sort of works, but not always, but not randomly either with a consistent behaviour depending on the software running.

When a GPU over geats it's clocks drop which reduces performance. A dead fan explains it all.

 

[Tajaz2426]

Ok PC GAF, I need a hand.

I'm looking to build a PC sometime this year, though the sooner the better. My five year old Macbook is finally dying and I'm desperate to kick start my work.

To give you an idea of what I need, I'll outline the purpose of this build - where priority descends from top to bottom of the list:

1. 3D modelling and rendering
2. Game development (UE4)
3. Digital art + Design
4. 1440p gaming (not 4K)
5. Video editing and VFX
6. 'Deep dream' neural networking and other experimentation

From here I'm totally open to any builds/ideas you guys have. That said, I've done some looking around and come to a few loose conclusions. If Ryzen is all AMD promises it to be, should I be looking at an overclocked 1700X? And would a GTX 1070 fit the bill? If either of these are better replaced with a competitively priced part with similar performance, then let me know.
As for a motherboard, RAM, PSU and cooling etc., I'm in need of some compatible recommendations. To demonstrate my ineptitude, I cooked up a pcpartpicker list that lacked a motherboard, case and fan yet still costs too much:



Now seeing as I'd hoped to hit way under the £1000 mark, I'm more than willing to compromise here and there to get it down to something nearer £500, ~£800 max. Maybe a 1700X/GTX1070 isn't quite as affordable as I'd hoped, all things considered?
It's also worth mentioning that I'm willing to skimp/pass on additional storage/peripherals and drives, so that means no optical drive, no external storage and no mouse or keyboard. A monitor is also non-essential at this point in time, as I have a spare one to use for now.

So that's sort of it. How can I whittle this down to the most cost effective build? Are my performance dreams too lofty? Where can I afford to cut corners?

Thanks in advance for your help, GAF!

Are you doing Hi-Rez modeling? I don't know, but could that make a difference in the card you need? Like maybe a 1080 to model Hi-Rez? Just a question I was thinking about.

I just bought an MSI mobo for 200.00. An MSI z270 Gaming M5 and I believe it was cheaper on new egg.
PSU, I usually use Corsair. I will do a part picker and see what I can come up with. I buy a lot of PC parts for my oldest son and I, but I don't know a lot about your needs and the power you need for game development and the type of games you want to develop. I can try, though.

There are a lot of used parts out there and I also have a few graphics cards laying about. I have an EVGA 960 and 970 FTW editions that I am always willing to gift if someone really needs it.

I mean, I don't know if a 960 or 970 would suit your needs for game development though.

 

[T-Rex.]

Is it possible to get a decent kb/m for around £50ish or nah?