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[PC Build Thread] AMD Radeon Chief Architect Raja Koduri Moves to Intel =O
BouwsT
Wanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered User regular
Wanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered User regular
Welcome to Part Shoppers Anonymous the Penny Arcade Computer Build Thread!
(this OP is shamelessly stolen/modified from our missing overlord alecthar (via Jebus314, and minor incident).
Tl;dr:
.
Acronyms!
PC - Personal Computer
CPU - Central Processing Unit (Computer's Brain)
GPU - Graphics Processing Unit (Computer's Muscles)
PSU - Power Supply (Computer Power Plant)
MOBO - Mother Board (Computer Skeleton / Nervous System
RAM - Random Access Memory (Computer's Short Term Memory)
HDD - Hard Disk Drive (Computer's Long Term Memory, with high capacity but low speed)
SSD - Solid State Drive (Computer's Long Term Memory, with low(er) capacity but high speeds.
"Why should I build my own computer when I could just have a bunch of underpaid assembly line workers do it for me?"
Knowledge: Building your own computer is a learning experience. To start with, you'll probably end up doing a lot of research on the current state of consumer computing hardware, along with learning a bit about how various computer components work within a complete system. You'll also gain valuable knowledge about the actual assembly of a PC, something that definitely comes in handy if you find yourself doing family tech support.
With all that said, I want to highlight a very important point. If all you need to do with a computer is browse the internet, consume media, and use productivity software like Microsoft Office, there's admittedly little reason not to buy a prebuilt machine. Because of the economy of scale, you will almost always get a higher spec'd computer for cheaper if your budget is less than $400 or so. Quality can still sometimes be an issue, and you won't gain any knowledge, but cheap computers are probably a better deal prebuilt.
"You've convinced me to build my own, what's inside the box again?"
In general there are 8 main components to a PC.
Here are a few questions you should ask yourself when you're ready to start researching parts for your new PC. Once you have some answers to these questions, post them in this thread and others will jump in to fill in the gaps and get you well on your way to completing your order! Don't be intimidated if you don't know any of the answers though, as any questions (no matter how basic) are always welcome. In general though, the more information we have about what you want and how much you're willing to pay to get it, the better the advice you'll get.
"I'm totes ready to buy, but everyone keeps posting this PC partpicker thing. Where do I actually get my stuff?"
US
Amazon.ca
Newegg.ca
UK
(this OP is shamelessly stolen/modified from our missing overlord alecthar (via Jebus314, and minor incident).
Tl;dr:
.
We do our best to provide advice about component choice, shopping for components, assembling the PC itself, and even a little bit of troubleshooting for new builds (if you're having issues). To my knowledge no forumer has ever left with a non functioning build. We'll get you there! All at a measly 250% of your original budget!chrishallett83 wrote: »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWWlEo0uIRgAcronyms!
PC - Personal Computer
CPU - Central Processing Unit (Computer's Brain)
GPU - Graphics Processing Unit (Computer's Muscles)
PSU - Power Supply (Computer Power Plant)
MOBO - Mother Board (Computer Skeleton / Nervous System
RAM - Random Access Memory (Computer's Short Term Memory)
HDD - Hard Disk Drive (Computer's Long Term Memory, with high capacity but low speed)
SSD - Solid State Drive (Computer's Long Term Memory, with low(er) capacity but high speeds.
"Why should I build my own computer when I could just have a bunch of underpaid assembly line workers do it for me?"
Knowledge: Building your own computer is a learning experience. To start with, you'll probably end up doing a lot of research on the current state of consumer computing hardware, along with learning a bit about how various computer components work within a complete system. You'll also gain valuable knowledge about the actual assembly of a PC, something that definitely comes in handy if you find yourself doing family tech support.
- Quality: PCs from companies like Dell and HP are built cheaply. Sometimes this isn't a huge issue. Intel, for example, doesn't sell a separate "from the junk pile" line of CPUs. Hard drives are generally of fairly consistent quality among manufacturers. However, depending on the PC, you may end up with a fairly anemic, or even cruddy, generic PSU, along with motherboards that are generally pretty limited in their flexibility and feature-set, and don't even get me started on the cases they use. Building your own PC gives you complete control over the quality of the components you use.
- Flexibility: A prebuilt PC sometimes comes with proprietary components, or in a case with a proprietary form factor with a weird sized PSU. When you build your own PC, you can select the components with an eye towards whatever degree of flexibility or upgrade path you deem appropriate. Because retail component design adheres to certain standards, you end up with a more modular system that can be changed more easily.
- Value: When it comes to a PC with real horsepower, manufacturers believe we're willing to pay a serious premium. Building your own Gaming (or Workstation) PC almost always saves you significant amounts of money.
With all that said, I want to highlight a very important point. If all you need to do with a computer is browse the internet, consume media, and use productivity software like Microsoft Office, there's admittedly little reason not to buy a prebuilt machine. Because of the economy of scale, you will almost always get a higher spec'd computer for cheaper if your budget is less than $400 or so. Quality can still sometimes be an issue, and you won't gain any knowledge, but cheap computers are probably a better deal prebuilt.
"You've convinced me to build my own, what's inside the box again?"
In general there are 8 main components to a PC.
- CPU: This is the central processing unit. It is the heart of your PC build and is what controls how quickly your computer can perform various tasks. There are only 2 manufacturers (AMD and Intel), and these days Intel is dominating. As of writing this OP, AMD has released their new Ryzen CPU's, which are presenting some much needed competition in the CPU space! Pro-tip, over the years CPUs are generally tracked by their architecture (which alludes to how they are designed) and each unique architecture is given a name (Newest are Skylake for Intel, and Ryzen for AMD). There are a multitude of different specs for CPUs, but it's nigh impossible to use them for comparison across manufactures and often times even across different architectures. Generally you will want to go to a place like Tom's Hardware and look actual measured comparisons between the chips to decide... If you're looking for high end performance, and the best bang for your buck, you will also want to look out for unlocked CPUs that allow for overclocking. These days it is a very painless process, and can easily give you a 10-30% performance boost for the cost of a bigger heatsink. For intel CPUs, model numbers that end in a K do not come with a heatsink (as you'll likely be buying a larger one any way) and allow overclocking.
AnandTech's Q1 2017 CPU Comparisons
Feel free to ask for current recommendations. - GPU: This is the graphical processing unit. As the name implies it controls how pretty things will look, and what games you can play. The first important decision for your GPU is onboard versus discrete. These days Intel and AMD are offering combined CPU/GPU chips that are really pretty good. For everything besides gaming and graphic intensive work, these combined chips offer the best performance at the cheapest price. If you're building a HTPC (home theater PC) for example this is definitely the way to go. AMD may lead on the higher end, as their APU line (their terminology for the combined CPU/GPU) can have better GPU performance with similar CPU performance than the corresponding Intel products. A top of the line AMD APU will be good enough to stream any video content, watch blurays, and even play some older games at moderate settings...
If, however, you are looking to game or do a lot of video editing/other graphics intensive work, then a discrete graphics card is the way to go. For the purposes of gaming, the rest of your system is mainly an effort to get out of your video card's way. The price of a solid video card reflects that; for gaming PCs the video card will be the most expensive single component you purchase. For discrete GPUs there are again 2 manufacturers, AMD (formally ATI) and Nvidia. Unlike CPUs the GPU race has been a bit stale for well over a year, but we're always hoping for better competition to allow for good consumer choice! To make things more confusing AMD and Nvidia don't actually sell graphics cards themselves, instead the sell the designs (or base hardware) to other companies who build them and sell them to consumers. This means that for any given GPU model (say the Nvidia GTX 1060), there will be several different vendors selling that exact model (like this GTX 1060 sold by EVGA). Different vendors can have different coolers, different amounts of overclocking, and different build quality, so be careful with who the exact card is coming from. Feel free to ask for current recommendations. - Motherboard: The motherboard is the complex circuitry that connects all of your fancy parts together. Buying a motherboard is all about quality, compatibility, and options. The two most important compatibility issues are getting the right socket for your CPU, and getting the right size for your case. Whatever CPU you are interested in getting should have a corresponding socket number (like LGA 1151 for Kaby Lake Intel based CPUs), and you absolutely must get a motherboard with that socket. Motherboards also generally come in a few different sizes (or form factors), with the most common being: ATX, micro-ATX, mini-ATX, and mini-ITX. The key here is to make sure that you Case specifically says it is compatible with the form factor you choose. For quality purposes you generally want to stick to the main manufacturers: MSI, ASUS, EVGA, ASRock, and Gigabyte. Finally, it's all about the options. Make a list of everything that you want to hook up to your PC and what type of connection it needs (USB 3.0 vs 2.0, HDMI vs DVI vs Display Port, eSADA, ect...) and find yourself a motherboard that has all the necessary connections. Other things to consider are SLI/crossfire compatibility (which allows you to run 2+ GPUs simultaneously for Nvidia or AMD cards respectively), PCI-E slots (quantity and bandwidth per slot typically described as 8x or 16x), CPU overclocking compatible, onboard GPU compatible, soundcard capabilities, and ethernet capabilities. Feel free to ask for current recommendations.
- Memory: This is often referred to as the RAM or Random Access Memory, and it controls how many things you can do at once. These days there are basically 3 rules to follow when buying RAM. (1) Buy DDR4: Only legacy sockets from AMD and Intel support DDR2 and DDR3 is quickly being phased out. This is a compatibility check with the motherboard so always look at the motherboard specs to verify, but almost everything currently sold these days is DDR4. (2) Don't overthing the RAM speed (2400 MHz can be had for cheap). Slower and you may seem some changes in performance for a cheaper price, and faster does NOT provide a good performance per dollar value. Timings largely mean nothing, and should be completely ignored for your first build. (3) Buy 8-16 GB and as many DIMMS (or sticks) as channels on your motherboard. So if your motherboard supports 2 channel memory, get 2 sticks of 8GB Ram (for 16GB total). RAM is cheap so lean towards more rather than less, but for most people anything more than 32 GB will be wasted (even 32 GB+ is only for most power users, or insane amounts of multi-tasking). Feel free to ask for current recommendations.
- Hard Disk Drive/Solid State Drive: This is where all of your software and data is stored. If you're budget can swing it the most effective setup is to use a smaller SSD (240-500 GB) for your programs and OS, and a larger HDD (1-4 TB) for media storage. Not all SSDs and not all HDDs are created equal. For HDDs the spindle speed (typically 5400, 7200, and 10000 RPMs) dictates how quickly you will be able to access your data, with higher RPMs giving faster access. For purely data storage the speed tends not to matter that much, but for programs/games loading will be much faster. Any SSD will be far quicker than even the best HDDs. Most importantly for both you want something that is reliable, so check the comments/reviews for any particular model. Just keep in mind that every single model ever created will have some small number of drives that fail and those will be the bulk of the people leaving comments. As a general rule, Samsung 850 EVO SSD's, and Wester Digital brand HDD's are generally the golden rule. Feel free to ask for current recommendations.
- PSU: This is the power supply unit, and as the name implies it powers your PC. There are 3 basic factors to consider for a PSU: modular/non-modular, wattage, and efficiency. A non-modular PSU will have all of the cables permanently attached and can be a pain to keep organized compared to being able to remove unnecessary cables. Wattage is the amount of power your PSU can supply and you generally want your computer to run close to but not at the maximum rating for your PSU. To see what that would be before you buy your PSU, just find any online wattage calculator, put in the parts you want to use, and viola. Finally there is the efficiency, which is rated as Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc and indicate how efficiently the PSU takes your wall power and converts it to useable power for your PC. Generally Seasonic (and PSU's build by Seasonic and sold under different names) are the golden standard here on the forum. Feel free to ask for current recommendations.
- Case: This is where you put all those things above. Don't underestimate the importance of a good case. A Good cable management system and layout can make building a PC a vastly superior experience, as well as giving longevity to your build through superior heat management. Also that shit should look badass. The only requirement though is that you find a case that is large enough to house all of your components (this is not a trick, often times GPUs, PSUs, certain types of memory, and some optical drives will not fit in a particular case), and can accept the form factor for the motherboard used. Feel free to ask for current recommendations.
- Bling Factor LED lighting is critical to PC modding, and should be included in every case and component where possible.
SmokeStacks wrote: »
I've done extensive research into LEDs (I went to college for this), I'll go ahead and quote an old post I made regarding my findings:SmokeStacks wrote: »LEDs play a vital role in any PC build! In case anyone doesn't know, no PC is complete without an associated set of colored LEDs. However, it is very important that you choose your LED colors carefully, as each one has specific advantages:Red LEDs are very powerful. They make your PC run much, much faster. If you are looking to get a performance boost but can't afford higher quality parts or are unable to overclock, red LEDs are the way to go. Just make sure to beef up your cooling levels, because they will make your PC run much hotter. All of the top MLG Pro gamers use red LEDs (including myself).
Blue LEDs are great. They make your machine run much cooler. If your ambient temperatures are on the rise and you can't afford spending $20 a piece on high quality Noctua fans or $Idaho on expensive watercooling setups, blue LEDs are your best bet. I once knew a guy who had so many blue LEDs that his case pulled double duty as a minifridge. Not even joking. We'd keep the root beer in there during LAN parties.
Green LEDs are great because they make your system use significantly less AC power to run, thus lowering both your electricity bill and your carbon footprint. A set of high quality green LEDs surrounding a 1000w PSU will bring its power draw down to as low as 4-500w (not counting the extra power used to run the green LEDs).
White LEDs are (on paper) the best option, as they combine the benefits of red, blue, and green LEDs. Be very careful though!, white LEDs aren't very common because the light gives you cancer.
Legends tell of the fabled Purple LED, but so far they have eluded me. Could such a thing really exist? While evidence suggesting the existence of purple LEDs has been found in ancient Sumerian ruins, my years of investigation and research have led me to the conclusion that purple LEDs are a myth that exist solely in the delusional babblings of men who have gone mad while searching for them. The are the El Dorado of the PC building world.
You might think to yourself "Why wouldn't I combine LED colors in my case and gain multiple advantages without the drawbacks of white LEDs?". In the early fifties, when PC LEDs were still in their infancy, LED-combination experimentation using a series of lead sheets and mirrors appeared promising (aside from a few tragic mishaps due to the ineffective safety measures prevalent in laboratories at the time), unfortunately combining LED colors has proven impossible, as the effects simply cancel each other out.
Sure, some people prefer a "pure" PC and might not use LEDs at all, considering them to be "cheating", but you gotta ask yourself - if you were an Olympic athlete, and someone said you could inject LEDs to make your performance significantly better, would that be "cheating"? Of course not.
Hope this helps. - Other: This is just a list of other parts to keep in mind, that you may or may not need. Additional fans, optical drive, soundcard, WiFi card (or USB dongle), monitor, keyboard, mouse, cables (fan cables, SATA cables, ect...), aftermarket CPU heatsink (necessary for overclocking), and zipties (or other cable management device). Feel free to ask for current recommendations.
Here are a few questions you should ask yourself when you're ready to start researching parts for your new PC. Once you have some answers to these questions, post them in this thread and others will jump in to fill in the gaps and get you well on your way to completing your order! Don't be intimidated if you don't know any of the answers though, as any questions (no matter how basic) are always welcome. In general though, the more information we have about what you want and how much you're willing to pay to get it, the better the advice you'll get.
- What kind of computer do you need? The 4 basic categories are: standard gaming PC, HTPC, server, and a serious Workstation.
- What's your budget for this project?
- What needs to be included in that budget? Do you need a monitor, keyboard and mouse to go with it? Are there components from a previous PC that you are carrying over to the new build? What about an operating system (like Windows 10)?
- What are your performance needs? For games, what resolution do you game at, and what kind of performance do you want to see there? For professional tasks, what are you doing and what kind of numbers would you like to see?
- Do you have any partiality towards specific manufacturers, like Intel/AMD, AMD/NVIDIA, or perhaps specific vendors?
- Do you have any specific needs? That is, are you looking for quiet operation, small form factor, significant upgrade-ability, or other specific features?
"I'm totes ready to buy, but everyone keeps posting this PC partpicker thing. Where do I actually get my stuff?"
US
There are a number of solid online purchasing options available to US consumers. My personal favorite is Newegg, though there are other options like Tiger Direct, and (of course) Amazon. Brick and mortar buyers can find some components at big box retailers like Best Buy and Fry's, though I've found that prices from online retailers are significantly better than these stores. The exception to that seems to be Microcenter, which often has great deals on processors and motherboards in particular.
Canada
Some more recent opinions:when it comes to Canadian supplies, NCIX.ca used to be the undisputed champion. So far as I know, they're still a good company, but they didn't have the best price for any part I saw. Newegg.ca usually had the best prices including shipping on my current build, vuugo.com often had good prices though their website seems a bit sketchy, and directcanada.com has some good prices and worked fine for me in the past.
djmitchella wrote:Re: first post -- for the 'Canadian shops' bit, you should add memoryexpress.com to that list (not sure how they are for mail order, but as an in-the-flesh shop, at least, they're great).
Other Links:BouwsT wrote:I used Memory Express for my last build, they are actually really great so far for their mail orders. Also, their price beat is stronger than newegg.ca (10% of difference, rather than just a straight match). I would definitely recommend them for Canadian buyers, at least to check out.
Amazon.ca
Newegg.ca
Online retailers in the UK include Ebuyer, which apparently has a wide selection of components, Novatech, which also does custom systems and apparently has some fans in UK PC forums, and dabs.com, a site recommend by our very own Big Isy, who cited their frequent free shipping/free game deals.
Australia
Our very own Tef put together a very thorough buying guide for Australians:
And here is a handy flowchart!Tef wrote:Online retailers (Australia-wide)Other Australia-based Online Retailers
- www.pccasegear.com - Based in Melbourne, these guys are as close to an Australian Newegg as you will find. PCcasegear are known for their reliable service and good RMA (returning faulty equipment) policies. They have a somewhat decent range of equipment, for Australia and while generally pretty cheap, there certainly are cheaper options out there. For people in Melbourne, you can also visit their store front and pick up the parts personally.
- www.msy.com.au - A cheaper alternative to PCcasegear that is still reasonably reliable. MSY does suffer from a limited range and volume of stock on occasion. As of October 2011, they do not have a delivery system in place (in progress, according to MSY) so you will have to pick up the parts from their brick and mortar shops. Fortunately, they have numerous store fronts around the country, so finding one nearby shouldn't be too hard to do. Be aware that when you're shopping online make sure you set your store location to the store that you'll be picking the parts up from. MSY filter their displayed products based on what shop you've selected and it's very annoying to get to the checkout and realise all your parts are only available in far north Queensland.
www.mwave.com.au www.megabuy.com.au www.umart.com.au - These are some other notable budget PC shops. They'll ship anywhere domestically and are usually competitively priced. Do note that they're budget resellers (particularly in the case of megabuy) and their customer support and shipping status/timeframes may not always be as great as what you'll find from MSY/PCcasegear.
International Purchasing
An option exists to purchase parts overseas and ship them in yourself, thus avoiding the mark-up from Aussie vendors. www.priceusa.com.au is the only vendor the writer has experience with and therefore is the only one this writer is prepared to recommend with confidence. There are several caveats associated with international orders, namely that support/returns will be more difficult due to distances and there is a potential for longer lead-times on orders (though this is not always the case). Recommendations for overseas shipping would be that you don't order cases and possibly PSUs from overseas, as the associated hikes in shipping costs make this expensive (it should go without saying that you should do your own research on this point though, as it may be more cost effective depending on where you can buy domestically).
Purchase Support and Services
www.staticice.com.au and www.ausprices.com are two good price comparison sites that you can use to find who's selling what and for how much. The former is probably the highest quality of the two; just make sure you're looking at the Australian version (i.e. .au at the end)
While ostensibly a forum for PC overlockers, forums.overclockers.com.au has a surprisingly good quality sub forum relating to the state of PC part purchasing in Australia. They are a good location for solid advice on retailers (after PA, of course!).
Failing all that, send a mention or a PM towards Tef or chrishallett83, both Australian forumers, who are usually more than happy to offer advice.
Between you and me, Peggy, I smoked this Juul and it did UNTHINKABLE things to my mind and body...
BouwsT on
+3
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Otherwise fine work.
EDIT: and it's a complete waste to buy a 60hz ultrawide, if you're going to spend that much on a monitor at least make sure it's better than 60hz
yeah....
after my posts about deciding not to upgrade from z97, i5 4670k because of cost vs performance increase....
I broke down and did it anyways
i7 7700k up and running, new motherboard (Asus Strix z270e), 32 GB DDR4 RAM, 1080 Ti GPU (was doing this regardless)....
1TB M.2 SDD
old everything else
no regrets
Believe it or not (who are we kidding, it's pretty obvious this has grown to be a pretty bloated/thorough OP), I had to trim words to fit into a character limit.
I haven't done any overclocks or benchmarks yet
edit: probably wont even get to that stuff until the weekend. Have to work a couple night shifts - don't have time really.
I would like to see a second post, maxed out on word count, detailing specific benchmark numbers associated with each LED colour.
I like to play at 1600x900 on medium settings but noticed while playing Mass Effect Andromeda and Nier Automata, that it might get harder to maintain that in the future, its already pretty rough on those two.
If I could only afford to look into upgrading one piece of hardware, what would you guys reccomend?
I've always felt like the fact that I chose a 2GB rather than 4GB GPU would come back to bite me sooner than the rest but at the time, couldn't afford much more than what I spent on the total build at the time.
If it is the card, praying I can find something decent under 200 bucks but I'm guessing that might be rough.
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB/3165vs3639
It's currently on sale at Newegg.
After that, start socking away pennies for an upgrade to the CPU and mobo in 6-12 months time, your CPU is definitely long in the tooth but you can make it last at least the remainder of 2017.
Here's my system, compared against if I upgraded to a 7700K, 16GB DDR4, and a Z270.
Here's my system if I keep everything the same, but replace my already-great 980Ti with an absurdly-powerful 1080Ti.
It boggles the mind how little CPU advancement we're seeing, despite continual advances in GPU power.
I built this system originally in 2014 with a 770, and only added the 980Ti in January 2016. It's entirely feasible that I'll upgrade the GPU twice before the CPU would even benefit from an upgrade, let alone need an upgrade.
I've done extensive research into LEDs (I went to college for this), I'll go ahead and quote an old post I made regarding my findings:
Hope this helps.
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
This is why you reserve the second post! OP fail!
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Did you get the gold-plated isolated triple-shielded Monster cable for $500?
*glasses*
I've only seen that happen for cables that get a lot of abuse.
I did this about 12-15 months ago and didn't regret it (added a 16GB kit to my two open slots). I'm still on Z87 and will probably be on it for at least 1-2 more years.
Well, conventional wisdom points out that there is more support for 4K than ultrawide resolutions.
A lot more. Comically so, if you consider that 2160p support is not universal for older titles, but vastly more common without resorting to editing INI files and other custom fixes.
Generally, ultrawide resolutions will be a lot less demanding (it depends specifically on which one), which is certainly a plus. On the flipside, there are certain genres of games that really don't benefit from the increased viewing range (more than wouldn't benefit from an overall increase of resolution), but those are generally not compatible with them said resolutions either.
I say this as someone who has a ridiculously long-in-the-tooth gaming catalog--if you're just playing a half-dozen contemporary titles at any given time, than the distinction is less likely to matter. Hope that helps.
The wrinkle is that my CPU cooler blocks one of my DIMMs, so I'd have to replace my 2x4GB kit with a 2x8GB kit. It's around $180 AUD, which is fine. EXCEPT that 2x8GB of DDR4 is ALSO $180 AUD.
It's not really about saving, I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can spend money like this mostly on a whim. But I can't waste money either, so It's more about getting the max out of my total dollars invested, which is why I'm hesitant to spend that money on DDR3 when the exact same amount of DDR4 is the same price.
Unfortunately, it's just one of those times where you have to spend money to save money, if you know what I mean. And I'm still not convinced I shouldn't just take that money and get a 1080Ti, and just deal with the RAM at 8GB for now.
On 4K, even without resolution support, it will still fill the screen.
The future may change this.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
:heartbeat: to SmokeStacks for getting me a very useful quote.
Mysterious. What shall the new ratio be? And how long will it take for us to adapt? Hmmm...
Yeah, one annoyance with 21:9 is that 4:3 locked games--for all you old coots like me who still play them--are basically half-screen, half-black bars (which is more distracting than just having two thin black bars on either side). Of course, you coul just opt not to play them full screen, because at full screen, it looks rather dumb.
That's a bit more selective a concern than having your TV and monitor share the same aspect ratio (my Vizio actually goes slightly taller than 3840x2160, but my LG monitor does not as far as I know).
The obvious solution is to get a AIO for the CPU *and* get more RAM!
Do not engage the Watermelons.
It wouldn't be the first time, certainly--we saw the same thing back in the CRT era over and over.
I definitely wouldn't bet against 21:9 adoptions, but I do think it'd take so long because of inertia something else would come to replace it before we'd actually completed.
The Noctua NH-U12SE seems to be doing a good job at cooling the processor. I also had to check to make sure the PC was on at one point because it's so damn quiet. I'm worried I put a little too much thermal paste on it, though. I did the pea method, but it looked so small I added a little more and naturally the perfect pea shape got uneven after that. Current idle temperatures at 3.7 GHz and 1.225 voltage are hovering around 34 to 40 degrees.
If I want to push it a little higher, at least to 3.8 GHz, is there a general recommended voltage increase per 100 MHz? Something like 0.050 maybe?
Welp, from a price break perspective, it didn't seem like it was much more expensive to do the 1k psu, and it had good reviews on sound. And hopefully I never need to worry about what else I throw into the box down the road power wise.
The spinning disk HD was a similar thought process. It's not much more expensive than a 2TB, and with the media server stuff I do for the wife and kids, I'm pushed for space on the 6 or so TB I have on my existing rig.
For the half TB SSD, it seemed like a good price break point. What I do with my existing system is keep the OS and a game or 2 (or 3 4 5?) on the SSD, and other whatnot gets dumped to logical partitions on the spinning disk. I do like me some old school gaming too, but when I get nostalgic for Dark Souls (balder swag sword!) I'm not too worried about running it from the slow drive.
Ultimately, my goal is to be able to play the new hotness with all the bells and whistles, which I have never been able to do before. And I'd like to be able to do it for the next few years. Money to burn is a relative concept, to be sure. I have a budget of $2000-3000, to put into making a sweet rig that will last me solidly for 3 to 5 years again. ME:A is a thing, in the world, right now, and I can't play it on my PC, and that makes me saaaaad.
What I don't have, honestly, is the time to keep current with what's best and brightest and smartest, or to be building and tweaking. So I'm hoping to put the time in now, so I won't need to again for quite awhile.
current build
Sounds like 4k is going to be the way to go. TN vs IPS/PLS? Ugh, so many choices to make. And apparently is has to be G-sync to go with the NVIDIA card.
Depends on your ambient temp, current idle load, what proc it is, or if your cpu fan is dusty.
What sort of cooler do you have? I've got a 2x180mm AIO and my CPU was idling at about 28C pre- overclock.
I would first try shooting some canned air at your intake fans and CPU cooler, a layer of dust can definitely contribute to higher temps.
I personally think people worry too much about processor temperatures. I mean sure if they're idling at 60 that's an issue, but the difference between idling at 30c and 35c isn't going to have a substantial impact on the life of the device. Other components are going to fail long before a processor ever does.
Similarly, as long as your GPU is below ~80C (but spikes up to 90C are fine, especially in hot weather) under heavy or full load, it will be fine. Threshold of damage here is closer to 100C.
Also worth noting is the rule of 1/10, as explained to me by several engineers: if a component doesn't fail in the first year of its life, statistically it will most likely not fail until it's at least 10 years old. There are of course always exceptions, and you can shorten lifespans by treating components poorly, but this rule tends to hold up.
Good ol' bathtub curve.