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[PC Build Thread] What's your budget?
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The time you are waiting for prices to go down is time that could've been spent using the hardware.
Yes, that is one of the dozen arguments I used while fighting my inner scrooge. Like, yes, there'll always be a time when the cards get cheaper, but then at that time it'll also be true that if you wait another year the bigger ones will be cheaper, and so on forevermore, and in the meantime you'll be playing with potato settings. So as long as this card lasts me another five years like the 2060 did, that'll be enough.
Well, the card is ordered and should be here tomorrow, theoretically, so, no going back now anyway!
Also took a bit to look at monitors as mentioned, to know what the normal price status on things is in case of good Black Friday deals. Though I don't really know what to look for in a monitor. I know FreeSync is a thing I should make sure to look for if I'm getting a new monitor now that I'll have an AMD card, but beyond that, no idea.
Only open-ended recommendations I can make is not to go for 4K just yet, specially if you're not going for a 4090 right now. DLSS/FSR3 might be nice and all, but native res is still native res. Yes on FreeSync.
Is the 'fuck it, you'll upscale and you'll like it even for 1080p unless you go for complete overkill' era on the horizon?
Honestly I have less than zero interest on 4K. I'm not even sure on 1440p, it doesn't feel like such a great upgrade compared to keeping the high framerates. But of course, I AM watching those comparison pictures on a 1080p display, so, I acknowledge I might not be getting a proper impression
Budget is, well, whatever I can convince myself of dropping, but being realistic, it's very unlikely I can convince myself to drop more than like 250 euro on a monitor after the card expense unless the deal is absolutely spectacular.
Currently I'm gaming on an eight year old 60 hz display (model says Philips 273V5LHSB, I believe). So, you know, that's the baseline we're working with, here, which is not terribly high but whatever I get needs to be better enough than that in terms of image quality and such to justify dropping half the cost of the graphics card itself.
I can say that the beta ran at a solid 45-ish FPS for me on a mix of Low and Medium settings on my 2060, though, yes, with the DLSS scaling on and set to Balanced.
The big thing is FSR/DLSS make the game look TERRIBLE in wilds.
FSR and DLSS used to be both horrible when upscaling to 1080p because the source image was not big enough. Supposedly DLSS has improved in this, but I think they're still not splitting UI elements from the rest of upscaled image so it still smudges stuff up.
It means if you are running the game on a 4 generations old CPU and a 5 1/2 year old GPU per their specs (equivalent to PS5/Xbox X), in order to hit a stable 60 fps you'll need to be running at 1080p with DLSS/FSR and frame gen on and medium settings. You can run higher graphics settings on that older hardware but it just won't be at 60 fps. I'm not sure having something newer than 4-5 years old qualifies as "complete overkill".
I mean, the RTX 4060, Nvidia's current right this moment 1080p card, is on there too as incapable of hitting 1080/60 on medium settings.
I'm wary of any company normalizing the idea of recommended specs that list a spec most people can hit but then tell you to upscale and make up the frames. Instead of admitting what hardware you really need for what's generally considered the bare minimum PC gaming experience.
Looking at the other specs on Steam, the minimum specs note actually calls out the need for upscaling 720p to 1080p. The recommended specs note doesn't mention upscaling as a requirement for 1080p so doesn't appear to be necessary.
And if you want to blame someone, start with the FPS queens that think that number is everything, quality be damned, and will review bomb anything that doesn't hit their arbitrary value. It's also not as if they are trying to lie in those specs, it's pretty clear on requirements and expectations. "Here's the performance you can expect with this hardware and these settings" is way better than where you only get a list of hardware but get no idea of what they might consider acceptable performance or assumed settings from those specs. There is an argument to be made to add a third category of maximum specs that has top of the line hardware at max settings and what kind of performance to expect from that as a comparison between the three.
???
That screenshot is from the Monster Hunter Wilds website's recommended specs page. The note for minimum says 1080/30 upscaled and frame gen on, the note for recommended says 1080/60 upscaled and frame gen. It may not be upscaled all the way from 720, but it's not going to be native 1080p.
Anyway, as an fps queen, I will simply not buy an action game if I cannot run it at 1080/60.
Which is a normal sentiment. It's why Capcom is telling people that they can totally get 1080/60 on the most common range of hardware.
Bad as in "Well, it hovered at around 40-55 fps on higher-end systems while running at 1440p and with a lot of DLSS/FSR artifacts" bad. Capcom has said the game has improved since that build, but we won't know until it releases or if they do another open beta or demo.
I tried multiple settings on my 5800X + 3070Ti, including 1080p and I was unable to achieve 60fps even with DLSS.
Then to test it I fired up Mechwarrior: Clans, which I'd basically had to set to near minimum settings and 30FPS lock, and set everything to maximum (on 60FPS lock, because my monitor is 60 hz anyway). Christ, this is so sharp and smooth I think I am genuinely getting a bit of motion sickness. I'm not used to this! And it goes smooth as butter instead of occasionally having weird drops like I used to get even in low settings.
Here is my tentative build so far (in Canadian $):
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor ($657.00 @ shopRBC)
CPU Cooler: *Noctua NH-D15S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler ($99.95 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: *Asus TUF GAMING B650-E WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard ($239.99 @ Memory Express)
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory ($187.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: *Crucial P3 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($156.99 @ PC-Canada)
Video Card: *Zotac GAMING Trinity GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16 GB Video Card ($1318.98 @ Amazon Canada)
Case: *Cooler Master QUBE 500 Flatpack Macaron Edition ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Power Supply: *Corsair RM850 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($139.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Total: $2890.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-05 11:52 EST-0500
A couple of questions:
What kind of USB header do I need on the motherboard and case?
For the GPU, should I get a GeForce 4080 Super, a 7900 XTX or wait for the 5080?
The only thing I have specifically selected is the CPU. The rest is just based on filters.
Are there any things I'm overlooking?
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
The 9800X3D was just announced so you may want to wait on reviews for that if you aren't in a rush. You could wait for the 5080 too, but if you aren't aiming for 4K and are willing to deal with the likely month to month's long fight to actually get one, the 4080 Super or 7900 XTX are both really good and available right now.
I'm not familiar with that case but check to see if there are reviews or anyone on reddit who shared their thoughts on how it was the build in. There are a ton of good cases in the $100-130 price range as it's a very competitive price sector. I personally would not even consider a case that doesn't have at least one front USB-C port or a motherboard that doesn't have an internal header for USB-C front panel.
Assuming the PSU is known good (have you checked the switch on the back of the 2nd PSU is in the On position?), remove the GPU, all RAM, all drives, all peripherals, and any cables that aren't the power cable. Leave just the CPU and cooler. If your case has an internal speaker, leave that connected. Try to jump the power. Even if the CPU is bad you should still see indicator light(s) on the MB turn on or get error beeps from the speaker or the CPU fan running. If there's still nothing at all from the MB, then yeah it's dead.
If it does get power, hook up a monitor, and if your CPU doesn't have integrated graphics, install the GPU so you can see the BIOS post screen. See if it turns on. It should still fail to post due to no RAM installed with error beeps or screen message. Install one stick at at time to see if it will post. Then add each device one at a time to see if it will still post/boot.
Either that or the rgb connector died because one of the rainbow pins is bent to shit. So I didnt reattach it
Yeah, that's a fair point. I receive upgraded modems each time which gives me the advertised speeds, but the option to pick up a PCie network card at a later date and not worry about overspending on a fancier motherboard now is something I need to keep in mind.
Separate question, on power supplies does anyone know the math on when it is worthwhile to jump from Gold to Platinum to Titanium?
I was really expecting it to be meh but it's really good.
Seems like a really nice performant CPU, though it did lose a bit in performance-per-watt vs the 7800X3D what with the higher power ceiling and all that. Really nice part if you're making the jump from AM4 or earlier.
Yea I said months ago that the 9*00 no X3D was a nothingburger. The desktop product AMD has is the X3D, every thing else they offer is a compromise and a diversion.
This is actually the first time where the X3D part is just generally a better part. the 5800X3D and 7800X3D were better for gaming but in productivity/non gaming workloads there were still very good reasons to go with say a 5900x/5950X or the 7900X/7950X. In heavily threaded workloads or other heavy, sustained work those were better parts than the X3D.
That doens't appear to be the case with the 9800X3D, where it is competitive and good in those other workloads as well. It is an overall better buy for more scenarios than the previous generation X3D parts were.
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/252590/building-pcs-is-fun-bring-blood-and-money/p1?new=1