Help me build my PC 2017 Catch All

I already have a 500gb SSD and a 1tb HDD, and somehow that's not enough. I'm not a game hoarder. Shut up! Windows is installed on the SSD and I already know the pain of going back to a HDD. My sons laptop is not only HDD it's also a 4 year old laptop.

I'm going to go a bit against the grain then and suggest something like this Western Digital 4TB. It's about $20 more than that 1TB SSD, you won't run out of storage any time soon, and it should be fast enough for your use.

The only thing SSDs help with in gaming is loading times. Once the game is loaded into memory then the storage drive really doesn't matter at all (beyond saving). While SSD's are getting cheaper by the day, 400% increase in space for a 20% increase in price is not a bad deal.

PurEvil wrote:

I'm going to go a bit against the grain then and suggest something like this Western Digital 4TB. It's about $20 more than that 1TB SSD, you won't run out of storage any time soon, and it should be fast enough for your use.

The only thing SSDs help with in gaming is loading times. Once the game is loaded into memory then the storage drive really doesn't matter at all (beyond saving). While SSD's are getting cheaper by the day, 400% increase in space for a 20% increase in price is not a bad deal.

If you play games like Destiny or WoW, those load times are long and frequent. An SSD really improves the experience. At least for now, 1TB is plenty of space for games.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

I already have a 500gb SSD and a 1tb HDD, and somehow that's not enough. I'm not a game hoarder. Shut up! Windows is installed on the SSD and I already know the pain of going back to a HDD. My sons laptop is not only HDD it's also a 4 year old laptop. :)

So you should be able to add the secondary drive pretty easily and then move games to it. I have a 256gb windows drive and a 480gb game drive. Works pretty well for me.

Delbin wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

I'm going to go a bit against the grain then and suggest something like this Western Digital 4TB. It's about $20 more than that 1TB SSD, you won't run out of storage any time soon, and it should be fast enough for your use.

The only thing SSDs help with in gaming is loading times. Once the game is loaded into memory then the storage drive really doesn't matter at all (beyond saving). While SSD's are getting cheaper by the day, 400% increase in space for a 20% increase in price is not a bad deal.

If you play games like Destiny or WoW, those load times are long and frequent. An SSD really improves the experience. At least for now, 1TB is plenty of space for games.

More and more games are benefiting from SSD load times. Rainbow Six: Siege can be pretty brutal on a spinny disk drive, you basically become the player that holds up the loading of the map.

Also, with games streaming textures off storage during gameplay, SSDs can help a lot there too in terms of maintaining good frame times when the game has to reach to the drive to grab new textures. Insurgency: Sandstorm does this, and should absolutely be run off an SSD whenever possible.

Generally if it is a "modern" game I try to run off an SSD since streaming seems to be used more and more. "Older" games get put on my legacy drives. Unless they run like crap in which case I will try them on an SSD before just realizing that they just run like crap.

Used to be an SSD did not make that much a difference after the initial load, but more and more it seems to*

*subjective measurement, YMMV

Ended up getting an X570 board (MSI X570 Gaming Pro from walmart). No idea when MSI will have a fully working bios for their older boards nor when they'll release the Tomahawk Max (which also may have issues). Also purchased a used 1070TI for $250 so I should be good once everything arrives. Haven't found a case yet. May just stick with my current Antec 300 for a while.

SSDs also use less power and are far lighter and more shock-resistant.

Tboon, I wonder if what you're seeing is an older 3Gb/s SAS HDD vs a 6Gb/s SSD...?

Well and the whole "no moving parts" thing...

RTX 2080 Super/i7 9700k Build

Just finished putting this together, so far I am blown away at how quiet the Dark Rock Pro 4 is. Now I just need to upgrade my 7 year old monitor so I can actually take advantage of what this rig is capable of.

PurEvil wrote:

I'm going to go a bit against the grain then and suggest something like this Western Digital 4TB. It's about $20 more than that 1TB SSD, you won't run out of storage any time soon, and it should be fast enough for your use.

The only thing SSDs help with in gaming is loading times. Once the game is loaded into memory then the storage drive really doesn't matter at all (beyond saving). While SSD's are getting cheaper by the day, 400% increase in space for a 20% increase in price is not a bad deal.

As some others have pointed out transferring the OS onto it will make the computer feel so much faster. This includes ALT-tabbing in games or running games and other apps simultaneously. Everything really does feel painfully slow when going back to a standard HDD PC.

I haven't been keeping up with PSU's in awhile. Thermaltake decent?

Saw a Fry's deal on an 850 Gold unit for $80 after rebate. Was going to start collecting parts for an eventual build.

Amazon comments for this unit leave me kind of cool, so I'll likely keep looking, but was still curious.

I think all my running boxes now have Corsair PSU's.

MannishBoy wrote:

I haven't been keeping up with PSU's in awhile. Thermaltake decent?

Saw a Fry's deal on an 850 Gold unit for $80 after rebate. Was going to start collecting parts for an eventual build.

Amazon comments for this unit leave me kind of cool, so I'll likely keep looking, but was still curious.

I think all my running boxes now have Corsair PSU's.

Oklahoma Wolf recently left JonnyGuru and his successor is struggling to pick up his mantle, but the historic reviews are still quite solid: https://www.jonnyguru.com/blog/2016/...

8.8 is a very solid score, but cables that can plug in where they're not electrically compatible is one of my show-stoppers. Your mileage may vary.

peanut3141 wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

I haven't been keeping up with PSU's in awhile. Thermaltake decent?

Saw a Fry's deal on an 850 Gold unit for $80 after rebate. Was going to start collecting parts for an eventual build.

Amazon comments for this unit leave me kind of cool, so I'll likely keep looking, but was still curious.

I think all my running boxes now have Corsair PSU's.

Oklahoma Wolf recently left JonnyGuru and his successor is struggling to pick up his mantle, but the historic reviews are still quite solid: https://www.jonnyguru.com/blog/2016/...

8.8 is a very solid score, but cables that can plug in where they're not electrically compatible is one of my show-stoppers. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks. That's the 750W Gold. Site doesn't seem to have the 850W Gold, but it's probably fairly comparable.

A pretty good list of PSU tiers is here:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic...

That one rates as Tier B, which is a worthy budget PSU.

MannishBoy wrote:
peanut3141 wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

I haven't been keeping up with PSU's in awhile. Thermaltake decent?

Saw a Fry's deal on an 850 Gold unit for $80 after rebate. Was going to start collecting parts for an eventual build.

Amazon comments for this unit leave me kind of cool, so I'll likely keep looking, but was still curious.

I think all my running boxes now have Corsair PSU's.

Oklahoma Wolf recently left JonnyGuru and his successor is struggling to pick up his mantle, but the historic reviews are still quite solid: https://www.jonnyguru.com/blog/2016/...

8.8 is a very solid score, but cables that can plug in where they're not electrically compatible is one of my show-stoppers. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks. That's the 750W Gold. Site doesn't seem to have the 850W Gold, but it's probably fairly comparable.

It's important to note that this isn't always a safe assumption. Power supplies at different wattage levels under the same brand name can be completely different models and even have completely different original manufacturers.

HardOCP (RIP) reviewed the 850W Gold and gave it a "Pass" rating, but nothing more than that, which means an acceptable but mediocre review result. The 750W unit was reviewed by them a year earlier, and got their Silver award along with the Pass checkmark.

My rule of thumb for systems that are going to be my primary machine: buy nothing that's beneath the "A" tier on the PSU tier list. (And really, for myself I won't buy anything that's not a Seasonic from the A or A+ tiers, but for general advice, I'd say anything on the list in those tiers is fair game)

Since most PSU's are created by a handful of larger companies you can look them up here by their 80 rating

https://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80...

Helpful if you want to determine how good a powersupply might be.

Also here are some tips..

https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/how-...

Old article but still relevant.

Also what Legion said.. PSU is one of the areas I never skimp on... it can take out more than just itself if it goes bad.

TheGameguru wrote:

Since most PSU's are created by a handful of larger companies you can look them up here by their 80 rating

https://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80...

Helpful if you want to determine how good a powersupply might be.

There is a lot of variation inside an 80Plus rating. Voltage ripple and stability over the supplied wattage as well as noise output and thermal performance can be very important depending on the use case.

The linustechtips list makes me nervous, because that is a MASSIVE list and it's a work-in-progress by 4 forum posters. That leads me to believe they've scraped data from other reviews without citing their sources, and therefore I'm left to guess how good their primary source was.

I have all the parts for my build and have it tested outside of the case. I've been looking at different cases and can't decide (or decide if I want to buy a new case). Currently, I have an Antec One. It's a fine case with decent cooling but more closed than modern cases and no usb 3 ports (there are 2.1 ports though).

So far the ones I've been looking at seem to keep coming back to:

Thermaltake Level 20 - I like the look of this case the best. Seems to be a good value.
NZXT H510 - basic case at a decent price
Cooler Master H500 - Big but should have good cooling. Looks a bit industrial but isn't ugly.

At the $100 price point are there other cases I should consider?

I decided on the Level 20. I like the look of it and it's more modern than my current Antec One.

TheGameguru wrote:

Also what Legion said.. PSU is one of the areas I never skimp on... it can take out more than just itself if it goes bad.

They don't even have to catastrophically fail to be a problem. It's surprising how many inconsistent mystery issues go away once you start using only high quality PSUs.

Mystery issues from shoddy power are the worst. Everything you see when you try to diagnose the issue is a lie. It makes other things look like they're the problem. It throws red herrings at your face.

Building a system on a lower quality PSU is like building a house without laying a foundation. It's just a false economy.

peanut3141 wrote:

The linustechtips list makes me nervous, because that is a MASSIVE list and it's a work-in-progress by 4 forum posters. That leads me to believe they've scraped data from other reviews without citing their sources, and therefore I'm left to guess how good their primary source was.

That's fine. As for me, I'm okay with pointing folks to it as a generally acceptable guide. It's probably the most nitpicked and critiqued list out there. Most people won't research at all past something cookie-cutterish like that. That's why it's there.

This is actually my first post on GWJ. I have been listening to GWJ for about 3 years now off and on, but only began to realize how incredible this community is over the Summer.

Anyway, I am a PC gamer since I was 6, beginning with a IBM 8086 and Apple II+, and its always where my heart is, even though I have a PS4 as well. About a decade ago, I switched to Mac, after a bad Dell experience, at the behest of my wonderful bride. After a well intentioned but misplaced sense of “bettering” myself by cutting down on gaming, I chose a MacBook 12” around 4 years ago, and I have paid one hell of a gaming price. I can’t really play anything remotely modern on it at all, and the things I can play like EU4 are beyond slow at the minimum graphics on a 12 inch screen.

I don’t want to make this mistake again. I am finally looking into a new computer, and I do want to keep a Mac, but I’d like to boot camp it for my extensive list of old Windows games on steam and gog, that I can’t play. But I also want to make sure I can play games that come out for the next few years. I don’t care about awesome graphics and super high frame rates, just solid graphics with enough processing power to allow me to play all games smoothly.

So my question, finally for those who managed to read this far, will the Iris plus 645 or 655 card in the 13”’MacBook Pro serve for this and will it continue to suffice if I connect a monitor to it? Or, do I need to go to the much more expensive 15”? And will that card, currently a Radeon 555 handle what I want?

I realize I could do much better with a pc for gaming, but our lives are all Apples in our family and I’m not willing to have the one thing that isn’t at this point in my 45 years of life.

Have you considered a "Hackintosh"?

An Iris 655 is not up to playing modern games at all.

The Radeon Pro 555 is better, but you're still looking at running modern games in 720p on low detail for the most part. I think the only MacBook Pros that are really going to fit your ask are the ones with Vega GPUs.

Macs make miserable gaming systems even with dual booting into Windows 10. You are way better buying a dedicated Gaming PC/laptop.

I tried dual-booting a MacBook Pro into Windows for gaming myself, some years ago now, and ended up building a Windows box. External GPUs may or may not be good enough now, but they seem to cost a significant portion of the price of a dedicated gaming PC.

(Continuing the story, I kept the combo of Mac laptop for work/Windows desktop for gaming until the MacBook keyboard debacle drove me to buy a Windows laptop this summer.)

The MacBook will be an ok gaming machine as long as you drop the extra money on an external GPU. I don't think that any Mac model except the Mac Pro or iMac Pro ships with a GPU worth considering for gaming though. Apple's current designs also have a bit of an issue with thermal performance so the CPU may throttle under heavy load. Apple generally gets around this by underclocking the CPU.

I wouldn't recommend getting any of the eGPU options that Apple sales. They are all very overpriced (just like the Mac's actually). You can get an AKiTiO Node enclosure for around $230 from Other World Computing and then pick up whichever macOS compatible AMD GPU you want. You can technically use Nvidia CPUs but they are not officially supported by Apple.

If you want to avoid the DIY route of picking out and installing you own GPU then Sonnet Technologies makes some small and portable all-in-one solutions based on Radeon RX 560 & 570 that probably cost about what you would spend on a separate eGPU enclosure and a GPU for it, but you are then unable to upgrade to a better GPU down the road without replacing the whole thing.

I would still just buy a $700 ABS Pc from Newegg with a dedicated GPU and then buy a Mac laptop. You will get way better PC gaming performance that way.

WizKid wrote:

Have you considered a "Hackintosh"?

I have no idea what that is.

There was a time in my life, around 1998-2002 when I built my own PC's and I loved the process and had screaming machines that could play anything at all the highest levels. Now, I have no idea what "hackintosh" means. How far I have fallen.