Help me build my PC 2020 Catch All

fangblackbone wrote:

I think it is more like a 2080 super with lover msrp and better ray tracing

I enjoy lover msrp

*Legion* wrote:

Undervolt your 30-series cards, folks.

NVIDIA cranked up stock voltage to make more silicon pass QC. A great deal of 30-series cards are running with way more juice than they need.

I have a minor undervolt set on my 3080 that lives inside a high airflow case, and a more significant one set on my 3070 that lives inside a more restrictive HTPC case.

I'd love to know how much you spent on those two cards.

garion333 wrote:

I'd love to know how much you spent on those two cards.

MSRP, both via Best Buy.

The 3080 was ordered in late January, so MSRP had crept up somewhat, but not as high as it has gotten since.

The 3070 was a few weeks earlier and was basically at launch MSRP (factoring in a higher base MSRP from being a factory oc'd partner board).

You guys haven't heard of the lover discount? It doubles on Valentine's day.

fangblackbone wrote:

You guys haven't heard of the lover discount? It doubles on Valentine's day.

IMAGE(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/HandmadeElaborateAntelopegroundsquirrel.webp)

LUDA!

I've been enjoying my new system, but it was a bit noisier than I would have liked. Just doing normal desktop things, the fans were quite audible, and while playing a game it sounded like a wind-tunnel. Even worse, the fans wouldn't quiet back down to the "quite audible" state even for hours after the game ended - not until a system reboot (or sleep/wake cycle). It was really frustrating.

And then I installed the ASUS AI Suite 3 and ran the "Fan Xpert 4" Fan Tuning thing. The system cranked all the fans to varying degrees for about 30 seconds, and now my case is literally silent during normal desktop things, and up to "quite audible" for the few games I've tried. I didn't really notice before how much even "quite audible" actually was, until now.

I think it's my video card that's the loudest thing in my case now, and I'm going to look into improving some airflow around the video card (maybe adding another case exhaust fan right next to the card) to see if that helps keep it quiet.

Having similar issues with my MSI mobo. I even sprung for aftermarket case fans and the new PC is a bit louder than my old one! 4 pin PWM fans throughout.

Holy forking shirtballs, the merphle method finally worked!!!! 5900X ordered thru Amazon at retail price!

Now I guess I have to return this G15 laptop I’d been on the fence about.

jonnypolite wrote:

Holy forking shirtballs, the merphle method finally worked!!!! 5900X ordered thru Amazon at retail price!

Now I guess I have to return this G15 laptop I’d been on the fence about.

Well done!

I got this close to snagging a 3080 last week from Best Buy with the merphle method - managed to get it into my cart, but in the time it took me to cycle through all the nearby Best Buys to select one to pick up from, all the stock had gone.

Seems like Best Buy’s drop times have become more unpredictable and there’s not much chance I’ll be free the moment it happens. So with each passing week the idea of buying a ridiculously priced GPU from a scalper becomes a tiny bit less unpalatable and I’m not happy with myself for it.

In June AMD is supposedly going to release its DLSS competitor. The kicker is that it works on Nvidia cards as well and hopefully it will work on older cards like Polaris too.
I think if it is even halfway decent, it will lighten the "gotta have" desire for the newer ridiculously priced gpus.
I mean, it could make even laptops into 1080p troopers.

1080p cards will p0wn 1440p and get reasonable 4k performance. I mean my rx 580 already does reasonable 4K in older games like Diablo 3.

I think I just ordered a 5900X at amd.com after getting an alert and sitting on it for 5 minutes. Feels surreal to have had what seems to be a normal online purchasing experience after the last 12 months.

Once I have the processor in hand, I'll see about getting the rest of the parts, as they are far less scarce. It's probably at least worth resuming the part evaluation process in the meantime.

Same here. Time to start looking at cases and motherboards!

Anyone have thoughts about the b550 vs the x570 chipset? I’ll be primarily gaming over wifi. Tons of info out there I know, Just wondered if anyone here wants to share:)

The right motherboard for you will be all about what you need as far as features. Like how many sata ports you need or NVME slots, or fan headers USB connections. Do you want to go with a board that has wireless built in or would you rather get a separate wireless card, or maybe you have an external option.

Lots to consider.

Gaald wrote:

The right motherboard for you will be all about what you need as far as features. Like how many sata ports you need or NVME slots, or fan headers USB connections. Do you want to go with a board that has wireless built in or would you rather get a separate wireless card, or maybe you have an external option.

Lots to consider.

I chose the B550 board over X570 as it has passive chipset cooling. Most X570 have fans *on* the board. To me that's just something I don't want to fudge with when it breaks.

I would also go with wifi from an external source rather than baked in. Easier to upgrade when the time comes.

I don't know when but I think sometime this year there will be passive cooling X570 boards.

Found an interesting design flaw with the Phanteks 500A.

That power button on the top front... my cat tried to get my attention by stepping on the computer... and he turned it off!

Luckily I was just browsing GWJ not playing a game.

For now I've covered the power button with my rather large headphones to keep it from being accidentally depressed again.

Stele wrote:

Found an interesting design flaw with the Phanteks 500A.

That power button on the top front... my cat tried to get my attention by stepping on the computer... and he turned it off!

Luckily I was just browsing GWJ not playing a game or losing any data.

For now I've covered the power button with my rather large headphones to keep it from being accidentally depressed again.

You can change the behavior of the power button in the Power Options Control Panel. Settings > System > Power & Sleep > Additional power settings > Choose what the power buttons do.

Haha yeah I actually have it set to hibernate instead of powering off. So I guess I wouldn't have lost any data. Just could have been disconnected while playing something online.

Nice, can't imagine the price at launch.

Happy to see them trying out new combinations of ideas to disperse heat better. For me, a quieter PC with less moving parts is a good thing. Still laughed at the editorial "Passive cooling is the future!" on the article though. It's also the past and present.

As usual Noctua looks like they're taking an honest approach that doesn't try to make it out to be more than it is. 120W fanless cooling (still really good!) would need an open air case design and a climate controlled environment to work well. I'm not sure how a GPU might factor into things. With nearly all tower designs it's not in a good spot.

LouZiffer wrote:

Happy to see them trying out new combinations of ideas to disperse heat better. For me, a quieter PC with less moving parts is a good thing. Still laughed at the editorial "Passive cooling is the future!" on the article though. It's also the past and present.

As usual Noctua looks like they're taking an honest approach that doesn't try to make it out to be more than it is. 120W fanless cooling (still really good!) would need an open air case design and a climate controlled environment to work well. I'm not sure how a GPU might factor into things. With nearly all tower designs it's not in a good spot.

Hopefully they learned some stuff making this that can be applied to traditional coolers to make them better as well.

peanut3141 wrote:

I think I just ordered a 5900X at amd.com after getting an alert and sitting on it for 5 minutes. Feels surreal to have had what seems to be a normal online purchasing experience after the last 12 months.

Once I have the processor in hand, I'll see about getting the rest of the parts, as they are far less scarce. It's probably at least worth resuming the part evaluation process in the meantime.

I just landed the 5950X, and am in the same situation. Once the CPU arrives, then I start ordering the rest.

kazar wrote:
peanut3141 wrote:

I think I just ordered a 5900X at amd.com after getting an alert and sitting on it for 5 minutes. Feels surreal to have had what seems to be a normal online purchasing experience after the last 12 months.

Once I have the processor in hand, I'll see about getting the rest of the parts, as they are far less scarce. It's probably at least worth resuming the part evaluation process in the meantime.

I just landed the 5950X, and am in the same situation. Once the CPU arrives, then I start ordering the rest.

I'm starting to settle on a part list. The primary driver was big air, but the NH-D15's required clearance really limited my case options to some unnecessarily large cases. From what I was able to google up, the Dark Rock Pro 4 performs within ~1C and has much better height/RAM clearance. After making that change, the rest of the build fell into place pretty quickly.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($89.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($177.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($187.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: SK hynix Gold P31 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($134.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Lian Li Lancool II Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case ($118.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($99.95 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $919.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-05-19 23:53 EDT-0400

The CPU is obviously already purchased and I'll be transferring my 1070 for now until GPU availability/prices return to some semblance of sanity.

Any feedback is welcome. Haven't built a system in several years now and I don't have the time to stay on top of the custom build meta like I used to.

Never heard of that SSD but the reviews on Amazon are really great. At one point cheaper and better than the Samsung 970 apparently although the price is like $5 difference now.

Cool.

peanut3141 wrote:

The CPU is obviously already purchased and I'll be transferring my 1070 for now until GPU availability/prices return to some semblance of sanity.

Yeah we're all in the same boat there.

merphle wrote:
jonnypolite wrote:

Yeah, Every time I see that Amazon alert from brobot, no love from Amazon. Think I’m going to go for the 5800.

My success on this order actually happened after Brobot had revised its message to say that Amazon was again out of stock. There's a trick to dealing with this situation, which took me a while to figure out over the past couple of weeks of trial & error:

1) Get notification that it's in stock.

2) Open the 5900X page.

2a) If you see an "add to cart" button for MSRP $549, then click it and go to #3.
2b) If you don't, then click the small "New & Used" link to open the side panel.
2c) If you see an "add to cart" button for MSRP $549, then click it and go to #3.
2d) If you don't, then F5 to reload the page and go back to #2 and try again.

3) If you see a page that says something like "that item is no longer in stock, item not added to cart", then F5 to reload the page, and click the browser's "resend form fields" button or whatever. Keep doing this until you see "item successfully added to cart", then click to check out and go to #4.

4) If you see a cart checkout page that says something like "out of stock" and the quantity of the 5900X in your cart is 0 and it gives a button to "save quantities", then DO NOT CLICK THAT "SAVE QUANTITIES" BUTTON. Also DO NOT CLICK THE "CONFIRM SHIPPING ADDRESS" BUTTON IF THE CART SHOWS QTY 0.
4a) Instead, you guessed it: F5 to reload the page! Keep doing that until it updates to show Qty 1 in your cart. Once it says Qty 1, then you can safely click "confirm shipping address", "confirm payment details", etc. Complete the check out process as fast as humanly possible. You might have to try this step many times.

I didn't realize page-reloading worked with Amazon's checkout process. This was a game-changer for me. I was always worried that it was going to try to sneak in a scalper's listing. Remember, you can always change the shipping address and payment details later, after the order is confirmed. Or cancel it altogether if something's gone really wonky. Amazon shouldn't complete the charge until the order ships, so you have some time.

So I checked in here looking for advice or help on getting a not (too) overpriced new GPU, and found a mention of the "merphle method". Seems promising! Just have one question: what is a brobot?

bigben1985 wrote:
merphle wrote:
jonnypolite wrote:

Yeah, Every time I see that Amazon alert from brobot, no love from Amazon. Think I’m going to go for the 5800.

My success on this order actually happened after Brobot had revised its message to say that Amazon was again out of stock. There's a trick to dealing with this situation, which took me a while to figure out over the past couple of weeks of trial & error:

1) Get notification that it's in stock.

2) Open the 5900X page.

2a) If you see an "add to cart" button for MSRP $549, then click it and go to #3.
2b) If you don't, then click the small "New & Used" link to open the side panel.
2c) If you see an "add to cart" button for MSRP $549, then click it and go to #3.
2d) If you don't, then F5 to reload the page and go back to #2 and try again.

3) If you see a page that says something like "that item is no longer in stock, item not added to cart", then F5 to reload the page, and click the browser's "resend form fields" button or whatever. Keep doing this until you see "item successfully added to cart", then click to check out and go to #4.

4) If you see a cart checkout page that says something like "out of stock" and the quantity of the 5900X in your cart is 0 and it gives a button to "save quantities", then DO NOT CLICK THAT "SAVE QUANTITIES" BUTTON. Also DO NOT CLICK THE "CONFIRM SHIPPING ADDRESS" BUTTON IF THE CART SHOWS QTY 0.
4a) Instead, you guessed it: F5 to reload the page! Keep doing that until it updates to show Qty 1 in your cart. Once it says Qty 1, then you can safely click "confirm shipping address", "confirm payment details", etc. Complete the check out process as fast as humanly possible. You might have to try this step many times.

I didn't realize page-reloading worked with Amazon's checkout process. This was a game-changer for me. I was always worried that it was going to try to sneak in a scalper's listing. Remember, you can always change the shipping address and payment details later, after the order is confirmed. Or cancel it altogether if something's gone really wonky. Amazon shouldn't complete the charge until the order ships, so you have some time.

So I checked in here looking for advice or help on getting a not (too) overpriced new GPU, and found a mention of the "merphle method". Seems promising! Just have one question: what is a brobot?

Google “brobot telegram” and pick whichever one is appropriate for situation (ryzen 5950 cpu, nvidia 3089 gpu, etc), then follow the link to set up a Telegram account and subscribe to the list. It’s basically a one-way notification ping whenever the bot notices availability.