Help me build my PC: 2024 Catch-All

garion333 wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Vargen wrote:

Back in the mid '90s I splurged and spent ~$100 on a nice set of Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Seeing as how I'm still using them on my computer today, I'd say that "extravagance" was the best computer money I ever spent...

Me too, right until a few months ago when I replaced my monitor with an LG OLED TV. Now the TV speakers are plenty enough and the Cambridge has been retired.

I thought LG still had sh*t for TV speakers?

I have one of them too as a monitor. They're not bad built in tv speakers. I've been using them when I don't want to wear my nice headphones because I haven't got my speaker situation figured out currently.

garion333 wrote:

I thought LG still had sh*t for TV speakers?

It's only 3' from my head - mounted to the wall behind my desk - so they're plenty good enough for computer use. Much, much, *much* better than the speakers in the replaced Asus monitor.

For whole room use, I'd agree. We've installed sound bars on most of the other TVs around the house.

What size TVs are you guys using for monitors?

LeapingGnome wrote:

What size TVs are you guys using for monitors?

I have the smallest one at the time I got it in early 2021, 48". My desk is pretty deep so I'm at about a 4 ft viewing distance. Works well for games, but I make windows about 1/4 of the screen and keep them on the bottom half to avoid neck strain when internet browsing. Kinda like having 4 1080p monitors all connected. It's awesome. They were coming out with a smaller one, 40" maybe?, But I haven't kept up with them. 40" 4K OLED would be pretty sweet too.

Edit: Here is the picture I posted way back when that shows the scale:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/AskVl1J.jpeg)

I have so many plans for the cabling, and it's gotten worse since that picture. Don't judge me.

I'm kinda in eff it mode until I can manage to grab a 30 series card because my 1080 card loses so many features of that OLED tv.

I have two 10 year old HP standard cheap office 22" LCDs for my work machine. I have been debating going to a decent sized TV to get better colors and more space, but I am worried about it being too big, and also windows management being a hassle.

I have the LG 55" OLED. Sits behind my desk and has the same angle of view as my ultrawide Asus that sat on my desk does. A little taller than the Asus and different resolution. 3840 x 2160 instead of 3440 x 1440

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/wkTwAu3.jpg)

As I said up thread, much better speakers. I got it as my near vision is deteriorating - damn you old age - and I was needing readers with the nearer screen.

I have been experiencing burn-in. I've hidden my task bar, turned on a screen saver and made sure that my wallpapers rotate and don't have any bright contrast. The shadows are fading and I expect they'll be a distant memory in a few more months.

LG will have a 42” TV this year as well as the 48”.

Do modern tvs support 4:4:4 chroma subsampling? Is it an HDMI 2.0 thing? The last time I messed with using a flat panel tv as a monitor, end result was not great because most tvs use 4:2:2 and anything less than 4:4:4 turns fine lines into a blurry mess.

Any of you folks with absurdly large monitors use Fancyzones? I don't use it myself just curious if anyone has any impressions.

polq37 wrote:

Do modern tvs support 4:4:4 chroma subsampling? Is it an HDMI 2.0 thing? The last time I messed with using a flat panel tv as a monitor, end result was not great because most tvs use 4:2:2 and anything less than 4:4:4 turns fine lines into a blurry mess.

Rtings.com is your friend.

I guess my point is that, unless manufacturers have broadly switched over to supporting 4:4:4 chroma in modern tvs, the practice of using TVs as monitor panels is going to be fraught with compatibility/quality issues.

It will work for people who know what questions to ask and how to do the research and it will leave other people confused and disappointed.

polq37 wrote:

Do modern tvs support 4:4:4 chroma subsampling? Is it an HDMI 2.0 thing? The last time I messed with using a flat panel tv as a monitor, end result was not great because most tvs use 4:2:2 and anything less than 4:4:4 turns fine lines into a blurry mess.

most do but very few use an RGB layout these days. For non OLED they mostly use BGR which can reduce text clarity according to rtings.com. Here's a picture:

IMAGE(https://www.displayninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/different-monitor-subpixel-layouts.jpg)

IMAGE(https://www.displayninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/bgr-vs-rgb-subpixel.jpg)

You should be able to use the ClearType calibration tool in Windows to correct this, or you can mount the display upside down.

I like the mounting it upside down tip
Life Hacks FTW

With the LG OLEDs, you just have to name the input you're using to the PC name, and it fixes any text issues. Everything is crystal clear when you do that.

polq37 wrote:

I guess my point is that, unless manufacturers have broadly switched over to supporting 4:4:4 chroma in modern tvs, the practice of using TVs as monitor panels is going to be fraught with compatibility/quality issues.

It will work for people who know what questions to ask and how to do the research and it will leave other people confused and disappointed.

I could broadly say that yes most modern HDTV’s support 4:4:4 chroma but I would be wrong since I’m sure there are more than a few that don’t. With the market flooded with all sorts of brands and models the safest bet is to see if rtings has info on that specific model since 4:4:4 and various PC centric things are covered.

How does this newegg shuffle work?

I'm looking on the page, and it says if I'm selected I have a 2 hour window. I got 2 emails.. one at 5:30pm PST and another at 6:39pm saying I have to push buy by 6:00pm ?! WTF is this? that isn't 2 hours.. in fact one is minus 39 minutes. I've since downloaded the app.. is that going to work better?

Needless to say I watched a brand new 3080 slip through my fingers.

Huh. When I won a shuffle it was just "click buy," I think I had about 2 hours to do so? Maybe try calling customer service and telling them what happened? Could be worth a shot. I never used the app.

Hi gang! My time has come, the wife approved my new PC purchase!

I probably should have checked here before clicking buy, oh well!

Here's what i am building, for Music Production / light video editing and gaming, of course: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/gamerparent/saved/69vnpg

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor
Fractal Design Celsius S24 87.6 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard
G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL19 Memory
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8 GB Vision OC Video Card
Fractal Design Define 7 Compact ATX Mid Tower Case
Corsair RMx (2021) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Any thoughts? i haven't opened anything yet. I'll be adding a few hard drives and SSD from my old workstation to this one.

The mobo, CPU, GPU and PSU are part of a bundle. I was surprised that you can actually get your hands on a 3070 Ti. Even in a bundle. I thought they just didn't exist.

Not good enough... J/K

If those are truly part of a bundle, I hope its not the case where you have to wait 6 weeks to 6 months to get it.
Unless the bundle was priced astronomically. How much was that bundle? The GPU has got to be $1200 alone.

Also, are the 3070ti cards only 8GB? That seems low for a card that is not much slower than a 3080. (hmm, I guess it isn't as close as I had heard)

As you suspect, the price for the bundle is simply regular price, just that you can actually buy it! So the card was $1200 CDN.

I ordered it on Friday (from newegg.ca) and it actually came on Saturday... lol

Only thing I'm waiting on is the RAM and the CPU cooler which show they are coming next week sometime. So pretty good in that department.

The 3070 Ti are only 8GB. I thought about the 3080 but that's like a $900 CDN jump up. Is 8GB enough?

It sounds like maybe stock/supply pressure is easing for the system integrators. Makes sense that they'd get first crack at new inventory. Part suppliers need to keep them alive.

Maybe this means that the aftermarket will start loosening up in a little bit.

Edit: Also, I was surprised to see systems with 3060tis in my local Costco.

3070ti is a good card, i doubt you'll see performance issues for some time. Unless you are a 4k 240+hz bleeding edge adherant of course.

gamerparent wrote:

As you suspect, the price for the bundle is simply regular price, just that you can actually buy it! So the card was $1200 CDN.

(...)

I thought about the 3080 but that's like a $900 CDN jump up.

A 3080 has about a 20% performance advantage over the 3070ti.

If the 3070ti was $1200 CDN and the 3080 is $900 more (so $2100 CDN), then you're talking paying 75% more to get that 20% performance gain.

Now if these cards existed at MSRP, it would be a different story, as the 3080's MSRP (in USD at least) is a little under 17% more expensive, well in line with that 20% performance gain. But at 75% more expensive, the 3070ti is far and away the better value.

I was mistaken, the 3080 is $1499... it's the 3080 Ti that's $2199.

In any case I will be very happy with a modern PC as mine is about 6 years old now.

Tycho the Mad wrote:

3070ti is a good card, i doubt you'll see performance issues for some time. Unless you are a 4k 240+hz bleeding edge adherant of course.

Not me! my monitor is 1440p but not high refresh rate. I would like to try a VR headset for Sim Racing but I hope the 3070 Ti can handle that?

i would be shocked if you have a problem.

gamerparent wrote:

I was mistaken, the 3080 is $1499... it's the 3080 Ti that's $2199.

Alright, then you're talking a 25% increase for 20% more performance. No longer outlandish, but also not such a value that it would make the 3070 ti a bad deal.

The 3080 ti price is outlandish.

gamerparent wrote:

I would like to try a VR headset for Sim Racing but I hope the 3070 Ti can handle that?

Most people with VR headsets are using them with lesser GPUs than that.

VR is something where you need to be willing to do some settings fiddling to dial in the right performance for your headset, but a 3070 ti will put you in the upper tier of VR GPUs.

Glad to hear it, I hope for another 6 year run with this machine...

After reading this pertinent thread I flashed the motherboard BIOS last night using QFlash Plus. It's a somewhat surreal experience plugging in the motherboard to the power supply with no CPU or RAM or anything and just pushing a button. I've only done it when the computer is fully assembled before.

UPDATE: Quick question, can I take out the Wifi module that's using one of the M2 slots and put in a M2 SSD (I have an old one from my workstation that I'd like to also use in addition to the new 1TB one) - ANSWERED doh

I'm sure you can. I would disable it in the BIOS first if that is an option but it will probably be automatically detected as not available.

As far as a 3070ti going 6 years, my rx580 is still punching through 1080p+ right now despite costing $200 and being middle of the road 6 years ago. I think you are good.

Haha, i'm dumb. It's not a wifi module, it's just a heat sink for one of the M2 slots.

Because it has "X570 Aorus Elite WiFi" printed on it I thought it was the wifi. I just removed it and the slot is clear.