Help me build my PC: 2024 Catch-All

You can still get 10th gen Intel CPUs. An i3 10100 is $69 on Amazon and would provide plenty for a low simultaneous user Plex server. Still get QuickSync for hardware transcoding.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, checked out some Cyberpunk with the new 3080. DLSS is a pretty amazing way to comprise resolution vs all the pretty things.

What is your monitor?

Balthezor wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, checked out some Cyberpunk with the new 3080. DLSS is a pretty amazing way to comprise resolution vs all the pretty things.

What is your monitor?

It's an LG OLED48CXPUB. Loooooove it. I have a PS5 hooked up to it as well. I sit about 3-5 feet from it, so it just rocks when playing games. If I'm browsing the internet, I resize windows to get them a bit lower to avoid neck strain. I basically treat it as four monitors smooshed together.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, checked out some Cyberpunk with the new 3080. DLSS is a pretty amazing way to comprise resolution vs all the pretty things.

What is your monitor?

It's an LG OLED48CXPUB. Loooooove it. I have a PS5 hooked up to it as well. I sit about 3-5 feet from it, so it just rocks when playing games. If I'm browsing the internet, I resize windows to get them a bit lower to avoid neck strain. I basically treat it as four monitors smooshed together.

Edit: Here is an old photo of the initial setup:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/rD3vSsG.jpg)

So weird. We have new windows now. A lot has happened since that picture! Not much with the computer though, until this new graphics card.

*Legion* wrote:

You can still get 10th gen Intel CPUs. An i3 10100 is $69 on Amazon and would provide plenty for a low simultaneous user Plex server. Still get QuickSync for hardware transcoding.

Just about double that price here, but still a good deal, and I can get motherboards too. I’ve got a case, spare ram and M.2 drives so should be able to put it together fairly cheaply. Thanks

Assuming you're using QuickSync, you'll get a nice benefit simply from going from a 4th-gen Intel CPU to a modern Intel CPU.

QuickSync was pretty shoddy in earlier Core generations, and became much better later on. 6th gen seems to be the dividing line where QS stopped being trash, and 8th gen seems to be where it got another bump upward. The difference between generations has slowed down considerably, so you won't lose much from getting a 10th gen chip vs. a 12th gen one, at least as far as QuickSync goes.

Odd request, does anyone happen to have a usb installer for windows 10? I need to create one after suffering a catastrophic home-chore related incident yesterday that corrupted my win drive beyond repair apparently, I had to buy a new drive today but conveniently Microsoft's support page where you should be able to create such a tool won't work for me (the media creation tool crashes almost inmediately after executing it, I'm currently using a long neglected pc from work that runs on win7)
I downloaded a win 11 ISO installer but that won't do me any good, I need the USB version of the installer. If you happen to have one or are able to download it from the site let me know.

Edit: I just need the files that go into the USB, obvious as it may be, just in case anyone points the silly part out.

Tuffalo, I'm running a 3070 at 4K with HDR and DLSS and all that, and I have yet to have turn anything down... You should be fine.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, checked out some Cyberpunk with the new 3080. DLSS is a pretty amazing way to comprise resolution vs all the pretty things.

What is your monitor?

It's an LG OLED48CXPUB. Loooooove it. I have a PS5 hooked up to it as well. I sit about 3-5 feet from it, so it just rocks when playing games. If I'm browsing the internet, I resize windows to get them a bit lower to avoid neck strain. I basically treat it as four monitors smooshed together.

Edit: Here is an old photo of the initial setup:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/rD3vSsG.jpg)

Tuffalo, thats not too big for a desk monitor? I was looking at 42 inch C2 but not even sure with that. And might stay with 32inch. How far do you sit back with the mouse/keyboard gaming?

So weird. We have new windows now. A lot has happened since that picture! Not much with the computer though, until this new graphics card.

Balthezor wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Well, checked out some Cyberpunk with the new 3080. DLSS is a pretty amazing way to comprise resolution vs all the pretty things.

What is your monitor?

It's an LG OLED48CXPUB. Loooooove it. I have a PS5 hooked up to it as well. I sit about 3-5 feet from it, so it just rocks when playing games. If I'm browsing the internet, I resize windows to get them a bit lower to avoid neck strain. I basically treat it as four monitors smooshed together.

Edit: Here is an old photo of the initial setup:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/rD3vSsG.jpg)

Tuffalo, thats not too big for a desk monitor? I was looking at 42 inch C2 but not even sure with that. And might stay with 32inch. How far do you sit back with the mouse/keyboard gaming?

So weird. We have new windows now. A lot has happened since that picture! Not much with the computer though, until this new graphics card.

I love the size. It's kinda like having 2 or 3 monitors all next to each other but cleaner. When I browse the internet and stuff I do resize windows so that they are lower. Otherwise, I get neck strain. Full screen for gaming is perfect though.

I am back a bit. The desk is pretty wide, so my eyes are probably 4' from the monitor, and when I lean back in the chair for PS5 games it can be more like 5'.

My PC components are old enough now that my processor/motherboard aren't actually "supported" by Windows 11. Not that I'm in a rush to upgrade the OS, but by now everything in my computer is well over five years old and probably holding back my GTX 2080 TI a bit.

I've been meaning to build a more mini ITX style machine for portability since I'm moving around a fair bit right now. My Cooler Master tower is just a total pig. Other than the GPU, SSD and M.2 drive everything is fair game for replacing. My PSU is full ATX so I'm guessing I'll need to replace that too. Space for a 3.5 HDD for big storage would be nice, but not essential.

Anyone have any thoughts? I'm so far out of the loop on builds these days! What's a good CPU/Mobo combo for mini itx? I've gotten by fine with on my current setup, so any new CPU in the mid-range will probably do okay for gaming. Not looking to break the bank, just give that GTX 2080 TI it's proper due.

I've been looking at the NZXT case since it comes with a PSU and liquid cooler as well. Probably not as efficient as sourcing that stuff separately, but my days of wanting to fiddle around a ton when I build are a bit behind me.

Any advice appreciated!

Maybe something like this?

Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor

Noctua NH-L9x65 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler

Asus PRIME H610I-PLUS D4-CSM Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory

Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

Lian Li TU150 Mini ITX Desktop Case

Cooler Master V750 SFX GOLD 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply

...or maybe like this? : D CCC - Certis' Command Center

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor

Thermalright Assassin King 120 Mini 64.87 CFM CPU Cooler (you could probably get away with AMD's stock cooler, for a 65 TDP processor should be more than enough, depending on what the weather's like at your location) **EDIT: BUT THIS CPU DOESN'T INCLUDE ONE, you need to get a cooler anyway**

Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory

Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Desktop Case (love this case, have the bigger version myself, but this smaller one still has plenty of room for your drives)

EVGA SuperNOVA GA 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Caution thou, this MB needs to come with the proper Bios version for it to recognize this CPu, if it doesn't you would need to update it which can be a pain.

Good luck with the upgrading!
Edited for expanding info, etc

Will the 2080ti fit in mini ITX?

fangblackbone wrote:

Will the 2080ti fit in mini ITX?

Oh yeah, no problem on that front. Just a matter of it fitting in a case.

Doing a little more digging, I wonder if Micro ATX (instead of mini) might be a better fit for me. Trying to cram everything into as small a space as possible is a nice puzzle challenge, but micro looks to have a little more flexibility while still fitting in a small case.

Thanks Gamerparent and Feeank! Good grist for the mill. I'm already falling down a research rabbit hole.

Feeank wrote:

Odd request, does anyone happen to have a usb installer for windows 10? I need to create one after suffering a catastrophic home-chore related incident yesterday that corrupted my win drive beyond repair apparently, I had to buy a new drive today but conveniently Microsoft's support page where you should be able to create such a tool won't work for me (the media creation tool crashes almost inmediately after executing it, I'm currently using a long neglected pc from work that runs on win7)
I downloaded a win 11 ISO installer but that won't do me any good, I need the USB version of the installer. If you happen to have one or are able to download it from the site let me know.

Edit: I just need the files that go into the USB, obvious as it may be, just in case anyone points the silly part out.

You should be able to create a bootable Windows disk with Rufus and the basic ISO. I also struggled with the bootable media tool

Gamers Nexus best cases of 2021 might be of interest to you. They do some small form factor cases near the middle of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtyW...

You will probably need to do an AIO if you want to cool a CPU properly in a Micro ATX, and I would go with an AMD 5800x3D for the CPU. I would avoid Intel 12th gen. Those things get way too hot! Period.

Not sure what motherboard you would want in the micro ATX form factor.

Feeank wrote:

...or maybe like this? : D CCC - Certis' Command Center

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor

Thermalright Assassin King 120 Mini 64.87 CFM CPU Cooler (you could probably get away with AMD's stock cooler, for a 65 TDP processor should be more than enough, depending on what the weather's like at your location) **EDIT: BUT THIS CPU DOESN'T INCLUDE ONE, you need to get a cooler anyway**

Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory

Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Desktop Case (love this case, have the bigger version myself, but this smaller one still has plenty of room for your drives)

EVGA SuperNOVA GA 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Caution thou, this MB needs to come with the proper Bios version for it to recognize this CPu, if it doesn't you would need to update it which can be a pain.

Good luck with the upgrading!
Edited for expanding info, etc

I just completed a build super similar to this a month ago, but used the Cooler Master NR200 case because I have space constraints in my home office. I was able to fit a full size GPU in there, plus 5 fans, and a cooling tower.

I can say the Aorus board is updated to F12 (bios version) when you receive it, so you'll only need to go up to at minimum F14 if you trust yourself to do that. I haven't done so yet cause I'm nervous to brick things (which I know might be a small chance but this is my first real build that I need for gaming and work).

Certis wrote:

I'm already falling down a research rabbit hole. :drink:

IMAGE(https://64.media.tumblr.com/bf06e22c7e958721eaca6b3a44c00b0e/a0aba65cab7e6cc6-52/s640x960/8bb4bce77d98604dc12cc2c34a118766fc4a89e7.jpg)

MrDeVil909 wrote:

You should be able to create a bootable Windows disk with Rufus and the basic ISO. I also struggled with the bootable media tool

Thanks Devil! Luckily I got an installer from a neighbor and was able to test it updating this pc from work I'm using right now from win 7 to win 10, so it does work, however, my pc must have suffered more damage than I'm able to diagnose, as it won't boot with the pen drive, even with the new SSD I bought in a hurry thinking that that was the issue. Not sure what to do now, but I'll keep you guys posted.

Dominic Knight wrote:

I can say the Aorus board is updated to F12 (bios version) when you receive it, so you'll only need to go up to at minimum F14 if you trust yourself to do that.

But does that Bios update requires you to plug an older CPU first? If it does it really isn't worth the hassle and I can't in good conscience recommend using that mobo-cpu combination to someone clearly looking for an easy upgrade (Thank you AMD, Bah!)

I came across a NZXT H210 - Mini-ITX case for about $60 US brand new on Canadian Newegg and couldn’t pass it up at half price. So that’s the case done.

Definitely leaning toward the following:

Gigabyte B660M AORUS PRO AX DDR4 w/ DDR4-3200, 7.1 Audio, Dual M.2, 2.5G LAN, Wi-Fi 6, USB 3.2 Type-C

Core™ i5-12400F

Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CL16 Dual Channel Kit

I think the new case will fit my existing PSU (which is plenty good).

With the case and the above I think my cost is around $475 US. That seems really solid?!

I can figure out cooling after.

I don’t know if Legion will give me a wedgie for going Intel, but they seem best bang for the buck right now.

Certis wrote:

Core™ i5-12400F

Do these have the same issues others have described here about Intel 12th gen?

*Legion* wrote:

Between the poor power efficiency and especially the drama around the poor mounting pressure due to Intel cheaping out and re-using the same ILM from past CPUs, I'm not touching 12th gen Intel with a ten foot pole in any of my builds. Maybe in a lower-end build where there's enough headroom to eat these shortcomings.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

You should be able to create a bootable Windows disk with Rufus and the basic ISO. I also struggled with the bootable media tool

This is the way.

-BEP

Feeank wrote:
Dominic Knight wrote:

I can say the Aorus board is updated to F12 (bios version) when you receive it, so you'll only need to go up to at minimum F14 if you trust yourself to do that.

But does that Bios update requires you to plug an older CPU first? If it does it really isn't worth the hassle and I can't in good conscience recommend using that mobo-cpu combination to someone clearly looking for an easy upgrade (Thank you AMD, Bah!)

No need to put an older CPU in first. They started the 5000 series cpu support since F10, and have only improved on it since then according to their patch notes. I have a 5600x in mine, and it has worked fine since day 1.

EDIT: I double-checked, and they actually push a BIOS update via Windows so that you're at minimum F14 (right now they're up to F16d).

pandasuit wrote:
Certis wrote:

Core™ i5-12400F

Do these have the same issues others have described here about Intel 12th gen?

*Legion* wrote:

Between the poor power efficiency and especially the drama around the poor mounting pressure due to Intel cheaping out and re-using the same ILM from past CPUs, I'm not touching 12th gen Intel with a ten foot pole in any of my builds. Maybe in a lower-end build where there's enough headroom to eat these shortcomings.

Power efficiency is less of an issue on a lower-end chip, but oof I would be nervous about using a 12th gen in such a confined case. At least without replacing the ILM with an aftermarket solution. Gamers Nexus has a new video on this, reviewing a second replacement contact frame:

A CPU not making good solid contact with its cooling solution is one thing in a big tower case where you can blow a sh*t-ton of air at it (or through its rad in an AIO situation) and just sorta brute-force the issue away, but in a restricted airflow scenario, you don't have a lot of margin to play with.

Yank Intel's trash mounting solution out of there, though, and the problem goes away. It's not the CPU itself that's the issue.

Certis wrote:

I came across a NZXT H210 - Mini-ITX case for about $60 US brand new on Canadian Newegg and couldn’t pass it up at half price. So that’s the case done.

Definitely leaning toward the following:

Gigabyte B660M AORUS PRO AX DDR4 w/ DDR4-3200, 7.1 Audio, Dual M.2, 2.5G LAN, Wi-Fi 6, USB 3.2 Type-C

Core™ i5-12400F

Like I mentioned earlier in the thread. I would avoid 12th gen intel in a Mini ATX form factor. You are asking for trouble. Especially with that case where you are probably going to only have room for a 240 AIO.

Yeah Rob, but then you recommended a $500 CPU.

PS: Legion quoting himself in response is basically a forum wedgie. I’ll go back to the drawing board.

Certis wrote:

With the case and the above I think my cost is around $475 US. That seems really solid?!

OK, if that's the budget you're aiming at here's my updated recommended build: CCC 2.0

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor (I can't recommend Intel as I haven't had an intel pc in 20 or so years)

Thermalright Silver Soul 135 82 CFM CPU Cooler (Also have no experience with water cooling / AIOs, so here be fans baby yeah!)

ASRock B550M-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (my last 2 pcs have been ASRock-based, I can vouch for them building really resilient mobos)

TEAMGROUP T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (Cheap but sturdy memory)

NZXT H210 Mini ITX Tower Case (Not sure the version you got as there seems to be a lot of variants, but I think they all include 2 120 fans)

2 be quiet! Pure Wings 2 61.2 CFM 140 mm Fan (You should swap the front fan to the top as an extra exhaust and put these two at the front to help you pull all the air possible through this case's small lateral intakes, you'll need it!)

Hope this helps in any way and do enjoy the deep dive : D

On other news, thankfully I was able to fix my pc for the most part, my old win unit is still fubar but I think I can recover the data in it with a cable that turns it into an external drive. Plug in the drive any other way either prevents the pc to boot or it doesn't recognize it. Still, I was able to see the data on the other PC I was using these days BEFORE updating it to Win 10, after the update it won't read the drive at all. However, considering at one point I was convinced my 32 gigs of RAM got were fried as well as the drive, I guess the outcome has been far better that I could have hoped for 24 hours ago.

Certis wrote:

PS: Legion quoting himself in response is basically a forum wedgie. I’ll go back to the drawing board.

I was quoting Pandasuit!

Spoiler:

... quoting me

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/AdWXG7C.jpg)

Certis wrote:

Yeah Rob, but then you recommended a $500 CPU. :cry:

Well I wasn't sure what your budget was for a CPU. You could easily do a 5600X for around the same price as the 12th gen CPU you mentioned.

Or 5700X if you are willing to spend 50 bucks more, and get some extra cores.

Either one of those would be great.