Help me build my PC: 2024 Catch-All

Hmm it's odd that the 5800x3D doesn't compare more favorably to the 5600x.

WizKid wrote:

Hmm it's odd that the 5800x3D doesn't compare more favorably to the 5600x.

5800x3D excels at games but not necessarily everything else. Last I looked it made a big difference in many games but not enough to justify the price difference to me. It has more cores than the 5600x which may or may not matter to your use case.

Also, watch for prices on a 5600 (no X). It goes on deep sale and is close enough in performance.

pandasuit wrote:
FiveIron wrote:

I've been following the new ROG ally release and im debating between that or a desktop PC. The mobility is nice, but not 100% necessary and i feel like the price is very reasonable for what you get. for 700$, can you even build a PC with the same performance? the last time i tried to pick parts on newegg i couldn't get anything reasonable for under $1200.

If you figure it out please share.

If you are ok with mini-pc check out the Beelink SER6 with Ryzen 7735HS APU (680m GPU). It’s not quite as powerful as the ROG Ally APU but in the same ballpark.

Spoiler:

The APU/GPU in the ROG Ally is not that powerful compared to a newer low end dedicated GPU. It has better performance per dollar tho.

Since the best desktop APUs aren’t as good as the Ally APU you are going to need a dedicated GPU to match performance. A GTX 1650 or RX 6400 perhaps. The performance per dollar on those is not great.

I’ve seen no indication that RDNA 2 or 3 APUs are coming for desktops. You can get a mini-pc with one tho. Beelink SER6 as mentioned above. Likely new models incoming.

Whenever I see someone on YouTube try to make a desktop equivalent of something like this they tend to use the lowest possible price of second hand eBay or refurb parts for price comparison which is not realistically what you are going to pay if you do it yourself.

I’m hoping to see the new AMD 7XXX mobile APUs show up in mid range laptops (without dedicated GPUs) at a price point under the Ally this year but I had the same hope about the 6XXX ones last year and was disappointed.

the closest gpu IMO is 6600xt which goes for about 200$ on ebay. so a equivlent 8c 5ghz cpu is... ryzen 7 5600x? yeah that alone is 400$. trying to match this in a PC is going to be pretty difficult with 700$

i hope them selling this for 700$ puts some pressure on PC prices to come down.

WizKid wrote:

How much of a boost would it be from a 2600x? I’m starting to get an itch to upgrade.

pandasuit wrote:

Passmark says around 30% single and multi thread performance. Whether that makes a difference to you likely depends on what bottlenecks you currently run into.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare...

My most recent upgrade was around 35% single thread and 66% multi-thread and the impact to me was huge.

Yeah, as long as you're not running into a GPU bottleneck first, going from a 2600 to a 5600 will be pretty significant.

I have a 5800X in my main machine, but I've been doing most of my gaming lately on my living room machine which has a 3600X, and honestly even the jump from the 3600 to 5600 was enough to make me think about it.

You can see some benchmarks in the GN review of the 7600. They've got the 2600, 2700, 3600, and 5600X in the charts along with the 7600.

FiveIron wrote:
pandasuit wrote:
FiveIron wrote:

I've been following the new ROG ally release and im debating between that or a desktop PC. The mobility is nice, but not 100% necessary and i feel like the price is very reasonable for what you get. for 700$, can you even build a PC with the same performance? the last time i tried to pick parts on newegg i couldn't get anything reasonable for under $1200.

If you figure it out please share.

If you are ok with mini-pc check out the Beelink SER6 with Ryzen 7735HS APU (680m GPU). It’s not quite as powerful as the ROG Ally APU but in the same ballpark.

Spoiler:

The APU/GPU in the ROG Ally is not that powerful compared to a newer low end dedicated GPU. It has better performance per dollar tho.

Since the best desktop APUs aren’t as good as the Ally APU you are going to need a dedicated GPU to match performance. A GTX 1650 or RX 6400 perhaps. The performance per dollar on those is not great.

I’ve seen no indication that RDNA 2 or 3 APUs are coming for desktops. You can get a mini-pc with one tho. Beelink SER6 as mentioned above. Likely new models incoming.

Whenever I see someone on YouTube try to make a desktop equivalent of something like this they tend to use the lowest possible price of second hand eBay or refurb parts for price comparison which is not realistically what you are going to pay if you do it yourself.

I’m hoping to see the new AMD 7XXX mobile APUs show up in mid range laptops (without dedicated GPUs) at a price point under the Ally this year but I had the same hope about the 6XXX ones last year and was disappointed.

the closest gpu IMO is 6600xt which goes for about 200$ on ebay. so a equivlent 8c 5ghz cpu is... ryzen 7 5600x? yeah that alone is 400$. trying to match this in a PC is going to be pretty difficult with 700$

i hope them selling this for 700$ puts some pressure on PC prices to come down.

If the latest AMD APUs (6XXX/7XXX) were available in low/mid end laptops/desktops they would make low end dedicated GPUs obsolete.

Is there any incentive for PC makers to prevent that from happening? Not sure.

Is AMD motivated to make sure it doesn’t happen? Perhaps for now.

If Intel’s integrated GPUs were better would that put pressure on AMD? Maybe?

Whether you go new low end or refurb it’s not hard to build a base desktop for cheap. A Ryzen 5600 (no X) based system isn’t a lot of $. Amazon and others will sell you an older refurb with surprisingly good performance for dirt cheap. It’s the cost of a GPU that gets you (and maybe any PSU upgrades on a refurb). $150-200 for just a low end card worth using unless you get an amazing deal on second hand.

Well all this talk of upgrades made me bite the bullet and order up a 7600 + board + 32GB RAM for my living room PC.

Figured I'd do it now and sell the 3600X/board/RAM combo while I can still get something for it.

Amazon delivered my new parts in a hurry, so I got my upgrade all done this weekend.

Opinionated, me-me-me-what-I-think post incoming:

This is for my living room PC, so I'm still using the SilverStone GD09 case. I love this case because it fits nicely in an entertainment center, but it's also big enough to support full size GPUs. I have a 3070 in there, which is still plenty for the 1440p@120 that the TV supports.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/J89Ds4u.jpg)

If there's one piece of advice I could give PC builders, it is to BENCH TEST YOUR NEW SH*T. You will save yourself a lot of grief compared to shoving all the new parts into a complete system, turning it on, and then stabbing around in the dark trying to figure out why it doesn't boot. Too many variables!

Start with the most minimal system you can outside the case (ie. CPU, motherboard, RAM, preferably with a "known good" GPU and power supply plugged in for testing rather than new ones), confirm it functions, then incrementally build up to a full system. (Good reason to keep an old GPU around - my test bench GPU is my old GTX 960).

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

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

You don't have to have a fancy test bench (though for more active builders, I highly recommend something like one of the Tech Stations from HighSpeedPC like I have). You can simply close up the motherboard box and build/test on top of that.

Or you can do what I did for my first test bench, which was to strip an old case all the way down so that it was nothing but a frame, a fan, and a known-working power supply:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Xi2W17e.jpg)

Also, since I'm spouting strong opinions here, let me also advocate for building a living room gaming PC for couch gaming instead of going the console route. I've been doing this for a long time, and it feels like it's still less common than it should be. With the Deck interface finally giving us the Big Picture Mode replacement that has long been overdue, you can have a very good controller-driven UI experience. But wireless keyboards and mice are so good now that you can also go the route I do, with a big TV tray setup (I use a Table Mate Pro XL, of which a Glorious XL Extended mousepad plus a pair of Glorious wrist rests fill the surface area EXACTLY).

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/U85J3MM.jpg)

Anyway, some benchmarks comparing my 3600X platform to the new 7600 platform:

Cinebench
3600X: 8665 multi-core, 1245 single-core
7600: 13537 multi-core, 1802 single-core

3DMark CPU Profile
3600X: 4712 (721 1-thread)
7600: 6578 (984 1-thread)

3DMark TimeSpy
3600X: 12057 (13914 Graphics, 6866 CPU)
7600: 13097 (14071 Graphics, 9408 CPU)

The big boost in single-thread performance is immediately felt in emulation workloads (*cough**cough*tearsofthekingdom*cough*)

So what's a decent 2k (2560 x 1440) 27 inch monitor that won't break the bank these days?

I have an older Dell S2716DG which I gave to my wife after I got her a new computer. Then I went out to Costco and purchased a 32 Inch LG Ultragrear 32GN63T-B thinking it would be an upgrade. But it's pretty bad with it being too dark and more importantly with blurriness/smudging when the camera is turning - like motion blur is turned on in the game settings (I turn that off in every game).

I'm planning on returning it. But wondering what I should replace it with.

It seems like there are no longer any affordable native g-sync monitors. They're all g-sync compatible, which is a bummer. Basically, want to keep similar specs to the Dell where its 27 inches, 2k resolution, at least 144 mhz, and g-sync or I guess g-sync compatible. Suggestions?

Crawley wrote:

Then I went out to Costco and purchased a 32 Inch LG Ultragrear 32GN63T-B thinking it would be an upgrade. But it's pretty bad with it being too dark and more importantly with blurriness/smudging when the camera is turning

That's VA panel ghosting. If you're sensitive to that, you probably don't want a monitor with a VA panel (aside from maybe some high-end exceptions).

That old Dell monitor is a TN panel.

Generally speaking:

TN: worst color, worst blacks/contrast and overall image quality, worst viewing angles (head-on or it's trash), but the fastest response times and least ghosting. Traditionally the choice for competitive gamers.

IPS: almost as bad blacks/contrast as TN ("IPS glow"), best color, best viewing angles, second best response times/ghosting.

VA: best blacks and contrast ratio by far of the 3, second best color and viewing angles, worst response times and ghosting (especially when transitioning between black and not-black)

These vary on a case-by-case basis, but they're a good starting off point.

Also, when it comes to getting a new monitor, it is critically important to find or figure out which pixel overdrive setting on your monitor produces the best results. If you ve never changed this setting and you're not on the "right" one, you may have significantly worse blurring or pixel overshoot than you should. RTINGS reviews have a Recommend Overdrive Setting, and other reviews or user discussions can help. Or just use your eyes and figure out which one blurs the least.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/uIIRAhl.png)

This is from the RTINGS review of that LG. Even with their recommended overdrive, this is poor motion performance. That's what you're seeing.

Crawley, we recently bought an LG Ultragear 27GL83A-B, which is an IPS, 1ms response time, native G-Sync and Freesync compatible, 144Mhz, HDR 10 Compatible, and it's running just great. 1440p. Used almost exclusively for gaming (primarily Guild Wars 2, which can be very demanding on the lots-of-things-in-motion space), nice colors etc. Running with a 2080 at 1440p has given no issues.

Build quality seems high... $300 at Amazon. I suspect the issue you had is that that other monitor was not a gaming monitor.

*Legion* wrote:

If there's one piece of advice I could give PC builders, it is to BENCH TEST YOUR NEW SH*T. You will save yourself a lot of grief compared to shoving all the new parts into a complete system, turning it on, and then stabbing around in the dark trying to figure out why it doesn't boot. Too many variables!

Not having a reasonable way to test outside of a system that is exactly what happened to me last week when assembling my new PC. Finished it, through blood, sweat and tears (I really hate building PCs), turned it on… and nothing.
After a few hours of panic it turned out the RAM sticks were not properly seated.

The stupid error LEDs in the motherboard had a red light for the CPU and a blinking one for RAM which in my world indicates the CPU is the issue. But no. Thanks for nothing error LEDs!

Thanks for the mention of the overdrive settings for the monitor. Didn't know to check on that. With the highest overdrive setting it seemed slightly better but not great. There's also a 1ms setting but you have to turn overdrive off for that - that seemed somewhat better but the brightness on the monitor took a huge dive.

I'll have to play around with the settings bit more.

Based on the RTINGS page the LG Ultragear 27GL83A-B that was recommended is better dealing with motion than the Costco monitor. So probably end up returning the Costco one and getting the 27 inch from Amazon if I can't find a happy medium here.

Thank you for all the responses. Didn't think getting a new monitor would be such an issue these days.

Happy to help, Crawley. Like I said, speaking from first-hand experience here. Hope you can work things out to your satisfaction.

Just built new Ryzen 7800x3d build. First AMD CPU since Athlon.

Believe it or not, it just booted. I did this twice since the first motherboard I didn't like, so I took it apart and put it back again.

I hate building PCs too. Takes too much time.

For a monitor I ended up picking up the Gigabyte M27Q, which was recommended by the RTINGS page. It seemed comparable to the LG 27GL83A-B but came with 2 USB ports on the monitor. That basically tipped my hand since it allows convenient TrackIR hookup.

Too early to review the monitor but the limited testing I think it looks better than the LG 32GN63T-B - even the colors - I did apply the ICC Profile from RTINGS. Also not seeing that ghosting image and everything seems snappy so far. And the ghosting was my main reason for going with a new monitor.

Glad to hear it, Crawley!

Hey all. I picked up an ASUS TUF VG27AQL1A monitor. I love it, but just wondering are people actually using HDR on PC these days? I know Auto HDR is so much better in Windows 11, but I'm spoiled by my LG OLED Tv.

I find HDR just not bright enough on PC with this monitor.

Just wondering what other folks are doing.

I'm new to HDR but find I'm using it on a case-by-case basis. Some games have the HDR brightness increase, which helps some. But still for games that are generally dark, like Dying Light 2, its just too much and I don't have it enabled. But for games like Pinball FX, HDR was a visual game changer. The lights on the table now glow like the real thing, so the tables look fantastic - better than what ray tracing enabled offered on its own. Cyberpunk is another game that it seems like I should leave it on due to all the neon light glow that just radiates now - looks fantastic.

So right now case-by-case.

El-Producto wrote:

Hey all. I picked up an ASUS TUF VG27AQL1A monitor. I love it, but just wondering are people actually using HDR on PC these days? I know Auto HDR is so much better in Windows 11, but I'm spoiled by my LG OLED Tv.

I find HDR just not bright enough on PC with this monitor.

Just wondering what other folks are doing.

That monitor has HDR 400, which is pretty much the same as not having HDR at all.

Honestly, even with screens that go above HDR 400, I've been dissatisfied any time I've tried to use them. HDR performance is sometimes at odds with things like variable refresh rate or "Game mode" on TVs (both are an issue with the TV in my living room PC setup), and in a choice between HDR and low latency + smoother motion, HDR doesn't stand a chance.

I have 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM (2 sticks), and want to upgrade to 32 gigs. Would it be better to find 2 more sticks of what I already have, or go with all new RAM so I only have 2 sticks?

It the cost isn't too different, get new sticks. More likely they will match. You could try to get similar memory sticks but even within the same brand and model, the timings can be off just enough that they have performance issues. Even if it is twice the cost, it might be worth spending the money and trying to sell your old 16GB to recoupe some of it.

I agree with Kazar, and sometimes even though there are four slots on a motherboard 4 sticks can be too much to handle for some. Depending on voltages the sticks require etc.

WizKid wrote:

I have 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM (2 sticks), and want to upgrade to 32 gigs. Would it be better to find 2 more sticks of what I already have, or go with all new RAM so I only have 2 sticks?

I'm going to buck the trend and say the former, but only if you can match the RAM sticks exactly (ie. same model number, not just matching the "G-Skill DDR5 6000 CL60" product naming).

If not, though, then I would go with a new set.

Try a CRT monitor from PC Gamer

Stele wrote:

Try a CRT monitor from PC Gamer

pretty sure my fam had about 6 at one time. threw them all out though bc they thought they were useless and bulky.

FiveIron wrote:
Stele wrote:

Try a CRT monitor from PC Gamer

pretty sure my fam had about 6 at one time. threw them all out though bc they thought they were useless and bulky.

I used to have one of those bulky 24” Sony CRT monitors. I don’t remember the model but it was amazing in its day. Kept it until I decided it wasn’t worth moving to my new place. I regret letting it go.

I want John Carmack's old widescreen 1080p CRT:

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

CRTs are still great displays. The issue is they're big and heavy so nobody wants to ship them or dedicate the store space to them.

(Also they're power hungry, but when has that stopped high-end PC gamers?)

Can anyone recommend a PC building test bench at a low price? Full ATX. Maybe I should just get one of these cheaper open air frame ones. Or are those terrible? It will see only infrequent use. There are very cheap open air frames targeting bitcoin miners that might work for this but also they don't look that great.

So my computer has an SSD drive which I have just use for Windows and utilities apps. Then a mechanical drive for all my gaming. I purchased a new SSD drive to have as an additional gaming drive. It's installed and running fine. But apparently not as fast as it could be.

For the motherboard I have is an Asus prime-z590-a. It comes with 3 slots for SSD drives (Slots A, B, and C). Slot A has my primary Windows SSD for the C: drive (Samsug 970 Evo). Slot C I have the new SSD in (Samsung 980 Pro).

When I checked the software for the updated firmware I noticed the software was suggesting using a PCIe 4.0 x4 mode slot for the 980 Pro. After looking at the motherboard spec I see that only Slot A supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode. Slots B and C only support PCIe 3.0 x4 mode.

It looks like there's a significant performance different between PCIe 3.0 and 4.0. The 970 Evo in Slot A doesn't support PCIe 4.0 features. But the 980 Pro does.

Can I like just swap the two SSD locations? With the older 970 Evo still be considered my primary/master Windows drive if its moved to Slot C and this other drive is now in Slot A?

I guess the other question is does it really make a difference? The tech specs for the drive show basically almost double read/write speeds so I'm guessing I probably want to make the swap if it doesn't impact anything.