Help me build my PC 2017 Catch All

*Legion* wrote:

If anyone IS looking for dropping prices, though, the release of the RX 590 has pushed the RX 580 downward a bit.

NewEgg has multiple models selling for $199 (base, non-sale price), $50 less than the cheapest GTX 1060 6GB that the 580 directly competes against.

Better yet, the 4GB version is on sale at CDW for $143 (plus $15 for shipping, so $158, still cheap)

Anyone looking to play at 1080p (or 1440p@60) should look at RX 580s.

I just came here to ask about this exact model. The reviews are a little tepid but I think I’m gonna pull the trigger. I run a GTX 950 right now.

Thanks!

muraii wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

If anyone IS looking for dropping prices, though, the release of the RX 590 has pushed the RX 580 downward a bit.

NewEgg has multiple models selling for $199 (base, non-sale price), $50 less than the cheapest GTX 1060 6GB that the 580 directly competes against.

Better yet, the 4GB version is on sale at CDW for $143 (plus $15 for shipping, so $158, still cheap)

Anyone looking to play at 1080p (or 1440p@60) should look at RX 580s.

I just came here to ask about this exact model. The reviews are a little tepid but I think I’m gonna pull the trigger. I run a GTX 950 right now.

Thanks!

Which model, the 4GB one?

Reviews are probably grading it based on its MSRP. As a $150 card, it's a different story.

$150 can only get you a GTX 1050ti on the NVIDIA side, and there's absolutely no comparing a 1050ti with an RX 580. You're talking like a 40-60% performance difference.

Some Amazon reviews for this specific model seem to be complaining about a lack of cooling on the memory modules. You can get some heatsinks and thermal adhesive tape for like $10 to stick on them and still be sitting on a hell of a deal for a video card.

It'd be quite a big upgrade from a GTX 950, over 100% difference.

You guys are seriously breaking down my will to wait. My R9 270X sounds like a jet engine most of the time and barely keeps up with the rest of the system... And at least according to User Benchmarks, an RX 580 would be around a 92% increase.

*Legion* wrote:
muraii wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

If anyone IS looking for dropping prices, though, the release of the RX 590 has pushed the RX 580 downward a bit.

NewEgg has multiple models selling for $199 (base, non-sale price), $50 less than the cheapest GTX 1060 6GB that the 580 directly competes against.

Better yet, the 4GB version is on sale at CDW for $143 (plus $15 for shipping, so $158, still cheap)

Anyone looking to play at 1080p (or 1440p@60) should look at RX 580s.

I just came here to ask about this exact model. The reviews are a little tepid but I think I’m gonna pull the trigger. I run a GTX 950 right now.

Thanks!

Which model, the 4GB one?

The 8GB Gigabyte one you linked to. My partner had found that very card at that very link and shared it, and I came to inquire after doing some hunting and reading reviews. And you're hit the nail on the head: the specific review content I meant to indicate is the fan/cooling on the card. If it's easy enough to make better then I think it's an easy sell.

There's a number of 8GB RX 580s at the $199 price now at NewEgg, and now one at $189 as well.

I would probably consider either the Gigabyte I linked earlier, or the Red Devil PowerColor card, which comes with a higher default boost clock. (EDIT: Or if I could swing an extra $10, I would really consider the Sapphire NITRO+ version)

I'm fascinated by the $150 4GB one though. If anyone is trying to make the ultimate bang-for-the-buck rig, the Ryzen 2600 and that 4GB 580 would make a hell of a performance-per-dollar pairing.

PurEvil wrote:

You guys are seriously breaking down my will to wait. My R9 270X sounds like a jet engine most of the time and barely keeps up with the rest of the system... And at least according to User Benchmarks, an RX 580 would be around a 92% increase.

Yeah a 270X is about as bad as muraii's GTX 950. You're definitely looking at a generational jump in performance.

I know. It's the last component in my build that I haven't upgraded, simply due to cost. If I were working right now, and not about to move, I wouldn't even hesitate about it. I was hoping to push this card in this rig until... I guess around summer, but hot damn that's a hard deal to ignore. My plan was to save up and jump a bit higher, but... I might have to figure out the money to make this work now and let it be an early Xmas present to myself. It's even in the range of what I was going to spend on my wife.

*Legion* wrote:

There's a number of 8GB RX 580s at the $199 price now at NewEgg, and now one at $189 as well.

I would probably consider either the Gigabyte I linked earlier, or the Red Devil PowerColor card, which comes with a higher default boost clock. (EDIT: Or if I could swing an extra $10, I would really consider the Sapphire NITRO+ version)

I'm fascinated by the $150 4GB one though. If anyone is trying to make the ultimate bang-for-the-buck rig, the Ryzen 2600 and that 4GB 580 would make a hell of a performance-per-dollar pairing.

They’re comin’ in hot’n’heavy! Read reviews stating they’d wished they’d gotten a Nitro+ version but didn’t see it for a comparable price. ‘Lo!

This will be useful to people here: tiered rankings for power supply models.

*Legion* wrote:

Zotac selling refurb GTX 1060 6GB Minis for $119.

Wouldn't the GTX 1060 AMP! edition be worth the extra $7? I'd love to jump on this one right now, but only being able to pay through Paypal makes me a bit uneasy, and $21.34 shipping is a bit rough for me.

PurEvil wrote:

Wouldn't the GTX 1060 AMP! edition be worth the extra $7?

Yeah, it probably would, at least for anyone that doesn't have any GPU space constraints (the Mini obviously great for small form factor systems, or to retrofit one of those skinny case OEM systems).

I only saw the link to the Mini when browsing the deal lists.

With $25 shipping, it becomes a $150 card, and then you've got some debate between it and that 4GB RX 580. The extra VRAM on the 1060 is nice, but it also is a refurb card (90 day warranty) while the 580 is new. The 1060 runs cooler though.

Is there a particularly good place to find food GPU deals? I’m almost certainly picking up an RX 580 this weekend, either ordering or buying in-store. I’ll be haunting Amazon and Newegg.

Nggh. 15% off Asus PG279Q today. I want to jump in.
But then I also have to buy an overpriced GPU :/ Found a 10% cut on Asus Strix 2080, but that only brings it from ridiculous price to unreal price.

muraii wrote:

Is there a particularly good place to find food GPU deals?

GPUs are friends, not food.

Reddit's /r/buildapcsales is the first stop for finding sales.

Also good is nowinstock.

You can roast food on a GPU these days.

Shadout wrote:

You can roast food on a GPU these days.

The 2080Ti's in particular are great if you want to toast some marshmallows.

Not that this is a surprise, but Wal-Mart's gaming PC's are both wildly overpriced and Wal-Mart themselves are of course incompetent.

Steve from Gamers Nexus ordered the top end model, a $2100 system. They mistakenly sent him their $1400 model instead.

The $1400 one is a massive ripoff on its own. Every component that isn't the CPU or Videocard is ultra cheap absolute garbage. Not surprising, but in case anyone considers prebuilts again soonish, steer away from "Overpowered" at Wal-Mart.

Apologies in advance if this is an ignorant question.

I have a Ryzen 5 2600 3.4Ghz, stock cooler, not comfortable overclocking (as I already struggled enough installing that fan and I'm pretty certain I stripped some screws putting it in. Eep.). The research I did prior to building my PC indicated that this CPU would be slightly lower in raw single core performance than its Intel counterpart. I tend to multitask a lot, so no big deal, seemed good to me. No reported bottlenecks on a 1070ti, so I ordered it.

But every now and then, I play a game that seems to totally smash my CPU. Mechwarrior Online, Total War Warhammer, Hitman. Changing graphics settings has no effect on framerate, and these are, understandably, very CPU demanding.

So my question is, are these games just poorly coded and not taking advantage of multiple cores? Will this become less of a problem in a year or two? Or should I have opted for a better CPU in the first place? Just looking to understand where the weak link is I suppose.

(Also, just want to chime in that it's been a few months and the rig you guys helped me build is still going strong. I still look at it get all excited that I did it with my own two hands. It's a great feeling, everyone should build a PC! )

I think most games don't do multithreading, so single core performance is more critical. But dx 12 is supposed to remedy that.

Are you actively monitoring your CPU utilization while playing those games? None of them should be very taxing on your hardware.

I did a quick google search and hit on a few different sources that mentioned running the games with SMT off. And then there was this article that said leave it on, but:

Simultaneous multithreading, AMD’s equivalent to Intel’s Hyper-Threading, is a big part of what makes Ryzen so attractive. It lets your system utilize 16 threads rather than the eight physical cores alone. Tom’s Hardware and Gamers Nexus performed extensive testing with SMT both enabled and disabled (via the BIOS). Performance actually decreased slightly in a couple of scenarios, many games saw a very mild increase, and Total War: Warhammer and Ashes of the Singularity received major performance boosts.

If it were me, I'd disable it just to test it out a bit on the off chance that those few games just aren't utilizing SMT well.

Yeah Hitman should run pretty well on the 2600? It should at least be able to hover near and around 60fps, with some areas dropping to 50ish.

Unless the bottleneck is the videocard?

Techspot's graphs show the 2600 averaging over 100fps in Total War Warhammer at 1080p, even without overclocking.

But that's with a 1080 Ti.

I do monitor my CPU usage from time to time, but I honestly don't really know what I'm looking at. I did notice that the EDC section on Ryzen Master was maxing out and red, which seemed to change when I swapped over to the balanced power setting (just Windows default, can't seem to get Ryzen balanced despite downloading the latest drivers).

But, wow I tried Hitman in DX12 and what a huge difference! Crowded areas and open spaces used to produce 48-50FPS, that shot up to about 80FPS! Thanks for the tip!

I'll play around with SMT when I get time to play more Warhammer. Thanks guys!

A_Unicycle wrote:

can't seem to get Ryzen balanced despite downloading the latest drivers)

Ryzen-specific power profiles are obsolete, provided you are running an up-to-date Windows 10.

I am doing a budget build for my 13 year old nephew, anyone have any feedback on this one? I am trying to stay under $500 and here is what I have:

PC Part Picker link for approximate list

Ryzen 2400g
Gigabyte Auros Elite
Corsair Vengeance 2x4gb 2666
Samsung 860 Evo 250GB
Seasonic 620W bronze
Corsair 100R

Total at Microcenter was $496. My thinking is for now he can use the Vega graphics from the 2400g and then whenever he has the money or maybe for his birthday put in a graphics card. I have an extra spinning 2TB drive that I'll put in for secondary storage. I expect he'll put in a CD drive and at least another hard drive, so I wanted 600W+ power supply for plenty of headroom.

For the money it looks pretty solid, especially with you adding extra storage and planning for him to upgrade the GPU later.

I'm using that same case, and there's two 120mm fan slots on the top that look a bit silly if you don't put fans in. I didn't bother with it when I first built it, but having those slots empty got to me after a while. Otherwise I've been really happy with it.

Thanks Pur. I replaced the Aorus board with a MSI Tomahawk since it has better reviews and was like $8 more.

I think I have 2-3 extra Corsair fans sitting around and I will put some in there in addition to whatever the case comes with.

Looks nice. I promised my 6yo daughter I would help her build her own pc. This looks like a nice budget build that will do everything she needs. Yoink!!

Nice bighoppa! If you want a slightly smaller case the Corsair 88R is the same price but smaller and you’d need to find a mATX motherboard. I went with the bigger 100R because my nephew likes to tinker and he will have extra drive bays to play with.

I think the problem may arise with using the onboard graphics and only having 8GB of RAM. I would at least try another 4 but ideally 8 to get to 12-16GB.