Help me build my PC 2020 Catch All

So for the past few weeks I have been monitoring some Youtube streams and Discords that use bots to monitor stock levels for GPUs. Each time without fail when I get a ping for a quasi legit vendor like Amazon (not resellers but Amazon proper) or Best Buy, it's gone by the time I can click on it. Worse yet, I will often times get a follow up alert for the same GPU, now posted by reseller at a ridiculous markup. Bots fighting bots on the net!

Case in point, got a new alert for a straight 3060 card, price $1,200. I think MSRP is supposed to be $399?

This week I have noticed another trend. I get a hit for a GPU (Amazon) for an in-stock item but the "in stock" availability is two weeks out. Like I am going to drop any money on a maybe?

Sorry just came here to vent. The struggle continues.

If the seller is Amazon itself, and you can get the order in, go for it. They won't charge you until the thing ships out, so if you find it somewhere else first, you can cancel the Amazon order. I got in an Amazon order for a 5600x in mid-December, with expected delivery of mid-February. I wound up getting the CPU just after Christmas.

Generally, things sold by Amazon with a future delivery date will actually show up by then at the latest, if not sooner, so grab it if it's available. It's a low-risk move.

Heretk wrote:

This week I have noticed another trend. I get a hit for a GPU (Amazon) for an in-stock item but the "in stock" availability is two weeks out. Like I am going to drop any money on a maybe?

Chaz wrote:

If the seller is Amazon itself, and you can get the order in, go for it. They won't charge you until the thing ships out, so if you find it somewhere else first, you can cancel the Amazon order. I got in an Amazon order for a 5600x in mid-December, with expected delivery of mid-February. I wound up getting the CPU just after Christmas.

This. If it's from Amazon, pull the trigger. Those availability messages are often excessively conservative, and the item pops in stock much earlier.

I’ve pretty much given up on a GPU for now except for maybe checking Best Buy every couple of weeks.

*Legion* wrote:
Heretk wrote:

This week I have noticed another trend. I get a hit for a GPU (Amazon) for an in-stock item but the "in stock" availability is two weeks out. Like I am going to drop any money on a maybe?

Chaz wrote:

If the seller is Amazon itself, and you can get the order in, go for it. They won't charge you until the thing ships out, so if you find it somewhere else first, you can cancel the Amazon order. I got in an Amazon order for a 5600x in mid-December, with expected delivery of mid-February. I wound up getting the CPU just after Christmas.

This. If it's from Amazon, pull the trigger. Those availability messages are often excessively conservative, and the item pops in stock much earlier.

Thanks! I had not considered that.

gewy wrote:

I’ve pretty much given up on a GPU for now except for maybe checking Best Buy every couple of weeks.

Best Buy did a stock drop last Tuesday. All flavors of Nvidia and AMD. I was there for it, as the Discord following GPUs called it out. Fully prepped and ready to pounce I still did not get one and the stock was gone in about 10 minutes. To their credit, Best Buy pricing was pretty close to MSRP.

Heretk wrote:

To their credit, Best Buy pricing was pretty close to MSRP.

It's worth pointing out that some partner boards have had their MSRP increased following the Trump tariffs kicking in. NVIDIA hasn't moved the MSRP of the founder's edition, but board partners definitely have on their models.

*Legion* wrote:
Heretk wrote:

To their credit, Best Buy pricing was pretty close to MSRP.

It's worth pointing out that some partner boards have had their MSRP increased following the Trump tariffs kicking in. NVIDIA hasn't moved the MSRP of the founder's edition, but board partners definitely have on their models.

True. I think that is about 25% I can survive that. But not the 300 to 400% I am seeing from those #(*&#(*%& scalpers.

Heretk wrote:

True. I think that is about 25% I can survive that. But not the 300 to 400% I am seeing from those #(*&#(*%& scalpers.

I refuse on principle to purchase from scalpers. I'd initially hoped to replace my aging system with a Ryzen 5000/RTX 3000 system last fall. I'm now resigned to waiting for the next generation of parts and hope the supply is ahead of demand then.

So there have been leaks that the 6700xt sits between a 3060ti and a 3070 but is priced at either $479 or $499.
SMH if true. The gaming gpu industry is dead. Makes much more sense to get an xbox or ps5 at those prices.

There are no more bang for your buck gaming cards now. I guess it might be best to see if pre-builts discount them heavily or not.

fangblackbone wrote:

Makes much more sense to get an xbox or ps5 at those prices.

You can hardly buy those either. Sony Interactive CEO Jim Ryan said PS5 scarcity is likely to last into 2022. They're already concerned about their ability to meet demand this Christmas.

I keep a bunch of tabs open to 5900x retail pages, and I have Bulletin set to notify me, but it's been dead quiet.

peanut3141 wrote:

I refuse on principle to purchase from scalpers.

This is the majority of people, I believe. The demand for overpriced scalped cards will dry up long before the demand for MSRP cards does.

Jonman wrote:
peanut3141 wrote:

I refuse on principle to purchase from scalpers.

This is the majority of people, I believe. The demand for overpriced scalped cards will dry up long before the demand for MSRP cards does.

My principle is I can't afford scalper prices.

So while I wait for my new PC to ship (seems like an eternity..), I was able to get a better graphics card. I had a GTX 1070 in my current system and was able to trade for a Dell OEM RTX 2060 Super. One thing I've noticed though is that the fan is super loud. Is this normal for these cards?

How many fans does it have?

It's just a single fan.

Yeah those single fan OEM cards can be loud. Most (non-blower) 2060 Supers have dual fan coolers.

You can use something like Afterburner to play with the fan curve. The card might have an excessively aggressive one by default.

I don't really care as I play with headphones anyway, I just don't want it to burn up. My temps are around 35C while idle, but get up around 80C when playing a game and the fan is going wild.

Anandtech has an early review of the i7-11700k (Rocket Lake) up.

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but was shocked enough to stop after page two and post here: this supposedly-125W processor hits a peak of two hundred and ninety watts in Anand's AVX-512 test, with peaks around 225W in other code.

Intel isn't even pretending that the TDP number is in any way relevant anymore. That's supposed to be an engineering number, and instead has been taken over by marketers. That sh*t matters, because that tells you how to size your cooling system and power supply, and their blatant lies on this front are ridiculous. They've been bad about this for a long time, and got a big advantage over AMD by doing so. I was personally fooled, for instance, and used to beat up on AMD for their crazy-high TDPs.... when Intel processors were actually not that far from there, they were just lying about how much power their processors needed. I still feel like such an idiot for not having realized that they were simply lying about a number that's as important as it is.

It has now gone to the point of insanity... these new CPUs need almost triple their listed TDP in AVX-512 mode.

That is not okay.

(edit: I mean, AMD cheats some, as you can see on the bottom of the second page. The 5800X is a 105W processor that pulls 140W at peak. That's not okay either, but it's not insane.)

104 degC peak CPU temperature, wow. Is this going to spawn a market for water coolers with case-mounted cooking pots? Boil up some ramen while fragging enemies!

After reading the whole thing, it's a pretty meh processor. This was a 10nm design that they reworked into 14nm, since they can't make 10nm stuff reliably. They dropped two cores, but supposedly increased the IPC by 19%, so in theory it should be about a wash.

In reality, it only beats its predecessors when it can use AVX-512, which is still pretty rare. If that's all that's running, it's much faster than any other CPU you can buy. However, the chip can pull 290 watts while running an all-core AVX-512 workload(!), and 225 watts in more normal benchmarks, so you're paying through the nose in terms of power for the extra performance.

In most other synthetic benchmarks, it's slightly faster than the prior generation. In games, it's kind of a tossup, maybe slightly negative overall compared to the prior gen. And most of the time, the 5800X beats it, though often quite narrowly. I'd characterize the 5800X as a little faster most of the time, occasionally a little slower. The two chips are pretty competitive for performance, although the Anand articles don't show how much power is getting burned to do it.

I don't think I'd recommend the 11700 unless you're willing to buy a liquid cooler with a massive radiator. Honestly, I think most gamers would be better off with a 5600X; it should be cheaper, only a little slower most of the time, and it's an easy chip to cool, meaning you can buy something cheapish.

The 5600Xs aren't as easy to find, but their supply situation seems to be easing up. Newegg had both the 5800X and the 5600X available for most of a day last week. If you keep your eyes open and look around, sourcing one probably won't take that long. (The 5900X and 5950X are still quite scarce.)

AMD's TDP value at least has an actual meaning: it's supposedly the power draw of the peak *non-boosted* state, the P0 power state. Once you add boost in, that's how you get a 105W chip pulling 140W.

Intel, I don't even know what their TDP number is supposed to represent. Theirs seem completely pulled out of the air.

Intel: Where the TDP's are made up and the cooling doesn't matter.

Whose I9 is it anyway

I did see that Intel is probably going to be pricing this thing to move, possibly under $300, so the 5800X beating it at $450 is not that great. However, the massive cooling system you'll need is likely to offset that price delta somewhat, and of course the ongoing run costs will be higher, both to power the chip and then to cool the room it's in. The 5800X needs a big cooler, too, but it looks like the 11700K would really be best with a custom loop and a massive external radiator.

Can any of the AIOs shed 300W? Even 225W seems like you'd want a 360mm cooler, and that might not be enough.

I wish coolers were rated on watts cooled at a given temp, instead of just being guesswork.

So my buddy gave me his old falcon NW 09. I had a few old parts to put in it. I felt like I was defacing a decent painting for my even worse painting. I got it to boot. It had an I7 920, Nvidia 520, 10 gigs of ram and a 1000 wat PSU. Now a decent 2012 system with an my old i5 6600k, 32 gigs, and Nvidia 970. I hope my coworker wants it. It had a FireWire connection which I tore that out as fast as I could and kept the giant light tube and the light up Falcon NW logo.

I kept the Intel I7 for fun.

Recycled the rest.

The kilowatt PSU would probably be worth keeping.

I still have one of those old 920s working as a server here; it's horribly old and full of hardware bugs, but running Linux, it's still a capable machine.

And, sadly, my main GPU is still a 970. I'd have replaced it months ago except, well, you know. I remain very impressed at how strong a card it is, considering how old it is. (2014). It's really meant for 1080p, but it runs Valheim at ~30fps with all the shinies at 1440p. Obviously, I'd prefer something faster, but this thing is hanging in there surprisingly well.

*Legion* wrote:

AMD's TDP value at least has an actual meaning: it's supposedly the power draw of the peak *non-boosted* state, the P0 power state. Once you add boost in, that's how you get a 105W chip pulling 140W.

Intel, I don't even know what their TDP number is supposed to represent. Theirs seem completely pulled out of the air.

They claim it's how much the chip puts out running a 'representative workload'.... but the chosen workload changes per-chip to make the marketing number. It has no meaning whatsoever.

Thoughts on this build? I already have a case, 800w PSU, and I'm on a number of graphics card waitlists, so I'll be running my GTX1080 temporarily until I can order something new.

Anything jumping out as a bad idea, or incompatible? Haven't done a new build in 6 years...

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/SsCShb3s/Untitled.png)