PC Hardware Talk Megathread

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by RinkRat

I recently did a build on a Fractal Design Meshify C.

It has excellent airflow and all the connectivity you would want.

It's also a very pleasant case to build in.

Anything by Phanteks is pretty good as well as the Nzxt collection.

I may do a watercooled build inside a Phanteks Evolve X soon.

I did consider the Fractal Design Mesify C, but it only came in black which was very last decade. Ended up with an Nzxt myself.

[RinkRat]

I moved my old pc into a S340 Elite as well for my wife to be, I wanted to do the white as well but she vetoed it haha.

That cut out for the GPU power is something I sorely missed when building my own in the Phanteks P400S TG.

Between the Kraken, the GPU, and the Trident RGB ram, our systems look very similar, Cable mod extensions I assume?

[FlameOn]

Yep, white cablemods I got on sale. I want more of the Trident RGB but they are still fricking expensive. Waiting for the price to drop.

I am a bit worried about the Kraken, I've heard bad things about pump failures but this was way after I already put it in. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I also haven't found a good 140mm RGB fan that is Asus Aura capable, which is what I was running for the RGB strips and fan. Don't want another controller in there if I don't have to.

[RinkRat]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Yep, white cablemods I got on sale. I want more of the Trident RGB but they are still fricking expensive. Waiting for the price to drop.

I am a bit worried about the Kraken, I've heard bad things about pump failures but this was way after I already put it in. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I also haven't found a good 140mm RGB fan that is Asus Aura capable, which is what I was running for the RGB strips and fan. Don't want another controller in there if I don't have to.

So I've heard the same horrible things on pump failure for the kraken, and I can say of the 6 builds since the X62 came out that all krakens are still functioning as intended. My personal one had a pump error which was corrected by unplugging it from the USB header and back in.

But I do keep a closer eye on it than I do on the custom loop pumps.

I have 4 sticks of the Tridents but some of the newer kits from other vendors are enticing, Asus Aura isnt my favorite program to deal with.

[GoinAllTheWay]

OK, so this is what I think I'm going with.

As per PsYcNeT's suggestion...MOBO
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX68577

M.2 Samsung SSD Drive
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX72256

Phanteks Enthoo Case. First new one I've bought in years
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX65141

RAM - 16GB S.Skill Trident
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX63831

Processor: i5 8600 Unlocked 3.5GHz
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX68271

Already have a quality PS and graphics card. WIDE open to suggestions, especially on the RAM. Going to go with just air cooling for now. Will look at liquid cooling if/when I want to overclock that processor.

[RinkRat]

I can't speak to the motherboard as I'm not an MSI user but I've heard good things, but everything else is a solid pick, I have the RGB version of the ram sticks in my own build.

[BlAcKNoVa]

Recently did a major upgrade myself. I had a pretty old system I guess, bought most of the stuff back in 2012 or 2013, so I wasn't able to play much of anything that's come out recently at reasonable framerates.

Ended up going AMD and got a Ryzen 2700X and a Gaming 5 x470 mobo and grabbed 16 gigs of 3200 MHz ram. Had an RX 470 videocard in there I bought a couple years back but it just wasn't good enough anymore so upgraded that too and got a 1080 TI. Then my 9 year old 1080p Samsung monitor needed to be put to rest, so I grabbed a nice BenQ 1440p monitor a few days ago. Gaming on this new set up is freaking amazing. Even my uber modded Skyrim runs beautifully at 60 FPS everywhere @ 1440p.

The Ryzen 2700X is a beauty. Before I upgraded I use to edit my videos and then wait until bedtime to start rendering lol. Even websurfing was a chopfest at times while rendering. Not anymore though, it can handle rendering and gaming at the same time no issues. Really impressed with this CPU.

[Meelapo]

Is a Ryzen GPU coupled with a FreeSync monitor the equivalent of an Nvidia GPU coupled with a G-Sync monitor? Seems like there are more, and cheaper, monitor options going down the FreeSync route.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Meelapo

Is a Ryzen GPU coupled with a FreeSync monitor the equivalent of an Nvidia GPU coupled with a G-Sync monitor? Seems like there are more, and cheaper, monitor options going down the FreeSync route.

FreeSync works with any card and is about 85-90% as solid as Gsync. I say this as someone who owns both.

[Stealth22]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Memory Express has the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB on sale for $230 atm. The PRO version is $560. From what I can tell, the difference in performance isn't huge. Am I missing something or should I jump all over the EVO? That's a great price.

The Crucial MX500 version was $243 on Prime Day. Check the price history on PCPartPicker, but I'm pretty sure that's a good price.

The Evo drives are perfectly fine, I've never bought the Pro.

I do usually get the MX IPR on SSD's though. I've also read on Reddit that Samsung warranty service in Canada is pretty bad.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Memory Express has the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB on sale for $230 atm. The PRO version is $560. From what I can tell, the difference in performance isn't huge. Am I missing something or should I jump all over the EVO? That's a great price.

Only caveat is that the 860 Evo are limited to SATA3 maximum (~500 MB/s sequential read/write) even if you get the one in the M.2 form factor, unlike the 960/970 drives. But for an older system or for higher capacity at still good SSD speeds, it's a good deal.

[RinkRat]

Oh no, the Asus 2080ti strix has now been announced, here is the real test to my no pre-order policy.

[keratosis]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Only caveat is that the 860 Evo are limited to SATA3 maximum (~500 MB/s sequential read/write) even if you get the one in the M.2 form factor, unlike the 960/970 drives. But for an older system or for higher capacity at still good SSD speeds, it's a good deal.

It will still blow away pretty much any plater drive.

[codynw]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

FreeSync works with any card and is about 85-90% as solid as Gsync. I say this as someone who owns both.

Wait, I always thought FreeSync didn't work with Nvidia GPUs?

[RinkRat]

Originally Posted by codynw

Wait, I always thought FreeSync didn't work with Nvidia GPUs?

Yeah, the only way to engage freesync with Nvidia is to have a secondary amd GPU and also increases input lag.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Do you guys run dedicated sound cards? I always find the sound from MOBO's to be a bit flat? And this new rig has the faintest buzzing noise when I'm moving the mouse around, kinda weird.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Do you guys run dedicated sound cards? I always find the sound from MOBO's to be a bit flat? And this new rig has the faintest buzzing noise when I'm moving the mouse around, kinda weird.

I don't use a sound card, but an external DAC/Amp. Internal sound can be subject to interference. I have the Schiit Jotunheim. It'll drive good headphones and has a preamp for powered speakers.

[PsYcNeT]

Trump sucks so much PC hardware is getting ballooned prices as a result.

https://wccftech.com/exclusive-nvidi...-msrp-pc-cost/

NVIDIA’s RTX cards are going to be caught dead center in this tariff and all of its AIBs will be affected; therefore the natural price curve will no longer apply. Instead of the price going down with time, it is now very much a possibility that the cost might actually rise. This is because current pricing does not include the impact of the tariffs – that much I have confirmed. There is a lot of uncertainty regarding just how much the tariffs will hit pricing but for RTX, the estimates are an increase of $100-200 over market price. The tariff is supposed to go live on the 1st of October, 2018 in a few weeks time. Along with GPUs, other PC parts that ship from China will be impacted – which includes pretty much all components used in a standard build.

With the exception of Taiwanese parts (usually SSD/RAM components), looks like building a PC might get 10%-20% more expensive in the next few months.

Build now guys and gals.

[PsYcNeT]

Neat.

Received a Shipping Notice from Nvidia today for my RTX 2080 FE. Looks like on Priority shipping it ships out tomorrow and I will receive it Weds around noon.

Benchmarks coming early baby!

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Do you guys run dedicated sound cards? I always find the sound from MOBO's to be a bit flat? And this new rig has the faintest buzzing noise when I'm moving the mouse around, kinda weird.

I don't know what you mean by "the sound of a MOBO is flat"... sounds like placebo effect since these kind of electronics are fairly simple and decades matured, and you're probably not driving these things anywhere near the limits where you'd hear an issue.

But yes, some mobos will definitely develop noise which passes through to the audio outputs. It really depends on the shielding implementation. If I had to make a guess, you've got a power supply that's not operating to spec, but it's just that, a guess.

The best way to isolate that kind of noise is using good ol' optical cables to an external DAC as even USB and HDMI can carry UHF ringing (speaking from experience). If that's the route you wanna go, I strongly recommend looking into the stuff from JDS Labs (The OL DAC, for instance). Amazing bang for buck and built on sound engineering principles, not marketing voodoo.

All that said if you are looking for a true sound card, the Lynx AES16e is extremely powerful. Probably overkill, but then again I think soundcards are overkill in general in a non recording setting.