Yeah building a simple PC is pretty straight forward, especially if you get MemEx to do the hardest part of mounting the cooler and CPU.
Not sure about MemEx's value in their pre-built computers, might be worth doing a comparison of what they offer for a given $ and what you can custom build.
But the first question is what is the approx budget? Are you starting from scratch (i.e. need a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc)?
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Considering this build, but couple questions I'd love everyone's input on...
1. Recommend me a motherboard that'll work in this configuration with the nano case? I could always switch to a Fractal Compact but I just like the nano.
2. Which of the two RAM sets there should I go with? This may be linked to question 1... going to DDR5 seems like a good idea when it's on sale like that but the Caster set does seem to get really good press so I'm thinking it might be worth the extra dough.
3. I thought about going to 3080 on this, but it's just... it's 400 bucks more than this at minimum and I just don't see it giving me anywhere near 40% better results.
EDIT: Three configurations I could go with...
Cheaper build
Spoiler!
Medium build
Spoiler!
Fancy build
Spoiler!
(Note: I already have the 1TB 980 pro NVME so the HDD storage is extra.)
Everything looks solid from my perspective, though I'm not a huge fan of EVGA PSUs if you can get a Seasonic/Corsair or even MSI for a similar price. Keep in mind PSU efficiency ratings are not necessarily indicative of their quality.
As far as motherboards go, the $285 ASUS jobbie is pretty costly for features I'm not sure you require on an intermediate system. What specific features do you need in a motherboard (eg. wifi, ram slots, PCIe x1 slots, VRM coolers, etc.)
I have no experience with the EVGA AiO, but I will never not recommend people just get the Arctic Liquid Frzr II instead of literally any other cooler, unless you really like LEDS and bling.
So... is now the time to build something? 3080s seem to be around 1K, 3070s less than that? Ryzen 9 5900x $500 , or Ryzen 7 5800x $350? Seems borderline reasonable for the moment, I feel like everyone is waiting for the 4000 series stuff.
I didn't wait. I've built 3 computers this year. Grabbed a couple 3080s (strix and aurous extreme) and a strix 3090. Also some 5900x's
I chose not to wait because Rtx 4000 and amd 7000 is going to be expensive and power hungry . Nothing under
4080 mostlikely won't see a release date for at least a 6 month to a year anyways ,that is usually the trend .
Recommendations are already made yo have a 1000w min psu. For 4070 down and 1200 watts for 4080 and up. That's nuts. My whole system with custom loop,a 3090, 5900x, 12 noctua fans only needs a 850 with tons of head room left
Even amd zen 4 is upping the power draw. The net gen is getting way to power hungry for my tastes. If out of the box you need to start with exotic cooling you've lost the script.
I custom water loop everything but even that dosent really cool the latest 12th gen from Intel. I can't imagine the heat being expelled from a 4000 series with any of the next gen cups. My computer already raises the room temp 3 to 4 degrees as is and it's a big room
I have both a 3080 and 3080 Ti and I'll say the 3080 Ti is much better at 4K, esp if you like to pump details. The extra VRAM overhead helps a tad as well.
The 3080 rev. 2 also has 12gb vram . The extra cudas are what really help it out .
Yeah building a simple PC is pretty straight forward, especially if you get MemEx to do the hardest part of mounting the cooler and CPU.
Not sure about MemEx's value in their pre-built computers, might be worth doing a comparison of what they offer for a given $ and what you can custom build.
But the first question is what is the approx budget? Are you starting from scratch (i.e. need a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc)?
Generally you're paying 300-400 for the pleasure of getting their pre-built.
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Everything looks solid from my perspective, though I'm not a huge fan of EVGA PSUs if you can get a Seasonic/Corsair or even MSI for a similar price. Keep in mind PSU efficiency ratings are not necessarily indicative of their quality.
Good tip... I don't really have any idea about what a good or bad PSU is at this point, I'm just trying to determine what the capacity I need is to start with.
Quote:
As far as motherboards go, the $285 ASUS jobbie is pretty costly for features I'm not sure you require on an intermediate system. What specific features do you need in a motherboard (eg. wifi, ram slots, PCIe x1 slots, VRM coolers, etc.)
Yeah, it seems like part of the cost associated with the DDR5 ram is just finding a mobo that supports it, especially in a mini ITX build.
Quote:
I have no experience with the EVGA AiO, but I will never not recommend people just get the Arctic Liquid Frzr II instead of literally any other cooler, unless you really like LEDS and bling.
Again, thanks.
I'm revising below to fit into a smaller case (yes this is possibly dumb but I'm okay with being a bit dumb). I've taken your advice on the PSU and cooler here, but I might have to backtrack on the cooler given the size of it (the rad is 317mm long which might not quite fit).
Notes: the PSU is actually 154 on Amazon so I'll just price match that, so shave of 50 bucks, and as noted I already have the 980 pro that was 150 on prime day, so another 50 off there. The case has a front hot-swap 2.5" bay that I have a couple of old drives I can use to start until I find a really good one for the main non-NVME storage... I might wait a bit to buy the GPU to see if they drop more in a couple of weeks. So I might be able to do all of the above for about 2300 which seems to me quite reasonable.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 07-18-2022 at 01:11 PM.
I custom water loop everything but even that dosent really cool the latest 12th gen from Intel. I can't imagine the heat being expelled from a 4000 series with any of the next gen cups. My computer already raises the room temp 3 to 4 degrees as is and it's a big room
There may be an issue with poor design with intel cpu frame retention. 3rd party solution may be required.
Good tip... I don't really have any idea about what a good or bad PSU is at this point, I'm just trying to determine what the capacity I need is to start with.
Yeah, it seems like part of the cost associated with the DDR5 ram is just finding a mobo that supports it, especially in a mini ITX build.
Again, thanks.
I'm revising below to fit into a smaller case (yes this is possibly dumb but I'm okay with being a bit dumb). I've taken your advice on the PSU and cooler. The cooler's way more expensive than the one I was looking at but also appears to be much shorter for a 280 so it should make for an easier fit in what will ultimately be quite a tight case.
Notes: the PSU is actually 154 on Amazon so I'll just price match that, so shave of 50 bucks, and as noted I already have the 980 pro that was 150 on prime day, so another 50 off there. The case has a front hot-swap 2.5" bay that I have a couple of old drives I can use to start until I find a really good one for the main non-NVME storage... I might wait a bit to buy the GPU to see if they drop more in a couple of weeks. So I might be able to do all of the above for about 2300 which seems to me quite reasonable.
Ah I'm feeling you on the DDR5 now; yeah your selection might be a bit limited then.
Ah I'm feeling you on the DDR5 now; yeah your selection might be a bit limited then.
Well the revised version I just did steps it back down to DDR4, which saves me about $100 in Mobo and way, way more than that in terms of the ram cost (also backed it down to 16gb which seems... fine.) I can upgrade that later and I'd be out $250 bucks less whatever I can recoup, I guess.
As long as it's got those Japanese Caps, you're golden.
Yeah, but that one's ATX and the issue there is that if I put an ATX PSU into that case I lose the ability to do a 240 or 280 AIO at the top, which to me seems absolutely necessary if I'm going to have a 3080 in there.
The case accepts a 120mm fan right under the PSU which I will no doubt do (in fact I've just added that to my cart), and there's at least some venting with the half-mesh design of the thing but it's just so small that I think I need to stick with an SFX power supply to give myself the extra headroom for cooling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PsYcNeT
Generally you're paying 300-400 for the pleasure of getting their pre-built.
I've never done this as I feel like building the thing yourself is part of the whole experience, but my understanding is that with Memex you can just get them to build your PC for you by adding on a $75 fee ($100 with the OS install) which seems pretty reasonable.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 07-18-2022 at 01:24 PM.
Yeah building a simple PC is pretty straight forward, especially if you get MemEx to do the hardest part of mounting the cooler and CPU.
Not sure about MemEx's value in their pre-built computers, might be worth doing a comparison of what they offer for a given $ and what you can custom build.
But the first question is what is the approx budget? Are you starting from scratch (i.e. need a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc)?
Looking at spending around $1000-$1200 for the computer, excluding monitor, keyboard, mouse etc
This is where I started.. Not sure about that motherboard, but the cheapest B550 on MemEx is $179 so that board seems like a pretty good deal.
Went with a 750W power supply for future upgrades, but could maybe save a bit there. Same with the case I chose something that looks kinda nice but could save some there too. Only a 500GB SSD, could spend a bit more for a 1TB
Video card I'm not actually sure what's good for a budget system at (I'm assuming) 1080p, a 6600 or 3050 level? 3060 would be up over $500.
Could also add a CPU cooler tower for $50ish, the 5600 comes with one but I don't know how loud it is.
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Well the revised version I just did steps it back down to DDR4, which saves me about $100 in Mobo and way, way more than that in terms of the ram cost (also backed it down to 16gb which seems... fine.) I can upgrade that later and I'd be out $250 bucks less whatever I can recoup, I guess.
Yeah, but that one's ATX and the issue there is that if I put an ATX PSU into that case I lose the ability to do a 240 or 280 AIO at the top, which to me seems absolutely necessary if I'm going to have a 3080 in there.
The case accepts a 120mm fan right under the PSU which I will no doubt do (in fact I've just added that to my cart), and there's at least some venting with the half-mesh design of the thing but it's just so small that I think I need to stick with an SFX power supply to give myself the extra headroom for cooling.
I've never done this as I feel like building the thing yourself is part of the whole experience, but my understanding is that with Memex you can just get them to build your PC for you by adding on a $75 fee ($100 with the OS install) which seems pretty reasonable.
All fair points; I've only built one mITX in my life so I'll defer.
Yeah the "pre-builts" are overpriced, but the build service isn't too bad. Of course, you then get to miss out on Adult Lego-ing but I understand why that's not everyone's cup of tea.
The last few machines I've gotten have been MemEx builds (after picking the desired parts) and I'm more than happy to pay for the service. Having somebody else deal with issues and avoiding my own probable #### ups is worth it for me. There may or may not have been a bent CPU pin from personal experience in the past when I've done it.
I can swap stuff and add stuff after the fact but the OS and initial build - I'm okay being hands off.
The last few machines I've gotten have been MemEx builds (after picking the desired parts) and I'm more than happy to pay for the service. Having somebody else deal with issues and avoiding my own probable #### ups is worth it for me. There may or may not have been a bent CPU pin from personal experience in the past when I've done it.
Having them do the CPU mount makes sense given that risk... other than that though, especially for something finicky like a mini ITX, I need to be able to be pretty picky about what goes where and where cabling gets tucked, etc. I'm sure the Memex guys do a perfectly competent build but I kind of doubt that they're taking the extra hour to manage everything optimally. Especially putting a 280 in the thing, which is, shall we say, pushing it.
Anyway, I got the case and PSU. Still mulling over the other stuff and looking for a cheap EVGA FTW 3080 which seems to be the ideal card here. I might go to a 12700K, use the on board graphics initially, and wait for the EVGA card to hit rock bottom. I was also considering going Ryzen as the 5900x is about the same price, but based on my research it runs somewhat hotter, and that's a no from me in this case, dawg.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Anyway, I got the case and PSU. Still mulling over the other stuff and looking for a cheap EVGA FTW 3080 which seems to be the ideal card here. I might go to a 12700K, use the on board graphics initially, and wait for the EVGA card to hit rock bottom. I was also considering going Ryzen as the 5900x is about the same price, but based on my research it runs somewhat hotter, and that's a no from me in this case, dawg.
Is that PSU going to be high enough wattage? I'm looking at similar build but with a 3070ti and 12600K and some sites are saying I need between 800 - 1000W to run it.
Seems like massive overkill for your setup... I think 750w is on the low end of acceptable for a 3080 / i7, but it should still be adequate. I was however considering swapping for the coolermaster 850 watt one because I took a look at the cabling for this Corsair one and it seems to be a bit of a nightmare to work with for cable management.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
