[SOLVED] New build advice

Ineedanewusername4561

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Jun 1, 2008
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My computer is starting to really show its age and run rather slow/having performance issues running the latest software so I am thinking about putting together a new system but not sure where to even start with the components. I put this together 7 years ago and never updated it other than adding RAM so I think I have gotten a damn good run out of it but I just have not been paying enough attention to where hardware has been going since then.

Just to start off what I currently have is:
MB: MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1150 88W BX80646I74790K Desktop
Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600

Ram: Patriot 16GB(2x8GB) Viper III DDR3 1600MHz (PC3 12800) CL9 Desktop Memory (bought a year ago)

Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (RR-212E-20PK-R2)

Video Card: GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290 DirectX 11.2 GV-R929OC-4GD 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card

HDD: Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive + 2 other storage HDDs

PSU: Corsair CX Series 750 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified Non-Modular Power Supply

Case: Graphite Series™ 760T Full-Tower Windowed Case

Monitor: HP Pavilion 27xi 27-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor


I really like my case so I would certainly prefer reusing it rather than dropping cash on another one as they are pricey as heck for that particular style. I do need new case fans across the system. They are beginning to fail, starting with the fans on my graphics card unfortunately. The PSU is still running strong so I plan on reusing it as it should have enough power in addition to the HDDs. I do not find the performance differences in SDD drives to really be worth it and my HDDs are not experiencing any issues at all. There is noting to serious saved on them either so even a catastrophic failure would not be particularly difficult to restore should the absolute worst occur. Loading times are not really a concern for me as much as performance. Don't think I need monitor, keyboard, mouse and other misc items either unless there is some reason that a monitor will make a huge difference from what I am getting now. I don't think anything else can be salvaged.

The primary use for the computer is gaming of all types. Typically I try and stay around the 1200 price range unless there is significant gains beyond that or significant savings below without to much loss in performance. That usually includes case/psu/hdd so I was hoping I could come out a little under that anyway. I also have an optical drive on my current machine but really do not have any plans of porting that over considering I have not used it in something like 5 years. I also need a windows key but do not include that in the price of the build itself.

Finally, the last 3 builds have proven to me that I am highly unlikely to overclock my system. I guess I technically overclocked this one because my motherboard does it for me with a single button but it certainly did not overclock past the most basics. If it were that simple to do again I would do it but I just know that once I have it up and running I am very unlikely to go through the rigamarole that a true overclock would require.

Of note, I mostly use Amazon and Newegg for my PC purchases but have no particular angst against using other vendors and normally go with whoever PC Part Picker tells me has the best price atm. Located in Washington State, Seattle area.

Does anyone have any ideas on a solid gaming rig with the above considerations? Should I even bother with an after market cooler considering I do not seem to overclock like I plan on anyway or is there a worthwhile solution like I have now where my MB simply does the heavy lifting for me and all I have to do is tell it to overclock my system? As always, I thank anyone for any input they may have.

Edit: also timing is not a huge issue. If I should wait because the current issues with graphics cards then I will but am unsure how much or even if the market is still rather poor for purchasing them: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/terrible-time-to-buy-gpu-late-2020
 
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Solution
I really like my case so I would certainly prefer reusing it rather than dropping cash on another one as they are pricey as heck for that particular style. I do need new case fans across the system. They are beginning to fail, starting with the fans on my graphics card unfortunately. The PSU is still running strong so I plan on reusing it as it should have enough power in addition to the HDDs. I do not find the performance differences in SDD drives to really be worth it and my HDDs are not experiencing any issues at all. There is noting to serious saved on them either so even a catastrophic failure would not be particularly difficult to restore should the absolute worst occur. Loading times are not really a concern for me as...

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
I really like my case so I would certainly prefer reusing it rather than dropping cash on another one as they are pricey as heck for that particular style. I do need new case fans across the system. They are beginning to fail, starting with the fans on my graphics card unfortunately. The PSU is still running strong so I plan on reusing it as it should have enough power in addition to the HDDs. I do not find the performance differences in SDD drives to really be worth it and my HDDs are not experiencing any issues at all. There is noting to serious saved on them either so even a catastrophic failure would not be particularly difficult to restore should the absolute worst occur. Loading times are not really a concern for me as much as performance. Don't think I need monitor, keyboard, mouse and other misc items either unless there is some reason that a monitor will make a huge difference from what I am getting now. I don't think anything else can be salvaged.

You can definitely reuse your case, I do so all the time. The PSU however is a different story. Depending on what the age of your PSU is, you might want to start looking at replacements. Even the best PSUs have a limited shelf life. If you get one that lasts longer than 5 years, consider yourself lucky,

But storage too - SSDs and M2 drives have improved in performance and reliability over the last few years. I won't build a new system without at least a boot drive as the primary. You can reuse those drives as secondaries. But you don't want to bog down a new motherboard and CPU with such old storage drives, that will be a major bottleneck for Windows and applications. Plus too for loading the OS, you can do it in 5 minutes on an M2 drive, where it would take 5 hours on a mechanical HD. You can also throw those mechanical HDs into a USB enclosure and use them externally.

The primary use for the computer is gaming of all types. Typically I try and stay around the 1200 price range unless there is significant gains beyond that or significant savings below without to much loss in performance. That usually includes case/psu/hdd so I was hoping I could come out a little under that anyway. I also have an optical drive on my current machine but really do not have any plans of porting that over considering I have not used it in something like 5 years. I also need a windows key but do not include that in the price of the build itself.

Optical drives are no longer a necessity. Pretty much everything - games included - are now streaming. You can certainly reuse your optical drive, just make sure that you have the SATA ports for it.

Does anyone have any ideas on a solid gaming rig with the above considerations? Should I even bother with an after market cooler considering I do not seem to overclock like I plan on anyway or is there a worthwhile solution like I have now where my MB simply does the heavy lifting for me and all I have to do is tell it to overclock my system? As always, I thank anyone for any input they may have.

Depends. I usually consider an aftermarket cooler a wise investment because they're generally better than the stock fans. Going AMD you usually get a relatively decent stock cooler.

As far as a build goes I would try something like this. Only bad thing is GPUs are impossible to come by right now, as are high end AMD CPUs.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($199.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Slim CPU Cooler ($64.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard ($184.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($129.13 @ MemoryC)
Storage: Intel 665p 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($103.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB XC3 ULTRA GAMING Video Card ($499.99)
Total: $1183.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-11 17:54 EST-0500
 
Solution
My computer is starting to really show its age and run rather slow/having performance issues running the latest software so I am thinking about putting together a new system but not sure where to even start with the components. I put this together 7 years ago and never updated it other than adding RAM so I think I have gotten a damn good run out of it but I just have not been paying enough attention to where hardware has been going since then.

Just to start off what I currently have is:
MB: MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1150 88W BX80646I74790K Desktop
Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600

Ram: Patriot 16GB(2x8GB) Viper III DDR3 1600MHz (PC3 12800) CL9 Desktop Memory (bought a year ago)

Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (RR-212E-20PK-R2)

Video Card: GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290 DirectX 11.2 GV-R929OC-4GD 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card

HDD: Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive + 2 other storage HDDs

PSU: Corsair CX Series 750 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified Non-Modular Power Supply

Case: Graphite Series™ 760T Full-Tower Windowed Case

Monitor: HP Pavilion 27xi 27-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor


I really like my case so I would certainly prefer reusing it rather than dropping cash on another one as they are pricey as heck for that particular style. I do need new case fans across the system. They are beginning to fail, starting with the fans on my graphics card unfortunately. The PSU is still running strong so I plan on reusing it as it should have enough power in addition to the HDDs. I do not find the performance differences in SDD drives to really be worth it and my HDDs are not experiencing any issues at all. There is noting to serious saved on them either so even a catastrophic failure would not be particularly difficult to restore should the absolute worst occur. Loading times are not really a concern for me as much as performance. Don't think I need monitor, keyboard, mouse and other misc items either unless there is some reason that a monitor will make a huge difference from what I am getting now. I don't think anything else can be salvaged.

The primary use for the computer is gaming of all types. Typically I try and stay around the 1200 price range unless there is significant gains beyond that or significant savings below without to much loss in performance. That usually includes case/psu/hdd so I was hoping I could come out a little under that anyway. I also have an optical drive on my current machine but really do not have any plans of porting that over considering I have not used it in something like 5 years. I also need a windows key but do not include that in the price of the build itself.

Finally, the last 3 builds have proven to me that I am highly unlikely to overclock my system. I guess I technically overclocked this one because my motherboard does it for me with a single button but it certainly did not overclock past the most basics. If it were that simple to do again I would do it but I just know that once I have it up and running I am very unlikely to go through the rigamarole that a true overclock would require.

Of note, I mostly use Amazon and Newegg for my PC purchases but have no particular angst against using other vendors and normally go with whoever PC Part Picker tells me has the best price atm. Located in Washington State, Seattle area.

Does anyone have any ideas on a solid gaming rig with the above considerations? Should I even bother with an after market cooler considering I do not seem to overclock like I plan on anyway or is there a worthwhile solution like I have now where my MB simply does the heavy lifting for me and all I have to do is tell it to overclock my system? As always, I thank anyone for any input they may have.

Edit: also timing is not a huge issue. If I should wait because the current issues with graphics cards then I will but am unsure how much or even if the market is still rather poor for purchasing them: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/terrible-time-to-buy-gpu-late-2020
Here's a copy & paste of a build I posted a few days ago.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813157923
ASRock Z490 Pro4 LGA 1200 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard $129.99 Sale Ends in 2 Days (Mon) - Save: $40.00 (24%)

https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-10400f-core-i5-10th-gen/p/N82E16819118132
Intel Core i5-10400F 6-Core 2.9 GHz LGA 1200 $166.00

https://www.newegg.com/ballistix-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820164176
Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 16GB (8GBx2) CL16 $74.99

https://www.newegg.com/intel-665p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167469
Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 3D3, QLC Internal SSD $94.99

Total: $465

1080P


650w psu to run this card.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia...-card-steel-and-black/6439402.p?skuId=6439402
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 $399.99

1440

750w psu to run this one.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia...rk-platinum-and-black/6429442.p?skuId=6429442
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 $499.99

 

Ineedanewusername4561

Distinguished
Jun 1, 2008
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You can definitely reuse your case, I do so all the time. The PSU however is a different story. Depending on what the age of your PSU is, you might want to start looking at replacements. Even the best PSUs have a limited shelf life. If you get one that lasts longer than 5 years, consider yourself lucky,

But storage too - SSDs and M2 drives have improved in performance and reliability over the last few years. I won't build a new system without at least a boot drive as the primary. You can reuse those drives as secondaries. But you don't want to bog down a new motherboard and CPU with such old storage drives, that will be a major bottleneck for Windows and applications. Plus too for loading the OS, you can do it in 5 minutes on an M2 drive, where it would take 5 hours on a mechanical HD. You can also throw those mechanical HDs into a USB enclosure and use them externally.



Optical drives are no longer a necessity. Pretty much everything - games included - are now streaming. You can certainly reuse your optical drive, just make sure that you have the SATA ports for it.



Depends. I usually consider an aftermarket cooler a wise investment because they're generally better than the stock fans. Going AMD you usually get a relatively decent stock cooler.

As far as a build goes I would try something like this. Only bad thing is GPUs are impossible to come by right now, as are high end AMD CPUs.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($199.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Slim CPU Cooler ($64.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard ($184.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($129.13 @ MemoryC)
Storage: Intel 665p 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($103.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB XC3 ULTRA GAMING Video Card ($499.99)
Total: $1183.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-11 17:54 EST-0500
You might sell me on going for a SSD finally. I have never had a power unit go bad on me before actually so I have been rather lucky then. With that included that is right at the bleeding edge of my price point.

I do see what you are talking about as far as graphics cards being out of stock: that one is out everywhere except Amazon if I was willing to spend 1,000 for it rather than the 500 it should be closer to. As I said though, time is not pressing so I do not mind waiting a bit to ensure I get a decent price and for it to restock. As has always been the case, there are a dozen different places selling the card under various names (though all are sold out) with the only real difference I can see is the cooling system. As a side question, does it really matter if you pick up the Gigabyte, PNY, MSI or other random company version that sells them other than those individual company policies/reliability?

If I need to replace the psu I may as well go with essentially the same thing I have as corsair has not let me down in several builds and comes in just under $100:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RG...onze-certified-atx-power-supply-cp-9020123-na

Is 750 sufficient?

Finally, I was considering going with more memory as that was a serious bottleneck for my current system before I upgraded it. Is 16 still sufficient these days? One of the gripes I have with most after market coolers is they have blocked 2 of my memory slots in the past. Last time I tried to remove the heat shield off one of my sticks it turned out badly for the stick - it was more attached to the cooler than it was to the stick.
 
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You might sell me on going for a SSD finally. I have never had a power unit go bad on me before actually so I have been rather lucky then. With that included that is right at the bleeding edge of my price point.

I do see what you are talking about as far as graphics cards being out of stock: that one is out everywhere except Amazon if I was willing to spend 1,000 for it rather than the 500 it should be closer to. As I said though, time is not pressing so I do not mind waiting a bit to ensure I get a decent price and for it to restock. As has always been the case, there are a dozen different places selling the card under various names (though all are sold out) with the only real difference I can see is the cooling system. As a side question, does it really matter if you pick up the Gigabyte, PNY, MSI or other random company version that sells them other than those individual company policies/reliability?

If I need to replace the psu I may as well go with essentially the same thing I have as corsair has not let me down in several builds and comes in just under $100:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RG...onze-certified-atx-power-supply-cp-9020123-na

Is 750 sufficient?

Finally, I was considering going with more memory as that was a serious bottleneck for my current system before I upgraded it. Is 16 still sufficient these days? One of the gripes I have with most after market coolers is they have blocked 2 of my memory slots in the past. Last time I tried to remove the heat shield off one of my sticks it turned out badly for the stick - it was more attached to the cooler than it was to the stick.
If you're gaming on 1080P then an RTX 3060 Ti is the way to go and the psu for that card would be a 650w. If you're gaming on 1440 then you want an RTX 3070 powered by a 750w psu. Those cards though are going for outrageous prices atm due to lack of availability. As far as RAM slots being covered up .. go with RAM that has low profile heatspreaders such as the Crucial memory I posted in that build up above.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3AMz-xZ2VM
 
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Ineedanewusername4561

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Probably going to be on 1080P most of the time considering the monitor I currently have. I will likely use this build for over 5 years though so it is a possibility that I will be upgrading. For 10 bucks the extra headroom does not cost much. Starting with the better cards will come down to what the price difference is when they come back in stock more than likely.


Perused some YouTube videos on 16gb vs 32 and it does seem like 32 does not get you anything atm and the ease of upgrading memory in the future means there is not much need to get it now. I will keep an eye on the heat spreaders - for the life of me I cannot understand why some come with those massive spreaders that get in the way of CPU coolers - I have never seen anyone complaining their memory was getting to hot.

I do realize the load times are better on SSD drives. Just never really seen load times as an issue. If I wait 1 min more at the start of something I am spending the next 3+ hours doing it is an extremely minute difference. My computer is rarely turned off so booting up is also mostly irrelevant. My larger concern is actual in game performance and if that is adversely effected the choice becomes obvious. Not so much if it is not though it may be quite convenient.

The largest thing a new SSD really has going for it in my specific case though is that it is an upgrade I will never make to a complete machine as the process of reinstalling everything would turn me off to any drive update outside of simply expanding storage capacity. As I have 6TB in HDD in my system, that is not going to happen any time soon. Upgrading now does make the most sense.

Again, thank you for the replies so far and appreciate any other advice or anyone else that wants to offer possible builds/addendums to what has already been posted.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
Probably going to be on 1080P most of the time considering the monitor I currently have. I will likely use this build for over 5 years though so it is a possibility that I will be upgrading. For 10 bucks the extra headroom does not cost much. Starting with the better cards will come down to what the price difference is when they come back in stock more than likely.

Then I wouldn't spend hundreds on a GPU. If 1080P is all you are going for then I wouldn't worry about getting anything above a 3060TI. Even a 1660TI or 5600X would be all you would need.

Perused some YouTube videos on 16gb vs 32 and it does seem like 32 does not get you anything atm and the ease of upgrading memory in the future means there is not much need to get it now. I will keep an eye on the heat spreaders - for the life of me I cannot understand why some come with those massive spreaders that get in the way of CPU coolers - I have never seen anyone complaining their memory was getting to hot.

RAM usually doesn't get hot. But as far as 16GB vs 32GB keep in mind that any time you buy RAM it has to be a matched set, because RAM manufacturers change part numbers and use different components all the time, so what may seem like two matching modules won't be the same as what you put in your system.

I do realize the load times are better on SSD drives. Just never really seen load times as an issue. If I wait 1 min more at the start of something I am spending the next 3+ hours doing it is an extremely minute difference. My computer is rarely turned off so booting up is also mostly irrelevant. My larger concern is actual in game performance and if that is adversely effected the choice becomes obvious. Not so much if it is not though it may be quite convenient.

Even if you just get an SSD as your primary boot drive, it will speed things up significantly. The last thing you want to do is bog down a new system with old technology. I have worked on some systems that have had decent hardware but working on mechanical HDs is unbearable because of how slow they are. Especially when you start applying Windows updates. What would take 5 minutes to do on a SSD / M2 drive would take two hours on a mechanical HD.

The largest thing a new SSD really has going for it in my specific case though is that it is an upgrade I will never make to a complete machine as the process of reinstalling everything would turn me off to any drive update outside of simply expanding storage capacity. As I have 6TB in HDD in my system, that is not going to happen any time soon. Upgrading now does make the most sense.

That is simply not true. When you build your new machine you will have to reinstall Windows anyways. Your existing install won't carry over to the new machine, so you will have to reinstall those programs anyways. And think about what I said when you start applying updates, because that will get really frustrating really quickly. Get a 1TB M2 drive for your primary since those are really inexpensive right now (the Intel 660P runs about ~$100) and that will erase most of the headaches. On an M2 drive you can install and boot into Windows in a matter of literally 5 minutes from the time you start the install to the time you finish. On a mechanical HD, that process can easily take 4 hours or more. You can always use your existing drives as secondary storage.
 
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Ineedanewusername4561

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That is simply not true. When you build your new machine you will have to reinstall Windows anyways. Your existing install won't carry over to the new machine, so you will have to reinstall those programs anyways. And think about what I said when you start applying updates, because that will get really frustrating really quickly. Get a 1TB M2 drive for your primary since those are really inexpensive right now (the Intel 660P runs about ~$100) and that will erase most of the headaches. On an M2 drive you can install and boot into Windows in a matter of literally 5 minutes from the time you start the install to the time you finish. On a mechanical HD, that process can easily take 4 hours or more. You can always use your existing drives as secondary storage.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying.

Basically, I was saying I might as well upgrade it when I build the system because I would not a year or two down the line as, at that time, I would have to do a reinstall when I already have to do all that work when I put the machine together.

That was an interesting point about RAM though, I was unaware that purchasing the same set may not be matching a year or two down the line.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
I think you misunderstood what I was saying.

Basically, I was saying I might as well upgrade it when I build the system because I would not a year or two down the line as, at that time, I would have to do a reinstall when I already have to do all that work when I put the machine together.

Yeah but I would personally not do that on a mechanical HD. I've worked with Windows 10 on older machines that have mechanical HDs installed and even applying small updates can take hours. On an SSD or M2 they take minutes.


That was an interesting point about RAM though, I was unaware that purchasing the same set may not be matching a year or two down the line.

Yes RAM manufacturers change plants and part numbers all the time. So if you buy say a set of G Skill Trident Z in 2021 and then you buy another set in 2022, chances are good they won't be the same set underneath.