PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[93LEAFS]

I’m making the jump into PC gaming. There are so many games that look like a blast that you just can’t play on consoles. My knowledge on these things is basically zero but I was curious if anyone knows the best place to buy pre-built? I would prefer to skip the hassle so I can focus on getting a monitor and desk going. Any help is appreciated.

Honestly, I'd avoid pre-builts and build youself. It should take an afternoon.

But, if I was opposed to building myself, I would personally recommend paying the premium and going to a respected local builder. Seeing your in Vegas, I'm sure there is somewhere that is held in decent regard and does it. If you are deadset on ordering online I'd avoid OEM's (Alienware/Dell, HP, etc), but I'd strongly encourage building yourself (I was in your boat 2 years ago, and did it myself) or find local support.

 

[The Nuge]

I’m making the jump into PC gaming. There are so many games that look like a blast that you just can’t play on consoles. My knowledge on these things is basically zero but I was curious if anyone knows the best place to buy pre-built? I would prefer to skip the hassle so I can focus on getting a monitor and desk going. Any help is appreciated.

LTT’s done 3 secret shopper series that are probably right up your alley to watch if you don’t really know where to start with what you need, and want to go the prebuilt route

 

[John Price]

lol nba 2k24 is 10 dollars this week

 

[Osprey]

It's about time. A couple of years ago, I switched back to Nvidia after about 10 years with AMD and was shocked that Nvidia was still using the same control panel that I remembered. For once, Nvidia is playing catch up to AMD.

Download NVIDIA App

The essential companion for PC gamers and creators.

www.nvidia.com

 

[aleshemsky83]

It's about time. A couple of years ago, I switched back to Nvidia after about 10 years with AMD and was shocked that the Nvidia was still using the same control panel that I remembered. For once, Nvidia is actually play catch up to AMD.

Download NVIDIA App

The essential companion for PC gamers and creators.

www.nvidia.com

I'll have to try it out but tbh I prefer the simplicity of the control panel. At least Geforce Experience doesn't require a login anymore.

 

[Osprey]

I'll have to try it out but tbh I prefer the simplicity of the control panel. At least Geforce Experience doesn't require a login anymore.

I sort of do, too, but it's slow. The new app is much more responsive and doesn't require you to click Apply to make changes. It's also simpler to have all settings and software features in one app. For now, you can still launch the control panel, though. The new app replaces GeForce Experience, not the control panel.

 

[aleshemsky83]

This is one of the strangest things ive seen. I cant find any online drivers for this device.

MSI HERALD-BE NCM865 WI-FI 7 - MSI-US Official Store

FASTER SPEED, LESS DELAY - the MSI MSI HERALD-BE NCM865 WI-FI 7, a combination of 320 MHz channels and Multi-Link Operation (MLO), Wi-Fi 7 boasts 5 times the network capacity of Wi-Fi 6. Enjoy gaming, streaming, and web meetings throughout your home.

us-store.msi.com

It comes with a cd but I removed my CD drive ages ago. I may have to reattach my cd drive just to install drivers for this thing.

edit: I just realized this wifi card came out 5 days ago, which maybe explains why windows isnt seeing anything and the msi website doesnt even have drivers for it. I stumbled upon it at memoryexpress and had no idea it was that new. Guess the CD is my only option

 

[Osprey]

That seems like a pretty big fail on MSI's part, distributing drivers on CD when not even the website has them, in 2024.

I recommend buying an external, USB-attached CD/DVD drive. They're cheap (only $15-20), but come in very handy now and then, especially when working with laptops.

 

[aleshemsky83]

That seems like a pretty big fail on MSI's part, distributing drivers on CD when not even the website has them, in 2024.

I recommend buying an external, USB-attached CD/DVD drive. They're cheap (only $15-20), but come in very handy now and then, especially when working with laptops.

The funny part that I’m just realizing now as I put my disc drive back in, is MSI included a mounting screw in the box for the disc drive that they know you need. I was wondering was that was for.

edit: nothings installing. fortunately I actually do own dvds and CDs to test whether the drive works, and it does, it works fine. Gonna have to do some digging, though its hard to with such a new product.

edit2: I had no idea about this but windows 10 has no support for wifi7 devices. Maybe theres native support in windows 11 and thats the source of my problems. The only reason im not on windows 11 is because when i last upgraded my PC crashed every 5 minutes. Gonna have to see if I can sort this out without upgrading to 11 (though that might not even solve it)

edit3: I successfully installed the drivers and nothing, I will now be isntalling windows 11, lets see.

edit4: Why am I going through this headache I'm just going to return it and get the wifi 6 antenna.

edit: I just upgraded to windows 11, and that was literally it. The drivers werent appearing on the disc at all, I upgraded to windows 11 and the drivers appeared on the disc and installed immediately. I'm actually surprised. I assumed that it would just install and support wifi 6 on windows 10 but no. You cant use wifi7 devices on windows 10 period, unless what I experienced was just a bug, but I dont think so.

 

[Smelling Salt]

What a rollercoaster

 

[Osprey]

If the card is using the Intel BE200 or BE202 chips, you might want to update to the latest drivers from Intel, last updated yesterday, since the ones on the disc are months old, no doubt.

Intel® Wi-Fi 7 BE200 Downloads, Drivers and Software | Intel

Intel® Wi-Fi 7 BE200 - Download supporting resources inclusive drivers, software, bios, and firmware updates.

www.intel.com

Also, the detailed description notes:

* All Intel® Wi-Fi 7 products support the 6GHz band for Wi-Fi. Usage of the 6GHz band relies on Microsoft Windows (Windows 11*) Operating System support. The products have limited functionality on Windows® 10.
* The Wi-Fi 7 features are not currently available because of pending OS (Windows 11*) support. As a result, after installing the drivers, the Intel® Wi-Fi 7 products function with Wi-Fi 6E capabilities on Windows 11*.

Apparently, even though you bought a "WiFi 7" adapter, you can't even use WiFi 7 yet. You'll get only WiFi 6E speeds until Microsoft updates Windows 11 later this year.

 

[aleshemsky83]

If the card is using the Intel BE200 or BE202 chips, you might want to update to the latest drivers from Intel, last updated yesterday, since the ones on the disc are months old, no doubt.

Intel® Wi-Fi 7 BE200 Downloads, Drivers and Software | Intel

Intel® Wi-Fi 7 BE200 - Download supporting resources inclusive drivers, software, bios, and firmware updates.

www.intel.com

Also, the detailed description notes:

Apparently, even though you bought a "WiFi 7" adapter, you can't even use WiFi 7 yet. You'll get only WiFi 6E speeds until Microsoft updates Windows 11 (and, presumably, Intel releases newer drivers for it) later this year.

It’s actually Qualcomm which might explain why the driver situation is so bad. Getting good speeds now though tbh. About 500 down and 350 up. It’s gigabit internet so not maxing out but I’m pretty happy with those speeds

 

[93LEAFS]

Sounds like Horizon: Forbidden West's port was done really well. Seems the stuff Sony has Nixxes on is landing. The only real issue for one so far was Last of Us Part 2 which was done in house at Naughty Dog.

 

[aleshemsky83]

3 years and kingdom hearts games are still epic game store exclusive. Rumors are the exclusivity may be ending soon.

It's about time. A couple of years ago, I switched back to Nvidia after about 10 years with AMD and was shocked that Nvidia was still using the same control panel that I remembered. For once, Nvidia is playing catch up to AMD.

Download NVIDIA App

The essential companion for PC gamers and creators.

www.nvidia.com

Ive been testing this out for a few weeks and i just dont see how this replaces the control panel. Theres only a handful of settings brought over. DSR, Gsync, and thats it. Everything else is removed. They added auto-HDR and dynamic vibrance (I dont know what this is), I'm guessing this is going to be the new playground for driver level RTX features.

 

[Osprey]

Ive been testing this out for a few weeks and i just dont see how this replaces the control panel. Theres only a handful of settings brought over. DSR, Gsync, and thats it. Everything else is removed. They added auto-HDR and dynamic vibrance (I dont know what this is), I'm guessing this is going to be the new playground for driver level RTX features.

I read that some of the missing settings are legacy ones that didn't actually do anything anymore. Other missing settings will be added in time, reportedly. I assume that they want to get the app (which is still in beta) stable with the most important functionality before adding lesser used features and too many other bells and whistles. It'd be nice if, eventually, they add overclocking and undervolting to the app, like AMD has in their Adrenaline software.

Dynamic vibrance is a new "AI-powered filter" feature that you can enable for more vivid colors if you happen to like having a brighter, oversaturated look.

It doesn't appear any different than what you can already achieve with normal filters, so it seems like a fluff feature to promote "AI" to me, but some people may like it and use it.

 

[Turin]

Steam Deck arrives today. Any tips, games that work especially well? Links to emulators I definitely won't use?

 

[aleshemsky83]

This feels like its about as good a price as you're gonna get for a this quality of tempered glass case. $85. I wont be picking it up cause the shipping is high for alberta. Coupon is unfortunately only available for white but tbh some might prefer white.

Edit: deal is gone, that was quick

Steam Deck arrives today. Any tips, games that work especially well? Links to emulators I definitely won't use?

Is it an OLED? If so try some HDR games, heard it looks great on the steamdeck oled. About emulators, I think the steamdeck has retroarch, so emulators should be plug and play with just a few clicks.

 

[93LEAFS]

This feels like its about as good a price as you're gonna get for a this quality of tempered glass case. $85. I wont be picking it up cause the shipping is high for alberta. Coupon is unfortunately only available for white but tbh some might prefer white.

Edit: deal is gone, that was quick

Is it an OLED? If so try some HDR games, heard it looks great on the steamdeck oled. About emulators, I think the steamdeck has retroarch, so emulators should be plug and play with just a few clicks.

I went 5000D when I built (for 360 radiator support on the top instead of 240 on the 4000D). Definitely, happy with these models of Corsair cases. But, brands like Corsair, Fractal and Lian Li are all generally all well made.

 

[aleshemsky83]

27 inch 1440p monitors are getting really cheap. Lots of them below 200 canadian these days. Might be time for me to upgrade.

 

[whitez]

27 inch 1440p monitors are getting really cheap. Lots of them below 200 canadian these days. Might be time for me to upgrade.

that's true, I have 27 inch 1440p monitor too.

 

[Summer Rose]

So I'm looking at some major upgrades to my PC. Budget is hypothetically up to US$4,000 but I don't need to go completely overkill since I game in 1080p (but might consider upgrading to a 1440p primary display). I seem to have settled on the following:

-AMD Ryzen 7800X3D CPU
-MSI B650 GAMING PLUS Motherboard
-64GB DDR5-6000 RAM
-WD Black 4TB NVME SSD
-Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 GPU
-Corsair RM850e 850W PSU
-Windows 11 Home OEM 64-bit
-Some random cheap optical drive (for OS installation and occasional DVD playback)

Re-used components: case, 128GB SSD, 256GB SSD, 500GB NVME SSD, 2TB external HDD, three 24" 1080p monitors, mouse, keyboard, speakers, headset
Ditched components: 500GB HDD and 1.5TB HDD (both old and close to failing)

Musings and thoughts:

Having a hard time picking a CPU cooler but tossed one on there for lack of a better option for now. I do realize that what I've chosen is massive overkill for 1080p gaming but I want to future-proof it against potential upgrades on monitors later on. Is there any reason to go with Windows 11 Pro over Windows 11 Home? I'm currently running Windows 10 Pro (64-bit of course) on my machine. I'm fairly dead set on at the very least, the CPU and GPU I've picked. The motherboard was recommended to me by a friend.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JPwsN6 this is the list I came up with, just kind of tossed together.

One last thing, the specs I'm upgrading from are a Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM, and a GTX 1080.

Any advice or thoughts?

 

[aleshemsky83]

So I'm looking at some major upgrades to my PC. Budget is hypothetically up to US$4,000 but I don't need to go completely overkill since I game in 1080p (but might consider upgrading to a 1440p primary display). I seem to have settled on the following:

-AMD Ryzen 7800X3D CPU
-MSI B650 GAMING PLUS Motherboard
-64GB DDR5-6000 RAM
-WD Black 4TB NVME SSD
-Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 GPU
-Corsair RM850e 850W PSU
-Windows 11 Home OEM 64-bit
-Some random cheap optical drive (for OS installation and occasional DVD playback)

Re-used components: case, 128GB SSD, 256GB SSD, 500GB NVME SSD, 2TB external HDD, three 24" 1080p monitors, mouse, keyboard, speakers, headset
Ditched components: 500GB HDD and 1.5TB HDD (both old and close to failing)

Musings and thoughts:

Having a hard time picking a CPU cooler but tossed one on there for lack of a better option for now. I do realize that what I've chosen is massive overkill for 1080p gaming but I want to future-proof it against potential upgrades on monitors later on. Is there any reason to go with Windows 11 Pro over Windows 11 Home? I'm currently running Windows 10 Pro (64-bit of course) on my machine. I'm fairly dead set on at the very least, the CPU and GPU I've picked. The motherboard was recommended to me by a friend.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JPwsN6 this is the list I came up with, just kind of tossed together.

One last thing, the specs I'm upgrading from are a Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM, and a GTX 1080.

Any advice or thoughts?

Whats your motherboard? If its a AM4 motherboard you can just upgrade to a 5800x3d and buy yourself some time.

 

[Summer Rose]

Whats your motherboard? If its a AM4 motherboard you can just upgrade to a 5800x3d and buy yourself some time.

It is indeed a socket AM4 motherboard. My question is, what advantage would I have to buying myself time? I buy myself a year or two of time by upgrading more modestly, but then I'd be due for a CPU socket upgrade later on down the road. Why not do it now, then? Also, don't get me wrong, I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

 

[aleshemsky83]

It is indeed a socket AM4 motherboard. My question is, what advantage would I have to buying myself time? I buy myself a year or two of time by upgrading more modestly, but then I'd be due for a CPU socket upgrade later on down the road. Why not do it now, then? Also, don't get me wrong, I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

I’d need to do more research since it’s just been so long since I’ve looked into a new PC (although that time is coming up soon for me)

But, I really feel you aren’t losing that much downgrading to a 5800x3d. What is it like 25-30%? And it’s not like you’re getting a 4080 or 4090, it’s a 4070, the 5800x3d is a better match for it I feel.

And in terms of buying time, I think it would let you get more value when selling your old PC (1600 is literally scrap now), although I usually give my old builds away, and letting you be on the lookout for better deals over a longer period of time. Cause just looking at that list you’re buying absolutely everything full price there.

I just don’t see the value of a new build there when the upgrade path for a very modern CPU is there. Maybe there’s something I’m missing though, DDR5 could be that much better. Maybe some more knowledgeable people can speak up.

 

[Osprey]

I'm not sure that it makes sense to stay on AM4 in this case. The 5800X3D is $300, so you'd save only $40 off the cost of the 7800X3D. Also, you have only 16GB of RAM, so you'd have to buy 64GB of DDR4, which, again, is only about $40 less than the same in DDR5. The main cost difference is the new motherboard, but add the $170 for that and it's really only $250 more to move up to AM5. I think that that's worth it for the faster 7800X3D, the faster RAM and future upgradeability.

Edit: I was just reminded that the 5700X3D exists and is down to only $210 currently. That would be a more sensible choice than the 5800X3D and make the platform upgrade about $340 more, which is more substantial. That would make for a tougher decision if budget were a real concern, but it sounds like it's not and that this system may be kept as long as the last, so a platform upgrade may still be worth it, IMO.

Speaking of the RAM, I recommend getting a 2x32GB kit instead of two 2x16GB kits. First of all, some people say that having two sticks is slightly better for performance than having four. Second, it's actually cheaper in this case. Instead of $236 for the two 2x16GB kits that you picked out, you can get one 2x32GB kit of the same make and model for only $210.

BTW, you can also save about $75 on the Windows 11 license by buying a key from a site like g2deal.com or vip-scdkey.com, instead. You can even make it a Pro license, even though you probably don't need it. The Windows 11 ISO can be downloaded for free from Microsoft, so all that you need is the key.