The PC gaming/building/tweaking/buying thread [Possibly image heavy]

Lifestyle Hobbies
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I thought it would be nice to have a thread for PC enthusiasts to talk about their rigs and for aspiring PC owners/builders to ask for advice and help :slight_smile:

If you are an enthusiast: Welcome! Come talk about your build (pics welcome!), tell us your building stories, geek out over hardware and the joys and frustrations of PC gaming, offer advice to beginners and talk about all the stuff you love about our hobby!

If you are a beginner: Also welcome! If you are contemplating buying or building a gaming PC, please don’t hesitate to come ask for advice! Tell us what you want to do/play, tell us what you’re thinking of buying, tell us if you’re having any issues that have you stumped, and we’ll try and help you figure stuff out. Don’t hesitate to ask what you may think are dumb questions - after all, we all started out clueless about these things!

Whoever you are: If you’re having issues with certain games on PC (stuttering/crashing/artifacting) or if you want to talk about game performance, this is also the place.

Ground rules:

  • NO PCMASTERRACE BULLSHIT
  • Try to bring something to the conversation, don’t just post your rig and leave (there is a thread for posting your specs). Stick around and help your fellow PC gamers out.
  • No making fun of beginners for asking basic questions.
  • If you want help putting together a build, please tell us what you want to use it for and your budget.

To emphasize some of this, here’s an excerpt of the conversation I had with @M_o before posting this thread:

I’ll start by copy & pasting some of what I posted in the aforementioned specs thread:

Here’s my baby:
Fractal Design R5 case
i7 6700K stock
Noctua NH-D15
Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI
16Gb DDR4-3000
MSI GTX 1080 Armor
500Gb SSD + 7Tb of HDDs

Click to show pic

IMG_20170627_122203
IMG_20170627_1222033280×2460 2.43 MB

Built most of it last year and upgraded a few things at the start of the summer. Hadn’t built a PC myself in a long time before that, it was really great to get back into it :smiley:

For the record I built my first PC when I was around 15, did a high school internship at a PC repair place where I learned a lot. Built a couple after that (every 5 years or so), then got lazy and had a shop build me a PC with parts I chose. Then went back to building for my newest rig, figured I’d splurge on some good stuff ^^

I’m thinking of OCing the CPU but I’m a little wary, it seems to be running hotter than it should (I’m getting high 70s Celsius under heavy load, but that’s at stock speeds with one of the best coolers around). Wondering if it’s a busted temp sensor. Also kind of regret not spending more on the mobo, I’m not super happy with it and the BIOS update that enables Kaby Lake support apparently makes the whole thing super unstable :confused:

Anyone have any advice for me? Anyone want advice with their build or future build? Come on over!

Also, this is my first thread, so mods: if I messed up anything please tell me!

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Hey, thanks for putting up this thread! I actually have a few questions, if anyone is willing to answer.

What are the components required for putting together a closed loop for a GPU? AIO coolers look much different from ones that people put together.
My Vega 64 really needs better cooling and AFAIK I have only 2 options: cutting my baseplate to install a Morpheus 2 heatsink with some 140mm fans or putting together my own loop using EKWB’s Radeon waterblock.

Also, are there cheaper compatible components for the EKFC waterblock? I really don’t want to spend $300 on cooling my GPU! I would get the AIO Alphacool Eiswolf, but it’s constantly out of stock, and still kind of pricy. Plus, I dunno how much shipping would be on it.

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I think your best bet would be to wait until another company makes a Vega-compatible AIO or until the Eiswolf is available, as a closed loop would most likely cost quite a lot (I really wouldn’t cheap out on liquid cooling ^^). I’m no expert on closed loops though, so I may be answering with incomplete information.

At the very least you’d need the waterblock (that alone runs $110 from what I’ve seen), a pump, some radiators & fans and tubing, but again I’m no expert so I’m probably forgetting stuff.

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Thanks. Yeah, I was afraid waiting for more options was the answer. Not really a problem I guess because it’s much better than NOT having a dedicated GPU like the past few months! It just bothers me that it’s both loud and it thermal throttles at it’s stock speeds.

Perhaps some aftermarket air coolers will be released once custom RX Vegas are out… next year. I may get the Eiswolf if it gets back in stock before then though, and if shipping is reasonable.

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I believe I heard that undervolting may be a solution to the noise and heat issue :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I have read about that. I haven’t had much luck with undervolting myself, however, at least on the current driver. Any HBM undervolts cause it to lock to 800MHz. I may move my PC a little so it’s further from my ear and not blowing hot air towards me.

WattMan kind of stinks as well, need MSI Afterburner to get proper Vega support, hopefully it will be better.

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How beginner-friendly are mini-ITX builds? I’m not trying to cram anything into a nano-case, more interested in stuff with a form factor like Case Lab’s Mercury S3 or Fractal’s Define Nano S - big enough for a full size PSU and reasonable airflow (or even some liquid cooling if I’m daring), small enough to be less of a footprint overall. Don’t need overclocking, definitely don’t need much more than two SSDs, and AMD’s Ryzen 1500 or 1600 are about as much CPU as I’ll ever need for a few years yet.

Currently thinking

Ryzen 1500x
MSI B350M Mortar Arctic
some mid-end AMD graphics card - whichever one has the least overinflated prices (fucking bitcoin miners eh). thinking the RX570
16gb RAM
1x 500 gb SSD until I need more
Fractal Design Define Nano S
some bronze or silver rated 600W PSU

which should all come out to right around a grand

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Hi!

I have the following pc

I7 6700k oc to 4.5ghz
970 (stock)
250 GB SSD/1tb hard drive

and I’m looking to upgrade from a 970. Is it worth waiting for the 1100 series before I make the jump? Only really interested in Nvidia. Also wondering as it’s a mini itx I may have to go for a mini card, how long do they take to come to market when new cards release? It’s been a while since I’ve messed around with replacing parts.

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Depends, are you in a hurry? 1080s are pretty affordable nowadays but even if Volta is expensive, the 10-series will go down in price once it’s out. Not sure when they’re announcing consumer Volta, but if you can stand to wait a little it can’t hurt.

E: for the 10 series I remember it took a little while for ITX cards to come out but not too long, I think it was 2 or 3 months? Need to check.

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Not in a major hurry. I guess I can wait. I just worry I’ll get to a point where the vrams an issue with the 970. It’s served me very, very well though I have no complaints. But I’m thinking of doing the whole 4k HDR TV caboodle and need a decent card. Will ponder on :wink:

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Well if you can afford one you could always go with the 1080Ti, it’s basically the only card that’s good for 4k60 at high settings in most games.

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Ha, yes I have been looking at that. I was thinking if the 1180 is a step up from the 1080ti plus lower watts, and possibly cheaper it’d be wise to wait. But I’m also very impatient :slight_smile:

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Current Rig:

i5 2500k @ 4.5ghz
Nvidia 970 GPU
16gb DDR3 Ram

My next purchase will be a GPU upgrade since I will eventually will want a VR headset and/or a G-Sync 1440/4k monitor. :smiley:

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Understandable. I was so impatient that I got a 1080 when it came out, paid over 700€ for it. It went down to under 500 less than six months later ^^

E: also @Hamamelis, if you’re going with mini ITX I’d suggest an Nvidia card (1060 6Gb) and a gold PSU, mainly in order to minimize heat, what with all those components packed together.

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Howdy folks! I’ve never had anything other than garbo laptops which slowly melts down as I try to run things I really shouldn’t be running. But hopefully in the future, I’ll be looking at steady employment which should be let me invest in something. I’d probably be looking at running DotA 2 and FFXIV mainly, I was wondering how reliable logicalincrements.com is as guide?

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It’s frankly excellent. One of the best resources available for picking parts.

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Yes!

This thread is going to be my new home.

I just rebuilt by HTPC weekend before last.

R5 1500X
16GB RGB Trident Z
RED Devil RX 480
240GB Kingston SSDNOW
Hitachi 3TB HDD
Thermaltake Core V1

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I would wait to see how you get on with some of the games released this holiday. If you can 1080p/60fps most of the upcoming releases left this year then I would wait. If you cannot then I would look into an upgrade possibly a 1080.

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Yeah, that’s sensible advice.

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Still eagerly waiting for my new 8700k to finally ship. It’s gonna be so sweet.