PC Sherdog PC Build/Buy Thread, v6: My Power Supply Burned Down My House

[Mau]

I sold my Xbox One and now I'm playing on mobile lol, but seriously, I want to go back to PC gaming because I don't own a rig since the GeForce 7 series (the last VGA I had was a 7600GT) and my old laptop is finally going to shit.

Since I'm poor and live in a country where the local currency is shit, I want to start buying stuff maybe at the end of the year, but I'm afraid of being outdated fast. I also know jack shit about the market and what is good value now.

I don't need the highest end PC, I remember I was quite pleased with the 7600GT performance back in the day, but I confess I have no experience with higher end video cards.

Can you guys shed some light? What has good value and will probably last some years? It would be nice if the form factor was small, but I don't know if it's possible.

Thanks!

 

[jefferz]

I sold my Xbox One and now I'm playing on mobile lol, but seriously, I want to go back to PC gaming because I don't own a rig since the GeForce 7 series (the last VGA I had was a 7600GT) and my old laptop is finally going to shit.

Since I'm poor and live in a country where the local currency is shit, I want to start buying stuff maybe at the end of the year, but I'm afraid of being outdated fast. I also know jack shit about the market and what is good value now.

I don't need the highest end PC, I remember I was quite pleased with the 7600GT performance back in the day, but I confess I have no experience with higher end video cards.

Can you guys shed some light? What has good value and will probably last some years? It would be nice if the form factor was small, but I don't know if it's possible.

Thanks!

What type of games do you like to play?
Right now AMD is the budget king if you want to do 1080p resolution.
On the CPU side, you don’t really have to worry about it getting out dated. You can run a 7 year old Intel cpu , like an i5-2500 or i5-3470, and it will still be fine for 2+ year old AAA games at 1080p
For new CPU’s, AMD’s Ryzen is the value king. $200 US will buy you a decent CPU and motherboard to match.

GPU’s tend to get outdated much quicker. For 1080p resolution gaming, an AMD rx580 8gb can be purchased for under $200 aNd handle modern AAA titles at 1080p 60fps.
A lot of people will use an old prebuilt HP or Dell with an Intel i5 processor with an AMD RX580 for decent 1080p resolution on a budget.

 

[Mau]

What type of games do you like to play?
Right now AMD is the budget king if you want to do 1080p resolution.
On the CPU side, you don’t really have to worry about it getting out dated. You can run a 7 year old Intel cpu , like an i5-2500 or i5-3470, and it will still be fine for 2+ year old AAA games at 1080p
For new CPU’s, AMD’s Ryzen is the value king. $200 US will buy you a decent CPU and motherboard to match.

GPU’s tend to get outdated much quicker. For 1080p resolution gaming, an AMD rx580 8gb can be purchased for under $200 aNd handle modern AAA titles at 1080p 60fps.
A lot of people will use an old prebuilt HP or Dell with an Intel i5 processor with an AMD RX580 for decent 1080p resolution on a budget.

I play pretty much everything, but mostly fighting, racing and RPG's, for me this last generation was Dragon Age Inquisition, Diablo 3, Witcher 3, Forza Horizon and Motorsport, and Tekken, also a lot of indies.

I'll start looking for prebuilt PC's and look for a decent GPU.

Thanks a lot!

 

[jefferz]

i5-9400 vs R5 2600x benchmarks with a 1660ti. Both cost about the same. TLDW it doesn't matter.

 

[90 50]

Building a cheap throw down workstation(no gaming) , will need a gpu.

1700x(or if a crazy deal on a 1900 or 1920 pops up that will happen)
16gb (2x8, so if 16 wont cut it another 16 in 2x8 can be thrown in)

1xssd and 1xhdd for storage or maybe 2xssd depending on deals.
Psu, best deal on what it needs. I’m not worried about that stuff it just is what it is.

Here is the kicker. This is a workstation and will run 4x maybe even 5 monitors.

New egg has a quadro p600 with 4x mini dp port out for 169, and a p620 for 175

My budget for gpu is <200.00

When I look at all the metrics I can find online quadro’s in this price point are weak as crud compared to gtx in the same price range.

Take for instance a 1050ti crushes a p600 on just about everything.

Give me some reasons for the p600 over the gtx.

Will not be running cad modeling on this workstation.

Basically displaying a bunch of browser views of live feeds on monitors.

And Go!

@jefferz
@Madmick

 

[jefferz]

Building a cheap throw down workstation(no gaming) , will need a gpu.

1700x(or if a crazy deal on a 1900 or 1920 pops up that will happen)
16gb (2x8, so if 16 wont cut it another 16 in 2x8 can be thrown in)

1xssd and 1xhdd for storage or maybe 2xssd depending on deals.
Psu, best deal on what it needs. I’m not worried about that stuff it just is what it is.

Here is the kicker. This is a workstation and will run 4x maybe even 5 monitors.

New egg has a quadro p600 with 4x mini dp port out for 169, and a p620 for 175

My budget for gpu is <200.00

When I look at all the metrics I can find online quadro’s in this price point are weak as crud compared to gtx in the same price range.

Take for instance a 1050ti crushes a p600 on just about everything.

Give me some reasons for the p600 over the gtx.

Will not be running cad modeling on this workstation.

Basically displaying a bunch of browser views of live feeds on monitors.

And Go!

@jefferz
@Madmick

Is this a security system type of thing?

 

[90 50]

Is this a security system type of thing?

No, engineers live monitoring feeds from remote location equipment.

Each equipment set can be viewed via web browser with graphical display from there of the sensors etc In real time.

Want to set it up where multiple equipment sets can be viewed at the same time in real time.

Each would have its own browser window open

 

[Drain Bamage]

I game @ 1080p/60fps


*Mick's Edit*
Merged from discrete thread. I didn't leave a redirect, and I realized after the merge this post doesn't make sense without the thread title. Drain asked if he should upgrade his GTX 970 to a GTX 1660 Ti.

 

[Ice That Jaw]

If you want 60fps consistently I'd be looking at the 2070. Plus you get ray tracing support for future games.

 

[Madmick]

Holy Batman, a major graphical redesign just dropped to PCPP in the last 12 hours.

If you want 60fps consistently I'd be looking at the 2070. Plus you get ray tracing support for future games.

At 1080p, Ice? That's a touch overkill, don't you think?

I game @ 1080p/60fps

You're in luck because if you're considering the GTX 1660 Ti, which has a starting price of $280, there is currently a sale on what is arguably the best version of the Vega 56 made by anyone if all things are considered, the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56, for just $300, and it is a significantly superior card to the GTX 1660 Ti. It's a competitor to the RTX 2060 6GB, not the 1660 Ti:

• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA GTX 970 4GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB
  
• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB
• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA RTX 2060 6GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB

I go out of my way to mention this because the Vega cards have some issues at reference design, so there are more bad variants out there to be avoided than with most cards. This isn't one of the reference blower variants. It's a dual-fan version by Sapphire, who is the Asus/EVGA of AMD video cards, that doesn't get stupid with factory overclocking, so temps and fan noise are ideal while performance is consistent. You can see it carries a highly positive customer review average because of this (while this Gigabyte that is permanently on sale, for example, is a nightmare):
($299) Sapphire 11276-02-40G Radeon Pulse RX Vega 56 8GB HBM2 Dual HDMI/DP (UEFI) PCI-E Graphics Card

Steve over at Hardware Unboxed, as usual, offers the most comprehensive gaming benchmarks. This is ran with an i7-7700K CPU at stock, not some monster like the 9900K overclocked to 5GHz:


Also, maybe more importantly, the above video is from September 2017 when the drivers were pretty fresh, too, and AMD's launch drivers are always terrible. They also always crawl like a tortoise with the updates, but in the long run, thanks to their FLOP power superiority, they almost always win the race:

Spoiler: How AMD's FLOP power is the tortoise, not the hare

Of course, if you have a G-Sync monitor, or you are a devout pro-NVIDIA gamer, you probably won't be interested. You can get the cheapest $280 EVGA single-fan card to maximize bang-for-your-buck among your choices for this card, but IMO, with a relatively minor $40 premium, the best choice is easily the Asus ROG Strix card for $320 due to the quiet BIOS. The ROG Strix carries a $60 premium over the baseline for the RTX 2060, a $70 for the RTX 2070, and an $85 premium for the RTX 2080:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=438&sort=price

 

[Drain Bamage]

Holy Batman, a major graphical redesign just dropped to PCPP in the last 12 hours.

At 1080p, Ice? That's a touch overkill, don't you think?

You're in luck because if you're considering the GTX 1660 Ti, which has a starting price of $280, there is currently a sale on what is arguably the best version of the Vega 56 made by anyone if all things are considered, the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56, for just $300, and it is a significantly superior card to the GTX 1660 Ti. It's a competitor to the RTX 2060 6GB, not the 1660 Ti:

• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA GTX 970 4GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB
  
• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB
• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA RTX 2060 6GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB

I go out of my way to mention this because the Vega cards have some issues at reference design, so there are more bad variants out there to be avoided than with most cards. This isn't one of the reference blower variants. It's a dual-fan version by Sapphire, who is the Asus/EVGA of AMD video cards, that doesn't get stupid with factory overclocking, so temps and fan noise are ideal while performance is consistent. You can see it carries a highly positive customer review average because of this (while this Gigabyte that is permanently on sale, for example, is a nightmare):
($299) Sapphire 11276-02-40G Radeon Pulse RX Vega 56 8GB HBM2 Dual HDMI/DP (UEFI) PCI-E Graphics Card

Steve over at Hardware Unboxed, as usual, offers the most comprehensive gaming benchmarks. This is ran with an i7-7700K CPU at stock, not some monster like the 9900K overclocked to 5GHz:


Also, maybe more importantly, the above video is from September 2017 when the drivers were pretty fresh, too, and AMD's launch drivers are always terrible. They also always crawl like a tortoise with the updates, but in the long run, thanks to their FLOP power superiority, they almost always win the race:



Of course, if you have a G-Sync monitor, or you are a devout pro-NVIDIA gamer, you probably won't be interested. You can get the cheapest $280 EVGA single-fan card to maximize bang-for-your-buck among your choices for this card, but IMO, with a relatively minor $40 premium, the best choice is easily the Asus ROG Strix card for $320 due to the quiet BIOS. The ROG Strix carries a $60 premium over the baseline for the RTX 2060, a $70 for the RTX 2070, and an $85 premium for the RTX 2080:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=438&sort=price

I haven't gamed AMD in awhile. With NVidia I've gotten into using NVidia Inspector software to set VSYNC and FPS Limiters on games where needed, does AMD have an equivalent software?

Also I''d really miss NVidia TXAA antialiasing in games that use it, like GTA and Assassin's Creed games (play those a lot)

I have a i7 7700K CPU

 

[90 50]

This seems like a really good deal for this quadro, what am I missing here?

It’s newer, and way fing faster than a p600 and this refurb is stupid cheap (149.00).

I do like how the p600 has 4xmini dp and the k4200 only has 2x dp and one x dvi. I will need to be pushing more than 3 monitors so that’s one point to overcome but stil??

https://m.newegg.com/products/9SIAC0F9428341

 

[Madmick]

I haven't gamed AMD in awhile. With NVidia I've gotten into using NVidia Inspector software to set VSYNC and FPS Limiters on games where needed, does AMD have an equivalent software?

No.

Also I''d really miss NVidia TXAA antialiasing in games that use it, like GTA and Assassin's Creed games (play those a lot)

I have a i7 7700K CPU

NVIDIA will always enjoy the lion's share of these special effects benefits (ex. Hairworks). Sounds like you're pretty comfortable with NVIDIA, and have worked out your groove. The 1660 Ti and 2060 are also great values.

For the GTX 1660 Ti I already named the baseline Asus ROG Strix card for $320 as my top choice. I don't think you're an overclocker, but the EVGA XC Ultra Gaming ($310) is the best value if that is your ambition.

For the RTX 2060 the entry ROG Strix card is pretty pricey ($410), so it probably makes more sense to just go with the entry EVGA XC Black ($350) or the boosted EVGA XC Gaming ($360). They're not built for overclocking, but they are quiet, cool, compact, and as reviewers have pointed out in the past, tend to offer a much better performance: price ratio than the behemoth overclocker designs on the reference GPU a class below-- in this case the GTX 1660 Ti.

Finally, there is an MSI RTX 2070 on a pretty stiff sale right now. It's $480 after the coupon code with another $15 off via rebate for a $465 total:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?sdtid=13040623&SID=c5c4836668a111e998387eba4bb8dbe80INT&AID=10446076&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-Slickdeals LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16814137397&Tpk=14-137-397&cm_sp=

For the last, you'll pay sales tax on the raw $530, and every state that pays sales tax pays tax at Newegg, like Amazon, so I'm not sure how that affects your grand totals. The best options for the RTX 2060 and GTX 1660 Ti I highlighted above all happen to be sold by B&H, as serendipity would have it, because nobody but New Yorkers pay sales tax there.

 

[Madmick]

This seems like a really good deal for this quadro, what am I missing here?

It’s newer, and way fing faster than a p600 and this refurb is stupid cheap (149.00).

I do like how the p600 has 4xmini dp and the k4200 only has 2x dp and one x dvi. I will need to be pushing more than 3 monitors so that’s one point to overcome but stil??

https://m.newegg.com/products/9SIAC0F9428341

I think you are mistakenly comparing the K4200 to the Quadro 600 (not P600) via Userbenchmark because they don't have the P600 for some reason:
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-600-vs-Nvidia-Quadro-K4200/m8084vs2838

It's much more competitive between the Quadro P600 and Quadro K4200:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Quadro+P600&id=3729
vs.
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Quadro+K4200&id=2944

You're getting a better value, but this is a refurbished K4200, and the new P600 units run $170.

 

[Ice That Jaw]

Holy Batman, a major graphical redesign just dropped to PCPP in the last 12 hours.

At 1080p, Ice? That's a touch overkill, don't you think?

You're in luck because if you're considering the GTX 1660 Ti, which has a starting price of $280, there is currently a sale on what is arguably the best version of the Vega 56 made by anyone if all things are considered, the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56, for just $300, and it is a significantly superior card to the GTX 1660 Ti. It's a competitor to the RTX 2060 6GB, not the 1660 Ti:

• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA GTX 970 4GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB
  
• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB
• Userbenchmark: NVIDIA RTX 2060 6GB vs. AMD Vega 56 8GB

I go out of my way to mention this because the Vega cards have some issues at reference design, so there are more bad variants out there to be avoided than with most cards. This isn't one of the reference blower variants. It's a dual-fan version by Sapphire, who is the Asus/EVGA of AMD video cards, that doesn't get stupid with factory overclocking, so temps and fan noise are ideal while performance is consistent. You can see it carries a highly positive customer review average because of this (while this Gigabyte that is permanently on sale, for example, is a nightmare):
($299) Sapphire 11276-02-40G Radeon Pulse RX Vega 56 8GB HBM2 Dual HDMI/DP (UEFI) PCI-E Graphics Card

Steve over at Hardware Unboxed, as usual, offers the most comprehensive gaming benchmarks. This is ran with an i7-7700K CPU at stock, not some monster like the 9900K overclocked to 5GHz:


Also, maybe more importantly, the above video is from September 2017 when the drivers were pretty fresh, too, and AMD's launch drivers are always terrible. They also always crawl like a tortoise with the updates, but in the long run, thanks to their FLOP power superiority, they almost always win the race:



Of course, if you have a G-Sync monitor, or you are a devout pro-NVIDIA gamer, you probably won't be interested. You can get the cheapest $280 EVGA single-fan card to maximize bang-for-your-buck among your choices for this card, but IMO, with a relatively minor $40 premium, the best choice is easily the Asus ROG Strix card for $320 due to the quiet BIOS. The ROG Strix carries a $60 premium over the baseline for the RTX 2060, a $70 for the RTX 2070, and an $85 premium for the RTX 2080:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=438&sort=price

Overkill? I don't even get 60fps consistently with the 1080ti on the most graphic intensive games. I guess I meant the 2060 though. I'm not familar with the 1600 series. I also don't see the point in spending under $500 on a GPU but that is just me I guess. The only reason I moved back to PC after the Dreamcast was because I could buy a GPU twice the amount of a console.

 

[Madmick]

Overkill? I don't even get 60fps consistently with the 1080ti on the most graphic intensive games. I guess I meant the 2060 though. I'm not familar with the 1600 series.

True, but that's with Ultra settings, sometimes mods, and only for the absolute most challenging games. You have a deep appreciation for eye candy that you value beyond the cash. I think that's why reviewers favor the "High" preset for the real graphics monsters when they run their benchmarks. The Ultra/Extreme presets usually pushes up AA to x8 or higher, max every shadow effect, and others that offer the least noticeable improvement, but often come with greatest impact to performance.

1600 series is just the new hardware minus the ray-tracing, with lower overall performance, so it tends to offer a much better bang-for-you-buck in most traditional games. Considering that so far ray-tracing has mostly been vaporware, with the few games that utilize it barely reaching breathable framerates on the RTX 2080 Ti, I don't really think it's a practical consideration for today's gamers. The consumer is something of an R&D cow at this point. The technology needs to mature for a practical advantage. Nevertheless, the RTX 2060 baseline cards are quite reasonable, and near the top of value charts.

I also don't see the point in spending under $500 on a GPU but that is just me I guess. The only reason I moved back to PC after the Dreamcast was because I could buy a GPU twice the amount of a console.

Value. Whether in terms of raw synthetic performance/price ratio, or using more obscure metrics that seek to assess value based on playable framerates across a wider number of AAA games, all of the top cards are in the $200-$350 range these days.

This is also a discrete GPU upgrade. I noticed Linus is smartly developing a new value metric for brand new builds that assess processing performance within the context of the overall build's final price tag since many components tend to have a reasonably fixed cost that drive up the build's end cost. Thus, while that Pentium or that R3-1200 might be slayers on synthetic charts comparing value to more expensive processors, when you add a motherboard, RAM, storage, case, PSU, and WIndows, suddenly the price tag is north of $500 no matter what, and that $50-$80 CPU's performance output actually has worse value than those in the $175-$300 range.

 

[Drain Bamage]

I also don't see the point in spending under $500 on a GPU but that is just me I guess. The only reason I moved back to PC after the Dreamcast was because I could buy a GPU twice the amount of a console.

Lol

 

[90 50]

I think you are mistakenly comparing the K4200 to the Quadro 600 (not P600) via Userbenchmark because they don't have the P600 for some reason:
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-600-vs-Nvidia-Quadro-K4200/m8084vs2838

It's much more competitive between the Quadro P600 and Quadro K4200:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Quadro+P600&id=3729
vs.
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Quadro+K4200&id=2944

You're getting a better value, but this is a refurbished K4200, and the new P600 units run $170.

That makes a huge difference then and yes when I googled p600 vs k4200 and also vs 1050ti I was getting “quadro 600” and assumed that was it.

I don’t know enough about the nomenclature of quadro’s

I found a 4000 for 35.00 on local c-list and also a k4200 for 80.00

Have made offers on both and waiting for responses.

I need a quadro in my hands to test some stuff on nview and see if it’s any benifit for what I’m doing.

 

[Drain Bamage]

Does anybody here have a mechanical keyboard with cherry red switches

I justgot a HyperX Alloy FPS Pro tenkeyless, loving it except one thing, the left shift key sounds and feels a little different than the other keys. itd a little noisier and not as smooth. is it normal or should i exchange it? bought it at bestbuy

 

[Ice That Jaw]

True, but that's with Ultra settings, sometimes mods, and only for the absolute most challenging games. You have a deep appreciation for eye candy that you value beyond the cash. I think that's why reviewers favor the "High" preset for the real graphics monsters when they run their benchmarks. The Ultra/Extreme presets usually pushes up AA to x8 or higher, max every shadow effect, and others that offer the least noticeable improvement, but often come with greatest impact to performance.

1600 series is just the new hardware minus the ray-tracing, with lower overall performance, so it tends to offer a much better bang-for-you-buck in most traditional games. Considering that so far ray-tracing has mostly been vaporware, with the few games that utilize it barely reaching breathable framerates on the RTX 2080 Ti, I don't really think it's a practical consideration for today's gamers. The consumer is something of an R&D cow at this point. The technology needs to mature for a practical advantage. Nevertheless, the RTX 2060 baseline cards are quite reasonable, and near the top of value charts.

Value. Whether in terms of raw synthetic performance/price ratio, or using more obscure metrics that seek to assess value based on playable framerates across a wider number of AAA games, all of the top cards are in the $200-$350 range these days.

This is also a discrete GPU upgrade. I noticed Linus is smartly developing a new value metric for brand new builds that assess processing performance within the context of the overall build's final price tag since many components tend to have a reasonably fixed cost that drive up the build's end cost. Thus, while that Pentium or that R3-1200 might be slayers on synthetic charts comparing value to more expensive processors, when you add a motherboard, RAM, storage, case, PSU, and WIndows, suddenly the price tag is north of $500 no matter what, and that $50-$80 CPU's performance output actually has worse value than those in the $175-$300 range.

This is where I disagree strongly. A mid range GPU is the worst value.

God of War, Spiderman, Detroit, Days Gone, Horizons, Halo 5, Uncharted 4, RDR2, all look better than 100% of PC games running on a mid end card and always run without major issues. Mid end cards can have serious stuttering issues unless you spend an hour tweaking each setting or just settling for med.

The only reason why I can respect my PC is because running Metro, GTA V, Tomb Raider, Crysis, and a handful of other games on Ultra looks very very sharp.

PC also has emulators that I love but fucking Lol at the plebs who game multiplats on a $300 GPU. They are just mad that they are poor. Sorry, but it has to be said.