Advice New PC advice

[Vae]

I'm out of touch with the latest in PC advancement but my PC is starting to show it's age (E8400 C2Duo, 4Gb Ram from 2009 and a Radeon HD7850 from 2013) so I'd appreciate some advice on what I should be looking for as a replacement. It's held up surprisingly well given it's age and has run everything I've thrown at it (recently Doom and Fallout 4 being the most graphically challenging) but at increasingly lower display settings. Only the power supply and original GFX card have died.

I'm looking for the 'value for money' point where there is a good level of performance for a reasonable price. I'm guessing probably about the £600-£1000 bracket.

While I've built all my previous PC's time has become more precious and not having to faff about trouble-shooting to get it working has become more of a priority so I'd be willing to have it pre-built (I guess Overclockers, Chillblast or similar are possibilities). I do have a copy of Windows 10 though so would use that.

So any advice would be very welcome!

 

[ECA]

I'd recommend building your own.

For some unknown reason almost every uk system builder is only doing 2133/2400mhz ddr4, when there's actually about a 10% performance gain from putting 3200 in.
Infuriating.

As a comparison here's a self build with notably 16gb of 3200 ddr4, and a 500gb ssd and a 6gb 1060.
System Build - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6G... - PCPartPicker United Kingdom

Compare that to scan/overclockers/chillblast in that price range.

Scan @ £869.99
No ssd, 8gb ram, ram is slow, no ssd, 1tb

Gaming PC with NVIDIA 1060 and AMD Ryzen 5 1500X


Chillblast @ £1039.99
1600, better off with a 1500x for single core clock speed, 2133 ram , the 1060 is the 3gb model not a 6gb, 250ssd/2tb hdd

Chillblast Fusion Scimitar Ryzen 5 Gaming PC

Overclockers @ £1009.94
8gb 2400 , 3gb 1060, 250gb ssd/1tb hdd

Titan Katana Overclocked Gaming PC - AMD Ryzen 1600 @ 3.80GHz

tldr, save £150, get better specs, nicer case, and 10-15% extra performance.

 

[Raven]

Add to that, trouble shooting isn't really a thing any more unless there is component failure. It goes together and works. I build them in around an hour now, hour and a half including windows installation etc.

 

[Vae]

Thanks ECA.

Has technology changed regarding board sizes and power supplies? It looks like I could probably reuse my current ones?

My current power supply is a Corsair CXM750 and case is Coolermaster 330.

In terms of CPU is the choice between something like the Ryzen 5 1500X/1600X and an Intel i5 7400-7600 ? Which is best?
For graphics cards it looks like the 1060 (£gb vs 6Gb?) hits the sweet spot with the 1070 not as good value - any specific recommendations?
I'd add a motherboard (any particular recommendations), 16Gb Ram (so looking for 3200 ram) and 500Gb SSD.
I can re-use the 1TB HDD I have (I have a HP Microserver as a NAS for storage), CD drive, case and PSU.

 

[ECA]

You can re-use your case and power supply - although power supplies lose a % of efficiency every year of operation, power requirements have got substantially lower to the point where a 400W psu could comfortably run the build I linked ( although I'd run a 450/500 minimum still ).

The 1500x is the 4 core/8thread ryzen, but clocks at higher speeds than the 1600/1600x which is the 6 core variant.
If you play games that do better on clock speed over more cores, then the 1500x is better, if they do better mulithreaded then the 1600x is better.

The 1500x comes with a very good cooler , while the 1600x does not.

The reason I'd recommend AMD strongly right now is because intel are cunts.
For example Kaby Lake is on socket 1151. The kaby lake x ( refresh ) is on 2066.

You literally have to buy a new motherboard if you want to upgrade... for a fucking cpu refresh.....
On the flip side AMD will be supporting AM4 until 2020, so Zen+ will be compatible ( although there will be newer motherboards with chipset revisions ).
That means if in 5 years you want a decent upgrade you can find a secondhand zen+ on ebay, bung it in and you're done for probably £150. while if you want to upgrade an intel system it's more like £250.

You can also put a Ryzen 7 in if you want to do that in a few years/etc, really strong future cheap upgrades compared to the intel fuckery.

Plus intel are cunts.

ASrock/Biostar mobos are getting good reviews for AM4, but all the usual names are good ( gigabyte/asus etc ).

 

[Lazarus]

mmmm...im currently in the market for a new mode of surfing the internet (watching porn) and am undecided on laptop or desktop. Round about the same pricing as Vae - got a few selected but just trying to make up mind. If its a desktop, the only thing I can use from old Pc is the GFX card and HDD - everything else is scrap

 

[ECA]

mmmm...im currently in the market for a new mode of surfing the internet (watching porn) and am undecided on laptop or desktop. Round about the same pricing as Vae - got a few selected but just trying to make up mind. If its a desktop, the only thing I can use from old Pc is the GFX card and HDD - everything else is scrap

Your jumping off point is the pcpartpicker I posted already, It hits the price/performance sweetspot on every component.
I'd have put a 580 in there but because of GPU mining AMD cards are hard to get right now.

System Build - Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6G... - PCPartPicker United Kingdom

 

[ECA]

I'd also say... if you are ONLY doing 1080p, and not that arsed about ultra settings or 1440p, or 144hz, then the 1050ti is a good shout and can be had around £130.

The GPU miner craze is nuts, because I had a friend buy a 1060 6gb for £185 a few months ago and now the same model is £240.

 

[Vae]

Is the CAS 14 (£190) worth it over the CAS 16 (£135)?

 

[ECA]

Is the CAS 14 (£190) worth it over the CAS 16 (£135)?

Um, no. My bad

 

[old.user4556]

For some unknown reason almost every uk system builder is only doing 2133/2400mhz ddr4, when there's actually about a 10% performance gain from putting 3200 in.
Infuriating.

Any sources / links on that? I've been planning an upgrade and found conflicting information regarding ram speeds.

 

[ECA]

Any sources / links on that? I've been planning an upgrade and found conflicting information regarding ram speeds.

On DDR3 ram speed didn't make much of a difference past 1600mhz it was very marginal, again on intel ddr4 it doesn't make that much of a difference.
It makes a bigger difference on ryzen because the infinity fabric ( amd marketing nonsense for the speed the separate bits of the cpu communicate with each other ) is the same speed as your ram speed so it's more of a difference than just your ram speed.

pics here:


View: https://imgur.com/a/sbwqK

 

[old.user4556]

On DDR3 ram speed didn't make much of a difference past 1600mhz it was very marginal, again on intel ddr4 it doesn't make that much of a difference.
It makes a bigger difference on ryzen because the infinity fabric ( amd marketing nonsense for the speed the separate bits of the cpu communicate with each other ) is the same speed as your ram speed so it's more of a difference than just your ram speed.

pics here:


View: https://imgur.com/a/sbwqK

Is it the same on Intel setups?

I like the gains on BF1, looks like it's worth the extra spend.

 

[ECA]

Is it the same on Intel setups?

I like the gains on BF1, looks like it's worth the extra spend.

It's a different story on intel but faster ram is still worth it.
It depends where your bottleneck ends up, for example if you have a decent i7, your bottleneck is almost always going to be GPU. However if you go 2x1080ti, or something similar then you end up in ram bottleneck land where having 4000mhz memory will actually give a big performance gain over even 3600.

For an i7 6700+980ti can you scroll along to the gaming benches in this vid and it shows you quite minimal gains



Below bench is with an i7 and 2x980ti from a little while back where they show what happens when you do get ram bottlenecked.

DDR4 Memory at 4000 MT/s, Does It Make a Difference?

 

[old.user4556]

Only £20 extra to go to Corsair 3200 MHz from 2133 MHz - makes sense for that ~10% increase. Corsair 3600 MHz is £70 more than 3200 MHz, so would be pointless for a few more frames on average.

 

[old.user4556]

Can't edit - just seen the Photoshop stats with faster memory, definite improvement as ram speeds get faster (my rig is a Lightroom / gaming setup). Reckon 3200 MHz is what I need.

 

[ECA]

I'm getting really tempted to buy an r7 1700+mobo+3600 ram at the moment.

My biggest bottleneck right now is CPU ( 2600k ), and I'd get quite a big singlethread ( 40-50% ) and a mahoosive multihread boost from it, especially if I can mildly OC it.

The 1800x clocks at 4ghz and tops out around 4.1 or 4.2, the 1700 clocks at 3.6 and can typically OC to 3.8-4ghz.
Pretty reasonable £500quid cpu+ram+mobo upgrade for huge gains.

Although I might drop some extra money on a nicer motherboard for a better sound processor and more usb slots.

Or I could buy a crankset dual sided power meter for my bike.... urghhhhhhh.

 

[Scouse]

Or I could buy a crankset dual sided power meter for my bike.... urghhhhhhh.

You're such a roadie.

Why not sell it all and buy one of these?

 

[ECA]

You're such a roadie.

Why not sell it all and buy one of these?

Cuz I ski down mountains, fuck riding up em.

 

[Scouse]

Cuz I ski down mountains, fuck riding up em.

Summertime m8. You can't ski down 'em in the summer. And you can still get uplifts if you want

 

[old.user4556]

Summertime m8. You can't ski down 'em in the summer. And you can still get uplifts if you want

Comrade please; you can ski all year round up a glacier. Don't forget the factor 50.

 

[Raven]

All the cool kids have mountain bikes, the gayers have racers.

 

[ECA]

All the fat slow kids have mountain bikes, the gayers have racers.

Fyp.

 

[Scouse]

Fyp.

Did this* with the missus yesterday.



*not the rock chute at the top tho