PC Tech Thread

Yes, the early black friday offers are all lower spec machines that they probably want to get rid of, can't see much chance of anything other than a few basic freebies thrown in with higher spec stuff.
Still I've spent so long dithering over ordering that it will probably be another few weeks before I get round to it.

Horribly expensive new PC ordered, so now would be a great time to tell me I made a really bad choice.

More usefully, can anyone suggest very roughly what I could sell my old PC for second hand? With a 500gb SSD as well as the below spec.

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If i had a budget of £1k for a win desktop (no peripherals) and I wanted an all around work-horse (gaming, streaming, editing photo/video, 3d modelling for my 3d printer) what sort of kit list should I be looking at.

ideally 16gb with room for 32gb
hdd space not a major priority other than for installation (have a WD NAS and usb3.0 ext drive for file storage)
gaming i'm just looking to play stuff on steam without worrying about it being capable not run the latest triple-A at max settings/fps
would like ability to run obs and capture incoming hdmi and stream from time to time, I have a elgato stream stick to capture the input.
would prefer a nice smart case and zero rgb

I imagine this has been asked but Nest wifi router/points - any good? I seem to remember someone having a bad experience with the Google Wifi Home Router stuff but what about the Nest versions which double as a speaker? I find our Sonos stuff really temperamental. We have powerline points around the house at the moment and they're trash / need to connect manually to each point etc. Would like a mesh network that isn't ugly and if it doubles as something anyone can easily log in to Spotify and play stuff from, great. So Nest sounds solid on the face of it. And there's a small sale on it at the moment.

Any pressing reason why I shouldn't go-with the Asus ZenWiFi AX AT8 mesh system for our new place?

I think if i run an ethernet from my edgerouter-x to the upstairs landing for the "main" one running in access point mode it'll be <10m run and should cover the front of the house with a minimal radius to keep speeds high, the other unit i'd want in the study where i'll spend most of my time so i can connect toughswitch poe to the ethernet port for running various rpi projects and other nerdy stuff at max speeds. it'll also extend to our garden so we can get signal out there

orange blobs are locations we want decent speed. (streaming from plex/netflix in living room, computing in others).

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Just found a refurbed min spec Lenovo P50 for £300? seems like a bargain?

Can someone dissuade me from buying this to replace the startling loud G-tech studio as my next RAID?

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3TBV4T32

It'd need to be RAID 1 as for some reason others (apart from 0) aren't compatible on Windows and my only real interest in RAID is for additional redundancy.

I like small, neat, tidy, quiet things. This ticks lots of boxes. I could buy drives and an enclosure for less, but fewer boxes being ticked.

I could daisy chain a pair of them through softraid and get up to 3800mbps in theory... (though presumably not in RAID 1).

this thread has gone so dead all of a sudden.

in miraculous news my technophobic partner actually suggested we get me a new pc as my MBP is in its death throes and didn't balk at getting something current rather than mid-price last gen.

In a couple of weeks I should be proud recipient of a Scan 3XS build with following spec:
Fractal Design Meshify 2 case (grey/light tint)
Asus ROG STRIX z690-A mobo
i7 12700k processor
noctua nh-d15 cooler
32gb ddr pc-3000 ram
1tb pci4.0 m.2 samsung 980pro drive
EVGA 3060ti ftw3 ultra gfx

will add another drive for file storage once it arrives but have a wd mycloud pr4100 and a usb3 mybook 4tb which will both be going on the network through the router.

speaking of which we plumped for the Asus ZenWifi ax at8 mesh kit in the end. will run some shielded cat5 rj11 cable from master socket to under stairs area on 1st floor landing into draytek vigor 130 in bridge mode then into the router which should get pretty nice coverage as it'll be <8m in any direction to most rooms. will run hue bridge, wd mycloud nas & ancient mac mini from ethernet ports and the mybook 4tb on the usb3.0 port. second unit will be in my study with 2.5G port connected to my new pc, ethernet to smart tv & ps4 pro.

this probably means I'll be looking to shift my current wifi AP (unifi ac ap lr) once we unpack at the new house (dec 11-17th) if anyone needs one i'd be happy with £50 posted. possibly bundled with my edgerouter-x and a poe injector for another £30.

Mind saying what that spec sets you back? Thinking of almost the exact same thing but have a 3080 so was thinking I’d likely self build. But might see if Scan would build without a card it it’s competitive

Asus ROG STRIX z690-A mobo

noctua nh-d15 cooler

Weird, I thought they were incompatible. Been rather a fuss made of it.

was ~2k all in. i started with the intel 3070 spec model as the base but dropped to 3060ti for availability and i'm sure it'll do me right for a good few years before i notice it's lacking.

On the subject of cables. We have a router downstairs near the front wall. It's virgin and shite. My ping has been through the roof lately (though previously it was single or low double digits, now it's 100+). Rather than problem solve I was going to piggy back on some work being done in the house on Monday. Floorboards are coming up for some gas pipery so I was going to slip some cat 6 down at the same time. Any particular cable to look for? I don't know how much I'd need so was going to presume a roll and then a tool to add a port to the end. Is that a silly idea? Or just measure it and coil up the extra meters at either end for slack?

I'm assuming if I run ethernet direct from the virgin router to my computer (upstairs, also front of the house) it'll be faster than the powerline I'm currently using.

Weird, I thought they were incompatible. Been rather a fuss made of it.

it would appear you are correct.

https://ncc.noctua.at/motherboards/model/ASUS-ROG-Strix-Z690-A-Gaming-WiFi-D4-5375

these are the available options within my budget. before I speak to scan is there an obvious choice to pick instead? or is it ok to have it installed rotated venting out the top as stated on the compatibility page without being a massive compromise and i can just stick with that?

or in a case the size of the meshify 2 which supports 3x 140mm top fans should i suck it up and get the corsair H150i RGB PRO XT 360mm cooler for another £60 which has 3 fans so it doesn't look weird?

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Ethernet is a world of difference, it just works reliably 100% of the time. My experience with powerline was shit, a few years back but the dlink ones I had only managed 60mb.

I bought a CAT 5e cable, but one that was specifically shielded out of concern for it running alongside mains. Had to chop one end off for the sake of access and crimp on a new plug - which I was strongly advised against doing - but it's been absolutely fine. Near enough to 1Gb across the LAN when I tested it.

No idea, sorry. You'd hope that if Scan are speccing and building them together it's ok.

i meant more just in the sense of which coolers are considered better than others.

it seems that be quiet also has issues with this mobo and their coolers. i'll talk to scan and see what they say.

powerline

I have 1000mbps powerline between my broadband router and the box room that is my home office. It's good enough most of the time (given that my BB is <100mbps) and everything that could benefit from >100mbps network is all on gigabit switches in my home office.

However the powerline stuff is temperamental when run 24/7. I have to unplug and plug them back in about once every 2 or 3 weeks otherwise they're a bit flaky. They also seem to last about 18-24 months before they stop working altogether.

Replacing with a length of Cat5e or (future proofing) Cat6a would be a dream, but there's too much stuff that would have to come up or be worked around to do it.

a) Under the floor would require 3 carpets to be lifted (box room, hall, sitting room) and lots of floor board nonsense.
b) Along/around the skirting boards would be a big faff with two doors to bypass (either going around the door frames or under the carpet door strips)
c) Outside is a possibility but I'd need a hole drilled in a 30cm thick wall, plus 20m of cable secured to the side of the house (and a whole 10m section in a really inaccessible area down the side)

Network cabling is on the list of things to do if the place gets rewired, but need at least ~£10k for that to happen anytime soon (to cover the work, redecorating and a couple of new carpets).

For now a £50 set of powerline adapters every couple of years is enough.

I've just built up a PC in a Fractal Design Define 7 case which is basically identical to the meshify but with less mesh. Nice PC, very neat but pretty substantial.

i saw the define 7 as an option but i loved the front panel on the meshify.

I accidentally picked the meshify 2 compact when buying so had to change it, think i would have been fine with the compact but figured the bigger case is more flexible later on down the line with compatibility (while simultaneously picking incompatible parts for the build haha)

might see if Scan would build without a card it it’s competitive

They do. Am wavering on hitting buy and using my existing card

I ended up getting a few bits separately and will do the build myself, since I have a few parts to transfer over anyway.

Ended up with about the same as @HatBeard

Fractal Design Meshify C
MSI z690
i7-12700k
Noctua NH-D15 (and the adapter to make it fit - thanks for the heads up there HB & Brun)
2x16GB Corsair DDR4 3600mhz
Corsair 750W PSU
Samsung 980 Pro 1TB

And already have an ASUS 3080

Everything should just about fit in the case - the 3080 will be snug though

nice. I got the 750w corsair too. i'm sure i'll end up chucking a few more hdds and a capture card in there so wanted some wiggle room

2x16GB Corsair DDR4 3600mhz

There is a load of this on sale on Scan atm. I just ordered another 16gb 3200mhz kit as it was cheap from Scan last night at 21:20, it arrived today at 11:11 standard delivery!

Meanwhile I've downloaded a chrome plugin and set overclockers DDR5 page to auto-refresh every 60 seconds.

Had lonely 12900k for a month now.

changed my cooler to a corsair H150i rgb pro 360mm liquid cooled. should look great in the meshify 2 case.

they also had the 3070ti back in stock so I raided my piggy bank and swapped out the 3060ti. should buy me a little more longevity out of the machine before it needs any upgrades.