PC Tech Thread

Definitely they're only about 10cm thick edge on

Thanks, not sure I would get the white one - or tbh which mouse I'd get full stop yet but good to know they're viable these days. I also saw a video of someone constructing a homemade qiboard. Ideas..

Hi all,
I want to build a PC slowly over the next year so that it can run Windows 11 and run fairly demanding games for my kids.

Current one can just about run Minecraft + any random mods the boys chuck at it, as it has a GPU (it's a small tower so limited on GPU physical size), but it's too old to upgrade the hardware for the next windows.

Where shall i start? What shall i read/research?
And what do i need to watch out for as i assume it's not as straightforward as joining all the bits together correctly and then turning it on?

I've done lots of easy stuff like installed GPU, upgraded RAM, swapped HDDs for SSDs, installed extra drives, so i think it's ok to suggest I'm fairly handy with this sort of thing, but totally ignorant on pitfalls and techniques etc.

I'm doing it slowly as i will be bargain hunting along the way as I have very very low disposable income hooray. I don't need peripherals, I'll use what I've got until I'm forced to replace them.

Any help appreciated

I'm doing it slowly as i will be bargain hunting along the way as I have very very low disposable income

Set whatever money you have budgeted aside every month and buy all at once when you have enough. PC tech changes fast enough that you could find yourself compromised if you commit to one component now. Also, what is latest and greatest now will be second tier in a year's time and almost certainly cheaper in nominal terms than it is now.

And what do i need to watch out for as i assume it's not as straightforward as joining all the bits together correctly and then turning it on?

Building a PC is surprisingly easy. Main thing to watch out for is incompatible components. Using something like https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ should help avoid that.

I'm 2nd tier all the way! But i take your point, it's probably a wiser approach.

Surely even if I'm buying fairly middle of the road parts it'll take a few years before obsolescence kicks in?

Thank you - I'll take a look, i might be able to lose an hour or two on there!

if I'm buying fairly middle of the road parts it'll take a few years before obsolescence kicks in?

It's not so much obsolescence (with luck, you can get 10 years of service out of hardware before it will no longer run software which is still getting support) as buyer's remorse. If you buy a mobo which supports PCIe 4.0 now, you're going to be pissed in a year's time when you've saved up for a hard disk that not only can you now afford a PCIe 5.0 M2 SSD, but the equivalent mobo now supports PCIe 5.0 and costs less than you paid for the one which has been sitting in your unfinished projects box for a year.

+1 for PC Part Picker, it made my first build pretty simple for the most part:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/17213659/

Thoughts on cheap its set up? Already have GPU so looking for sweet spot between price and performance and I'm way out of touch. Currently have an i7 8700 I think (this is my back up se up).

What's your budget? What will you use the system for?

As low as possible and gaming. Threadripper then?

Deffo not Threadripper for gaming; @CYOA just needed a metric fuckton of PCIe lanes.

If I was buying now, I'd get a Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, or the 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X3D for £60 more if you're gonna be doing actual work with it as well.

Motherboard depends on your peripheral demands. Expensive fast 'gaming' RAM is a waste of money. Invest in a decent cooler (I'd avoid watercooling, another waste of money unless you're overcl0xXing).

Shirley 8955HX/cousins are right around the corner by now?

Is watercooling quieter? I want the legit fastest quietest thing now (so if it's quieter I wouldn't care about overnerding). I get quite a lot of noise after 3 or so years of going with my current machine. Am sure it's largely dust build up and when I have headphones on to play I don't notice it. But if I'm working I'm usually one headphone off and it's a bit of a low grade nuisance.

There's always something 'right around the corner'. "If I was buying now"...

Any form of cooling is only as quiet as the fans that are fitted. With watercooling, you've got pump noise to contend with, and pump impeller development has nowhere near the level of resources chucked at it as fan R&D does. Also, sealed heat pipes/vapour chambers are incredibly effective, and from my experience in order to achieve similar levels of performance between a good, large heatpipe air cooler and a compact closed-loop watercooler, the watercooler will need to have more/larger/faster fans and be louder.

Obvs you can spec and fit a MUCH larger water radiator inside a PC chassis, so watercooling can scale far further than air, but again that only starts to make a practical difference if you're using Intel chips made of magma or 0vErCl0KxXiNg.

If you really want 'quiet', then limit your CPU TDP (losing maybe 7% peak performance) and run your 140mm Noctua fans at 500rpm.

Ha. I know I was just kidding. This is just a cheap back up rig so looking at maybe even something used. Will sit under loft desk.

If you really want 'quiet', then limit your CPU TDP (losing maybe 7% peak performance) and run your 140mm Noctua fans at 500rpm.

pro-tip. Will dabble, thanks.

If you really want 'quiet', then limit your CPU TDP (losing maybe 7% peak performance) and...

...build a computer with zero moving parts

That's what I did. I've had my fanless QuietPC for 8 years and don't miss the fan noise.

But can you pwn nubs with it.

I am already a god amongst men.

In the context of 'gaming' systems with all components sharing a chassis with top-end GPUs blazing out ~400W sustained, passive cooling isn't really practical.

But yes, for a general-purpose machine, silent (fanless) running has been a solved problem for a while now.

Is the snapdragon x elite stuff as interesting as it sounds?

Seen some potent sounding laptops and mini pcs already. Be good to see long-term benchmarks for resolve and, obvs whether it plays pubg so I can play in hotel rooms on shoots and never ever sleep. Could be a nice alternative to taking an M3 Air on the road for laptop duties while the tower sits at home.

Any recommendations for a cheapo UPS? Doesn't need to keep stuff running for any length of time, just a few minutes to ride out any brief powercuts.

Anything really. Cheapest on Scan is £55 and looks perfectly good.

I saved an ancient APC BACK-UPS 650 from a skip years ago and ordered a £20 replacement battery for it and it's done its job perfectly. You might find something similarly cheap on eBay.

I use it just to ride out any very temporary power glitches and I've never had a problem with it.