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#1 Aug 16 2018 at 8:55 AM Rating: Good
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I'm building a new comp since it has been more than a bit since my last build. So I was hoping you all could take a look at what I'm thinking and tell me if I'm ******** up anything particularly egregious. My roommate's also going to be building the same system, so definitely want to do it right the first time.

The Necessities
Motherboard/CPU combo: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X + MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC Motherboard Bundle
RAM: Patriot Viper 4 Series Extreme Performance DDR4 16GB (2 X 8GB) 3200MHz
Case: DIYPC Skyline-06-WB Black SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G1+, 80 Plus Gold 850W, Fully Modular
HDD: Seagate 4TB BarraCuda SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache
Blu-Ray: LG 12X Blu-Ray Disc Drive
OS: Windows 10

Optional(Roommate requires GFX Card, I may not, see below)
GFX Card: MSI Radeon RX 580 DirectX 12 RX 580 ARMOR 8G
SSD: 500GB Solid State Drive


Specific questions
1)One thing I noticed while posting this was the the HDD was only a 5400rpm. As I understand it, Seagate is a pretty good brand, yes? I found an even larger Toshiba that does 7200, but the cache is smaller and I'm not too familiar with whether Toshibas are decent.

2)On the solid state drive: Would I find noticeable increase in performance if I grabbed one of those and used it simply for running the OS and maybe storing photos/etc while using the main drive for games and everything else?

2a)If not, would there be any real problem running the OS off of a 5400rpm 1TB drive I already have(unused, I'd put it on my shopping list last year when I first started thinking about upgrading and someone got it for me for Christmas)?

3)This is my current GFX card. I bought it last year and am thinking for my personal build I'll just cannibalize it out of the older comp and use it in the new one. Based on the Tom's Hardware list here, it sounds like the one I have listed won't be enough of an upgrade to justify upgrading now at the cost. I'm not missing anything, am I?

4)I'm planning on upgrading the RAM in a year or two and went with only 16GB for now so I can allocate more funds to the Mobo/CPU, which are much more of a pain to upgrade. Things I've read suggest that should easily hold me over on all but the most bleeding edge games. Am I wrong on that?

Wrap Up
I welcome suggestions, keeping the following in mind. I am dead set on an AMD processor, and I want it in a bundle to avoid a repeat of what happened last time. I rather like the look of the tower, but am open to suggestions, though both my roommate and I really want full tower cases(more room to work in, and more room for air flow). Also, I definitely want at least 3TB on the HDD.
#2 Aug 17 2018 at 8:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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My only complaint would be that 5400 is slow for a HDD. If you're planning on gaming off of it I would get a 7200 minimum. But this...
Quote:
On the solid state drive: Would I find noticeable increase in performance if I grabbed one of those and used it simply for running the OS and maybe storing photos/etc while using the main drive for games and everything else?

...sort of makes no sense. Storing photos on a SSD and running games off a 5400 is backwards. Put your games on the SSD and store photos on the slow HDD where it makes no difference. I'm sure your budget is limited but save your pennies and keep your eyes open -- the Crucial MX500 1TB drive has been around $150 a couple times before.

Even if you decide to primarily run off an HDD, put your OS on a SSD boot drive. Even a ratty 120GB SSD will be better than using a hard drive. That's Micro Center's house brand drive and I'm using one in an old system I refurbished. It's still ~25 sec from power button press to Windows 7 with it which certainly beats hard drive speeds.

Your RAM is fine. Ryzen depends on fast RAM speeds but yours should be good. 16GB is fine for now and will probably be fine a year from now.

I'd use the GPU you already own and wait for next year when AMD is supposed to get around to their next generation cards.

850w far exceeds what you probably need but if you want to go for it, go for it.

You can probably get a cheap Win10 key from Kinguin if you don't own one. It'll be an OEM key and you might need to contact their support to activate it but it's like $30. I'm using one on a system and it's fine.

Edited, Aug 17th 2018 9:23am by Jophiel
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#3 Aug 17 2018 at 8:41 AM Rating: Good
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Yeah, I ditched the 5400 for a comparable 7200. As far as photos on the SSD, I was mostly just saying that because I figured I should put more than just the OS on there and I want all of my games on one drive(also, there was a game a while back that had a bug that was bricking SSDs). Smiley: tongue I'll look into the SSD there. The new HDD was putting me out of the range for an SSD, but I can swing that one.

Honestly, my budget has a fair bit more leeway, but I want to keep enough in savings for an emergency. I've been doing a lot better on saving up and paying off debt and don't want to relapse into irresponsibility too hard.
#4 Aug 17 2018 at 9:15 AM Rating: Excellent
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Well, you don't need to stick every random Steam asset flip title on the SSD but I'd put whatever premium long-term title you might be playing on it. Depends on the game; obviously a small title benefits less than games that are constantly loading in levels or graphic assets (Killing Floor 2, Division, etc etc).

That's assuming you go with a larger SSD. If you're just using it as a boot drive and it's 120GB or less then you probably won't be putting much on it aside form the OS and various grown-up-people utilities (Office, etc)

Edited, Aug 17th 2018 10:17am by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#5 Aug 17 2018 at 2:19 PM Rating: Good
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So... OS and Norton it is. 😛
#6 Aug 17 2018 at 2:19 PM Rating: Good
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So... OS and Norton it is. 😛
#7 Aug 17 2018 at 4:22 PM Rating: Excellent
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I can't speak for Norton but Win10 is ~25GB
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#8 Aug 18 2018 at 3:04 AM Rating: Good
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Newegg stuff is on the way. Waiting a couple days to order the Amazon stuff since it should arrive faster.

Also, being able to have them just hold the newegg stuff at a FedEx store is pretty nice. Saves me the worry that any of this will be stolen off of my porch.
#9 Aug 18 2018 at 6:59 AM Rating: Good
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Quote:
2a)If not, would there be any real problem running the OS off of a 5400rpm 1TB drive I already have(unused, I'd put it on my shopping list last year when I first started thinking about upgrading and someone got it for me for Christmas)?
So, taking a second and pulling that HDD out of the closet, turns out it's actually a 7200. Any real reason I shouldn't put it in as well, maybe use it for say, games that aren't Steam/Origin/Blizzard, or maybe use it for non-gaming programs(like my taxes), something like that?
#10 Aug 18 2018 at 4:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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Assuming it's a SATA drive not some ancient IDE drive, go for it. No reason why you couldn't put Steam games on there, especially ones where load times aren't an issue.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#11 Aug 18 2018 at 4:29 PM Rating: Good
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It'll just be easier to keep all games from a single publisher on a single drive, is all I'm figuring. Hell, maybe I can put all my Blizz games on that one, since there are only a few and I don't think they'll add up to more than 500 GB.
#12 Aug 19 2018 at 8:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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Steam allows you to select a install drive for each title and then you're just running it through the launcher anyway. But, anyway, do what works best for you.
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#13 Aug 19 2018 at 1:10 PM Rating: Decent
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The parts seem fine except for the lack of an SSD for a boot drive. Even a cheap SSD will be noticeably faster than a rotational drive. Your board looks like it will take a SATA m.2 drive, which are faster even than a standard SSD, but the difference won't be as significant as the difference between a rotational drive and an SSD. m.2 drives are more of a luxury item, very nice to have but not terribly necessary. If you have the money, it's the current best you can get, but a regular SSD is really standard at this point.

Secondly, DDR4 RAM clocks at 2133mhz out of the box. To get that 3200mhz speed that it is advertised at, you'll need to overclock it. Ryzen processors have been shown to benefit greatly from faster RAM, much more so than other processors, so overclocking the RAM is a must if you want to get the most out of your system.

Lastly, that graphics card will be adequate for now, as long as you aren't looking for a higher resolution than 1080p. Even at 1080p, you won't likely exceed 60fps on most current titles. With Nvidia set to officially announce their new cards tomorrow, waiting a couple of months and buying a GTX1070 for GTX 1080 would be the best course. A 1080ti is a solid 30% increase over a 1080, but unless you're aiming for high frame rates, 4k resolution, or both, it's not needed. Though, once the new cards drop, the prices on the current cards should drop to the point where that upgrade will make a lot of sense.

Edited, Aug 19th 2018 3:27pm by Turin
#14 Aug 20 2018 at 7:51 AM Rating: Good
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Turin wrote:
Secondly, DDR4 RAM clocks at 2133mhz out of the box. To get that 3200mhz speed that it is advertised at, you'll need to overclock it. Ryzen processors have been shown to benefit greatly from faster RAM, much more so than other processors, so overclocking the RAM is a must if you want to get the most out of your system.
Out of curiosity, will I need to look into more cooling for that, or will that be alright as is?

Quote:
Lastly, that graphics card will be adequate for now, as long as you aren't looking for a higher resolution than 1080p.
Considering that's what my monitor can do, I think that'll be just fine. Smiley: grin
#15 Aug 21 2018 at 1:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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Turin wrote:
With Nvidia set to officially announce their new cards tomorrow, waiting a couple of months and buying a GTX1070 for GTX 1080 would be the best course. A 1080ti is a solid 30% increase over a 1080, but unless you're aiming for high frame rates, 4k resolution, or both, it's not needed. Though, once the new cards drop, the prices on the current cards should drop to the point where that upgrade will make a lot of sense.

Unless, I don't know, the new cards are all priced a tier higher than last generation Smiley: grin

If you have $450-$500 burning a hole in your pocket, go find a discounted GTX 1080 to buy. But if you're not doing much gaming, especially not over 1080p, there's no reason to spend the money now over your existing card.

Edited, Aug 21st 2018 2:41pm by Jophiel
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#16 Aug 21 2018 at 3:54 PM Rating: Decent
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
Turin wrote:
Secondly, DDR4 RAM clocks at 2133mhz out of the box. To get that 3200mhz speed that it is advertised at, you'll need to overclock it. Ryzen processors have been shown to benefit greatly from faster RAM, much more so than other processors, so overclocking the RAM is a must if you want to get the most out of your system.
Out of curiosity, will I need to look into more cooling for that, or will that be alright as is?


Unless that case has some sort of terrible airflow issues, cooling shouldn't be an issue. RAM can actually take a surprising amount of heat. I'm convinced that heat spreaders are only useful for making RAM look better.

Jophiel wrote:
Turin wrote:
With Nvidia set to officially announce their new cards tomorrow, waiting a couple of months and buying a GTX1070 for GTX 1080 would be the best course. A 1080ti is a solid 30% increase over a 1080, but unless you're aiming for high frame rates, 4k resolution, or both, it's not needed. Though, once the new cards drop, the prices on the current cards should drop to the point where that upgrade will make a lot of sense.

Unless, I don't know, the new cards are all priced a tier higher than last generation Smiley: grin

If you have $450-$500 burning a hole in your pocket, go find a discounted GTX 1080 to buy. But if you're not doing much gaming, especially not over 1080p, there's no reason to spend the money now over your existing card.


Like I said, it's good enough for now. But, with that being said, that card is going to be the bottleneck in the system. I would bet that it already struggles to play current games at max settings. That's only going to get worse as time goes on.

As I was pondering the possibilities of upgrading to an RTX 2080ti, I took a look at current Ebay pricing my EVGA 1080ti FTW3 Elite card. Used ones are already hovering around the $500.00 mark. Once the newer cards start to become available in the next couple of months, those numbers are sure to drop as people scramble to sell off their older ones. Anyway, it's something to think about for the future.
#17 Aug 21 2018 at 5:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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Used cards have been flooding the market since crypto-mining crashed. If you're looking to buy a used GPU then there's probably good prices to be had. For new cards, if I was a retailer I wouldn't bother putting the 1080 under $450 given that 2060 at "near" 1080 performance will probably retail for $499 (given that the 2070 will be $599).

Won't really know until real life benchmarks start coming out and stuff. But Poldaran didn't seem worried about his GPU and I don't see the point in spending another $400 just for kicks. It's not as though the stuff won't be cheaper later or wait until Q1/Q2 of 2019 when the next gen of AMD cards drop and Nvidia reacts like they did with the 1050/1060s last gen.

Edited, Aug 21st 2018 6:20pm by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#18 Aug 21 2018 at 10:22 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:

Won't really know until real life benchmarks start coming out and stuff. But Poldaran didn't seem worried about his GPU and I don't see the point in spending another $400 just for kicks. It's not as though the stuff won't be cheaper later or wait until Q1/Q2 of 2019 when the next gen of AMD cards drop and Nvidia reacts like they did with the 1050/1060s last gen.

Edited, Aug 21st 2018 6:20pm by Jophiel
I have a backlog of games that my old cpu couldn't handle that will take a year to clear out, especially since I am getting back into WoW. As long as I upgrade in time for Cyberpunk 2077, I should be fine.
#19 Aug 22 2018 at 3:12 PM Rating: Good
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Everything except the case has arrived, because of course the part I need to actually get started would come in last.

Oh well, gives me time to backup everything on my old comp to the new USB stick and I should be able to pick it up from the FedEx store on my way home from work in the morning. And I don't have to worry that it'll get stolen off my patio, since I had it delivered directly to a FedEx store.
#20 Aug 22 2018 at 3:27 PM Rating: Good
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
Everything except the case has arrived, because of course the part I need to actually get started would come in last. Trump.


Crossthread shenanigans.
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#21 Aug 23 2018 at 11:43 AM Rating: Good
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Nah, the problem is FedEx. :P
#22 Aug 24 2018 at 4:49 PM Rating: Decent
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Just in case you were still on the fence on getting an SSD, watch this video:

#23 Aug 24 2018 at 10:30 PM Rating: Good
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I already bought it and it's already installed. Roommate is actually putting his together right now.
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