The PC Build Thread

[ViciousClone]

Check the latest Gamers Nexus video, fairly interesting.

So if you'd like the best fps out the zen 3 kits, run 4x8 3200mhz channel config.
2x8 loses 4-10% fps but still beats out the intel i5 and sometimes i9

 

[Gtx Gaming]

Looks like can continue using my x370 lol

Another forum member at Overclock.net, Brko, has revealed that Gigabyte already has Ryzen 5000 CPUs working on its X370 motherboards. Talking to board makers, I confirmed that the BETA BIOS is included with the existing AGESA 1.1.0.0 code. The motherboard fully supported the Ryzen 5000 CPU but had PCIe Gen 4 disabled.

 

[Mr G]

Hi all. Hoping to get some advice to help me out.

I swapped out an i3-3220 for a i5-2400 yesterday in my son's desktop, it's quite old but still runs well, picked up the i5 for free so thought wth. Was extra careful while doing the swap, made sure to not bend any pins, applied thermal paste, never touched anything else besides the cpu, and when I booted up there was no post. The cpu fan spins but no beeps from the mobo, and no video.

No problem I thought, I'll just put the i3 back in. Did that, and the same thing happens, no post, just a spinning cpu fan, and no video through vga or hdmi. Took everything out, including all ram, extra hdd, graphics card. I even replaced the cmos battery, and tried to boot up with only the minimum required to run, one stick of ram and single hdd, and still nothing.

I checked the pins, and can't see that anything is bent, so I'm kinda at my wit's end here. I'm not a techie by any means, but I thought I at least knew enough to change a cpu. I'm at work now, but any help would be appreciated for when I get home later, to try and fix it. Thanks

PC specs: i3-3220 / i5-2400
Geforce GT630
12GB ram (8GB + 4GB)
American Magatrends Inc. (model P8H61-M LX R2.0) mobo

 

[CTBP]

Not sure if this is the best place to post but I need a new gaming/office chair, so far I've looked at:

- Corsair T2 Road Warrior
- Corsair T3 Rush
- Noblechairs Icon series - looks like only Evetech stocks these

If anyone can recommend another chair to look at or some opinions on the ones listed please go ahead.

 

[UrBaN963]

Hi all. Hoping to get some advice to help me out.

I swapped out an i3-3220 for a i5-2400 yesterday in my son's desktop, it's quite old but still runs well, picked up the i5 for free so thought wth. Was extra careful while doing the swap, made sure to not bend any pins, applied thermal paste, never touched anything else besides the cpu, and when I booted up there was no post. The cpu fan spins but no beeps from the mobo, and no video.

No problem I thought, I'll just put the i3 back in. Did that, and the same thing happens, no post, just a spinning cpu fan, and no video through vga or hdmi. Took everything out, including all ram, extra hdd, graphics card. I even replaced the cmos battery, and tried to boot up with only the minimum required to run, one stick of ram and single hdd, and still nothing.

I checked the pins, and can't see that anything is bent, so I'm kinda at my wit's end here. I'm not a techie by any means, but I thought I at least knew enough to change a cpu. I'm at work now, but any help would be appreciated for when I get home later, to try and fix it. Thanks

PC specs: i3-3220 / i5-2400
Geforce GT630
12GB ram (8GB + 4GB)
American Magatrends Inc. (model P8H61-M LX R2.0) mobo

Some basic things to try:

Remove everything from the PC, bar the CPU.
Remove CMOS battery and power cable
Hold the power button for 10s to ensure no latent charge in the capacitors
Short the "Clear CMOS" jumper on the motherboard
Plug in the power cable and turn the PC on - see if it beeps at all. Should be 4 beeps due to no memory being present.
If that works, add a stick of RAM and see if it boots now. If it does, add components one by one to see if adding any causes it to fail.
If not, put the memory in a different slot and try again.

This assumes you have a PC speaker connected to the motherboard. If not, it's tricky.

You could also try swapping power supplies - always worth a try.

 

[UrBaN963]

Not sure if this is the best place to post but I need a new gaming/office chair, so far I've looked at:

- Corsair T2 Road Warrior
- Corsair T3 Rush
- Noblechairs Icon series - looks like only Evetech stocks these

If anyone can recommend another chair to look at or some opinions on the ones listed please go ahead.

Takealot seem to have a fairly broad selection. There's also the Maverick chairs from Matrix (I know).

 

[Mr G]

Some basic things to try:

Remove everything from the PC, bar the CPU.
Remove CMOS battery and power cable
Hold the power button for 10s to ensure no latent charge in the capacitors
Short the "Clear CMOS" jumper on the motherboard
Plug in the power cable and turn the PC on - see if it beeps at all. Should be 4 beeps due to no memory being present.
If that works, add a stick of RAM and see if it boots now. If it does, add components one by one to see if adding any causes it to fail.
If not, put the memory in a different slot and try again.

This assumes you have a PC speaker connected to the motherboard. If not, it's tricky.

You could also try swapping power supplies - always worth a try.

Great, will try these later, thanks.

Don't have another power supply, but the one I have in is fairly new, you never know though. If all the other options fail, I'll ask a friend to borrow one just to test.

 

[MockTurtle]

Anyone manage to check the 5900X price on Wootware? I saw on launch the 5800X was 9k, this morning 9.2k and now sold out .

...and now 5800X is 'available' again.. but at R9999. so a grand increase in a matter of days. that's wootware for you.

 

[PeterPan420]

Not sure if this is the best place to post but I need a new gaming/office chair, so far I've looked at:

- Corsair T2 Road Warrior
- Corsair T3 Rush
- Noblechairs Icon series - looks like only Evetech stocks these

If anyone can recommend another chair to look at or some opinions on the ones listed please go ahead.

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[Neoprod]

The Wootware 5600x special is very tempting but luckily for my wallet, my motherboard won't support them officially till next year sometime

500 bucks off this memory which I've enjoyed tinkering with.

At XMP (3200 16-18-18-38) -




After (many) hours of messing around (3733mhz 16-19-19-32-51, some other sub-timings) -





The other thing is that I got the current sticks 3 years ago and there are a few different IC's that are used for 3200 16-18-18-38 kits. Chances are I may not get the same Hynix CJR so the current settings won't work.

 

[richjdavies]

Just getting back into this as want to build a workstation PC - as my laptop is struggling with bigger data processing tasks (particularly when my 4k monitor is attached) so want to offload heavy stuff.

From the discussions above:
- AMD 5600X (Wootware 5600x special) or should i spend more on more cores? AMD 5900x?
- motherboard b550 or something else (need to do more research here and depends on things below)
- memory - no idea what I should be thinking of assume probably 2 x 16GB?
- think 1tb nvme should it be pci4.0?... But does anyone do raid anymore??? Maybe 3 x 500gb raid 5... But then you cant get more than 1 pci4.0?
- gpu - no idea... Im not a gamer, but presume maths things use these now? Will this take up my pci4.0?
- case - anyone know a QUIET one - do not need lights or be able to see anything, but don't want a jet taking off!

I am happy to spend, but not frivolously. So would consider cheaper options...as possibly anything I get is going to be such a huge step up anyway!

 

[Neoprod]

Just getting back into this as want to build a workstation PC - as my laptop is struggling with bigger data processing tasks (particularly when my 4k monitor is attached) so want to offload heavy stuff.

From the discussions above:
- AMD 5600X (Wootware 5600x special) or should i spend more on more cores? AMD 5900x?
- motherboard b550 or something else (need to do more research here and depends on things below)
- memory - no idea what I should be thinking of assume probably 2 x 16GB?
- think 1tb nvme should it be pci4.0?... But does anyone do raid anymore??? Maybe 3 x 500gb raid 5... But then you cant get more than 1 pci4.0?
- gpu - no idea... Im not a gamer, but presume maths things use these now? Will this take up my pci4.0?
- case - anyone know a QUIET one - do not need lights or be able to see anything, but don't want a jet taking off!

I am happy to spend, but not frivolously. So would consider cheaper options...as possibly anything I get is going to be such a huge step up anyway!

Can the workload you mentioned be GPU-accelerated? You say you're doing it on your laptop atmo but if you weren't constrained by laptop hardware, would a graphics card help?

 

[richjdavies]

Can the workload you mentioned be GPU-accelerated? You say you're doing it on your laptop atmo but if you weren't constrained by laptop hardware, would a graphics card help?

I dont have just 1 work load unfortunately so Im not 100% sure.
Sometimes its big GIS and timescale DB loads, sometimes just big excel files, sometimes CAD files that seem to be slow...

Current laptop is a dell latitude about 2 years old with i7 with ssd and 8gb ram -- i.e. not underpowered, but still a few generations behind what a dssktop pc can be nowadays...

 

[Neoprod]

I'd honestly look at a 3900X build over the 5900X...it's available now, two and a half grand cheaper and about 10-12% slower in production workloads.

The difference can go toward an additional 32Gb of RAM which would be much handier for big datasets.

I'd suggest looking at the software you're using and checking on their website or documentation which graphics cards they recommend. Autodesk tend to only certify workstation cards while most home users seem to be using 1050/1060 cards. So do some digging, I guess.

 

[richjdavies]

I'd honestly look at a 3900X build over the 5900X...it's available now, two and a half grand cheaper and about 10-12% slower in production workloads.

After some research I'm thinking that its probably not worth me going from 1 to 11 in one go. Maybe just to 5-6! Save some budget to correct bottlenecks later on

So Im thinking now 5600x? Or an older one with more cores?

Also thinking b550 chipset...

Not sure if I should get a radeon (smart memory sharing sounds good) or other gpu? Not high end, just basic. One concern I have is I do like using my 4k monitor... Not for gaming though...

I still dont get the memory or storage options and what is the best bang for buck on that?

 

[RVZ]

I'm looking for some advice for a new pc as well. For the last couple of years I've been using an i7 3770, 8gb ram and a GTX 1060. Already sold the 1060, and don't think it's worth keeping the pc? It's just for casual gaming, and all my screens are 1080p. I don't want to spend too much, but also don't want to buy something just to have to upgrade again in a year or 2.

Will something like the 2060 be a decent upgrade to last for a couple of years? And what should I be looking for for a CPU, motherboard and ram?

 

[UrBaN963]

2060 Super would be far better than a 2060.

If it's just for 1080P gaming and you don't want to spend too much, grab yourself a 3400G or 3600, a B550 motherboard and 16GB DDR4-3200. Then, when you do want to upgrade later, pop a 5600X in there and boom, performance city.

 

[Ancalagon]

After some research I'm thinking that its probably not worth me going from 1 to 11 in one go. Maybe just to 5-6! Save some budget to correct bottlenecks later on

So Im thinking now 5600x? Or an older one with more cores?

Also thinking b550 chipset...

Not sure if I should get a radeon (smart memory sharing sounds good) or other gpu? Not high end, just basic. One concern I have is I do like using my 4k monitor... Not for gaming though...

I still dont get the memory or storage options and what is the best bang for buck on that?

Well, what is your budget?

I'd probably agree that a 3900X makes more sense for you, with your production workloads. I'd get 2 x 16GB of memory, to allow you to go to 64GB later. I'd also get a 1TB SSD - an NVMe drive.

If you were doing high performance computing, you might get more mileage out of a 5900X.

I wouldn't really go for a 5600X. With only 6 cores, it can do production workloads, but a 3900X would be faster for them in most cases.

 

[RVZ]

2060 Super would be far better than a 2060.

If it's just for 1080P gaming and you don't want to spend too much, grab yourself a 3400G or 3600, a B550 motherboard and 16GB DDR4-3200. Then, when you do want to upgrade later, pop a 5600X in there and boom, performance city.

Thanks, but if I compare the 3400g with my current setup, it's not really that much better, so I might as well keep what I have? Or am I missing something?

UserBenchmark: AMD Ryzen 5 3400G vs Intel Core i7-3770

 

[UrBaN963]

UserBenchMark is about as useful as waterproof teabags dipped in cyanide.