Building New PC

[viper37]

My four year old system runs fine, but it's starting to show its age, so I ordered a new setup today:

CPU :Intel Core i9-10900X 10x 3.70GHz Cascade Lake-X (BX8069510900X)
Mainboard:ASUS Prime X299-A II (90MB11F0-M0EAY0)
GPU:ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC RTX3080 10GB 2x HDMI 3x DP (90YV0FB1-M0NM00)
RAM:32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO Kit DDR4 2.666 MHz (CMW32GX4M4A2666C16)
SSD:500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe (MZ-V7S500BW)
SSD:1000GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe (MZ-V7S1T0BW)
HDD:Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS HDD +Rescue 4TB, SATA 6Gb/s

Comes in this case: be quiet! Midi Silent Base 801 Window black

I thought about going with liquid cooling this time, but I'm too paranoid about leakages. I feel more comfortable cleaning good old fans.

My old PC will remain as backup. If I was still streaming, I would use the old one as streaming/encoding PC while the new one would run the games.

A Ryzen 7 3700x would cost you less than half the price for the same single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.  Even if the i9 has 10 cores/20threads, the Ryzen 7 performs better.

For 2/3 of the price, you can have a Ryzen 9 3900x that will perform better and will have 12 cores/24 threads.

Alas, the newest 5900x seems to be back-order everywhere.

[Caliga]

My 7 year old monitor started misbehaving this morning--basically, it wasn't liking switching between my work laptop and personal desktop.  I was thinking about getting a new monitor anyway to go along with the new build I'm planning for next year, so I just went ahead and pulled the trigger on this monitor:

https://www.newegg.com/black-asus-tuf-gaming-vg27bq-90lm04z0-b013b0-27/p/N82E16824236991?Item=N82E16824236991

[viper37]

it has a lot of good reviews, I checked it out before buying the new one. 

[Darth Wagtaros]

Nice.

I need to redesign my entire computer area, as I should have done months ago.  OK for a few hours here and there, but not not entirely comfortable for working all day.

But then I'd have to clean up everything, get a new table, clean again, figure out how to make everything better...  I'd like my monitors to be on arms, but they don't have the fittings.

[Caliga]

it has a lot of good reviews, I checked it out before buying the new one. 

It got here today and I set it up.  Seems great so far.  24 to 27 inch is a much bigger change than I thought it would be.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Thinking about replacing the storage in my Synology with SSDs to save power.  But I'd have to invest in 5 1Tb SSDs.  So I'd spend more than I'd be saving.  But it'd run quieter. 

[viper37]

Thinking about replacing the storage in my Synology with SSDs to save power.  But I'd have to invest in 5 1Tb SSDs.  So I'd spend more than I'd be saving.  But it'd run quieter. 

WD Red aren't really noisy for hard drives.  Noisier than a SSD, but won't cost an arm and a leg like these 5 1TB ssds.

[Pedrito]

My old PC has decided to almost leave me during the festivities, I suspect the video card as the main culprit. Actual specs of the ten years old creature:

case CoolerMaster CM690II ATX
MB AsRock P67 Pro3
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K, socket LGA1155, default cooler
RAM Kingston DDR3, 2x4GB
video card Nvidia GeForce GTX760
main storage OCZ Vertex3 SATA SSD 128gb
data storage 1x WD 1.5 Tb SATA HDD, 1x WD 3 Tb SATA HDD;
PSU Corsair 750W Bronze

It served faithfully in everything I used it for: games (although not very heavy, I don't like FPS or super-GPU intensive games), photo editing, home-, work- and school-related activities.

Now, being that I don't build a pc since ten years ago and I'm really not up to date about PC parts, I come to seek your help to better understand what can I do with it:

- Is it possible to substitute only the video card with a fresher one, or do I risk a severe bottleneck because the other parts are too old? Are there other newish parts (newer CPU, fresher RAM) that can be used to update the build, that are still on the market?

- Which old parts could I cannibalize and transfer to a new, fresher build? I think the case, the PSU and storage can be salvaged for sure, plus all the peripherals; so I could replace only MB, CPU, RAM and video card, or am I wrong?

- Or, throw away everything and get a completely new build?

I'm willing to spend no more than 800/900 euros, so I think that the Cannibalize option is the best; but I need your expertise to help me sort out possible bottlenecks or issues that could arise with this option. I'm open to every kind of suggestion, I'm no partisan for Intel or AMD either.
I was looking at an i5-10400 (and following socket 1200 Mobo) or AMD equivalent, but being out of the arena since ten years, I'm at a complete loss about the RAM sticks (what are all the numbers? I suppose the higher the frequency the better, but all the 18-22-22-42 thingy is giving me headaches); and I don't want to spend absurd monies on the video card, so a GTX 1060 or Radeon 580 should be about right for my necessities, am I right?  Consider the games I play most are Elite:Dangerous, XCom 1&2, Skyrim (although in a nearish future I would like to try Elite in VR, so I'm keeping an eye on the HTC Vive or Valve Index, so a VR-proof card could be advisable).

Thank you,

L.

[Grey Fox]

Do you want to upgrade performances or just have a working computer? Cause you could by a RX 570 or a GTX 1650 video cards & call it a day.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Dude, you're getting a Dell!

[Pedrito]

Do you want to upgrade performances or just have a working computer? Cause you could by a RX 570 or a GTX 1650 video cards & call it a day.

Well, I forgot to mention that it has some boot problems that I've been unable to resolve : more often than not, when starting it, it hangs up, so I have to restart it, enter the boot menu and manually choose the boot disc. It's a minor inconvenience, because after this procedure the pc works perfectly, but replacing the motherboard could resolve this too, so I'm leaning towards replacing MB, CPU, RAM and video card.

L.

[Grey Fox]

Get a nvme SSD for your OS disk.

[viper37]

Do you want to upgrade performances or just have a working computer? Cause you could by a RX 570 or a GTX 1650 video cards & call it a day.

Well, I forgot to mention that it has some boot problems that I've been unable to resolve : more often than not, when starting it, it hangs up, so I have to restart it, enter the boot menu and manually choose the boot disc. It's a minor inconvenience, because after this procedure the pc works perfectly, but replacing the motherboard could resolve this too, so I'm leaning towards replacing MB, CPU, RAM and video card.

L.

Start by upgrading your BIOS to the latest version.
Use beta 3.4 and follow the instructions with their tool.
See if the problem disapears.  If it does, you can upgrade the CPU.

An Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor would be a good choice.
Then a GTX 1650 like GF suggested.

If you find DDR3 memory, another 8gb would be nice for modded Skyrim.  Forget VR unless you change the whole system, it recommends a 4790 as minimum CPU, you need to change your board.  If you change your board, you obviously have to change the CPU.  And your memory because it will be DDR4 (I think DDR5 boards have begun too). 

My recommendation on the cheap: upgrade CPU, upgrade video card, add 8gb more RAM, play Skyrim modded but forget about VR.
You could check E-bay for some good deals.
- CPU: Intel core I7 3770k (overclockable). 136 E
- Video card: AMD Rx Vega 56. 320 E
- Or this one here: Nvidia GTX 1080 281 E
- Corsair Vengeance 8gb DDR3: 11 euros.
The Vega 56 provides better Vulkan and DX12 performance than the GTX 1080.
The GTX 1080 provides better performances with DX9 through 11.
Skyrim is DX11, IIRC, including the VR version.

That's about 400-450 euros, depending on what you find.


If you want to change everything...
https://it.pcpartpicker.com/list/QGYsvf

It barely fits your 900 euros limit.  Of course, these prices are aproximatives.  Outside of US&Canada, this site does not seem that reliable to find the best prices*; it's mostly useful to check for compatibility. 


*I've noticed in the French forums the guys had their own local suppliers with much better prices, so it's worth cheking it out, before buying everything from Amazon.

[grumbler]

Viper, you've given a lot of terrific advice in this forum!  It's much appreciated.

[Pedrito]

Viper, thanks for the excellent advice    .

The Mobo BIOS was already updated, so the problem won't go away. I think I will follow your (and GF's) advice and update the build by changing mobo, cpu, ram and GPU. I'm still unsure about the SSD, because right now I'm using an OCZ SATA SSD as my main drive, and it works quite well, although it's becoming a bit old (it's up since at least five/six years) and small (it's a 128 gb only), so maybe going for a M.2 SSD could be an option.

Considering that I won't do any kind of overclocking, is there a reason to buy an aftermarket CPU cooler, or the one coming with the CPU is enough?

What's the meaning of the 6-12-12-23 (or such) numbers for the RAM sticks?

And last question, the PSU: I've a Corsair TX750, non-modular, 80+ Bronze, and it's there since ten years: I've read somewhere that after some time the PSU tend to lose efficiency, is it true? Should I change this, too?

Oh, and one more thing: is there some kind of GPU shortage going on? On italian sites it's impossible to get a video card, I've found all the other possible parts but video cards are out of stock everywhere, on Amazon.it too (and I've tried the sister sites from France, Germany, UK, Spain. Turkey, too...)

L.