Building a new PC

Timphoto wrote in post #19084851
The liquid CPU cooler on my PC died last week. I replaced it with an inexpensive fan cooler. It runs 5-10C warmer, but still well within the CPU chip's limits.

I've read a couple of articles about the Ryzen 4000, but I'm not certain I'd go there. From a value/performance standpoint I it might make sense to wait until the Ryzen 4000 comes out and hope the price drops on the Ryzen 9 3900 or 3950.

I think I'd go 4000 just for the newest CPU socket. Buy one of the cheapest 4000 series CPUs, it'll probably still be faster than the current ones I have, then in a couple of years upgrade to something faster if required. Going 3xxx means end of the road for CPU upgrades, but like I said before that may not be a problem since so few people upgrade CPUs these days.

tim wrote in post #19085406
I think I'd go 4000 just for the newest CPU socket. Buy one of the cheapest 4000 series CPUs, it'll probably still be faster than the current ones I have, then in a couple of years upgrade to something faster if required. Going 3xxx means end of the road for CPU upgrades, but like I said before that may not be a problem since so few people upgrade CPUs these days.

As a lifelong PC builder (always build my own, my wife's, my kids, sometimes for friends and family as well) I abandon the "build cheap and upgrade later" philosophy. Out of all the PCs I have ever put together the only parts that ever get upgraded or replaced it seems are memory, drives, power supplies and CPU coolers. Once a CPU gets married to a motherboard, when it comes time for a new CPU, it's time for a new MB as well.

gjl711 wrote in post #19085542
As a lifelong PC builder (always build my own, my wife's, my kids, sometimes for friends and family as well) I abandon the "build cheap and upgrade later" philosophy. Out of all the PCs I have ever put together the only parts that ever get upgraded or replaced it seems are memory, drives, power supplies and CPU coolers. Once a CPU gets married to a motherboard, when it comes time for a new CPU, it's time for a new MB as well.

My experience is much the same. This will be my 4th build and in the past 3 builds, I've upgraded graphics cards, memory, drives, and now a 7 year old CPU cooler, but never the CPU.

I've built my last few PCs, which is probably over 15 years. I don't tend to upgrade CPUs either, but if someone wants a Ryzen 4000 and they're expensive when they come out it's a practical option. For example, parts of my PC are failing (USB ports, sound) so I'd like a Ryzen 4000 as soon as available, but I don't want to pay heaps because my needs are moderate. I might consider a CPU that's moderate power then upgrade later if I need it.

Heya,

Quality components will easily last you 8~10 years if you don't get bottom barrel stuff. I tend to suggest the middle road stuff, if you're not a total enthusiast that pays mint for new release flagship gear, but also don't want entry stuff that has tons of compromises. Yesteryear flagship stuff for example is generally a great value.

Wherever you buy from, just make sure its a solid and simple return policy with free shipping and no restock stuff. That gets hairy. You have to really look deep into where you're buying on some places, like Amazon, where it says Prime yet comes from a 3rd party vendor, etc. I don't even look at eBay these days for electronics. NewEgg is still going strong. But a lot of times Amazon gets my money simply because free shipping, no hassle return (if you make sure its from Amazon), no restocking, no fuss. Even if it's not the best low price out there, I prefer to have the no-fuss handling of returns.

For picking your equipment, you really need to evaluate the software you're looking to run and whether it is primarily going to efficiently run on the architecture and instruction set of a particular platform and whether its primary performance is due to single threaded core performance, or multi-core multi-threaded performance. Lots of software scales poorly on multi-cores, while others demand tons of cores. And clock speed is not everything. Quite often a slower clock speed on a much better architecture will perform better than a raw higher clock speed on an older architecture. Ryzen is a good example of this, compared to Bulldozer, in AMD land.

Very best,

There's much to argue on the pros vs. cons on the points of
building for an eye to upgrades of CPU, especially now,
while the industry seems to be switching gears so much more often
than it has before now. I recently read about an Intel CPU which can
run at a native 5.6 GHz, which seems to have broken the bounds
of the seemingly-fixed native 4-4.3 GHz, which seemed to be
the top ceiling for some years.

It's all different now.

It used to be that I could transfer any number of parts over to
a different PC build, but within the last 12 years or more,
that's a losing proposition.

I'll need to know the CPU-socket type, memory-socket type
and supported speeds, whether or not the Motherboard has support for
mSATA-only drives or also standard SATA, pin-number connections of memory,
PCI or other sorts of video card connection possibilities, how much power
it'll take to run properly, which memory speed ratings are acceptable and
proven to be compatible, what the USB options are, whether or not
the Motherboard's BIOS relies on UEFI-only or Legacy, and finally,
whether or not I can fit it into a case of my choice.

Nowadays, if you're not keeping up with how it all goes together
and how the physical and operational standards are changing,
you may find yourself in a very frustrating position of not having
compatible components. I used to know all about how it all worked together,
but when PCI and PCIExpress came into being, it began changing
the entire landscape, and the changes keep coming.
So if you're not fully-educated on how the scene has changed,
I'd suggest you start familiarizing yourself with the current state
of what's out there and where it's going. While things may not have changed
drastically from where you've last been in the arena, it certainly wouldn't
hurt you any to look into how things are before you commit to purchases.

SkedAddled wrote in post #19085717
...

Nowadays, if you're not keeping up with how it all goes together
and how the physical and operational standards are changing,
you may find yourself in a very frustrating position of not having
compatible components. I used to know all about how it all worked together,
but when PCI and PCIExpress came into being, it began changing
the entire landscape, and the changes keep coming.
So if you're not fully-educated on how the scene has changed,
I'd suggest you start familiarizing yourself with the current state
of what's out there and where it's going. While things may not have changed
drastically from where you've last been in the arena, it certainly wouldn't
hurt you any to look into how things are before you commit to purchases.

Or just use a site like pcpartspicker.com. Takes a lot of the legwork out of building. Just start with the processor you want and it walks you though the process. Hardest decisions are which brand and how much. All the "I need to investigate each component" goes away. Minimally, they are all compatible. Motherboards though, because of the wide feature-set you still have to dig into to make sure it has all you need. Hardest thing these days is not support for new hardware but support for old hardware. Just try and fins a motherboard that supports a AGP card.

gjl711 wrote in post #19085752
Or just use a site like pcpartspicker.com. Takes a lot of the legwork out of building. Just start with the processor you want and it walks you though the process.

There's much to recommend such a service, but there's no sustitution
for learning about how it all goes trogether.

My only point is that the technology contintues to move forward,
while the people using said technology may not be well-versed
in how it can be brought together, myself included.

You need to be careful about what matters for your edit style, and invest accordingly. For me, 4k monitor really makes a difference, so I pick components that are needed for that kind of processing power.

tim wrote in post #19085406
I think I'd go 4000 just for the newest CPU socket.

Zen 3 will be the last of the AM4 socket. so no upgrade path. Ryzen has been AM4 socket since Zen.

Lots of great information from our forum members here.

Another great source for computer builds is Maximum PC magazine.
I get mine from Zinio at 69 cents an issue.

Just thought I'd pass it along.

https://www.zinio.com/​maximum-pc-m6879

Perfectly Frank wrote in post #19106324
Lots of great information from our forum members here.

Another great source for computer builds is Maximum PC magazine.
I get mine from Zinio at 69 cents an issue.

Just thought I'd pass it along.

https://www.zinio.com/​maximum-pc-m6879

Interesting. I'd not heard of Zinio before; they're cheaper than Amazon.

Do you get electronic or physical copies of the issues?

Zinio has been around for awhile. The app is free and can be used on computer or phone. I only get the digital version of Max pc, although a print option is available, I believe.
I don't know how they compare to Amazon.

I just finished building a PC. Dual boot with Win 10 and Linux, each OS is on a separate 1TB M.2 nVMe solid state drive, with one 6TB 7200 rpm conventional drive for data, accessible by both Windows and Linux

I used the build tool on pcpartpicker.com to plan out my system and determine any incompatibilities. Then, I bought everything from either Newegg or Amazon - Newegg has plenty of sales, and if you are patient, you can save a bit of money.

Here is my system, in brief:

OS:
Windows 10 Pro
Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon

Hardware:
Intel i7-10700K processor
MSI Carbon Gaming Wifi motherboard
32GB 3600 RAM (I used pcpartpicker to pick the fastest RAM I could find in a price window and then watched the sales to see if any of my preferred choices came on sale)
Intel 665p 1TB M.2 nVMe drives (2)
Seagate Iron Wolf 7200rpm SATA HDD
Case and power supply - buy whatever suits your fancy. I picked a NZXT HS510 case, as it was on sale ($70), it had a USB-C port on the front, and had decent reviews. Power supply, I picked something with decent power rating.

Scrumhalf wrote in post #19106458
I just finished building a PC. Dual boot with Win 10 and Linux, each OS is on a separate 1TB M.2 nVMe solid state drive, with one 6TB 7200 rpm conventional drive for data, accessible by both Windows and Linux

I used the build tool on pcpartpicker.com to plan out my system and determine any incompatibilities. Then, I bought everything from either Newegg or Amazon - Newegg has plenty of sales, and if you are patient, you can save a bit of money.

Here is my system, in brief:

OS:
Windows 10 Pro
Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon

Hardware:
Intel i7-10700K processor
MSI Carbon Gaming Wifi motherboard
32GB 3600 RAM (I used pcpartpicker to pick the fastest RAM I could find in a price window and then watched the sales to see if any of my preferred choices came on sale)
Intel 665p 1TB M.2 nVMe drives (2)
Seagate Iron Wolf 7200rpm SATA HDD
Case and power supply - buy whatever suits your fancy. I picked a NZXT HS510 case, as it was on sale ($70), it had a USB-C port on the front, and had decent reviews. Power supply, I picked something with decent power rating.

Graphics card?