Desktop Computers

Jovec · Dec 2, 2024

It's a shit time to buy a GPU, but if anyone was looking here is some of the (IMHO) better options on the AMD side. Mainly base models and some aren't really BF/CM sale prices either.

~~Gigabyte 7600XT 16Gb for $280~~
XFX 6750XT 12GB for $300 - faster than the 7600XT, but with higher power consumption and 4GB less VRAM.
XFX 6800 16GB for $350 - Probably one of the better values right now
XFX 7700XT 12GB for $380 - Same performance as the 6800, but gives up 4GB of VRAM for later gen features (mainly the encoder IIRC)
XFX 7800XT 16GB for $450 - There seems to be a few options between $450 and $550 for upgraded models
Asrock 7900GRE 16Gb for $530 - Another "decent" deal given the landscape
7900XTs are basically OOS (or used or overpriced or both), but at $620 they were decent buys
~~Cheapest 7900XTX I could find was $910 at Newegg~~ but needs to be under $750 for it to make sense to me
Asrock 7900XTX Phantom Gaming 24GB for $850 - {See all buying options for the Shipped by Amazon/Sold by Asrock USA option)

Lanx · Dec 2, 2024

Gator said:
A buddy of mine at work mentioned that but he also wasn't well versed in how it would work out. This is my first time using water cooling. I watched tech Jesus in the video below. I concluded it would probably be best if I stick to the basics.

the choice is also you can get a different cases that would accept a 360 on top

Borzak · Dec 2, 2024

Kajiimagi said:
OK I thought I saw everything when those 'rent rims' places opened (when spinners were popular) but renting a PC?! What about, you know, working for the money?

It's not even rent to own. Pay the money every month for the duration you will never own the computer. They want it back and anything you have stored on the hard drive is theirs in the agreement. The fine print says even if you pay more than retail and finish off the agreement, they still own the computer not you.

Lanx · Dec 2, 2024

Borzak said:
It's not even rent to own. Pay the money every month for the duration you will never own the computer. They want it back and anything you have stored on the hard drive is theirs in the agreement. The fine print says even if you pay more than retail and finish off the agreement, they still own the computer not you.

moonarchia · Dec 2, 2024

Borzak said:
It's not even rent to own. Pay the money every month for the duration you will never own the computer. They want it back and anything you have stored on the hard drive is theirs in the agreement. The fine print says even if you pay more than retail and finish off the agreement, they still own the computer not you.

At least you won't be a virgin after getting fucked that hard.

Kirun · Dec 2, 2024

Any cyber Monday deals on GPUs?

I'm looking to upgrade my 6700XT but don't really want to break the bank with the new cards looming. I'm thinking $500-600 is my limit.

sleevedraw · Dec 2, 2024

Kirun said:
Any cyber Monday deals on GPUs?

I'm looking to upgrade my 6700XT but don't really want to break the bank with the new cards looming. I'm thinking $500-600 is my limit.

Not really; prices are higher than they were last week. Nvidia stopped production on their high-end 4000s to focus on Blackwell (and to keep the margins high). You could maybe get a reasonable price on a 4070 non-Super, but I refuse to buy a GPU at that price with that amount of VRAM.

7800 XT is running around $450, which is about $30 less than last month.

7900 GRE is in the low $500s, which is slightly better than the mid $500s where it was.

7900 XT is still in the low-mid $600s.

At this point, unless I can snag a sub-$600 open box deal at Micro Center on a 7900 XT, I am probably going to wait for the RX 8000s.

Malakriss · Dec 2, 2024

8800s are supposed to be in between a 7900 XT and XTX if the rumors are true, but AMD will not have anything above that and Nvidia's lineup looks like -2 tier trash aside from the flagship card for $2000+

Kirun · Dec 2, 2024

sleevedraw said:
Not really; prices are higher than they were last week. Nvidia stopped production on their high-end 4000s to focus on Blackwell (and to keep the margins high). You could maybe get a reasonable price on a 4070 non-Super, but I refuse to buy a GPU at that price with that amount of VRAM.

7800 XT is running around $450, which is about $30 less than last month.

7900 GRE is in the low $500s, which is slightly better than the mid $500s where it was.

7900 XT is still in the low-mid $600s.

At this point, unless I can snag a sub-$600 open box deal at Micro Center on a 7900 XT, I am probably going to wait for the RX 8000s.

What's the power draw on the 7800s? I heard the 7xxx series were power hogs. I have a 5900x running on an 850w currently.

sleevedraw · Dec 2, 2024

Kirun said:
What's the power draw on the 7800s? I heard the 7xxx series were power hogs. I have a 5900x running on an 850w currently.

Not awful; the 6700 XT is about 225W under load; the 7800 XT is around 250W, so they are in the same ballpark. AMD recommends 700W, but that's likely overkill. The 4070 is about 50 watts less, though.

With a decent 850W supply, you'd be fine with anything up to the 7900XTX.

Rabbit_Games · Dec 3, 2024

There used to be a website ( can't remember, but it's been quite a while ) that let you choose your parts and it would tell you the power supply size you needed. Used it a couple of times back in the day.

Denamian · Dec 3, 2024

Well, Gelsinger is out at Intel, this should be interesting.

Intel Announces Retirement of CEO Pat Gelsinger

www.intc.com

Daidraco · Dec 3, 2024

This computer I built, I want to say it was the cheap mobo I used? Maybe? I dont know... But it acts just so fucking weird sometimes.

Has anyone ever experienced where you'll tell the computer to go to sleep. It sounds like it powers down for sleep mode, and within 10 seconds it turns back on to the windows login? When I first built the PC, it would go into sleep mode just fine. Then for a while, it would turn back on to the login screen and if I told it to go to sleep from the login screen, it would. Now, it just endlessly goes into sleep mode and comes back to the login screen over and over and over. So now Im just turning the thing off altogether.

I havent changed any settings at all during any of these changes, which is the frustrating part. Suggestions on getting "sleep" to work properly?

Sinistkir13 · Dec 3, 2024

I got lucky and Newegg put the backorder back up for the x870 Tomahawk, so I was able to get one through that.

Now I just need to nail down the RAM.

How much benefit, if any at all, is there to having an EXPO kit versus not for AM5?

I was thinking this kit looked well rounded and it's on the QVL:

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-64gb-ddr5-6400/p/N82E16820374432?Item=N82E16820374432

*Side note, but I kept reading that Asrock boards were not playing nice with G.Skill RAM, so that was another red flag given how ubiquitous the brand is.

Kajiimagi said:
OK I thought I saw everything when those 'rent rims' places opened (when spinners were popular) but renting a PC?! What about, you know, working for the money?

Now I'm just picking nerdy repomen sneaking into someone's home, shutting down their computer, and removing components one by one.

It doesn't even make sense when there are pay-as-you-go options nowadays, but this new generation are used to owning nothing with all of these streaming platforms and what not.

Daidraco said:
This computer I built, I want to say it was the cheap mobo I used? Maybe? I dont know... But it acts just so fucking weird sometimes.

Has anyone ever experienced where you'll tell the computer to go to sleep. It sounds like it powers down for sleep mode, and within 10 seconds it turns back on to the windows login? When I first built the PC, it would go into sleep mode just fine. Then for a while, it would turn back on to the login screen and if I told it to go to sleep from the login screen, it would. Now, it just endlessly goes into sleep mode and comes back to the login screen over and over and over. So now Im just turning the thing off altogether.

I havent changed any settings at all during any of these changes, which is the frustrating part. Suggestions on getting "sleep" to work properly?

The only thing I can remotely think back to is when my computer would pull weird sleep shenanigans because of the windows update in the background bugging out and demanding I update that very moment. I wouldn't even know how much they've tinkered with it because I managed to lock down all of the update functions before they began getting crafty about it with one of the major updates.

Jabberwhacky · Dec 3, 2024

Looks like Khane got his monitor situation sorted but I thought I'd share my setup in case anyone else is debating dual monitors vs. ultrawide. I've had an UW monitor since way back in 2017 when I saw one pop up in Costco and bought it on a whim, and for me it's the absolute best.

Typical work/net stuff is just split down the middle, thusly:

Arbitrary border in the middle that obviously can be resized at your whim should you want the video to be bigger or the webpage to be wider - something you couldn't do when you've got two monitors side by side with a big ol' bezel down the center.

"Windowed" gaming looks like this:

I found a random AHK script through Google years and years ago and it's served me well ever since. It simply resizes the active window to 2560x1440 on the right side, and more importantly, removes the border! And I don't know if it's a coincidence or just good programming but when you have Twitch in theater mode and reduce the window to the remaining desktop area, it automagically swaps the chat to the bottom, as seen in the pic, so you can have the full game experience and Twitch experience without any addons or programs. I play this way most of the time, as I do enjoy me my double stimulation of game+twitch/youtube, but it's also practical in the rare cases where games simply don't have UW support. Normally these games would take up your whole monitor but have black bars on each side, but with this, you scootch the game over to the side, removing the black bars, and using that space for important stuff like watching a streamer play the same game as you.

And of course the 3rd mode is when you actually use the full ultrawide resolution entirely for the game. It's moderately fun for most games, like PoE you can see a bit further, so that's novel, but it really shines (at least for me) in FPS games like Tarkov or Cyberpunk, when your peripheral vision is literally wider than normal. Really adds to the immersion. I bought a 4k monitor last year just to see what all the fuss was about and I gotta say, it didn't hold a candle to Ultrawide. High resolution is good and all but we're already at top tier graphics, so using UW and literally seeing things that aren't normally there is an awesome experience, way more impactful than "Sure you've seen pixel density at 1440p, but have you seen pixel density at 4k!?"

Deathwing · Dec 3, 2024

I don't know why the comparison is only 2 widescreens or 1 ultrawide. Why not 1 ultrawide and 1-2 widescreens?

Palum · Dec 3, 2024

Jabberwhacky said:
Looks like Khane got his monitor situation sorted but I thought I'd share my setup in case anyone else is debating dual monitors vs. ultrawide. I've had an UW monitor since way back in 2017 when I saw one pop up in Costco and bought it on a whim, and for me it's the absolute best.

Typical work/net stuff is just split down the middle, thusly:

View attachment 562381

Arbitrary border in the middle that obviously can be resized at your whim should you want the video to be bigger or the webpage to be wider - something you couldn't do when you've got two monitors side by side with a big ol' bezel down the center.

"Windowed" gaming looks like this:

View attachment 562382

I found a random AHK script through Google years and years ago and it's served me well ever since. It simply resizes the active window to 2560x1440 on the right side, and more importantly, removes the border! And I don't know if it's a coincidence or just good programming but when you have Twitch in theater mode and reduce the window to the remaining desktop area, it automagically swaps the chat to the bottom, as seen in the pic, so you can have the full game experience and Twitch experience without any addons or programs. I play this way most of the time, as I do enjoy me my double stimulation of game+twitch/youtube, but it's also practical in the rare cases where games simply don't have UW support. Normally these games would take up your whole monitor but have black bars on each side, but with this, you scootch the game over to the side, removing the black bars, and using that space for important stuff like watching a streamer play the same game as you.

And of course the 3rd mode is when you actually use the full ultrawide resolution entirely for the game. It's moderately fun for most games, like PoE you can see a bit further, so that's novel, but it really shines (at least for me) in FPS games like Tarkov or Cyberpunk, when your peripheral vision is literally wider than normal. Really adds to the immersion. I bought a 4k monitor last year just to see what all the fuss was about and I gotta say, it didn't hold a candle to Ultrawide. High resolution is good and all but we're already at top tier graphics, so using UW and literally seeing things that aren't normally there is an awesome experience, way more impactful than "Sure you've seen pixel density at 1440p, but have you seen pixel density at 4k!?"

Well until UWs exceed 4k width you just get more vertical space with a true 4k. My UW is 3840x1600 and my 4k is 3840x2160. So if the game supports the same FoV and zoom, you get even more space on 4k.

Lambourne · Dec 3, 2024

Daidraco said:
This computer I built, I want to say it was the cheap mobo I used? Maybe? I dont know... But it acts just so fucking weird sometimes.

Has anyone ever experienced where you'll tell the computer to go to sleep. It sounds like it powers down for sleep mode, and within 10 seconds it turns back on to the windows login? When I first built the PC, it would go into sleep mode just fine. Then for a while, it would turn back on to the login screen and if I told it to go to sleep from the login screen, it would. Now, it just endlessly goes into sleep mode and comes back to the login screen over and over and over. So now Im just turning the thing off altogether.

I havent changed any settings at all during any of these changes, which is the frustrating part. Suggestions on getting "sleep" to work properly?

I had one that kept doing it and I "fixed" it by changing the wake-up settings in the bios to one specific key only. Figure either mouse or keyboard was waking it up somehow, never investigated it further.

Sinistkir13 · Dec 3, 2024

Lambourne said:
I had one that kept doing it and I "fixed" it by changing the wake-up settings in the bios to one specific key only. Figure either mouse or keyboard was waking it up somehow, never investigated it further.

Plus, I think I've heard of situations where a controller plugged in could cause wake-ups because it has stick drift and is being read as an input. I could see a wired mouse doing something similar if the cord was ever so slightly tugging it.

Fucker · Dec 3, 2024

Denamian said:
Well, Gelsinger is out at Intel, this should be interesting.

Intel Announces Retirement of CEO Pat Gelsinger

www.intc.com

Board got cold feet over his effort to revive their foundry business and booted him. His immediate departure signals they are going to proceed with dropping foundry and working around CHIPS Act provisions.

Pretty much the end of US returning to forefront of foundry and will be resigned to making controllers for toasters. And then a LOT and I do mean a LOT of Intel employees will go home without employment.

I bet the board is going to 86 their discrete GPU effort, too.

Desktop Computers

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