Buildapc

I have an aging Windows gaming box that needs an upgrade. With Trump winning the election, I anticipate tariffs on basically all PC parts, so I want to buy now. Here's my challenge:

I love quiet PCs. I have a Fractal Design Define R4, I think, which I bought for its sound insulating ability. I've always gone with air-cooling, and my fan curves are tuned to be quiet. That works great for my 2080 TI.

Now, however, I want to get the 4080 Super and a big beefy AMD processor. Is air cooling still going to cut it? Or am I going ot have to go for all-in-one water cooling loops to keep temperatures under control without having to listen to the turbines spinning up?

I know there are a lot of factors to consider, but basically I think Fractal Design has great products, so I would probably get another case from them and build the machine from the ground up. I just want to find the solution that lets the machine run without making a ton of noise while it sits on the floor next to me.

I have this laptop from like 2012 that I use a lot and I can even say it's my main Linux machine. It's got 8 Gb of RAM and a dedicated GPU so it's not bad but it has an HDD so slow it takes what seems to be 30-60 seconds to launch a web browser. I guess it's 5400 RPM. I want to finally buy an SSD for the machine.

However I noticed that all of the brand new ones that are available in my area are either SATA3 (for SATA) or PCIe 3/4 (for M.2). The laptop obviously supports none of these standards.

Will such an SSD work or do I have to search for a used one with an older standard (like SATA2)? Adapters might be a problem to get because I'm not a customer of marketplaces I can get them from so I'm afraid of getting scammed or just not figuring out the purchase procedure.

Upgrading from an 8700k to a 9800x3d once it’s out. It’s currently a long weekend in New Zealand so there are some decent sales, but we do suffer from a real lack of choice. E.G I'm sure somebody will recommend the Tomahawk but it’s out of stock and NZD 500.

My main criteria for a motherboard is having 3+ m2 slots. I’d previously found the ASUS TUF GAMING B650-E ATX for NZD360, but the MSI X670E GAMING PLUS ATX has recently been listed for NZD400.

I’ve previously almost exclusively used Asus mobos and am not concerned about Asus’ poor reputation for RMA as we have legal consumer protections that mean I deal with the retailer not Asus. So I’m happy to go ahead with the Tuf but wondering if it’s worth paying the extra $40 for an x670e board?

Anybody have experience with either mobo they can share?

Good day!

Important details here: it's been a hot minute since I did a PC build. (20 years.. I had to raise some kids.) so I am a little behind. Please be patient with me.

The intention of the build is to be a replacement Plex Server. Here's the specs:

Asus TUF x570 Pro with WiFi NVIDIA QUADRO M2000 AMD Ryzen 7 5800x

Here's the issue I'm facing: completed the hardware build and went to test. The Q-LED's show a BOOT and VGA error. BOOT makes sense. I haven't even formatted the NVME drives yet.

The VGA one though has me concerned. The AMD processor doesn't have integrated graphics so a GPU is necessary. The M2000 is seated correct and I even made sure to clean it before reseating it. Still nothing. No picture no BIOS screen.

My suspicion is I need a more directly compatable GPU with the motherboard so I can update the BIOS and maybe then it will work.

I'm sure someone's going to have a solution so obvious I'll be embarrassed but I'll deal with it. Thank you for any assistance.

Update. I moved the new GPU to my old machine and it booted up immediately. So we can remove GPU hardware broken as a possibility.

I kept the new version in the old machine and tried the old version in my new pc. Now the VGA Q-LED is off but still no picture on new pc. Old pc is fine.

Some details: I’m directly connected to the monitor from the GPU. NO KVM or any such nonsense in between. When I power on the screen turns on for a moment then turns off after a few seconds and after the last of the boot process completes where the Q-LED light is only lit for BOOT.

I'm having an issue and I don't know where else to post about it. I'd be grateful for any help or guidance.

My PC will randomly hard reset, usually when the PC is idle. This only seems to occur with DOCP enabled. I don't know much about PC hardware aside from how to build one. My PC runs Arch Linux (btw).

Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming X570-PRO

RAM: TEAMGROUP T-Force Dark Za (Alpha) 32GB DDR4 Dram 3600MHz (PC4-28800)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

Is this a good setup for the price? This is somewhere in Europe. A tech shop that allows you to choose your hardware and they assemble it for you.

I mainly want to play older and indie games on it. Some video editing as well, possibly. Current rig is a crappy pre-built which overheats like crazy, practically impossible to do any gaming on it. TIA for any answers.

Hello! Im searching for laptop in 1000-1500 Euro price range. Main requirement: CPU should be as fast as possible. I dont care about performance of individual cores, I need it to be fast from multicore perspective. Also optionally it should be compact, like macbooks.

Please share your recommendations. Thank you!

Im building my wife a PC and now that my SLI is useless (for a few years now), I figured I'd give her my extra GPU.

I disabled the SLI in the control panel, powered down, popped the SLI and 2nd GPU out and gave my wifes pc the extra 1080. My PC started up fine, I booted up a game, and about 10 min in, the screen froze for about 10 seconds and then appeared to restart and now I have no video output. Did I brick my gpu? Any ideas on how to proceed?

I'm only panicking a lot.

Currently I have a 1060GTX 6GB (Evga I think?). It struggled to run Elden Ring but was tolerable for me on medium settings - still it frequently drops from 60fps to 40fps or so, rarely able to stay at an even 60.

Can you suggest a modest upgrade compatible with my build? I'm not obsessed with getting max settings, but something that will work decently for 5 years or so would be nice. I don't have an exact budget in mind, but the absolute maximum I would consider is $400 Canadian (approx $300 USD). Prefer to save some money for performance and keep it around $200-$300 CDN, if possible

Here's my parts list started in 2016 - GPU listed is not the current 1060

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/eezeebee/saved/#view=ntbqqs

My current pc specs are:

• Asus Prime H310M-K r2.0 (pcie 3.0 x16 max)
• I5-9400f
• Deep cool i35 cooler
• AMD Radeon Rx 580
• Kingston ddr4 1x16gb
• Corsair TX650
• Gigabyte G27Q monitor
• And two ssd's and a HDD

I have two options I have a budget of about 400 euros and I am thinking of upgrading as the PC is getting a little unresponsive in general use and gaming. Leaning towards option 1 as the cpu is almost always above 50% usage at idle as I use my PC as a server for jellyfin and some other services ,but with them off in-game the cpu is almost at 100% in tf2 and pretty much any other game and the gpu is at 70% unless in cs2 ,then if the quality is set any higher than low it is a literal slideshow.

Option 1:

• MSI Pro b650-s wifi
• AMD Ryzen 7600
• Crucial/Kingston ddr5 2x8gb

Option 2:

• Nvidia rtx 3060/3070 with broken HDMI output (both used)

Requirements:

• Motherboard Atx
• Cpu am5
• Must be available in Lithuania/EU for used parts only skelbiu.lt or eneba.lt

Hello! I've had a watercooled PC for a number of years, but more recently it's been difficult to find EKWB Cryofluid Clear at reasonable prices. I'm thinking of switching to something like Mayhem's x1 coolant, or Alphacool's eiswater.

Any suggestions? Will it matter that some old fluid might still be trapped in a rad even after a flush? I'm hoping to not do a full teardown.

I'm thinking about going with this:

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/watercooling-fluids/watercooling-fluids-additives/mayhems-x1-coolant-1-liter-clear-mx1c1l.html

I recently stumbled my way through building a PC. i got the Intel Core i7-14700k with TEAMGROUP RAM (32GB [2x 16GB]; speed 6000, 38 CL [clock latency])

after looking into adding additional RAM, I learned a little bit about CAS/CL. My question, did I make a big mistake getting 38 CL? I focused on speed, but just learned about CL. Am I greatly missing out on performance with 38, or its not that big of a deal? Is there is big mismatch here between CPU and RAM?

thanks!

I'm saving up to get a 5700X3D around Christmas, upgrading from a 5600G, but I want to make sure I prepare properly before I do the swap.

The RAM I bought couldn't match the C18 @ 4000 M/Ts advertised and still remain stable, but I managed to manually overclock to C16 @ 3666. Should I drop to JDEC specs before I upgrade, or is it a non-issue?

Been slowly upgrading a prebuilt from 2009. I've upgraded everything but the mobo, ram, cpu, and cooler. Was hoping someone could do a sanity check on my build to make sure it's good for a few years at least.

Hello Im looking for small laptop for typing in low to mid range price. Do you have any recommendations? mnt pocket reform is here for reference what I want. Thank you

I have the T.16000M FCS HOTAS (throttle and stick) like this one linked on Amazon. When I search Amazon for "dust cover for hotas" I get listings that say "for Thrustmaster Warthog." Does anyone have the T.16000M, and if so, can you recommend a dust cover for those? Doesn't have to be custom fitting, any generic dust cover will do, my main concern is keeping dust from collecting in the ball joint of the stick and the rail of the thrust slider. Thank you!

EDIT: I'm thinking about getting this or this, or just going cheap with some clear plastic bags.

Hello all, I'm considering fully switching from console gaming to PC gaming. I have an outdated PC a friend helped me build from exactly 10 years ago, and it has never been upgraded. I currently have a Nintendo Switch and Xbox (360, One, and most recently Series X). I did this mainly because I liked physical games, such that I have kept boxes, manuals, and discs for my games. However, I have been getting more and more frustrated with console gaming as the years progress and am thinking of switching to fully PC, including emulation up to Switch of older game systems. I know nothing about building a PC, the one I had in college was for games technically but was not top of the line even then, and I mostly used it for torrenting, CAD modeling, and old emulation (up to Nintendo 64 at the time). I'm thinking of transitioning that fully to a NAS if possible as I build out my media library, and build a new one from scratch for gaming. Any advice on what a price range would be and components to look for would be appreciated! I see secondhand builds on Facebook marketplace or similar but don't have a good feel for if they are even good deals or not. For what it's worth, I will probably need new everything (hardware, case, and peripherals like mouse, keyboard, and monitors). So, if anyone could help guide to me what a good price I should be expecting would be and some benchmark specifications that I could keep an eye out, that would be lovely.

Edit: for what it's worth, I generally play games a few years after release when they go on sale, unless they came up on Xbox game pass or I received it as a gift to play. Additionally, I had an Oculus Rift hooked up to my PC but it struggled with many things on it, so I plan to upgrade that at some point with maybe the Valve Index system. That doesn't need to be an immediate buy as I'd rather my money go into the computer hardware itself first.

My 5 year old notebook is starting to show it's age, so I want to finally build a "real" PC. I rarely play games, so this is probably overkill - But I don't want my PC to be what's stopping me. I also expect it to last a while.

I chose all AMD because I'm running linux, and AMD seems to still be the best choice for that.

I found a couple similar posts on which I based this list, so most of the parts are probably fine. I'm unsure about the cooler: How much headroom should I leave? This one is rated just 10W higher than the CPU TDP, so it might be cutting it too close.

PCPartPicker Part List

So I recently upgraded every component in my PC to be fairly high end, except I didn't have the money to upgrade my GPU at the time so I was running with my old GTX 1070 for a while. Today I had some extra money so I finally got around to picking up a RTX 4070 super.

While installing it I just discovered a slight hitch in my plan. My primary monitor is 4k and uses display port so it isn't an issue. But my secondary monitor is an ancient 1080p monitor which only uses dvi and vga. The 4070 super only has display port and HDMI slots. I've been running with two monitors for so long that I don't know if I can stand going back to a single monitor.

It's already too late to run out and pick up an adapter so my plan for now is to install both GPUs in my PC and just pull the 1070 back out whenever I get around to getting a new secondary monitor or an adapter. Will a RTX 4070 super and a GTX 1070 both work in the same PC or am I just stuck with one monitor until I can get an adapter?

I remember typing on the HP XT keyboards from 1992 or so. They were soft touch with no click, you just go all the way down smoothly if you push hard. This would allow one to type silently without causing the keyboard noise.

Where can I find such type of keyboards?

EDIT: I bought the Dell KB216 and presently am happy with it. Let us see how it ages.

Greetings buildapc!

I built my current rig during the parts drought during the pandemic or whatever, I scraped together whatever I could find and then stopped keeping up with PC parts for a few years. Looking to build a new rig, PCPartPicker attached, just looking for some double checking for any details I missed.

Use case: Linux and Linux only. It's gonna run some FreeCAD and some LibreOffice and a lot of Firefox and a lot of Satisfactory. I'm trying to build it in time for Satisfactory's launch on September 10, I've heard tell of a Ryzen 7600X3D coming imminently that I don't want to wait for.

I have a Gigabyte M34WQ monitor (1440p ultrawide 144Hz FreeSync) that I'd like to take full advantage of in Unreal engine games like Satisfactory, the upcoming Subnautica 3 and such.

My budget is $1500, I can exceed that but for every $100 over I'm going to read you a vogon poem.

This is to be my first desktop AMD GPU. My current rig (Ryzen 3600/GTX-1080) is Nvidia, it was all I could get my hands on, and the 1080 predates a lot of the whiz bang acronyms like DLSS RTX OMG LOL, I have no idea how well any of that from AMD or Nvidia works in Linux, I don't particularly care about raytracing. Word on the street is AMD is less of a pain in the head to deal with on Linux and Wayland stands a chance of running, so...

thoughts/suggestions/donations?

Update: Sub in a 7700X CPU and a 7900GRE GPU and...IT'S ALIVE:

Everything but the case arrived so I decided to go ahead and test bench it.

I hope I'm not in the wrong community but I really wanted to get some opinions on that.

In short, it may be a it of an unpopular opinion, but I really hate the gaming aesthetics with all the RGB lights and glass and in general how modern 3rd party PC cases look like. On the other hand I really enjoy the look of a most of the recent Lenovo ThinkCentres and ThinkStations as well as Fujitsu's Esprimos. There is just something about this industrial matte black with red accents I can't resist.

What I would love to do is to take some cheap Lenovo Thinkcentre, slap a GPU in it and have a budget Linux gaming PC, but the problem is most of the parts in these office systems are proprietary. It seems that I can't easily upgrade the PSU to handle a proper GPU, nor can I swap the motherboard for a new one if I wanted to.

Does anyone have any idea on which models of ThinkCentres/Stations are easily upgradeable or of any cases that have this understated industrial office look to them? The only case I kinda like is the Fractal North, but I get really discouraged when I compare their prices to a fully equipped Lenovo office PC and it just doesn't look as good.

Also, I've looked into Lenovo Legion and HP Omen prebuilts, and while they're not as bad a 3rd party cases, I just don't like them as much as say a P520, which unfortunately comes with some awful proprietary motherboard supporting only Xeons from 2017.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the rant. I'd love to hear your opinions and suggestions.

UPDATE: I fixed it!! It was the PSU.

So I just built my first PC in like 20 years. Everything was going fine, I was installing Windows and got to the network setup step and my wifi was having trouble staying connected. I figured it was because I hadn't set up drivers yet, so I thought whatever, no problem, I'll just move it by my router and plug in an ethernet cable.

So I powered off and moved it, and...dead. Nothing is happening when I hit the power button. No fans, no lights, nothing. I've made sure no cables got jiggled loose or anything. Maybe I shorted something somewhere on the motherboard? I can't see anything without fully disassembling and having to rebuild it. I really don't want to do that, but I guess I'll have to unless I'm missing something obvious. I'll test the PSU tomorrow but I doubt it's that, these are all brand new parts.

Any ideas?

Specs:

AMD 7800X3D

ASRock B650E PG Riptide WiFi

Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7800 XT

2 x 16GB Crucial DDR5 RAM

Seasonic GX-850 PSU

Heya,

I could use some help, as I am looking build a PC for the first time in 10 ish years.

I'm looking to convert my current system from a gaming/creative workstation into purely a creative work station and then build a new pc for gaming.

I have a ROG Strix RTX 3080 OC that is ready to go into the new gaming pc, but I need to get everything else.

I have a good 180hz 1440p screen, so high fps 1440p is my goal.

These are the parts I've put together currently. I lean towards AMD for CPU as that's what's served me well with my workstation.

I went with something that is likely overkill for CPU cooling, but my hopes are to upgrade this PC little by little as time goes on.

PSU is also overkill, but that is because I hope to snag a 2nd hand 4090 within too long, or potentially new 5090 further down the line.

I would probably also need some case fans, but I am unsure which or how many.

I would appreciate any guidance.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dv4F7R