PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[93LEAFS]

4070ti's are getting hammered across the board. Seems neither AMD or Nvidia's products are getting strong reviews this generation outside the 4090, which reviews basically amount to this card is absolutely amazing and a clear jump forward but you'd be insane to buy it if it won't help you increase productivity workloads for your work (in essence make you more money if you are getting paid per project).

 

[aleshemsky83]

Make sure that you're using the latest motherboard BIOS, chipset driver and graphics driver. You could also try disabling the TPM in your BIOS, disabling that and Secure Boot or reinstalling 11 with the TPM disabled and using one of several hacks. The vast majority of stability issues with 11 are due to the TPM "requirement."

It was bad, literally crashing every 5 minutes, consistently and reliably, even just idling. I thought about doing that but its real easy to just rewind back to windows 10, its a quick button in the settings, real easy. I'll wait for a more stable version.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Windows 10 is still fine unless you have some of the new CPUs that have different core types like P-cores and E-cores of Intel and the newly announced 3D V-Cache series from AMD.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I am now going to be on my 4th Logitech G Pro since May 2021... yes... 4 mice of the same model in less than 2 years. Basically all of them have a scroll wheel that f***s up within a few months where it will randomly scroll down when I'm scrolling up and vice versa. I'm even to the point where I will get the symmetrical mice with only buttons on the left side (I'm a lefty, so this will be weird as hell) instead of buttons on both sides, as that seems to be going away...

Seriously, f*** the G Pro...

 

[Hammettf2b]

Well, I think its finally time to upgrade. Currently have an i5-6500 with an RX480 strix oc edition. Looking to game on my 4k monitor. Was thinking of getting the i5-12600k with the RX6800. Anyone have experience with these or heard anything about them? Any others you would recommend?

 

[Osprey]

Any chance we see PCIe 5.0 SSDs released for consumers this year?

Q2 seems like when we might expect them.

MSI PCIe 5.0 SSD Debuts with 12 GBps Reads, 10 GBps Writes

Spatium M570 Pro uses a Phison E26 controller and Micron 232-layer NAND.

www.tomshardware.com

Edit: @TheGoldenJet It sounds like they may not be worth waiting for, since the first wave of drives seem to have disappointing random access speeds. It might be better to just buy a fast Gen 4 drive for cheap.

Retail PCIe Gen 5 SSDs finally break cover at CES 2023

But overall performance of these early drives looks patchy.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Smelling Salt]

Well, I think its finally time to upgrade. Currently have an i5-6500 with an RX480 strix oc edition. Looking to game on my 4k monitor. Was thinking of getting the i5-12600k with the RX6800. Anyone have experience with these or heard anything about them? Any others you would recommend?

Not sure of your budget but if you are looking at the 12600 you might as well look at the 13600. Could go down a rabbit hole of more expensive mobos and DDR5 that way, but again depends on your budget.

 

[The Nuge]

Well, I think its finally time to upgrade. Currently have an i5-6500 with an RX480 strix oc edition. Looking to game on my 4k monitor. Was thinking of getting the i5-12600k with the RX6800. Anyone have experience with these or heard anything about them? Any others you would recommend?

Agree with Smelling Salt. The 13600k is the much better buy. I bought a $80 12100f because 13th gen was coming out a couple months after I was building, so now I’m in the market for an upgrade. It’s the cpu I think I decided on. The jump to 13700k is also tempting though.

What’s your budget like? 13th gen performs much better with DDR5, but you could also run a Z690 instead of a Z790 to offset that jump. Definitely go AMD value wise for the GPU if you’re not using raytracing.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Agree with Smelling Salt. The 13600k is the much better buy. I bought a $80 12100f because 13th gen was coming out a couple months after I was building, so now I’m in the market for an upgrade. It’s the cpu I think I decided on. The jump to 13700k is also tempting though.

What’s your budget like? 13th gen performs much better with DDR5, but you could also run a Z690 instead of a Z790 to offset that jump. Definitely go AMD value wise for the GPU if you’re not using raytracing.

Was hoping for $200-$250 for the cpu but if the difference is much better, I don't mind going to $300

 

[93LEAFS]

Agree with Smelling Salt. The 13600k is the much better buy. I bought a $80 12100f because 13th gen was coming out a couple months after I was building, so now I’m in the market for an upgrade. It’s the cpu I think I decided on. The jump to 13700k is also tempting though.

What’s your budget like? 13th gen performs much better with DDR5, but you could also run a Z690 instead of a Z790 to offset that jump. Definitely go AMD value wise for the GPU if you’re not using raytracing.

Important note, if you are going z690, make sure you have a motherboard with Bios Flashback. Nothing is more crushing than completeing a build, then turning it on to see everything light up, but having no picture/access to bios then figuring out what the problem is. I did a built with an Asus Tuf Gaming z690 motherboard and it wouldn't boot into bios and the indicator on the board showed major Dram issue. So, I had to lug my new PC to a store to flash the bios. So, in your case, before you take your PC apart to put in the new CPU I'd make absolutely sure you are running the newest Bios, and if you are in the situation of the person you are responding to, either make sure when you buy the Mobo at store that they flash the newest bios for you, or that your board has Bios flashback.

 

[Osprey]

I had heard windows 11 was bad but oh man I didn’t know it could be this bad. Constant freezes and crashes. I might actually have to go back to windows 10 if this doesn’t stop.

Maybe this was your issue and uninstalling the update would've fixed it:

Windows 11 bug is randomly freezing PCs with AMD CPUs

The problem may not be widespread, but it sounds seriously annoying to say the least

www.techradar.com

 

[aleshemsky83]

Maybe this was your issue and uninstalling the update would've fixed it:

Windows 11 bug is randomly freezing PCs with AMD CPUs

The problem may not be widespread, but it sounds seriously annoying to say the least

www.techradar.com

This could have been it, however what I was experiencing was full-on black screen crashes with no error and kicking into a reset. It would happen even at idle. Could be related to this bug though since I have a ryzen 3600

 

[Osprey]

This is incredible. Imagine every laptop being fanless and quiet without sacrificing performance.

 

[Commander Clueless]

This is incredible. Imagine every laptop being fanless and quiet without sacrificing performance.

As someone who has become a gaming laptop user again, this is extremely desirable technology.

 

[93LEAFS]

Seems we are starting to see the specs required for next Gen only games (aka PS5 and X-box Series games) and the minimum/recommended are getting pretty aggressive. I assume Forespoken is terribly optimized and maybe the partical effects with RT on are just eating cards up. But, Deadspace Re-make, Returnal, Jedi Survivor, etc are pretty high also. Curious what it will be on games like Starfield and Redfall as developers slowly move off PS4/X-box One and having to design around optimizing for jaguar APU's.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Seems we are starting to see the specs required for next Gen only games (aka PS5 and X-box Series games) and the minimum/recommended are getting pretty aggressive. I assume Forespoken is terribly optimized and maybe the partical effects with RT on are just eating cards up. But, Deadspace Re-make, Returnal, Jedi Survivor, etc are pretty high also. Curious what it will be on games like Starfield and Redfall as developers slowly move off PS4/X-box One and having to design around optimizing for jaguar APU's.

Forspoken is a poorly optimized turd of a game so i would not use it for any benchmark. Huge noticeable frame drops even on good PCs for a game that is barren and looks very average graphically.

I saw the recommended specifications for Dead Space and they seem reasonable to me. They are asking for components that were released at least two years ago which is when the new consoles launched. It could only be problematic if someone feels the need to run every game at max resolution and huge FPS.

 

[Osprey]

In 2007, the minimum GPU for Crysis was a 6800 GT and for BioShock a 6600, both of which were released in 2004, or only 3 years earlier. Compared to that, Forspoken requiring a GTX 1060 and Dead Space a GTX 1070, both released 6.5 years ago, seems pretty good to me.

 

[Commander Clueless]

In 2007, the minimum GPU for Crysis was a 6800 GT and for BioShock a 6600, both of which were released in 2004, or only 3 years earlier. Compared to that, Forspoken requiring a GTX 1060 and Dead Space a GTX 1070, both released 6.5 years ago, seems pretty good to me.

While true and a good point, I think there are a couple of important caveats to note:

1) Crysis is a bit of an outlier. It was so notoriously hard to run it became a meme.

2) Since the GTX 10 series, price to performance has stagnated pretty hard.





Budget PC gaming is becoming tougher to do. More compromises are needed.

Part of that is general inflation, pandemic and post-pandemic pricing, etc. Nvidia's business model is shifting focus to elite products and cloud subscriptions.

We're not in crisis (pun intended) mode yet, but the signs are concerning IMO.

 

[SniperHF]

Minimum system specs used to be trash. Now I find they are more reliable indicators of what will be an enjoyable level of performance. Back in the day a minimum machine would run like 20fps

 

[Osprey]

1) Crysis is a bit of an outlier. It was so notoriously hard to run it became a meme.

That's why I also listed BioShock, which had a requirement not much lower. Go back a couple of years to 2005 and Battlefield 2 required at least a GeForce FX 5700, which was released in 2003, or only two years earlier.

Budget PC gaming is becoming tougher to do. More compromises are needed.

I don't disagree, but that seems due more to the rising prices of GPUs, not the requirements of games, which aren't rising nearly as quickly.

 

[93LEAFS]

In 2007, the minimum GPU for Crysis was a 6800 GT and for BioShock a 6600, both of which were released in 2004, or only 3 years earlier. Compared to that, Forspoken requiring a GTX 1060 and Dead Space a GTX 1070, both released 6.5 years ago, seems pretty good to me.

Fair point, although Forespoken's minimums are to run a game at 720p 30fps, which is pretty ridiculous. I do think some people are going to be pushed into upgrades or new builds this year more than prior years as we finally start seeing next-gen only games. Until now, the list of games that were next-gen only that also launched on PC is pretty minimal. Off the top of my head it's basically a Plague's Tale Requiem, The Medium, Dead Space re-make, Forespoken, Deathloop, Gotham Knights and Ghostwire: Tokyo, and soon Returnal. None of those I feel were must plays for many people. I do think titles like Starfield and some other titles (GTA VI whenever it's released for example) will start pushing people to upgrade/new build.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Many people already upgraded during the lockdown either out of necessity because of work or because they were stuck at home with some nice stimulus checks. Those that haven't done so, might hold up as GPU prices are still bad overall plus inflation and a potential recession might just give many cold feet.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Minimum system specs used to be trash. Now I find they are more reliable indicators of what will be an enjoyable level of performance. Back in the day a minimum machine would run like 20fps

I think this was true for awhile. These newer games we're talking about cite 720p30 at Low as minimum....

While I appreciate them giving specifics....that's not exactly a fantastic experience

 

[Commander Clueless]

That's why I also listed BioShock, which had a requirement not much lower. Go back a couple of years to 2005 and Battlefield 2 required at least a GeForce FX 5700, which was released in 2003, or only two years earlier.

I don't disagree, but that seems due more to the rising prices of GPUs, not the requirements of games, which aren't rising nearly as quickly.

You are correct, and I sort of alluded to that at the end of my post.

Games requirements aren't generally increasing at a abnormal rate, but it seems like even new generations aren't seeing a price to performance boost, so you're paying the same money for the same performance.

Part of what makes the budget gaming balance work is price to performance increasing to keep pace with game requirements, but one of those two things is not holding up their end of the bargain....if that makes sense.


That said, the next gen only PS5 ports in particular do seem to be coming in with heavier memory requirements, likely due to how the PS5 is designed.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Question for you guys. Building a computer for my girlfriend, her first desktop as she's only had gaming laptops. For the price range of certain items, the 4070 Ti or 7900 XT would be most beneficial, especially since you can get them basically at their MSRP, while you really can't much with the 7900 XTX or 4080.

So, my question is, which one would you go for, 4070 Ti or 7900 XT?

Pros for the 4070 Ti:
Less power usage.
Smaller GPU cooler.
Better ray tracing performance (not by a ton, but better).

Pros for the 7900 XT:
Better raster performance.
More RAM to work better at higher resolutions.
Partner does not really do anything with RTX (she currently has a laptop 1060), but would benefit from Raster performance.

Thoughts?

I would usually have the answer, but I'm so torn, considering prices can be dick. I don't want 3000 series or 6000 series for this build because I want her to use the card just fine at 1440p for the next 5 years.