PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[SolidSnakeUS]

This is on my older Asus RT-AC3100 router that I just hooked back in.

Yeah I'm going to take back the new router to Costco. Probably going to buy the router I listed previously (Asus RT-AX86U).

 

[mouser]

WooHoo. Checked the AMD 5600X an hour ago on NewEgg on a whim and they had stock, taking orders at $299 list price. Doing a search for the 5600X on their website showed $385 as the cheapest option, but drilling into the product page NewEgg had them self-sourced available at $299, limit 1 per customer. Looks like they may have sold out already as the $299 option is no longer showing up.

Delivery next week. Time to start finalizing and ordering the other parts for the new gaming rig,

 

[mouser]

Newegg says the 5600X is shipping today, tracking number received.

Onto finalizing the next components. I'm pretty confident I'm going with these two:

- LANCOOL II Mesh RGB - Ultimate Airflow Chassis
--- They have two main options, this case with 3x 120mm ARGB fans (3 pin), or a case with 2x 140mm (front) and 1x 120m (back) PWM fans (4 pin). Would prefer the PWM, but I thinking I want to do a color led build, and I'm thinking of mounting a 280mm radiator in the top of the case, rather then front, for optimal coolant flow. Which takes us to the next part:

- iCUE H115i ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler
--- It's the same price as the H115i Platinum, seems worth it for the extra fan hub. Planning to mount in the top of the case, which has room for the 280mm radiator. Haven't researched if the fan hub will work with 3 pin fans, but that's not a critical issue.

Where I'm completely up in the air is motherboard. My initial pass on mombos had me looking torwards a MSI board, possibly in the Unify, Gaming Edge or Tomahawk lines, but I've got a ton of research to do on this still. I've owned several MSI boards and have been happy with their products.

Any advice or recommendations greatly appreciated.

 

[Osprey]

WooHoo. Checked the AMD 5600X an hour ago on NewEgg on a whim and they had stock, taking orders at $299 list price. Doing a search for the 5600X on their website showed $385 as the cheapest option, but drilling into the product page NewEgg had them self-sourced available at $299, limit 1 per customer. Looks like they may have sold out already as the $299 option is no longer showing up.

Delivery next week. Time to start finalizing and ordering the other parts for the new gaming rig,

I had the same experience with Amazon a couple of months ago. Doing a search for the 5600X returned no results week after week, but then I just happened to follow a link that I found elsewhere to the "hidden" product page and it was there, in stock, for the $299 MSRP. An hour later, it was out of stock. I felt really fortunate. I, too, didn't have any of my other parts yet, so my 5600X was sitting in its box on the shelf for about two weeks.

Enjoy. I really like mine. I've had it installed for over a month and am still tweaking to get the best overclock. Don't neglect PBO and Curve Optimizer. I've found that https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/ is a good resource.

Where I'm completely up in the air is motherboard. My initial pass on mombos had me looking torwards a MSI board, possibly in the Unify, Gaming Edge or Tomahawk lines, but I've got a ton of research to do on this still. I've owned several MSI boards and have been happy with their products.

Any advice or recommendations greatly appreciated.

Sorry that I'm a few days late. I've heard good things about all three MSI lines, but went with the ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (WiFi), myself. A few things that I like are its variety of USB ports in back (more than any of the MSI boards that I looked at), the all-black design, included heatsinks for both m.2 bays, the AC1220 audio, 2.5G ethernet, the WiFi (w/ Bluetooth) option (there's also one without) and ASUS's timely BIOS updates. It'd probably be a good match for that case that you picked out because of the all-black look and RGB support, but you probably couldn't go wrong with the MSI boards, either.

 

[mouser]

I had the same experience with Amazon a couple of months ago. Doing a search for the 5600X returned no results week after week, but then I just happened to follow a link that I found elsewhere to the "hidden" product page and it was there, in stock, for the $299 MSRP. An hour later, it was out of stock. I felt really fortunate. I, too, didn't have any of my other parts yet, so my 5600X was sitting in its box on the shelf for about two weeks.

Enjoy. I really like mine. I've had it installed for over a month and am still tweaking to get the best overclock. Don't neglect PBO and Curve Optimizer. I've found that https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/ is a good resource.



Sorry that I'm a few days late. I've heard good things about all three MSI lines, but went with the ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (WiFi), myself. A few things that I like are its variety of USB ports in back (more than any of the MSI boards that I looked at), the all-black design, included heatsinks for both m.2 bays, the AC1220 audio, 2.5G ethernet, the WiFi (w/ Bluetooth) option (there's also one without) and ASUS's timely BIOS updates. It'd probably be a good match for that case that you picked out because of the all-black look and RGB support, but you probably couldn't go wrong with the MSI boards, either.

Thanks, I think the Strix B550-F is right in the wheelhouse of what I’m looking for. This is generally going to be a gaming build, and I don’t think I’ll be expanding the machine in ways where a X570 would really make a difference. Better off I think with a higher end B550 that has good VRM and decent overclocking options vs a budget X570 board. Not planning to go overclocking gonzo, but am going to put a quality water cooler on it and look for higher quality memory options.

Most likely going with a three drive layout. 512GB SSD root drive, a 1-2TB SSD gaming drive, and then cheap ~4TB spindle drive for slow media storage. I don’t see anything that suggests M.2 NVMe will make a real performance difference for me, though I might do that with the root drive, and do the rest of the drives as 2.5”. Should have more then enough room in the case to add some cheaper additional gaming SSD’s if the current software bloat continues.


edit: for anyone reading, I realized the price difference between a 2.5” SATA SSD and a M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD is small enough that it makes sense to buy the M.2 NVMe, even if I don’t ultimately benefit as much from the increased speed.

 

[Osprey]

Thanks, I think the Strix B550-F is right in the wheelhouse of what I’m looking for. This is generally going to be a gaming build, and I don’t think I’ll be expanding the machine in ways where a X570 would really make a difference. Better off I think with a higher end B550 that has good VRM and decent overclocking options vs a budget X570 board. Not planning to go overclocking gonzo, but am going to put a quality water cooler on it and look for higher quality memory options.

I went with the B550 because it's newer and tends to have better VRMs for the same price, but mostly because I'm old enough to remember hating when motherboards came with chipset fans like the X570, circa 2000. Over time, those tiny fans would start making noise and you'd have to kick the case to try to stop it, open the case and clean the fan or try to replace it, which was tough to do because they were all different. I still have a collection of motherboard chipset fans that I built up because I would salvage one from every motherboard that I or a family member discarded, just in case I might ever need it. The ones in the X750 boards may be better than the ones 20 years ago, but there have still been some reports of them making noise and I just don't want to risk it. I'll accept the B550's constraints so that I don't have to ever worry about having issues with the X570's tiny fan.

As for cooling, even a cheap $35 air cooler (like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition, which I have) is more than enough for the 5600X. It's not a very hot CPU, even when pushing the overclocking really hard, so water cooling isn't necessary, but go for it if you just want the best and best looking regardless of the price.

As for memory, I got DDR4-4000 and haven't been able to run it at 4000MHz with the Infinity Fabric at 2000MHz without loads of WHEA errors in the system log. I'm not sure that I've read of a single person who has gotten IF working stably and without errors at 2000. 3800/1900 is the highest that I and most people can do, so I would prioritize timings and die type (Samsung b-die seems to be the best) over frequency.

 

[Dick Sledge]

Has anyone else experienced non stop crashes to desk top since the last windows update specifically playing xbox game pass pc games?

Greedfall and Doom Eternal both crash every 10 minutes or so. I played Greedfall for 5 or so hours with no crashes but since I've done the update it won't stop crashing.

Other steam games work just fine for long playthroughs. Anyone have any issues like this or even know what I can potentially do?

 

[mouser]

Here's the current gaming rig build proposal

- CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X
- GPU: EVGA 3070, exact model tbd
- Case: LANCOOL II Mesh RGB - Ultimate Airflow Chassis
- Cooler: iCUE H100i ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler
- Motherboard: ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) | ROG Strix | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG USA
- RAM: 32GB Crucial Ballistix, 3600MHz CL16, single rank 4x8GB
- PSU: RMx Series™ RM850x — 850 Watt 80 PLUS® Gold Certified Fully Modular PSU
- Root Drive: WD Black SN850 500GB M.2 PCI 4.0
- Game Drive: WD Black SN750 1TB M.2 PCI 3.0
- Snail drive: Seagate Barracuda 4TB

Notes:
- 850W PSU is a bit on the high side for a ~300W CPU+GPU draw, but I like overpowering my PC's. Less stress on the PSU tends to lead to longer life, also I leave my system on 24x hours w/sleep mode.
- Similar reason for using the liquid cooler, I just prefer them greatly over fin coolers, including less torque on the mounting bracket. Aesthetics are nicer as well. Given the case layout a top mounted 280mm radiator looks like the best option. (Edit: had to switch to 240mm radiator)
- After doing a lot of research, 4x8 single rank 3600MHz seems to be the sweet spot for 5600x + B550 memory. I'm guessing I'll be able to OC this to 3800MHz if desired? Have seen at least one claim that single rank 2x16GB performs better then 4x8GB single rank, but not a lot of supporting info and the 16GB single rank DIMM's are in short supply.
- Even though I'm not expecting a big performance boost, willing to spend the extra $40 to make the root drive a PCIe 4.0. Note: motherboard has two M.2 slots, but only one can do 4.0.
- I strongly prefer to keep my boot drive and game drive separate.

Total build cost approx $2000, not including tax.

edit: everything ordered, except the 3070
edit2: The LianLi Lancool case supports dual 140mm top mount fans fine, however there isn’t enough room between the motherboard backplane location (USB ports and all) and top of the case to also add a 280mm AIO cooler radiator with the two fans. There is room for a dual 240mm top mount cooler (dual 120mm fans) that won’t be obstructed by the motherboard, so swapping to that.

 

[Osprey]

- GPU: EVGA 3070, exact model tbd

Good luck with that! I've been trying to buy one for the last month.

- Snail drive: Seagate Barracuda 4TB

FWIW, I've been getting a bit annoyed with my 3TB HDD recently. For the first time ever, my system is so quiet that I can hear the mechanical drive spinning. I don't really notice it until the drive spins down and goes to sleep because my system gets much quieter... but then it eventually spins up again and I definitely hear it. It's not that it's super loud or annoying, but it's noticeable. It's also a reminder of older computers and takes away from the cutting edge feel of the computer. I'm seriously considering replacing it with a 2TB NVMe drive just so that I can disconnect it and hook it up (with a USB-to-SATA adapter) only when I want to back up to it. I'm just throwing it out as an option, in case upgrading your 1TB to a 2TB would be preferable to spending that extra money on a loud snail drive (which is a lot larger, granted).

- After doing a lot of research, 4x8 single rank 3600MHz seems to be the sweet spot for 5600x + B550 memory. I'm guessing I'll be able to OC this to 3800MHz if desired? Have seen at least one claim that single rank 2x16GB performs better then 4x8GB single rank, but not a lot of supporting info and the 16GB single rank DIMM's are in short supply.

You'll probably be able to overclock it, yeah. Well, technically, 3600MHz is overclocking it, too, but you might be able to push it further, at least by relaxing the timing (maybe you'll have to do CL17 at 3800MHz).

No, 4X8 SR (single rank) is faster than 2x16 SR. What you want are 4 total ranks, which the former gives you. 2x16 DR (dual rank) also gives you 4 ranks and is slightly faster than 4x8 SR, but the problem is that it's really hard to tell which 16GB sticks are SR and which are DR. Some kits ship in both configurations with the same product numbers, so you could buy the same memory kit as someone who received 2x16 DR and find that you received 2x16 SR, instead. That's why I chose to not risk it and went with 4x8 SR, myself. That way, you're guaranteed to get a total of 4 ranks.

- I strongly prefer to keep my boot drive and game drive separate.

With SSDs (especially NVMe drives), I don't think that there's as much benefit to this as there used to be, but it's not going to hurt, either.

 

[mouser]

FWIW, I've been getting a bit annoyed with my 3TB HDD recently. For the first time ever, my system is so quiet that I can hear the mechanical drive spinning. I don't really notice it until the drive spins down and goes to sleep because my system gets much quieter... but then it eventually it spins up again and I definitely hear it. It's not that it's super loud or annoying, but it's noticeable. It's also a reminder of older computers and takes away from the cutting edge feel of the computer. I'm seriously considering replacing it with a 2TB NVMe drive just so that I can disconnect it and hook it up (with a USB-to-SATA adapter) only when I want to back up to it. I'm just throwing it out as an option, in case upgrading your 1TB to a 2TB would be preferable to spending that extra money on a loud snail drive (which is a lot larger, granted).

I may just skip it and go straight to my NAS for that slow media storage. Part of the reason I was thinking that particular Seagate 4TB drive is those are the drives I have loaded up in my NAS. Or buy it and toss it in the NAS, still have a slot open.

With SSDs (especially NVMe drives), I don't think that there's as much benefit to this as there used to be, but it's not going to hurt, either.

It's more organizational for me than strictly performance. Also makes it easier for me to manage my backup schedules and prefer doing a bare iron restore if necessary onto a smaller root drive.

 

[Osprey]

FYI, the Ryzen 5600X is currently in stock on Amazon US for its $299 MSRP:

https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-5600X-12-Thread-Processor/dp/B08166SLDF

 

[xtra]

Hey guys; I’m hoping for a little help.
I’m going to be needing a new laptop soon and I had been putting it off for until AOE4 comes out.

However Microsoft won’t release any details on age of empires I don’t know what graphics/processing power I would need. And I really can’t keep waiting

Do you guys have a suggestion for the type of laptop that would be safe to buy now that will probably have the firepower to run AOE 4.

I know there’s no guarantees but if you could throw some specs out for me that would be at the high end it would be appreciated.

 

[Soedy]

After months of debating, I will try out a 144 hz monitor in the next few days. Currently I own a 60hz 4k 32" screen and I ordered two 27" 1440p 144 hz screens.

Curious to see what all the fuzz is about and if the price is worth it for me.

 

[Osprey]

Hey guys; I’m hoping for a little help.
I’m going to be needing a new laptop soon and I had been putting it off for until AOE4 comes out.

However Microsoft won’t release any details on age of empires I don’t know what graphics/processing power I would need. And I really can’t keep waiting

Do you guys have a suggestion for the type of laptop that would be safe to buy now that will probably have the firepower to run AOE 4.

I know there’s no guarantees but if you could throw some specs out for me that would be at the high end it would be appreciated.

I imagine that any gaming laptop would be fine. Something with an Nvidia 3000 series (ex. 3070) would no doubt be more than fine.

There's nothing official yet, but here are some things to put you at ease:

Will you need a powerful PC to run Age of Empires 4?

There are not yet definitive specs for PC requirements, but Age of Empires 4 is being developed with inclusivity in mind. A new engine that doesn't rely heavily on a single processor core will immediately make an enormous difference. Even those with beefy PC hardware can sometimes see Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition chug along because of the old engine. The ultimate goal is to create a game that can be played the same on a relatively low-end laptop or a high-end gaming rig. If you're interested in upgrading, be sure to have a look at our collection of the best graphics cards for some great options.

Age of Empires 4: Everything you need to know | Windows Central

Recommended Requirements, Predicted

• OS: Win 7 64
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz / AMD FX-8370
• Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
• System Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Storage: 40 GB Hard drive space

Age of Empires IV System Requirements | Can I Run Age of Empires 4 PC requirements

 

[Soedy]

After months of debating, I will try out a 144 hz monitor in the next few days. Currently I own a 60hz 4k 32" screen and I ordered two 27" 1440p 144 hz screens.

Curious to see what all the fuzz is about and if the price is worth it for me.

After playing and working with it, I am going to return my 144 hz monitors. 144 feels great, no question. But the difference to 60 is less than I expected. Pair this with the lower resolution, it isn't for me. I just have to wait for prices on 32" 4k 144hz monitors to drop, because I don't think I'll ever downgrade from 4k.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

144hz 1440p monitors are such an amazing sweet spot for PC game. So f***ing good. 27" for the most part is a good size for that resolution, quality and refresh speed.

Also, this is interesting:

 

[Osprey]

After playing and working with it, I am going to return my 144 hz monitors. 144 feels great, no question. But the difference to 60 is less than I expected. Pair this with the lower resolution, it isn't for me. I just have to wait for prices on 32" 4k 144hz monitors to drop, because I don't think I'll ever downgrade from 4k.

Make sure that they're actually running at 144Hz. Windows sets all new monitors to 60Hz and forces you to manually set anything higher. Right click on the desktop, choose "Display Settings" and click on "Advanced display settings" near the very bottom to get the page where you set the refresh rate.

 

[Soedy]

Make sure that they're actually running at 144Hz. Windows sets all new monitors to 60Hz and forces you to manually set anything higher. Right click on the desktop, choose "Display Settings" and click on "Advanced display settings" near the very bottom to get the page where you set the refresh rate.

Oh I made sure. I also saw a difference and it was quite nice. But in the end, I prefer the real estate of 4k more than the framerate upgrade.

 

[explore]

Oh I made sure. I also saw a difference and it was quite nice. But in the end, I prefer the real estate of 4k more than the framerate upgrade.

Same here. Got a 4K/60 Hz 27" for productivity, but with lock down and all, I've been gaming a lot more than normal, so I've been thinking about getting a second display for 1440p/144 Hz gaming. Held off because my current desk doesn't have the real estate to fit another display

 

[mouser]

Hopefully the last part for my new gaming computer arrives tomorrow. Only did a little preliminary research a few months ago on monitors so haven’t finalized what I’m doing there yet.

Currently have a pair of BenQ 24” 60HZ 1200p monitors. Amazingly they’ve been running perfect for 13 years now—were top end and quite expensive ($750/each) back when I bought them. Probably going to go with a matched pair of 27” 120-144Hz monitors to replace them. Don’t want to uber splurge on them, probably a budget of under $400/monitor. I’m only realistically going to game on one monitor, but I want the matched pair for the extended desktop.

 

[mouser]

Still researching monitors, one interesting candidate is the Gigabyte M27Q. M27Q Gaming Monitor Key Features | Monitor - GIGABYTE Global
- 1440p
- 170Hz
- 0.5ms response time
- HDR400 (still 8 bit tho)
- G-Sync compatible (not officially certified)

Currently $330 at Newegg.

Anyone have experience with this one, or any alternate suggestions? Again, looking for a pair of 27" gaming monitors, prefer to budget $400 max each, though can go above that if I feel the extra investment is worth the difference.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

What kind of panel are you looking for? IPS? VA? TN?

 

[mouser]

Not looking for any specific panel type, but I'd be surprised if I ended up with anything other then IPS.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Just over $400, but apparently it's a really good one (if you have a Microcenter near you).

ASUS VG27AQ TUF Gaming 27" WQHD 165Hz HDMI DP G-Sync HDR Eye Care IPS LED Gaming Monitor - Micro Center

 

[mouser]

Just over $400, but apparently it's a really good one (if you have a Microcenter near you).

ASUS VG27AQ TUF Gaming 27" WQHD 165Hz HDMI DP G-Sync HDR Eye Care IPS LED Gaming Monitor - Micro Center

Yeah, this is one I did a little research on. From what I can tell the general consensus seems to be the M27Q has the same or better specs for $100 less.