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Brave Little Hitachi Wand

@ yakko @feddit.uk

Posts
6
Comments
951
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Thanks for the nuanced advice! I don't mind fan noise so much, I'm very accustomed to it and I tend to crank the tunes up anyway. I would absolutely be stepping down a tier or two if I was just doing office work, gaming, video editing, or streaming media. But since I'm doing all of those - and want the build costs to amortize comfortably for the next decade or so - I feel okay with reaching for the top shelves. I'm not going for a crazy threadripper workstation or anything, so I pat myself on the back for showing humility and restraint. And then laugh at myself behind my own back.

    At this point I've got two parts lists picked out, depending on how long I decide to save up I might either go for a "vaguely reasonable" build based on the 9800, or if I decide to hold off until after the summer when my parents have left and won't be around to annoy me with helpful advice, I might have saved up enough to build something based on the 9950 with all the bells and whistles. If I go that route, the heat sink might end up being a Noctua NH-D15 G2 LBC instead, with six case fans just so none of them have to work as hard as all of them. Is that vaguely sane?

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • This build is already about £500 more than I had planned to spend! Now they're saying buy monitors? Aaiiieee, my wallet. Maybe down the road if I deserve a treat I'll spring for a higher refresh 1440p monitor. It's likely enough, I am kinda spoiled.

    The motivation for picking one small NVME SSD is that after the upgrade I'll have two >10Tb file servers on my network, one for serving media to the projector and one for backups. I would feel just silly buying more storage at that point... At least for now.

    I'm seriously considering the Thermalright Royal Pretor 130 or a Peerless Assassin 120; both are highly reputed, I've seen them used on this CPU with good results in completed builds on pcpartpicker, and the case I'm going with can fit a heatsink 185mm tall so either will fit, incredibly enough. Also, most of my favourite games are indies so I don't plan on overclocking or anything crazy.

    I've just been talked down from getting the 9950X3D for the 9800X3D instead. Benchmarks all said both will be roughly an order of magnitude as much computing power as I'm used to, and the higher wattage and heat of the 9950 would probably push me into genuinely needing a watercooler. I'm hoping I can get away with a fan cooled CPU under the hood and not have to worry about AIOs dying every 5 years. Is that reasonable?

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • I like the look of that, and I am reading that the fans that come with the Fractal North can be a bit loud. Taking Noctua onboard. It's a roomy case, how many fans (in+out) would you use?

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • That's a really key point about the PSU dungeon, I keep forgetting about practicalities like that! Good to know about Gigabyte being shady, I thought I'd heard that name somewhere before.

    One thing I forgot to mention is that my storage needs on my daily driver PC are very minimal, because I have a 6-bay media server in the house. On top of that, one of my old PCs will become an additional server with my 14tb external HDD attached, so I'm really not sweating storage too much. If it gets cramped I'll drop an SSD into it down the road?

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • I'll keep it in mind if I notice that with my new-ish 60hz monitors, thanks!

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • That's a great site, been going over it. Finally settled on a ADATA XPG Core Reactor II 850W for my updated parts list, trying to take everyone's advice: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Wmyk9K

    (edited this, heard worrisome things about Gigabyte)

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Okay, fair enough. Thanks for being patient, this is a lot to take in. I'm trying to incorporate everyone's advice and rework my parts list, what do you think about this one (https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Wmyk9K )? Is the 9800 going to be happy with a 9070 XT, or am I barking up the wrong tree there?

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Not like.... not happily. But yeah. I beat BG3 a few times on the SB3, using absolute dogshit-potato settings. Would be fun to see what the game actually looks like, one of these days.

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • I think I'm happy enough with 1080p. Anything more than that can be visually overstimulating anyway, like those high res soap operas I sometimes see when I find myself in the company of a television, it's jarring!

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • 32gb RAM instead of 16 has been the biggest surprise takeaway from this thread, and I appreciate it despite it being a hard pill to swallow at a time like this. The thing I should have considered is that my laptop has 16gb of DDR4 and it frequently pisses me off (while running windows mind you). 32 might be just the thing.

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Rocking a 2015 iMac and a Surface Book 3. Not happy with either situation, when I'm finally doing Outlook and OneDrive from inside Linux (for work), I'll probably convert the laptop to Linux finally as well and be rid of Windows once and for all. I've been meaning to get rid of all my closed OS systems for years, but mistakes kept happening.

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • It already is one, so yeah lol

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Thanks for the tip about the case, I'm a sucker for the wood effect! I think I'm leaning towards air cooling only too, because the idea of ever having to fiddle with a faulty pump next to prized components is giving me mild anxiety.

    I think someone else was also singing the praises of Noctua, I think I'll take that onboard!

    The mesh case looks good, but if I do manage to pick all white parts I might go for the clear side panel. We'll see!

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Thanks!

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • I'm the one confused probably, I don't know PC parts that well and I've just dumped my random notes on you hoping for clarity. Thanks for the note about DDR4.

    I also mostly play indie games that aren't memory hogs, but I've decided I want to get into S&box so my kid and I can create games, and I had to return it due to none of my computers being up to the task. Part of my goal with this build is for that not to happen for another ten years or more, if possible.

    I almost want to avoid watercooling because the whole prospect makes me nervous, but I've heard the all-in-one units with bendy tubes are pretty self-contained but... I'm sure there are horror stories. The main thing I crave from any heat sink is to be blissfully unconcerned for the life of the device, ideally. Is there something like that on the market?

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Poring over Cinebench ratings and comparing the options to my current chipset, I think there's really no need to trouble you - it seems like whatever CPU I end up with is going to have surreal performance compared to this old Core i5 4 core chip I've been rendering with. You've given me some food for thought, though!

    It's taken me a bit of time to digest how far things have come in the last decade. Now it'll just become a question of what to do with this bigass old iMac. Server with a giant screen or smth I dunno.

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Copy that about the PSU. Maybe it's just the kid in me, but I can't get as excited about saving up for a reasonable PC. I make all my money and have more than half of my fun on a computer, I want to treat myself to one I can be proud of. The grownup side of me gets onboard when I think about it staying performant for years longer, if I get the best one I can. When those two are of one mind on something, it's hard to talk them down.

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • Brand names, you say? leans over with pad of paper

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • I've always wanted to be into PCs, but always ended up buying premade just to get things done. Now that I have a bit of breathing room and actual goals, it's finally time - but beyond escaping Windows and going all-AMD, I don't know how adventurous I'm willing to be with building my own or buying used kit. I looked on Gumtree but I kind of got sketched out, and (embarrassingly) a bit sad about not having control over the aesthetics.

  • FML it's the worst time to get into a high end PC, but...

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  • I'll take a flyer on 32gb, might just save up longer. Cheers!