Building a PC—Avoid wasting Money

[Miketoobluz]

Spending too little on PSU is far worse than spending too much. A cheap PSU can kill other parts before it dies itself. I have lost hdd in the past to bad PSU.
I may have too much power now but it let me upgrade parts without needing to worry about power.


But RGB & Gaming PC's are the same thing... PC only needs RGB to be a gaming PC... that is what seems to be case anyway.

PCIe5 nvme are a waste of money for windows drives. You won't notice a massive speed difference between PCIe3 & 5. Just an increase in heat. If they keep going the heatsinks needed to cool the nvme will look like mini CPU heatsinks. Why not just make one water cooling pump that does the CPU & nvme?

You need to move really big files around to notice any speed difference really.

I'll say. When I built this pc last year, I thought I'd save a few and use the old pc's psu. I didn't know the USB power was fluctuating and preventing my first win.11 download-error messages and restarts Whew!

 

[Colif]

I learned the hard way, Bad PSU killed about 4 hard drives. At time I blamed the drives but over time I have realised it was the PSU itself. That was years ago now. I had a no name PSU in a no name case.
Now, one of the 1st things I pick is the PSU. Often before CPU.

 

[Miketoobluz]

I learned the hard way, Bad PSU killed about 4 hard drives. At time I blamed the drives but over time I have realised it was the PSU itself. That was years ago now. I had a no name PSU in a no name case.
Now, one of the 1st things I pick is the PSU. Often before CPU.

Interesting, so many errors / fails from a psu. I feel like an expert who knows more and more about less and less!

 

[Colif]

PSU supplies power to other parts. If its not supplying clean consistent power then other parts can start to play up.

I had one blow up once, only as it was about 8 years old and past its use by date. I didn't realise that at time... I have learned much over the years 🙂

 

[Why_Me]

Not sure if it's already been mentioned but gaming at 4K on a limited budget is the devil.

 

[Why_Me]

I've had to fish out their location. It's annoying to always come across someone who says I'm in Europe. Once you post a suggestion with a part's listing in Germany, the user comes back with a logistics is going to kill my purchase. Well, sir, why not tell me which country you're located in so I can source a part that's either in your country or one that's in your neighboring country?

I'm beginning to think Brexit was a tactic to avoid them mad people. No, I'm kidding!

I've come across this multiple times across the net ... Europeans who want to keep their location (country) anonymous. The OP admits to living in one of the Baltic countries and last time I checked the Baltics were members of both the EU and NATO. It's like these people live in a Cold War time warp.

https://linustechtips.com/topic/161...r5-7600x-or-r7-7700-also-rtx-5070-or-rx-9070/

I don't want to say my country exactly but it is in the baltic region.

 

[Colif]

Not sure if it's already been mentioned but gaming at 4K on a limited budget is the devil.

Getting a 4k monitor as a gift when you weren't expecting it sure highlights that. I had to update my GPU just to run it at 60hz on desktop... at 150% scale as windows defaults to that on a 4k. Or my monitor would show an error message.

Funny, it hasn't really improved a lot in 10 years. Still need a reasonably high end PC to play it at max. Mainly as the screens refresh faster now. 60 isn't fast enough now.

I never really did get much value out of that Monitor. Maybe now I would... too late.

Better to have an overpowered GPU for your screen than the other way around.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I use small monitors, so I don't intend to ever get a 4k. Actually, I wish my 18 inch monitor I just got was 1080p

 

[Colif]

Buy a PC using DDR 4 until the Ram shortage ends

Its a strange world when my last pc based on a 5800x3d with 32gb ddr4 is better value than the one I currently own.

Him using 4k benchmarks to prove ram doesn't make a difference is not a fair comparison as every CPU is the same if we have a GPU bottleneck

As pointed out in this video

which is an April fools video...

 

[Colif]

0:58 - Power Supplies
3:19 - RAM
6:28 - "Gaming" PC's
9:20 - Custom "High End" GPU's
13:07 - Storage

looks at his current PC... hmm, seems I failed on all 5 points. Value really wasn't the intention though.
PSU, have 1kw, only use 600.
Ram - I wanted 64gb but couldn't get the sticks, I guess 32 is better than most can afford now. Ignores fact its got Chrome heatspreaders...
Gaming PC - Jay has since changed his mind on this, he realises there are Gaming monitors now, as office monitors don't need .03 response times, but games like them.

Other gaming items likes chairs are a trap.
Custom High End GPU - You don't get better performance in game, but they may be quieter.
Storage - I agree Gen 5 not necessary, thats why I only got pcie 4 nvme.

I have even changed my mind since June last year when I said 4k monitors are a bad idea... last GPU/Monitor matched up, but unless you buy monitors/GPU at the same time, there comes a time you have to upgrade one and break the combo. Ideally its the GPU but as mine only 6 months old, that won't happen for a while. So I got a 4k monitor and can use GPU features to make up the difference.

If you don't have anything else you need to spend money on, why not make it nice.

Shame I can't tell Brian.