New PC Upgrade 2020 into 2021

[Pew-Pew]

Looks pretty decent! I wouldn't worry too much about the SSD choice. Could you stretch it to 1 TB? It's nice having a decent number of games that load quickly.

What were you thinking for the graphics card? It's an awful time to buy one atm, even old cards are getting bought up and going for silly prices on ebay. Also, you might have to consider what your case will allow. What is it?

[2Channelwonder]

It's the Jeantech Phong from my God, 16.5 years ago but thankfully I bought the two of them and it saves me having to take everything out of the Cooler Master Elite which had the power switch that snapped and fell off. It'll more than do for now and then I can think about an upside down case later on, I know there's just the one case Novatech sells that has a 2.5in moulded mounting for a SATA SSD as well as the ability to add a front mounted fan to cool it [EDIT] for a price, see the second link for the case that tempted me before I saw you have to add your own fans for that great price.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/laptops/rev ... nh-60-case


Being a full ATX there's plenty of dumping room for all the cables coming down from the corner SATA ports on the motherboard and so I expect the same with the incoming new mobo, but with less busy system cabling if the PSU is semi modular.

[EDIT] Correction check the side view of the case and the specs below, it's got 3 x 2.5in bays of its own; still no fans included.

https://www.novatech.co.uk/products/avp ... k-11b.html

[Pew-Pew]

Oh god, please buy a new case. Fucking hell! And maybe not that novatech one. Cases have come along a lot in the last 10 years, especially with cooling etc. You should get something with some decent air flow, with a couple of intake fans and an exhaust. I'd spend at least £50 on one.

[DjchunKfunK]

I'd buy a new case if you can. not only will cooling be much better and cable management options but it will support USB 3.0.

[2Channelwonder]

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/xYdCK3 - pretty much only changing the CPU and mobo backbone.

The great thing is that there's loads of case choice out there and I can slam the parts into the old one as a testbed, make sure they work, and then budget for a better case later if any rellies come calling for the old one. Plus the chip and the cooler would all be fixed to the mobo so that's a lift out and reinstall in the new case job.

However I am returning to the Partpicker, link above because I forgot about the rise of Intel and their annual end of January price drops when old chips get discontinued and reduced and replaced by minor refreshes and repackages, the AMD mobo is unopened and may just get sent back and I don't wait to return to Intel. That would mean a swapover of motherboard and cooler but my CPU would drop to the hallowed £150, for the sake of another £10-20 on the latest socket 1200 motherboard, sadly, I missed six years of stability with socket 1151

Meanwhile 4Gb GPUs seem to be so scarce I'll have to check one of the computer shops on my way into London if they're still in business or if CEX in Central London still sell GPUs at either of their branches, or Ebay would be the last resort.

[DjchunKfunK]

Is there a reason you have switched to an Intel CPU?

[Pew-Pew]

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/xYdCK3 - pretty much only changing the CPU and mobo backbone.

The great thing is that there's loads of case choice out there and I can slam the parts into the old one as a testbed, make sure they work, and then budget for a better case later if any rellies come calling for the old one. Plus the chip and the cooler would all be fixed to the mobo so that's a lift out and reinstall in the new case job.

However I am returning to the Partpicker, link above because I forgot about the rise of Intel and their annual end of January price drops when old chips get discontinued and reduced and replaced by minor refreshes and repackages, the AMD mobo is unopened and may just get sent back and I don't wait to return to Intel. That would mean a swapover of motherboard and cooler but my CPU would drop to the hallowed £150, for the sake of another £10-20 on the latest socket 1200 motherboard, sadly, I missed six years of stability with socket 1151

Meanwhile 4Gb GPUs seem to be so scarce I'll have to check one of the computer shops on my way into London if they're still in business or if CEX in Central London still sell GPUs at either of their branches, or Ebay would be the last resort.

The LGA1151 socket wasn't actually 'stable' for 6 years, you still had to buy a new motherboard for upgrading to the newer generations of processors. I had a 6600k on a Z170-A board and it meant I couldn't upgrade beyond the gen after (7600/7700k etc). Fucking Intel.

I still think you should just buy the case now rather than later. Who would ever want that old one? It's a hot beige turd!

I think either processor choice is fine, but I guess you save £50 with that Intel arrangement so that's nice.

[DjchunKfunK]

I'd be very much against going Intel, the 3600 is a really good processor and getting an AMD motherboard means you can upgrade the chip to the 5 series at a later point, where as the Intel one you will have to throw out when upgrading.

[Pew-Pew]

I'd be very much against going Intel, the 3600 is a really good processor and getting an AMD motherboard means you can upgrade the chip to the 5 series at a later point, where as the Intel one you will have to throw out when upgrading.

That's true, although tbh the gaming performance of the 5000 equivalents isn't really that much better than the 3000 ones. I bought a 5600x recently and it's not that much quicker than a 3600, with a few exceptions. This is especially true if Neth is at higher (1440p+) resolutions and is more GPU limited.

[DjchunKfunK]

Yeah but I'm thinking that in three years he can grab a 5800 or similar second hand which would be a nice boost.

[Pew-Pew]

He'd probably only get a 10-20% boost from that upgrade, and mainly in CPU bound games. I dunno, I just don't think it's worth spending the extra £50 now for something like that. Just wait a bit longer and upgrade the rest of the system! Or spend the upgrade money on a new GPU, etc.

[DjchunKfunK]

He'd probably only get a 10-20% boost from that upgrade, and mainly in CPU bound games. I dunno, I just don't think it's worth spending the extra £50 now for something like that. Just wait a bit longer and upgrade the rest of the system! Or spend the upgrade money on a new GPU, etc.

I don't think benchmarks being done now are a valid comparison as the newer tech will be used better now that new consoles are on the market, especially cores, so the boost in a few years will be higher, and being able to upgrade the chip means you can keep the same system for longer.

[Wrathbone]

Making decisions about a current PC hardware purchase based on what the market may be like in the future (especially several years away) tends to be a fool's errand, if only because it moves so fast. If Intel is the right choice now, I'd be hard pressed to go against that on the basis that I may want to buy another CPU in a few years.

Honestly, though, I've not looked in depth at hardware for a couple of years so I've no idea what I'd go for at any price range right now.

[2Channelwonder]

Software success (I hope)! Decided to trust the MS store and found the free app that lets you see your actual Win10 Key without any faff. One reinstall and it'll all be activated properly and I can basically not worry about the replacement date for my stolen USB key if I have the code. That's a good £70-120 saved until it's time to get the next copy.

Is there a reason you have switched to an Intel CPU?

These past two builds going back 12 years, 2008 and '13 I haven't upgraded the CPU or motherboard, last time I bothered with a new chip was Socket 939 to go dual-core and upgrading a CPU vs 8 more gigs of RAM, it's debateable which would give better performance, as has been discussed there are CPU-bound games out there that might appreciate 700Mhz more but 2.9GHz will make Source games absolutely fly even with a standard Radeon. Like I said I will have to email around and see if any computer shops have a guide price on 4Gig GPUs and if not I would have to tide myself over with a hopefully cheap 2Gig as that's the other main influence on overall game speed.

[Pew-Pew]

Are you just planning on playing old Source games and nothing else? Come on, it's 2021, get something with more than 4 GB of VRAM!

Btw, I wouldn't get too hung up on clock speeds etc as there is more to it than that nowadays. Just go by benchmarks.