|OT| The PC Hardware Thread -- Buy/Upgrade/Ask/Answer

WahabiPapangu

GarfCumLover
Dec 27, 2018
23
46
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It's bio-matter. It will of course dissolve to a degree, but it probably won't go away completely.
Also: How the f* is an insect able to crawl in between your glass front panel and the pixel panel?
That's scary.

I have no idea. But googling it, it seems to happen quite often.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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(PCWorld's Full Nerd Special Episode)

I learned a couple of new stuff:

-PCI-E will probably not improve Crossfire performance.
-You should see improved RAM speeds even on "old" boards. They think 3600/C15 is the new price/performance king
-Reasons behind the blower cooler on 5700 cards



Give it a watch, some is typical marketing bla bla but also some interesting information directly from AMD.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Amazon product
Is this a gud motherboard

would any of the videocards/CPUs compatible with either play PUBG or RE2?
According to this handy spreadsheet document the MSI B450 Tomahawk should be even able to handle 150A (fine enough), Which surprised me, but this means that you can throw in a 1700, 2700 or even the new 3900 on it. Less powerful r5 CPUs will be even more okay (obviously).

I still wouldn't recommend running a 560€ CPU on a 90€ mainboard, but MSI's b450 offerings seem to be better than the b450 products from gigabyte, asus, asrock and co (for the most part).

A new bios supporting ryzen 3000 is already available to download and can be flashed on to the board without a CPU.

Videocard performance is independent of your mainboard. A 1660Ti will run as fast on a 90€ b450 board as on a 300€ x470 board.

If you like the look and the IO is offering everything you need. I guess it's gud enough for your needs.
 
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Theswweet

Dirty Weeb
Mar 12, 2019
984
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QVL lists have started dropping for x570 boards (and Zen 2), and it's veeeeery promising. MSI is saying 4400CL18 should work on 2 dimms, and 3733CL17 on 4 on a daisy chain motherboard. That's about as good as you could hope for, really!
 
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Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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So what's a good NVMe drive? I kind of lost the plot on all the different types of flash and stuff and while I'm not buying one right now, I figured I'd a few on my price check list in the meantime.
 

Theswweet

Dirty Weeb
Mar 12, 2019
984
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So what's a good NVMe drive? I kind of lost the plot on all the different types of flash and stuff and while I'm not buying one right now, I figured I'd a few on my price check list in the meantime.
If you live near a Microcenter, get an Inland Premium 1TB. It's under $100 and a good performer.
 
OP
Durante

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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2060 and 2070 "Super" reviews are out.
Spoiler: the "2060 Super" is basically a cheaper 2070, and the "2070 Super" is almost a cheaper 2080.
Not particularly exciting, but good.
 
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Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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If you live near a Microcenter, get an Inland Premium 1TB. It's under $100 and a good performer.
I don't think neither of those exists in Finland. :)
At least as far as I can see by checking the local price tracker, nothing comes up with Inland.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Not sure, if this is thread worthy but it's at least worthy of this thread.

3700x and 3900x Benchmarks leaked from german magazine pcgameshardware
  • 9900k is still the gaming king
  • 3700x and 3900x are close to each other in most games
  • 3700x is up to 50% faster than the 2700x in applications
  • 3700x is up to 20% faster than the 2700x in games
  • Some games seem to love the new ryzen architecture. AC:Origins is as fast on the 3700x as on the 9900k
Far Cry 5, in 720p
9900k 71 min / 115 max
3900x 64min / 101 max
3700x 61 min / 101 max

Wolfenstein 2, in 720p
9900k 196 min / 318 max
3900x 208 min / 298 max
3700x 204 min / 297 max

Assassins's Creed Origin, 720p
3900x 72 min / 95 max
3700x 68 min / 94 max
9900k 66min / 93 max

Rise of the TR (Geothermal Calley), 720p
9900k 98 min / 181 max
3900x 93 min / 150 max
3700x 91 min / 146 max

CineBench R15 (my favorite game)
3900x 3218
3700x 2180
9900k 2068
2700x 1793


Nothing shocking here, for the most part. It's a good jump in performance for AMD and I'm sure that the 3900x is the better long term investment over the 9900k. For me, I'm still a bit undecided. I want to upgrade my 2700x, no idea if 3700x, 3800x or 3900x yet.
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
3,028
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Finland
With so little separating the 3700X and 3900X, seems like 3700X is the obvious gamer choice if one wants to go AMD.
But two pieces of the puzzle are missing, one being obviously the 3600X. How close does it get to the 3700X?
And actual real world pricing. Local price comparison doesn't even lists them yet.

If the 3600X gets close to 3700X in most cases and the pricing holds, it would be extremely attractive.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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All I can report are the Amazon Germany prices from two days ago.
You can still find some of them through google cache.

3600 264€
3600x 321€
3700x 411€
3800x 463€
3900x 546€

That's the worst part about AMD currently. They are happily adopting the premium prices Nvidia and Intel forced down on us throughout the years.
Before people inform me about the rules of capitalism: Yes, AMD isn't here for welfare. I get it, but I expect Zen 2 prices to be even higher, because demand will (probably) also be pretty high.

On the other side, AMD already seems to be reacting to the RTX super by reducing the launch prices for Navi.
If Intel drops their 9000 series pricing as well... a 9900k could end up as the better alternative. It's already 45€ cheaper than the 3900x.

 
OP
Durante

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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The Ryzen 3000 benchmarks are now out. Nothing too surprising. In terms of gaming performance AMD is now almost caught up to Intel, in terms of efficiency and general performance there's not really any reason to buy an Intel CPU for desktops right now.
 

low-G

old school cool
Nov 1, 2018
898
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I'm surprised the 9900k is holding its lead as well as it is. Looks like I made the right choice for my gaming rig. I don't see why you'd buy a 3900X for gaming. Looks like i9-9900k or 9700 for high end, 3700X slightly lower end...

It's bio-matter. It will of course dissolve to a degree, but it probably won't go away completely.
Also: How the f* is an insect able to crawl in between your glass front panel and the pixel panel?
That's scary.
I've seen insects die between the backlight/s and lcd,

I don't think it'll probably go away at all within the life of the display.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
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I'm surprised how well the 3700x holds up against the 9900k, especially when comparing frametime performance.
I don't think anybody expected zen2 to take the crown, but this is good. The 9900k cost 580€ at launch and the 3700x is a 350€ CPU after all. The difference seems to be around 5-8%, with some outliers like New Dawn and Metro Exodus (~20%). But you have similar outliers for Ryzen with Kingdome Come and Resident Evil 2. The 3700x is outperforming the 9900k by ~10% here, despite a clock disadvantage.
I'm impressed



Finally some worthy competition. The r5 3600 should turn into the new i5 2500k. The go to CPU for the next 1-2 years.
Good performance, good price at 200€, cheap mbs are available, enough headroom. At least until those 8 core next gen consoles arrive.

For me: Not sure the "premium" for the 3800x is worth it, probably not. 3900x is still intriguing me, but I think I'll stay on 8 cores till Q1/Q2 2021, after PS5 arrived. By then 12 and 18 cores should be better in every regard, maybe GPUs will also start asking for PCI-E 4 and I'll need a new MB anyway.
 
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low-G

old school cool
Nov 1, 2018
898
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I'm surprised how well the 3700x holds up against the 9900k, especially when comparing frametime performance.
I don't think anybody expected zen2 to take the crown, but this is good. The 9900k cost 580€ at launch and the 3700x is a 350€ CPU after all. The difference seems to be around 5-8%, with some outliers like New Dawn and Metro Exodus (~20%). But you have similar outliers for Ryzen with Kingdome Come and Resident Evil 2. The 3700x is outperforming the 9900k by ~10% here, despite a clock disadvantage.
I'm impressed



Finally some worthy competition. The r5 3600 should turn into the new i5 2500k. The go to CPU for the next 1-2 years.
Good performance, good price at 200€, cheap mbs are available, enough headroom. At least until those 8 core next gen consoles arrive.

For me: Not sure the "premium" for the 3800x is worth it, probably not. 3900x is still intriguing me, but I think I'll stay on 8 cores till Q1/Q2 2021, after PS5 arrived. By then 12 and 18 cores should be better in every regard, maybe GPUs will also start asking for PCI-E 4 and I'll need a new MB anyway.
I think early on a lot of people expected Zen 2 to take the crown. Those expectations diminished a lot in recent months.

Frametimes have in recent times been greatly helped by extra cores & hyperthreading. It's one of the reasons I wanted a HT CPU. If some other (non-game) process becomes activated, and you're running the minimal amount of threads, you're going to get a blip in frametimes. So now that we're comparing a bunch of similar performing 16t+ CPUs, they're going to have similar frametimes.

Outliers would always be interesting to investigate. Probably cache differences, but could be a lot of different things...
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
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I think early on a lot of people expected Zen 2 to take the crown. Those expectations diminished a lot in recent months.
Ah well. Some people also expected 5Ghz, which was insane.
To be fair though, the 3900x has the chance to age better than the 9900k.
3700x, 3800x will probably always stay behind by 10% though. Which is fine with everybody.
Once those 10% become relevant, both camps will need to upgrade anyway.
Very fast refresh rates are the expectation, of course. But even there: 3700x is a valid option.

And that's the best thing about zen2. We finally have options.

Outliers would always be interesting to investigate. Probably cache differences, but could be a lot of different things...
My first thought too, but I really don't know what I'm talking about.
I (just) remember a time when CPU cache was optional and could be added on to the mainboard. It made a huge difference back then.
 
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dummmyy

Dumb fool
Nov 14, 2018
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Not sure if this is the right place for this, but been having a weird sound coming from my PC and can't really pinpoint it. Nothing amiss otherwise but having a noise akin to "ching!" it was happening quite a lot last night. Restarted my PC and it was doing it but a much lower consistency. Now I haven't heard it besides at start up. Checked GPU and CPU heat for about 3 hrs and nothing out of the ordinary. Checked bios, no alerts or discrepancy with temps. Thought maybe it's the GPU fans, but now that it's not making the noise I can't pinpoint it. Any thoughts? My rig is:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
MSI X370 GAMING PLUS
PowerColor "Red Devil" RX 580
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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Exciting times finally. Hopefully by the time I do an upgrade one will be able to get a little beast of a system for say, ~500 to include mobo, cpu and ram.
 
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Xiaomi

The Texas Hammer
May 12, 2019
135
261
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Taiwan
Finally got a mechanical keyboard, a white Ducky One 2 with Cherry MX Brown switches. Feels good and matches my setup. Need to find a way to get rid of the window and replace it with a white side panel but otherwise liking my setup now (except the ugly light switch).

 

Pogi

illiterate
Jun 25, 2019
170
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wow think im going to return to an amd cpu after more than a decade lmao good bless my athlon
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Not sure if this is the right place for this, but been having a weird sound coming from my PC and can't really pinpoint it. Nothing amiss otherwise but having a noise akin to "ching!" it was happening quite a lot last night. Restarted my PC and it was doing it but a much lower consistency. Now I haven't heard it besides at start up. Checked GPU and CPU heat for about 3 hrs and nothing out of the ordinary. Checked bios, no alerts or discrepancy with temps. Thought maybe it's the GPU fans, but now that it's not making the noise I can't pinpoint it. Any thoughts? My rig is:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
MSI X370 GAMING PLUS
PowerColor "Red Devil" RX 580
One of your fans is hitting something, occasionally?
 
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Dec 5, 2018
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After sleeping on it i don't know if I want a 3700X or a 3900X. I mean the first is considerably cheaper but I feel the latter will age better.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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After sleeping on it i don't know if I want a 3700X or a 3900X. I mean the first is considerably cheaper but I feel the latter will age better.


Yes and Yes.

The question I'm asking myself: Will the 3900x age good enough?
Q4 2020 next gen consoles will arrive. They'll be equipped witch equivalent 8 zen2 cores, maybe even zen2+ cores. Granted at lower frequencies, but maybe even better IPC? Will the 3900x be good enough once games start coming out that were build with those consoles CPUs in mind (Q4 2021)?
Consoles are targeting 30 fps and I doubt this will change with PS5 and co. Will four more cores be enough to push games to 60 fps, in 2.5 years from now?
In a time when 8 zen2 cores at 3.5GHz are being used for 30 fps?

I'm painting a pretty black picture here, but I think games will make a huge jump once those consoles start having good CPUs and I don't think anything we are buying today will be good enough by the end of 2021.

Hopefully I'm wrong. I don't like spending money as well. Overspending to future proof worked out fine this and last generation, it might not this time around.

But then there is the urge to have something new and cool, and the first 12core mainstream CPU is exciting. My "guts" tell me to stay at 8 cores till Q4/2020, but my desire screams to get x570 and a 3900x. I don't know either.

Of course if you are streaming or doing professional editing: Take the 3900x.
 
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Dec 5, 2018
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...
But then there is the urge to have something new and cool, and the first 12core mainstream CPU is exciting. My "guts" tell me to stay at 8 cores till Q4/2020, but my desire screams to get x570 and a 3900x. I don't know either.
I mean If i had a CPU with at least 8 threads I'd probably keep it for another year (or more). I don't want to upgrade it in like 3 years, I'd like to keep the CPU as long as the one i have now (5-6 years).
I guess I'll wait a bit.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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I mean If i had a CPU with at least 8 threads I'd probably keep it for another year (or more). I don't want to upgrade it in like 3 years, I'd like to keep the CPU as long as the one i have now (5-6 years).
I guess I'll wait a bit.
Oh, I didn't want to discourage you, or portrait the 3900x as a bad CPU.
It's not, it's awesome.

And if you're unhappy with your current performance, just get whatever makes you happy.
 
Dec 5, 2018
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Oh, I didn't want to discourage you, or portrait the 3900x as a bad CPU.
It's not, it's awesome.

And if you're unhappy with your current performance, just get whatever makes you happy.
Thing is I'm still not sure what to get. As I said I want to upgrade mostly because my CPU feels old (I mean it kinda is), and in some games it's my bottleneck,
But I'll wait at least a few weeks before deciding it i want to fork that money now or not.
 

dummmyy

Dumb fool
Nov 14, 2018
622
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One of your fans is hitting something, occasionally?
Thanks, Isee. It hasn't made the noise since this morning, and haven't seen anything amiss when checking fans. I'll have to wait until whatever it is makes the noise again.


Finally got a mechanical keyboard, a white Ducky One 2 with Cherry MX Brown switches.
That looks awesome! What kind of speakers are those?
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Thing is I'm still not sure what to get. As I said I want to upgrade mostly because my CPU feels old (I mean it kinda is), and in some games it's my bottleneck,
But I'll wait at least a few weeks before deciding it i want to fork that money now or not.
What are you using currently?
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
7,276
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I went from a 3570k to a 2700X before christmas as the 3570k was limiting me in VR and some games and it's been a much smoother experience. I'm tempted to go for a 3700X as i shouldn't need to upgrade my motherboard again for that one.

The best time to buy a PC component is always "next week" as there's always better tech and better deals on the horizon. At some point you just have to go Yolo!, bite the bullet and jump in with the best available for you at the time or you'll wait forever.

Investigate your needs and the market, wait for an acceptable deal, then Yolo! with No ragrets! or you'll be waiting forever.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Ryzen 3000 upate:

There are rumors on reddit that some x570 firmware versions weren't able to allow zen 2 chips to autoboost correctly.

This could be correct and the testing might have to be redone.

Don't celebrate yet. Yes, this has the potential to shorten the gap between zen 2 and coffee lake. But this doesn't meant that 4.5GHz all core OC is possible.
This also doesn't mean that every test was incorrect.
Maybe both the 3700x and 3900x are able to oc a couple cores closer to the advertised clockspeeds in gaming situations though.
 

warp_

タコベルが大好き
Apr 18, 2019
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Very excited! Was considering getting a 5700xt but many people talked me out of it and said a CPU upgrade would benefit me more. So in the wee hour of the morning I snagged a 3600 and a b450 Tomahawk board and some DDR4 RAM, with the plan to put my old stuff in my wife's PC. THEN i thought to myself of the pain in the butt it would be to swap stuff from my case to hers so I ended up buying an H500 case on the cheap.

And that's the story of how I talked myself into 85% of a new PC for only $100 more than a GPU😸
 

Theswweet

Dirty Weeb
Mar 12, 2019
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After these upgrades my new PC should be enough for 1440p/60 and 1440p/100+ in eSports titles for the next few years, while still having CPU overhead for streaming well into next-gen. Navi is looking better than I expected, I was gonna wait for Intel to show their hand but if AMD can get a chip to compete with the 2080 Super at under $550 in the next year I might get it.
 
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JMTHEFOX

Planning to Be a Game Designer
Oct 4, 2018
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Looked up on Reddit and I read that the ASRock B450 pro 4 needs a 1st/2nd generation Ryzen chips in order to update the bios which means it's impossibleif you bought the 3600 only. :(

Looks like I will switch the mother board to the MSI b450 tomahawk since it has USB flashback.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Looked up on Reddit and I read that the ASRock B450 pro 4 needs a 1st/2nd generation Ryzen chips in order to update the bios which means it's impossibleif you bought the 3600 only. :(

Looks like I will switch the mother board to the MSI b450 tomahawk since it has USB flashback.
Looks like MSI is having problems because their eeprom size of 16mb.
The newest microcode from AMD is significantly bigger than 16mb.
MSI is apparently deleting and changing up their bios on their boards. Old CPU support is being taken back, bios functions deleted. Apparently MSI is even thinking about re releasing some of their boards with 32mb ROMs.
No idea how accurate this is, but maybe wait before buying anything old for ryzen 3000.
 

JMTHEFOX

Planning to Be a Game Designer
Oct 4, 2018
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Brooklyn, NY
Looks like MSI is having problems because their eeprom size of 16mb.
The newest microcode from AMD is significantly bigger than 16mb.
MSI is apparently deleting and changing up their bios on their boards. Old CPU support is being taken back, bios functions deleted. Apparently MSI is even thinking about re releasing some of their boards with 32mb ROMs.
No idea how accurate this is, but maybe wait before buying anything old for ryzen 3000.
Really? That sucks. Might as well wait or get the ASRock board in the meantime
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
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Finland
I think I need to start thinking about possibly buying a new PSU for my mom's pc. I was at their place last weekend and dusted the chassis and it occurred to me that the one in there is something like 10 years old now, good old Corsair HX520. It was my first modular PSU, ah the memories of not having to tuck the extra cables in some unused corner of the case.

I mean it hasn't crapped out or anything, but 10 years is a long time.

Thinking about something like the CX450M from Corsair, since I still want it to be mostly modular and not break the bank.
 

SRossi

regretten? rien!
Dec 9, 2018
383
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I think I need to start thinking about possibly buying a new PSU for my mom's pc. I was at their place last weekend and dusted the chassis and it occurred to me that the one in there is something like 10 years old now, good old Corsair HX520. It was my first modular PSU, ah the memories of not having to tuck the extra cables in some unused corner of the case.

I mean it hasn't crapped out or anything, but 10 years is a long time.

Thinking about something like the CX450M from Corsair, since I still want it to be mostly modular and not break the bank.
I honestly wouldn't replace a working PSU just because it's getting old-ish if there are no problems associated with it. Just ride it out and if you replace your mom's pc sometimes in the future just replace everything (and keep the the good old trusty PSU as a backup).
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
3,028
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Finland
Yeah, that's the thing actually. I replaced most of it with new stuff less than a year ago, just the psu is a hand me down. Keeping the old unit as a backup was also the plan.
 

SRossi

regretten? rien!
Dec 9, 2018
383
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Yeah, that's the thing actually. I replaced most of it with new stuff less than a year ago, just the psu is a hand me down. Keeping the old unit as a backup was also the plan.
oh well, if it's still good, and it sounds like it, then it will do it's work until the next update in a few years :)

I see no reason to replace it.
 

JMTHEFOX

Planning to Be a Game Designer
Oct 4, 2018
517
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Brooklyn, NY
Unfortunately, the RX Vega 56 cards recently rose up to $100 more. :(

I have 3 options:
1. Wait for prices to drop on Vega 56
2. Buy a used card on ebay
3. Buy the RX 590 and wait until I can afford the Vega 56

I am eyeing on either options 2 or 3, but I am not sure.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Unfortunately, the RX Vega 56 cards recently rose up to $100 more. :(

I have 3 options:
1. Wait for prices to drop on Vega 56
2. Buy a used card on ebay
3. Buy the RX 590 and wait until I can afford the Vega 56

I am eyeing on either options 2 or 3, but I am not sure.
Spending double is never a good idea imo.
A RX 590 seems to be about ~$220.
A Vega 56 seems to cost about $300, currently so you're waiting for it to come down to around $200?

Either get something used or get the RX 5700 ($350), RX 5700 XT ($399) if you're willing to spend around $400 total anyway.
They seem to be good cards and both of them are significantly faster than a vega 56.
 
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JMTHEFOX

Planning to Be a Game Designer
Oct 4, 2018
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Spending double is never a good idea imo.
A RX 590 seems to be about ~$220.
A Vega 56 seems to cost about $300, currently so you're waiting for it to come down to around $200?

Either get something used or get the RX 5700 ($350), RX 5700 XT ($399) if you're willing to spend around $400 total anyway.
They seem to be good cards and both of them are significantly faster than a vega 56.
Yeah, I was thinking about the 5700.

 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Yeah, I was thinking about the 5700.

The only thing wrong with that card is, that you can get ~20% more performance for $50 in form of the 5700XT or 2060S.
5700 seems to be at least as fast as the vega64, often enough even faster.
Reminds me a bit of the old gtx 970, from a price/performance pov.

Edit
JMTHEFOX
The partlist is private...
 
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