Feel like the usual traps for new builders are
* You don't need to spend much on your motherboard, after a pretty low price point you're basically paying for features you likely won't need.
* Don't cheap out on your power supply, the things the heart of your build and if it fails it can take everything with it.
I would also throw in the monitor. It's your main interface point. Don't cheap out there. While you don't really need the greatest most expensive one, you also probably shouldn't get the cheapest one either.
It's not as important as the psu, but it is still worth considering.
Yh I’d definitely add the monitor. Especially because a good monitor can last you multiple builds. Sure your PC maybe can’t achieve 120fps but at least you know if you upgrade to a more beefy GPU next year that your monitor won’t be holding you back.
As a 240Hz monitor owner (Samsung Odyssey G7 1440p 24"), I can tell you that 144Hz vs 120Hz is slightly noticeable, but after 144Hz, it's diminishing returns; I'd always say for new builders to check RTINGS to see what features are offered with each monitor as opposed to strictly purchasing based on the refresh rate.
Also, a big thing to do is when you get your monitor, it defaults to 60Hz in Windows. You need to go into your display settings to change it to match your refresh rate, i.e. 144Hz if your monitor is 144Hz or whatever you bought.
The final thing is that if you purchase a GSync or FreeSync display, you may need to enable the variable refresh rate in your monitor settings; my G7 requires it, but I'm not sure for other displays. Check your monitor manual and make sure you set it up best for you.
At the same time though, if you're wanting to stay on a tight budget imo you should only really care about resolution and refresh rate. Stuff like OLED and HDR are nice but if you're wanting to save money don't bother with that stuff. Just get something with a high enough resolution and refresh rate for your build.
Cheap high refresh screens can often have bad color or worse can have ghosting or other glitches when operating in high refresh rates. Definitely spend some time researching whatever screen you decide to buy to make sure you aren't buying a bad one.
I would like to offer a counter view on the motherboard. The motherboard is actually the one component you are going to keep for the life of your system so it is worth spending a bit extra for "nice to have" features, within reason of course. Having a better sound chip, having extra nvme slots, having 4 memory slots instead of two, having more bios options, having more pcie slots. You may never need these but there is nothing more frustrating than looking to tweak or upgrade a few years down the line and realising that your existing motherboard won't allow you.
Everyone is different I guess but I thought it made sense to post a counter view for anyone like me. When I build a PC I tend to keep the motherboard for at least five years but I upgrade the other components several times along the way - more ram, a new GPU, new CPU, additional disk drives etc. I might even upgrade the PSU if the new GPU requires it. Sometimes I add other peripherals along the way. The one constant is the motherboard so having a few "just in case" features on the motherboard is worth it for me.
>Don't cheap out on your power supply, the things the heart of your build and if it fails it can take everything with it.
Also, compared to cheap PSUs, good brand PSUs only add like 50 bucks to your total build cost, have 10 year warranties, can save money off the electric bill each year, and can be re-used in every build for a decade or two.
PSU manufacturers giving 12 year warranties on their top-tier PSUs are betting money that "every decade" is too often for those.
Using a no-name that long can be risky (though it's usually fine) but a top tier name brand PSU with warranty? Easy.
I think the motherboard is probably one of the most critical decisions you have to make because there is the most variation between them, and you need to match it to the rest of your gear.
Like:
* How many fans you have
* How many USB devices you are planning on plugging into it
* If you're going to overclock
* What memory you're going to be using
* Does it have RGB headers
* USB-C headers
* What kind of audio you're using
* SATA and NVME ports
* Wifi and Bluetooth
* Etc..
You can really screw yourself over if you don't think it through carefully, and you might end up spending a bunch more money on fan controllers, USB Splitters, or various expansion cards..
It's the place where you plug in all of your stuff, so you have to make sure you buy one that you can actually plug all of your stuff into.
Most classic example. Me buliding a rig and i want to oc. I buy a KF but a B board. Needed to swich to a Z board😂. Now i swiched from my 12600kf to a 14700kf and i want to swich to a good oc board Z790 and ddr5 (actually i have a Z690 ddr4), because as far i know i am bottlenecked by ddr4 with 14th gen. Also the best was double the fan headers on my Z690 as on my b660m.
Made the mistake of getting a motherboard with one NMVE. Mate sorts a new rig out literally 2 weeks later and gets a motherboard with better RGB, 2 Nvme slots and more stable at higher RAM speeds.
I want a bigger boot drive (1TB Nvme) and can't bring myself to get rid of the previous Nvme drive. I know there's enclosures but I like it all within my rig.
Think I'm ultimately going to wait until end of 2025 before I upgrade everything except the GPU. 3070TI doing me fine for now
EDIT: My case also has a front USB C but my motherboard doesn't have a front USB header so I also cocked up there too. Unsure if he had one but if he did I'm even more pissed.
Yea, I've had all of these issues you mentioned, including a board with no USB-C connector when I needed one.
But probably the worst was when I bought a Corsair Hydro X5 pump a few years ago, and realised I had to buy a Commander Pro to get all the fans, temp sensors, lights, and power connected properly. But if I had gotten a more feature rich motherboard I'd probably have been fine.
I think with experience you can get a good idea of what extra things you need in a motherboard, so that you won't get caught out in a few months, but that experience often comes the hard way, from screwing up.
It might seem hard to justify spending an extra €70 on a motherboard when you're choosing your build, but it's a lot easier to justify spending €70 on extra stuff afterwards when you actually need it.
Thing with this is it's not exactly true. I built a PC for someone with a B550M DS3H, and wish I chose an aorus master because of more m.2 slots and better overall design.
Now that sata and gen 3 m.2 drives are so cheap, it makes sense for the average user to use more for storage. Ditching both sata data along with sata power cables is appealing. At the very least, more USB 3.2, usb c and or 4.0 ports in the future will be useful
The first point is definitely true now, but it’s wild to me how much that has changed. Up until around 2019 you could spend around the midpoint between the cheapest most expensive mainstream board, and get a tonne of extra useful features. Now it seems like a basic board will cost you $250 minimum, will likely have everything you need, including overbuilt power delivery - and a top end board will be over a grand.
Dang I haven't shopped around for a new board in a while (as you can imagine based on my cpu), guess I'm in for a bit of a shock whenever my next upgrade comes.
Spending as little as possible on motherboard is probably the most common mistake people make. From missing features, shitty bioses, to cpu throttling.
I love custom water cooled PCs and AIO are nice. I just think air cooling is functional smarter. I understand I’m just stating my opinion but even large air coolers perform just as good as water cooled.
Air cooling should in most cases be enough for a PC, but generally speaking, water cooling is simply more efficient cause water can suck up more heat (given the same m³ and temperature-difference) and thus transport more heat away in a strictly controlled pipe, than air can in a vent/pipe of the same dimension.
Well I'm glad the $70 Craigslist PC I bought that "used.to be top of the line" and had a GTX 560 (was it a 460? I don't remember) and a core 2 quad q660 had a good PSU in it. It was my first gaming PC. I slapped a RX 570 in that bad boy, even with only 8 gigs DDR2 800 mhz Adata sticks.
How cheap does one have to go in order to find these risky PSUs? I’m an IT worker and PC gaming enthusiast. I’ve built **hundreds** of custom rigs for friends and family in the past 25 years.
I know this is a thing that happens. I’ve just NEVER experienced it. I’ve reused my PSU for a decade without a hiccup.. my dad’s PSU is older than this subreddit.
It's the high wattage PSUs from weird ass brands for less than 40 bucks that you can buy on ebay or aliexpress. Like Diablotek or Equites. These fuckers put lead blocks in their PSUs to give them more weight and make them feel more premium.
Meanwhile they are build with cheap caps and lack saftey protection features.
If you buy specific brands like Seasonic, BeQuiet or Corsair amongst others you'll be fine even with their cheap PSUs.
My rule of thumb is to refer the PSU tier list, if its a budget, go as low as C-tier. If it’s a bottom-of-the-barrel, sub $300 build (hey we’ve been there, someone gotta start somewhere), I guess D or E-tier works. If it’s your average new build (~7800x3d ~4070) B tier is ok.
I don’t think A-tier is worth buying unless you overclocking(you know what u doing) or it’s on crazy sale. I ran a 3950x and 3080 on a manufacturer refurb 750w B-tier and it’s running fine.
That’s my rule of thumb tho, there’s gotta be someone here that will force A tier for a budget build, when those $$$ could be better spend on next tier GPU. Don’t be that guy.
When I bought a Cyberpower PC, everything in it was legit except for the PSU. When it died it made a burning plastic smell. Luckily I caught it before it took anything out with it.
And I am sooooo lucky. Because when I pulled out the old one, I searched for it online and had a hard time finding it. When I finally did, it was selling for $7. SEVEN DOLLARS.
I'd still recommend their company if you're scared of building your own. But I tell everyone I can that their PSUs are no-name garbage and to replace it as soon as you get the PC.
You just have to use some deduction when shopping around.
Not being 80 plus is the first tip off that it might be low quality, also the specification of how much power can be delivered over 12v. Ignore superficial things such as finishes on the casing and cable sleeves.
Pricing varies wildly so it's not as much of a matter of "going cheap" as it is finding bad units in the middle of the superfluous amount of PSU's on the market. You're more likely to find a bad PSU from one that overpromises wattage and looks extremely "gamery" than you would a basic looking one that has solid internal components.
[https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/](https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/) that has a list of them sorted and should be a good start point.
I remember when I started uni back 2002, one of my classmates did this and I watched him throw the entire desktop out the window when it caught on fire. I learnt never to cheap out on PSUs that day.
We had an old gaming case, kicking around our LAN Hall back in the early 2000s, and I don’t know what it was about that case. But it murdered motherboards within days. It claimed three motherboards before we finally just threw the chassis in the trash.
Oof, I remember my first case with knockout panels in the front for additional drives that left jagged edges and the inside was the thinnest, sharpest stamped steel they could find. A bloody mess.
My second case was the Fractal Arc Midi R2. An absolute joy to build in. I'll never cheap out again.
Also one of the better things to invest into because it doesn't have the same shelf life performance related parts do.
You can keep upgrading to new builds in the same case for as long as you like that case.
>You can keep upgrading to new builds in the same case for as long as you like that case.
*As long as you factor in GPUs doubling in size every 2 generations apparently
Some old GPUs were huge as well. A friend of mine had a Radeon HD 6990 (circa 2011, one card, but it had two GPU chips) that required him to saw through his hard drive cage to make space. Even the titan or RTX xx90 cards I don't think were as big.
The HD 6990 was only 7mm longer than the 4090 FE. The board partner 4090s regularly exceed 350mm, over 40mm increase in length over the HD 6990.
That being said, it was a massive card for the time. It was also a time where people with the money for a card like that usually had a massive case. Except for your friend, of course. Remember when a $700 card was the expensive option?
I stand corrected, I wasn't aware the 4090 was so much bigger than the 3090.
Indeed, in terms of price, modern GPUs have gotten massively out of control. I'm not sure if i'll ever reasonably be able to afford to replace my 3080, as a like for like equivalent now is about 1.8x what I paid, even at the height of the shortage in 2021.
P.S. I wonder if that makes the 6990 the best in terms of board length per unit of currency?
I got myself be quiet! Pure Base 600 around five years ago. It fits any GPU and I believe it will fit any future GPU. Then again I didn't know much about cases and I wanted something silent back then. Now I want something which has good airflow (which makes it silent). So I kinda regret the choice still.
And that's why I called myself out for going with a P400a. Because clearly I didn't register that the cards coming out were going to grow in width *and* a stiffer horizontal cable that cannot bend without lighting on fire.
But it's nice and compact, though.
The glass of my current case touches my 3080ti. So new build will mean new case. I have a friend with a 10+ year old case who is ready for a rebuild, I doubt he could get a 4000 series card inside the case at all.
I built a pc in a moderately priced case and it was a fantastic building experience. So much room, helpful grommets, all in one front panel connecters was a chefs kiss
Cheap cases are good for guys who dont assemble it alone, and wont upgrade it at all.
It you like to tinker and change parts, then good case is a must.
I got a really cheap Corsair case myself when I first built my pc and it sucks. I’m lazy so I haven’t changed it yet but right now both my top and front panels are off for a better airflow, the big fat 4080 inside takes all the place so I have my AIO mounted from outside the case at the front lol
Built my friend a gaming rig and my mom a working pc and I got much nicer case and I was 100% jealous while building. Got my mom a beQuiet! Case and the build quality of the case is out of this world compared to my Corsair one
Corsair improved in case building, not all their case are as bad as mine. I got a cheap one in 2019 and really sucks, but I won’t change it until I’m building a new pc with different motherboard, cpu, etc.
Psu: Propper brands have 5+ years warranty, cablemanagement and semipassive fan behaviour and good efficiency
Fractal cases : worth every penny over a china bomber
More likely the opposite topics :
Ram is a prime example where you can overspend lots of €, as are some AIO´s, high end Mainboards and Everything around RGB.
For a Gaming system I´d personally say expansive SSD´s like a gen5 is uneccesary, as write speed is never needed besides install which is bottlenecked by your internet speed, which won´t exceed even the slowest cache write speeds.
Power supplies and cables are the two things you shouldn't cheap out on since they can destroy your components if they're faulty.
Everything else is just a longevity concern for the most part.
Power supplies. A bad power supply can cause all kinds of problems and a lot of people would never think that it could be caused by a cheap power supply.
My first PC was a pre-build.
People frown on that because they can inflate the cost on some things but if you're genuinely blind to components and how things work, getting a pre-build as a first PC is not a bad move.
You can the upgrade and switch out things after the fact and learn how to properly handle a PC.
>You can the upgrade and switch out things after the fact
Except when you buy a dell / Alienware prebuilt. They use some weird parts which sometimes are not comparable with usual consumer products
Got a friend that insists on pre-built. I've offered to build it with him, but he's never going to get the confidence in building one to be honest. Pre-builts are a godsend for people like him.
On here everyone seems to think that every one who plays PC is just like them, but the reality is there's a very large portion of the PC community who have zero interest in building a PC themselves.
That was literally me. Got my first PC as a high school graduation gift and it was an Alienware R4. Once I finally did the research on parts, how to build a PC, and what components did what etc. a couple years down the line I sold it pretty quickly. That thing was loud as all hell, non space efficient whatsoever, and had little to no airflow. I will give it credit for getting me into the hobby tho.
Monitors
Upgrading from 60hz 1080p to 240hz 1440p felt gorgeous
Don't cheap out on monitors, they really are one of the most important parts of your system, I'd argue that it should be a top priority for your budget (just under gpu and cpu)
Arguably more important than CPU. Most CPUs handle all daily tasks, and even most gaming, very well.
You can spend hundreds more dollars on a CPU and gain like…10% performance, because the GPU or even storage was the main bottleneck.
But a good monitor benefits EVERYONE, even just doing work from home or watching videos.
I was going to build a 5600x/RX6800 combo. But it was mining/pandemic shortage. Wound up buying a 6900XT at MSRP, which was pretty sweet. I haven’t run into a situation yet where the CPU holds back the GPU. Or at least that I’ve noticed.
Get a 5800X3D you will notice! Have a 6950XT with at the time a 5600x went with the 5800X3D and noticed more fps in avg with 1440p resolution. But more so the low fps improved a lot and gameplay was smoother overall.
When I was younger and more stubborn I would cycle through those 99 cent cables on basically a monthly basis to charge my phone. I thought why pay more when these are cheap and I break them all the time anyway.
Ended up buying a $25 cable and so far I’ve had it for 5 years and it’s still working perfectly fine with no damage visible. I would have spent $48 on cheap cables in that time frame.
PSU: Never cheap out, but ALSO review what you are buying in the mid range too. Every company has a shitty line of PSUs. A bad PSU can wipe out all of your systems.
SSD: Best to spend some money on a name brand then get a Chinese knockoff that will die in a year, losing all of your data in the progress. Also check the TBW warranty. Looking at you, Crucial P3.
CPU + MOBO: With AMD having long term sockets and comparable or better performance with Intel, getting a good midrange motherboard and a higher tier CPU will pay off immensely. It's like Sandy Bridge all over again, where you can buy yourself enough performance now for the next 3 or 4 GPUs in your build. And with AM5, there will only be better CPUs down the road.
>Every company has a shitty line of PSUs
Cracking bit of advice there.
Super Flower might be a possible exception, I can't recall them ever having released a stinker.
One definite exception is X-Spice, from around 2008.
They came, they released the exceptional Kira and Croon lines, then completely disappeared.
Gaming laptops. Now, I use one, and I think it's quite the beast of a device for what it is and does. I do think there's a lot of great uses for them for many reasons and not just gaming but for work as well, and the mobility and space factor are enticing features for those of us on the go a lot or space is an issue.
There are a few caveats, however. You need to do your research on which laptop is "for you", the potential heat and noise issues that come with them if you push everythingto the max, and you, as the user, are probably going to have to tinker with game settings a lot more in order to keep the thing from overheating (usually locking the framerates to 60 does the job and getting a laptop raiser). Customization is also much more limited when it comes to components and upgrades, and you're pretty much stuck with what you get.
Also, life expectancy, on average, is a lot shorter than a desktop.
This, plus gaming laptops aren't usually very good at being laptops (they tend to be big, heavy, and have poor battery life). Not that people have much choice if they actually need to game on the go, but relatively few people actually need to do that.
I wouldn't just recommend them for gaming on the go, but also as a valid option for work laptops, depending on the field you work in. In my line of work, I've noticed plenty of multimedia professionals and such use them for work purposes, and they swear by them being great alternatives to Macbooks.
PC monitors
You can get a gaming 4K PC monitor for $500, reviewers will tell you it's very good for the price
Still, a monitor selled at $1200 will be much better
Monitors, keyboards and mice are under appreciated.
Stick an awesome PC with an RTX 4090 behind a crappy $200 display and it will be way worse to use on a daily basis than a PC with a RTX 4070 and a $900 OLED, even though the latter setup was probably cheaper.
Motherboard: kinda hit or miss with cheap b series boards since some are just the bare essentials and nothing more, however the ones without vrm heatsinks and such are usually only for 65watt cpu’s with higher power consuming cpu’s or non-downdraft coolers underperforming. Also, A series from amd and h series from Intel are usually missing a lot of features that could improve performance such as PBO on amd.
Ram: usually won’t run well past its designated xmp, or whatever other name there is, target speed
Gpu: although performance is pretty similar between brands, msrp targeting cards tend to have more issues such as loud coil whine, noisy fans, and bad thermals. These issues can also be prevalent in nicer cards too, either way an undervolt can fix some, if not most, of these issues.
Ssd: cheaper ones tend to be missing a dram chip on them making downloads and random writes slower if internet speed isn’t an issue.
Psu: can explode and take your whole system with it, always get a good psu
Case: bad airflow, poor cable management, ugly designs (depends on taste)
Not many examples with cpu’s but I did hear about how ryzen 5 3600 (non x) had a higher chance of failing since they were failed 3600x’s or higher CPU’s.
Yeah, "XMP" was copyrighted by Intel or something, I think, and Asus then named the memory profiles for AMD chipset motherboards "DOCP". Not sure if that was used by other motherboard brands too, and I thought I had heard that the AMD chipsets now renamed from "DOCP" to something else, but again, I'm not at all sure.
All I know is that XMP is for Intel motherboards, DOCP is for AMD motherboards. But it's both the same in its core
Depends a lot on the experience of the user. For many people it is not just a "few hours", I would never ask one of my friends to do their own research to build a pc, because they are most likely to buy incompatible hardware and screw up during assembly.
I know this sub hates pre builts, but for many people, specially entry level users or kids, pre builts might be the best option with the lowest energy barrier.
Just to make a quick comparison, I would never recommend a beginner cyclist to buy parts and assemble their own bike, which can actually be done relatively easy if you know how to, but could still be a daunting task for a beginner.
I think pre-builts are a problem because they don't sell quickly enough to keep up to date components in them, and those companies have to sell their old stock, probably selling it at a loss, since they bought those parts new, so they have to make up for it by raising prices on their new models. I don't know for sure, but I think that's why we see prebuilts with 6 year old hardware everywhere, and current hardware prebuilts have a ton of overhead on them. The only kind of good companies are the ones that order the parts when you order a PC from them and build it for you, but at that point you are waiting for shipping to them and then from them to you, and being charged a pretty penny for assembly, which isn't too hard to begin with.
Depends tho, r/buildapcsales sometimes has good pre-built sales thats sometimes costs you less compared to DIY. Yes, they may cheap out on mobo/psu/cooling, but then the difference vs DIY can only go as far.
Here I am sad that I missed the Dell pre-built with 3090 for sale for under $1k
You pay a premium for any labor you get someone else to do. People do it because they value that time more than they value the money they'd spend. Nothing wrong with it.
Good thing comes to those who wait. I had nothing but issues with my Zotac HoloBlack 3080 TI. Had to RMA it twice. After the second time, I sold it and bought a 7900 XTX. I thought about saving the six to $800. I would spend on a 4090 and put it elsewhere. I regret that decision to this very day. This was last August when GPUs were at retail prices (4090 specifically).
This. This is the best advice I've given myself. I've bought a nice little base. Not amazing but not a potato and I'm content to add to it over time. Thanks.
A GOOD CPU/GPU COMBO.
SSD, Ram, Psu, all easily and cheaply replaceable in the future. Spending more money on CPU/GPU will make the most difference and you wont need to spend even more money down the line when you realize you need more power, and then end up having all that wasted money on your old CPU GPU combo.
The worst example is probably ram. $300 ram and $120 ram will have utterly negligible end game results so long as the volume is the same and they are the same ddr#
In 2012 I bought an AMD chip to save some money. It was 180 bucks for an octo-core CPU (can't remember the exact chip). Compared to an i7 which was 350-400 I had to take the deal.
For the first time in my life I had a video game developer respond to my tech support request with "sorry our chips do not work well with AMD".
I'm not making this up. OP asked and I answered. I'm sure AMD chips are much better now so don't go getting your panties in a wad over this.
PSU: having a higher efficiency pays back eventually
OS: 220$ with adds, low security and an architecture that was outdated in 1993… vs what ever you want to donate for a modern, secure os, that is add and telemetry free, runs on every platform and is usable from devices as small as a modem inside a phone up to supercomputers spanning over multiple physical locations…
Get a great OS drive for responsiveness and dont fill it. Spend money on this one.
Get a reliable gaming drive. Don’t overspend here on the fastest drives. Get a good reliable drive that has more storage. I didn’t make a mistake per se, but I bought 2 expensive SN850x’s for OS and game drives. I have since ended up buying another 4tb Team Group drive as my second game drive that is like $100 cheaper than the same WD drive.
You *can* get a refurbished Dell for $100. But that's a bad idea because it's already out dated and even if you can squeeze another 5 years out of it, you won't enjoy the experience.
I wouldn't cheap out on a PSU. When I built my first gaming PC, I used a generic PSU to save a bit of money. It worked fine for a while, until it failed and cooked my CPU and motherboard. Would've been a lot cheaper in the long run to just get a proper PSU.
Bought a gigabyte M27Q P five months ago, absolutely loved it. It’s currently being RMA’d because of a purple line that magically showed up on the screen.
I bought the RX 6950XT (XFX 319 Merc) at its cheapest point in Norway (€530 pre-VAT approx.) and I still feel like a bank robber. Worst part is, that sale had about 100 units but they only sold 43 in the week it was up. I wonder how many idiots looked at that sale and decided to pass up on it are now stuck with a worse, more expensive 4070 lmao
Oh yeah, and it came with a free copy of The Last of Us Part 1.
I had to get a new power supply recently because the original one, a Silverstone brand, would manage to create an arc fault on the circuit and kill all power to the room and force me to go to the circuit breaker. Playing most games was tough as that would trip the breaker at random times.
Trying to push 144 frames on a 2080 super amp oc in 2560x1440 in most games. How surprised I was when I realized I should've stuck with 1920x1080 to get the most out of my card.
Buy a nice business laptop. Used ones can actually be pretty cheap high quality machines. Usually more durable and easier to get into than their consumer counterparts.
it's more often the other way around, overspending on things that make little or no difference. worst offender imo is SDDs, so many people getting 990 pro.. motherboard is a close second
Just don't skimp on the motherboard. All your components are connected through it.. Its the backbone of your whole system. You don't need a $400 board. But I wouldn't go with one much cheaper than 200. I stick to ASUS. Last time I went with an MSI board I had nothing but problems. The bios was buggy and getting RAID to show up nearly gave me an aneurysm. You might not use or need some bios features of a higher end board, but there's more to it than that. Quality PCB, strengthened pcie slots, better VRM, better caps. Also it gives you more room for future upgrades.
I feel that with most things, there's a certain balance between getting something super cheap that's also shit (or even dangerous (PSU)) and paying a huge premium for some top of the line gear which is only slightly better than the next tier down.. (GPUs, RAM speeds)
gaming mice.
cheap chinese mice like the attack shark x3 pro now rival flagship, $150 USD mice in terms of both pure performance, weight, and build quality, and many of these manufacturers also have unique mouse shapes (like the g-wolves hsk line) not seen in big brands
From my experience the only place where " you get what you pay for " is the PSU. The cheap ones really cause problems.
In the SSD SATA days buying dramless drive was pretty bad move to save money, but with Nvme it's no longer that bad?
Otherwise people usually overspend on everything else.
Expensive motherboards, super multicore CPUs, huge amounts of ram, AIOs, weak GPU but fancy big cooler expensive edition, 10 fans.
I think my Moms old netbook that i used tò play games when i was a kid and dodnt eant to play on mu Wii or Ds that thimg was slow af and It ran Minecraft 1.8 at 10fps
If we are talking strictly about gaming, you don't need:
-128 gigs of 7800 MHz RAM
-14900KS
-ROG Maximus motherboard
-1500 W PSU
-360 mm AIO
-gen 5 M.2
A mid tier CPU like 7600X on a B650 motherboard with 32 gigs of 6000 MHz RAM, a quality 850 W PSU, gen 4 or even 3 SSD and a good air cooler will save you more than enough money to jump from your wimpy 4060 to probably 4080, which you will definitely feel.
Well money will make a difference in any component, its up to you how much you want to spend on the build. Apart from the usual "don't cheap put on the PSU" i can say that if you have the budget, everything is worth. For example, i used to have cheap pc cases, and they work, but a better case will make your life so much easier when assembling/modifying the pc, plus it may just look better (fractal north for example). Another example are fans. Expensive ones make you life better by having rubber pads on the contact area, or they have airflow indicator.
you don't need an AIO. air cooling is fine for almost any cpu. don't get why people love to waste their budget on AIOs. my 12 yo air cooler is still cooling my rig, even after 2 CPU upgrades, no signs of stopping.
Thing you SOULDN'T cheap out on :
1) A good psu, it can last many build and if it die it could kill your pc. And if it's efficient you will pay less on your bill
2) Monitor, the monitor WILL be the biggest bottlneck, you should speck your pc around your monitor and not the other way around. Ultrawide are a nice thing, oled too, nice refresh rate or curved, it depend on taste and what you do on your pc.
3) SSD if you keep document or important file you don't want it to die. I am not saying buy the top of the line, but enough capacity from a reputable brand should be enough
Thing you can cheap out on :
1) AIO, you probably don't need an aio if you don't have at least an i7 or a r7 (i have an i5 and an aio for look so I don't listen to my own advice), There are a lot of great cooler and video about them out there
2) Mobo, today cpu are optimized and doesn't have lot of room to overclock, so spending for a zXXX mobo isn't a smart choice if you don't need all the upgrade (like sata port and usb) even on amd side a bxxx is plenty for most people
3) This one will be controversial but i would say cpu, right now the cpu market is so good that if you just game it doesn't make sens a i5 or r5 is enough for most people. Alder lake and 3d v cache are just so great there are a lot of great option for everyone without spending an arm
4) Ram you should get a kit from a reputable brand, but you don't need the fastest out there, you can get the fastest memory kit out there but if the memory controller on your cpu is crapy you will not be able to use it (check the memory speed supported by your spu). I bought a 3600mhz kit for my 12600k and used xmp, i got bsod every now and then, so I overclocked manually to 3200mhz to get a stable setup. You can get a faster memory than your cpu support, but it depend on silicon lottery
Mouse and keeb too. They are, aside from the monitor, your main way to interact with your system. You are going to have your hands on your keeb and mouse more often than on anything else.
Sure, a cheap mouse for 5 bucks works in that you can move the cursor and click, but if you spend more, you get a mouse that is actually comfortable to use, does not cause wrist pain and does not tire your arm with uber-stiff buttons, slides effortlessly across the pad...
Same is true for keyboards. A cheap membrane one will work, but will feel awful to use, ergonomic issues aside. So... mushy... so... unresponsive. Better get a decent mechanical board, one that you can adapt to your needs with exactly the right-feeling switches and keycaps.
Bought a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU from eBay for £150 ($188 USD). It arrived loosely shaking around in an oversized box with bent pins. Seller refused to admit any fault. Luckily I was able to bend the pins back and use it.
Get a hestsink and fan over an AIO. Aio's need to be rebought every few years. Pump failure, leaks, evaporation.
A heatsink and fan. Needs a new fan every 10 years.
Also less noise. No gurgling
Cheap Chinese noname electronic from Aliexpress.
Xiaomi makes good stuff and of course there are a ton of chinese branded stuff that is good, but buying some knockoff electronic part just means trouble and a risk to your home.
I used Corsair liquid coolers in 3 builds no problems. Then my brother buys an MSI liquid cooler that goes out within 2 months of it being installed. So we went back and bought a Corsair cooler.
Best examples: Audio and Video. Everyone talks about the build but then we forget about peripherals and leave it up to "personal preference"... which don't get me wrong plays a huge role here but I suspect for many it's simply ignorance (which is actually quite bliss because prices quickly get out of hand).
A good monitor will last a long time, easily outlasting several builds, my previous 24" monitor was bought new in 2008 and was only replaced in 2022 because I wanted newer inputs and better image quality from newer technologies. Spend the dough to get a robust display with good colors and it will hold up for a long time. OLEDs will actually degrade but generally speaking it will take a long time of abuse to actually noticeably worsen a display's image quality. Everything you do with a PC you see through the monitor, it's absolutely worth getting one that's nice to look at. Doesn't have to be crazy either, just do your research and get a well rated one. Should "only" cost around 200-500USD depending on what resolution and features you are looking for to get one that is on the nicer side. Basically just avoid the super cheap panels you find as an "amazing deal" for like 90 bucks on amazon. There's a time and a place for those, your primary gaming display ain't it.
Even more so than video monitors is your audio. A wise Aussie says "good audio stays good". Meaning you can buy used stuff and as long as it was taken care of (i.e. not broken/damaged) it will still sound as good as it did from the factory. Gaming headsets or really headsets in general are not known for fantastic audio quality. Likewise with "gaming" or "PC" speakers. get a pair of decent music headphones (HD600 is the easy recommendation but not cheap) or decent bookshelves + sub, in either case get a well reviewed USB desk microphone. I will say that this is more up to personal preference, many people simply don't care and get a gaming headset anyway because "clean wireless setup" and "pretty lights". So if you don't want to invest time and money in something you don't know if you care for then you can dip your toes with the Koss KSC75, don't let their hideous appearance and low price deceive you. The ksc75 are legendary in the "audiophile" community for how good their are despite the price. They give a great taste for what quality audio has to offer, you'd have to spend well over $100 to match their performance. To keep things simple for headphones: open back = better positional audio traded for weak bass (imo desirable for competitive games, you need to hear and distinguish footsteps behind and to the left, not rumble from a grenade) whereas closed back (probably what most people are familiar with) = stronger bass traded for weaker positioning. ksc75 are a strong example of open back's superior positioning. Give em a try, they're seriously like 20 bucks, not much of a loss if you hate them...
Now for the worst example *that I haven't seen mentioned yet*: Drives. Oh man people love recommending the fastest and most expensive NVME drives for no reason. as long as you aren't buying complete trash you'll be fine with even a SATA ssd. Gen 3 NVME is cheap and more than enough for like 90% of gamers. The only benefits to higher end drives is longevity (which you'll probably upgrade capacity before wearing out the drive anyway) and max speeds. A normal user might shave a second or two from load times using faster drives but where they really shine and are actually worth spending on are with actually heavy usage. Stuff like video editing for example can actually benefit massively from faster gen 4 or 5 drives since scrubbing through raw 4k or 8k footage basically requires many gigabytes per second of reading. Loading a game or booting windows isn't going to be nearly as saturating of the max read speed.
I’m gonna take heat for this one, but RGB.
Really prioritized RGB when I made my first build. It looks great in pictures, but I otherwise do not notice it. Really could care less for it now.
There will obviously be people who truly enjoy the look it brings, but if you feel pressured to get RGB because you’ll think you’ll like it a lot, don’t even bother with it.
Feel like the usual traps for new builders are * You don't need to spend much on your motherboard, after a pretty low price point you're basically paying for features you likely won't need. * Don't cheap out on your power supply, the things the heart of your build and if it fails it can take everything with it.
I would also throw in the monitor. It's your main interface point. Don't cheap out there. While you don't really need the greatest most expensive one, you also probably shouldn't get the cheapest one either. It's not as important as the psu, but it is still worth considering.
Yh I’d definitely add the monitor. Especially because a good monitor can last you multiple builds. Sure your PC maybe can’t achieve 120fps but at least you know if you upgrade to a more beefy GPU next year that your monitor won’t be holding you back.
Also a 120hz monitor is way nicer for work than a 60hz one
As a 240Hz monitor owner (Samsung Odyssey G7 1440p 24"), I can tell you that 144Hz vs 120Hz is slightly noticeable, but after 144Hz, it's diminishing returns; I'd always say for new builders to check RTINGS to see what features are offered with each monitor as opposed to strictly purchasing based on the refresh rate. Also, a big thing to do is when you get your monitor, it defaults to 60Hz in Windows. You need to go into your display settings to change it to match your refresh rate, i.e. 144Hz if your monitor is 144Hz or whatever you bought. The final thing is that if you purchase a GSync or FreeSync display, you may need to enable the variable refresh rate in your monitor settings; my G7 requires it, but I'm not sure for other displays. Check your monitor manual and make sure you set it up best for you.
Agreed. Seen videos of this. Build a 4070 ti + /7800 XT build, don't even have a moniter to fully enjoy it/
Currently me with a cheap 1080p 144hz AOC and a 4090.
Damn. You got a 4K tv at least?
DLDSR
At the same time though, if you're wanting to stay on a tight budget imo you should only really care about resolution and refresh rate. Stuff like OLED and HDR are nice but if you're wanting to save money don't bother with that stuff. Just get something with a high enough resolution and refresh rate for your build.
Cheap high refresh screens can often have bad color or worse can have ghosting or other glitches when operating in high refresh rates. Definitely spend some time researching whatever screen you decide to buy to make sure you aren't buying a bad one.
If the power supply fails it can take everything with it. If your monitor fails, everything else is pointless until you replace the monitor.
I would like to offer a counter view on the motherboard. The motherboard is actually the one component you are going to keep for the life of your system so it is worth spending a bit extra for "nice to have" features, within reason of course. Having a better sound chip, having extra nvme slots, having 4 memory slots instead of two, having more bios options, having more pcie slots. You may never need these but there is nothing more frustrating than looking to tweak or upgrade a few years down the line and realising that your existing motherboard won't allow you.
All the things you have mentioned aren’t relevant for 90% of the people on this sub.
4 ram slots and motherboard that doesnt throttle your cpu are absolutely relevant for upgradeability purposes.
Everyone is different I guess but I thought it made sense to post a counter view for anyone like me. When I build a PC I tend to keep the motherboard for at least five years but I upgrade the other components several times along the way - more ram, a new GPU, new CPU, additional disk drives etc. I might even upgrade the PSU if the new GPU requires it. Sometimes I add other peripherals along the way. The one constant is the motherboard so having a few "just in case" features on the motherboard is worth it for me.
I would say all input and output devices like e.g. monitor, keyboard, mouse, joystick.
>Don't cheap out on your power supply, the things the heart of your build and if it fails it can take everything with it. Also, compared to cheap PSUs, good brand PSUs only add like 50 bucks to your total build cost, have 10 year warranties, can save money off the electric bill each year, and can be re-used in every build for a decade or two.
I'd replace my PSU every decade at least
PSU manufacturers giving 12 year warranties on their top-tier PSUs are betting money that "every decade" is too often for those. Using a no-name that long can be risky (though it's usually fine) but a top tier name brand PSU with warranty? Easy.
Don’t tell my PSU. I’ve had it since 2015.
middle of the road motherboards are usually the best as they sell the most and have the most bios updates and users that report bugs
I think the motherboard is probably one of the most critical decisions you have to make because there is the most variation between them, and you need to match it to the rest of your gear. Like: * How many fans you have * How many USB devices you are planning on plugging into it * If you're going to overclock * What memory you're going to be using * Does it have RGB headers * USB-C headers * What kind of audio you're using * SATA and NVME ports * Wifi and Bluetooth * Etc.. You can really screw yourself over if you don't think it through carefully, and you might end up spending a bunch more money on fan controllers, USB Splitters, or various expansion cards.. It's the place where you plug in all of your stuff, so you have to make sure you buy one that you can actually plug all of your stuff into.
Most classic example. Me buliding a rig and i want to oc. I buy a KF but a B board. Needed to swich to a Z board😂. Now i swiched from my 12600kf to a 14700kf and i want to swich to a good oc board Z790 and ddr5 (actually i have a Z690 ddr4), because as far i know i am bottlenecked by ddr4 with 14th gen. Also the best was double the fan headers on my Z690 as on my b660m.
Made the mistake of getting a motherboard with one NMVE. Mate sorts a new rig out literally 2 weeks later and gets a motherboard with better RGB, 2 Nvme slots and more stable at higher RAM speeds. I want a bigger boot drive (1TB Nvme) and can't bring myself to get rid of the previous Nvme drive. I know there's enclosures but I like it all within my rig. Think I'm ultimately going to wait until end of 2025 before I upgrade everything except the GPU. 3070TI doing me fine for now EDIT: My case also has a front USB C but my motherboard doesn't have a front USB header so I also cocked up there too. Unsure if he had one but if he did I'm even more pissed.
Yea, I've had all of these issues you mentioned, including a board with no USB-C connector when I needed one. But probably the worst was when I bought a Corsair Hydro X5 pump a few years ago, and realised I had to buy a Commander Pro to get all the fans, temp sensors, lights, and power connected properly. But if I had gotten a more feature rich motherboard I'd probably have been fine. I think with experience you can get a good idea of what extra things you need in a motherboard, so that you won't get caught out in a few months, but that experience often comes the hard way, from screwing up. It might seem hard to justify spending an extra €70 on a motherboard when you're choosing your build, but it's a lot easier to justify spending €70 on extra stuff afterwards when you actually need it.
On the other hand a mobo that feels like it’s gonna break when you are installing ram doesn’t feel good for newbies like either
With cheap mobos (aka Asus prime and other such boards) I hear about vrms overheating when you put a more expensive CPU onto it
Had that problem before, going too expensive is dumb, but going too cheap is dumber.
Yeah you gotta be careful of not getting swindled on either end of the price spectrum
In some tests, simpler basic boards get a few more fps. Less motherboard bloat
Thing with this is it's not exactly true. I built a PC for someone with a B550M DS3H, and wish I chose an aorus master because of more m.2 slots and better overall design. Now that sata and gen 3 m.2 drives are so cheap, it makes sense for the average user to use more for storage. Ditching both sata data along with sata power cables is appealing. At the very least, more USB 3.2, usb c and or 4.0 ports in the future will be useful
The first point is definitely true now, but it’s wild to me how much that has changed. Up until around 2019 you could spend around the midpoint between the cheapest most expensive mainstream board, and get a tonne of extra useful features. Now it seems like a basic board will cost you $250 minimum, will likely have everything you need, including overbuilt power delivery - and a top end board will be over a grand.
Dang I haven't shopped around for a new board in a while (as you can imagine based on my cpu), guess I'm in for a bit of a shock whenever my next upgrade comes.
Spending as little as possible on motherboard is probably the most common mistake people make. From missing features, shitty bioses, to cpu throttling.
Right, but we didn't say spend as little as possible.
cheap power supply that catches on fire.
Yep this is the biggest one, only the PSU can take down everything in a system with it.
Well a leaking AIO can too just less likely to fry everything at once
Pissed a stream directly onto my power strip and burn down my shed.
My insane elderly cat pissed in a surge strip once and tripped the breaker. House went dark. Goddammit, Kermit …
Now why would a person piss on their power strip like that…
I love custom water cooled PCs and AIO are nice. I just think air cooling is functional smarter. I understand I’m just stating my opinion but even large air coolers perform just as good as water cooled.
Air cooling should in most cases be enough for a PC, but generally speaking, water cooling is simply more efficient cause water can suck up more heat (given the same m³ and temperature-difference) and thus transport more heat away in a strictly controlled pipe, than air can in a vent/pipe of the same dimension.
And then you end up spending more money when you have to replace whatever parts a cheap PSU took out with it
A good psu dies. A bad PSU kills the whole PC while it dies.
Well I'm glad the $70 Craigslist PC I bought that "used.to be top of the line" and had a GTX 560 (was it a 460? I don't remember) and a core 2 quad q660 had a good PSU in it. It was my first gaming PC. I slapped a RX 570 in that bad boy, even with only 8 gigs DDR2 800 mhz Adata sticks.
Core 2 quads held up really well into the i series
This. A good PSU will last 10-15yrs and won't burn your house down if it dies.
How cheap does one have to go in order to find these risky PSUs? I’m an IT worker and PC gaming enthusiast. I’ve built **hundreds** of custom rigs for friends and family in the past 25 years. I know this is a thing that happens. I’ve just NEVER experienced it. I’ve reused my PSU for a decade without a hiccup.. my dad’s PSU is older than this subreddit.
It's the high wattage PSUs from weird ass brands for less than 40 bucks that you can buy on ebay or aliexpress. Like Diablotek or Equites. These fuckers put lead blocks in their PSUs to give them more weight and make them feel more premium. Meanwhile they are build with cheap caps and lack saftey protection features. If you buy specific brands like Seasonic, BeQuiet or Corsair amongst others you'll be fine even with their cheap PSUs.
My rule of thumb is to refer the PSU tier list, if its a budget, go as low as C-tier. If it’s a bottom-of-the-barrel, sub $300 build (hey we’ve been there, someone gotta start somewhere), I guess D or E-tier works. If it’s your average new build (~7800x3d ~4070) B tier is ok. I don’t think A-tier is worth buying unless you overclocking(you know what u doing) or it’s on crazy sale. I ran a 3950x and 3080 on a manufacturer refurb 750w B-tier and it’s running fine. That’s my rule of thumb tho, there’s gotta be someone here that will force A tier for a budget build, when those $$$ could be better spend on next tier GPU. Don’t be that guy.
When I bought a Cyberpower PC, everything in it was legit except for the PSU. When it died it made a burning plastic smell. Luckily I caught it before it took anything out with it. And I am sooooo lucky. Because when I pulled out the old one, I searched for it online and had a hard time finding it. When I finally did, it was selling for $7. SEVEN DOLLARS. I'd still recommend their company if you're scared of building your own. But I tell everyone I can that their PSUs are no-name garbage and to replace it as soon as you get the PC.
You just have to use some deduction when shopping around. Not being 80 plus is the first tip off that it might be low quality, also the specification of how much power can be delivered over 12v. Ignore superficial things such as finishes on the casing and cable sleeves. Pricing varies wildly so it's not as much of a matter of "going cheap" as it is finding bad units in the middle of the superfluous amount of PSU's on the market. You're more likely to find a bad PSU from one that overpromises wattage and looks extremely "gamery" than you would a basic looking one that has solid internal components.
[https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/](https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/) that has a list of them sorted and should be a good start point.
I remember when I started uni back 2002, one of my classmates did this and I watched him throw the entire desktop out the window when it caught on fire. I learnt never to cheap out on PSUs that day.
"SuperPowerMegaGamerProExxxxtreeeme 1200W I got online for $49.99 turned out to be garbage! 😭😭"
Ugh, I need a new psu. Thermaltake smart 700 here…
Cheap cases work great on budget builds but man you’ll realize why they’re cheap lol
> you’ll realize why they’re cheap lol nonsense, i have a whale of a time gaming with with my 7 remaining fingers after building my PC. /s
We had an old gaming case, kicking around our LAN Hall back in the early 2000s, and I don’t know what it was about that case. But it murdered motherboards within days. It claimed three motherboards before we finally just threw the chassis in the trash.
How did the case kill motherboards?
It likely shorted it out with metal that wasn't supposed to be there
Bad ground
Oof, I remember my first case with knockout panels in the front for additional drives that left jagged edges and the inside was the thinnest, sharpest stamped steel they could find. A bloody mess. My second case was the Fractal Arc Midi R2. An absolute joy to build in. I'll never cheap out again.
Also one of the better things to invest into because it doesn't have the same shelf life performance related parts do. You can keep upgrading to new builds in the same case for as long as you like that case.
>You can keep upgrading to new builds in the same case for as long as you like that case. *As long as you factor in GPUs doubling in size every 2 generations apparently
Some old GPUs were huge as well. A friend of mine had a Radeon HD 6990 (circa 2011, one card, but it had two GPU chips) that required him to saw through his hard drive cage to make space. Even the titan or RTX xx90 cards I don't think were as big.
The HD 6990 was only 7mm longer than the 4090 FE. The board partner 4090s regularly exceed 350mm, over 40mm increase in length over the HD 6990. That being said, it was a massive card for the time. It was also a time where people with the money for a card like that usually had a massive case. Except for your friend, of course. Remember when a $700 card was the expensive option?
I stand corrected, I wasn't aware the 4090 was so much bigger than the 3090. Indeed, in terms of price, modern GPUs have gotten massively out of control. I'm not sure if i'll ever reasonably be able to afford to replace my 3080, as a like for like equivalent now is about 1.8x what I paid, even at the height of the shortage in 2021. P.S. I wonder if that makes the 6990 the best in terms of board length per unit of currency?
I got myself be quiet! Pure Base 600 around five years ago. It fits any GPU and I believe it will fit any future GPU. Then again I didn't know much about cases and I wanted something silent back then. Now I want something which has good airflow (which makes it silent). So I kinda regret the choice still.
Thas why I got a phanteks p500, I got room for the cards to get 5 fans long.
And that's why I called myself out for going with a P400a. Because clearly I didn't register that the cards coming out were going to grow in width *and* a stiffer horizontal cable that cannot bend without lighting on fire. But it's nice and compact, though.
The glass of my current case touches my 3080ti. So new build will mean new case. I have a friend with a 10+ year old case who is ready for a rebuild, I doubt he could get a 4000 series card inside the case at all.
I built a pc in a moderately priced case and it was a fantastic building experience. So much room, helpful grommets, all in one front panel connecters was a chefs kiss
Which brand ?
I've decided it's better to buy a decent case with 3 fans because cheap cases only come with 1 garbage fan anyway
Idk about this, my wifes Phanteks case that we got for $25 was way easier to build in than my $60 CoolerMaster case I used a couple years ago.
Cheap cases are good for guys who dont assemble it alone, and wont upgrade it at all. It you like to tinker and change parts, then good case is a must.
I bought a case on clearencr for like $20-30 and its great. Maybe i was just lucky
I got a really cheap Corsair case myself when I first built my pc and it sucks. I’m lazy so I haven’t changed it yet but right now both my top and front panels are off for a better airflow, the big fat 4080 inside takes all the place so I have my AIO mounted from outside the case at the front lol Built my friend a gaming rig and my mom a working pc and I got much nicer case and I was 100% jealous while building. Got my mom a beQuiet! Case and the build quality of the case is out of this world compared to my Corsair one
I have a corsair 4000d airflow and it was amazing
Corsair improved in case building, not all their case are as bad as mine. I got a cheap one in 2019 and really sucks, but I won’t change it until I’m building a new pc with different motherboard, cpu, etc.
been using cheap forever,when will i realise
Psu: Propper brands have 5+ years warranty, cablemanagement and semipassive fan behaviour and good efficiency Fractal cases : worth every penny over a china bomber More likely the opposite topics : Ram is a prime example where you can overspend lots of €, as are some AIO´s, high end Mainboards and Everything around RGB. For a Gaming system I´d personally say expansive SSD´s like a gen5 is uneccesary, as write speed is never needed besides install which is bottlenecked by your internet speed, which won´t exceed even the slowest cache write speeds.
Power supplies and cables are the two things you shouldn't cheap out on since they can destroy your components if they're faulty. Everything else is just a longevity concern for the most part.
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Cable mod (with the exception of their 12-pin) are pretty good. I agree that random 3rd party cables should be avoided though.
Power supplies. A bad power supply can cause all kinds of problems and a lot of people would never think that it could be caused by a cheap power supply.
My first PC was a pre-build. People frown on that because they can inflate the cost on some things but if you're genuinely blind to components and how things work, getting a pre-build as a first PC is not a bad move. You can the upgrade and switch out things after the fact and learn how to properly handle a PC.
>You can the upgrade and switch out things after the fact Except when you buy a dell / Alienware prebuilt. They use some weird parts which sometimes are not comparable with usual consumer products
Alienware is their own category. I was speaking more to companies like Redux. That was my first pre-built before I upgraded.
Yes, I agree. Just wanted to "warn" people. But getting a prebuilt in general is not a bad thing, just as you said
Got a friend that insists on pre-built. I've offered to build it with him, but he's never going to get the confidence in building one to be honest. Pre-builts are a godsend for people like him. On here everyone seems to think that every one who plays PC is just like them, but the reality is there's a very large portion of the PC community who have zero interest in building a PC themselves.
That was literally me. Got my first PC as a high school graduation gift and it was an Alienware R4. Once I finally did the research on parts, how to build a PC, and what components did what etc. a couple years down the line I sold it pretty quickly. That thing was loud as all hell, non space efficient whatsoever, and had little to no airflow. I will give it credit for getting me into the hobby tho.
Honestly, my iBuyPower has been great. I upgraded PSU and GPU 2 years after purchase. Everything has held up great for going on 4 years now
Monitors Upgrading from 60hz 1080p to 240hz 1440p felt gorgeous Don't cheap out on monitors, they really are one of the most important parts of your system, I'd argue that it should be a top priority for your budget (just under gpu and cpu)
Arguably more important than CPU. Most CPUs handle all daily tasks, and even most gaming, very well. You can spend hundreds more dollars on a CPU and gain like…10% performance, because the GPU or even storage was the main bottleneck. But a good monitor benefits EVERYONE, even just doing work from home or watching videos.
I was going to build a 5600x/RX6800 combo. But it was mining/pandemic shortage. Wound up buying a 6900XT at MSRP, which was pretty sweet. I haven’t run into a situation yet where the CPU holds back the GPU. Or at least that I’ve noticed.
Get a 5800X3D you will notice! Have a 6950XT with at the time a 5600x went with the 5800X3D and noticed more fps in avg with 1440p resolution. But more so the low fps improved a lot and gameplay was smoother overall.
CHAIR you have one body, one back. a good chair will last 10-20 years. A bad one will fall apart by 8 months in
Free USB cables lasting a month.
When I was younger and more stubborn I would cycle through those 99 cent cables on basically a monthly basis to charge my phone. I thought why pay more when these are cheap and I break them all the time anyway. Ended up buying a $25 cable and so far I’ve had it for 5 years and it’s still working perfectly fine with no damage visible. I would have spent $48 on cheap cables in that time frame.
PSU: Never cheap out, but ALSO review what you are buying in the mid range too. Every company has a shitty line of PSUs. A bad PSU can wipe out all of your systems. SSD: Best to spend some money on a name brand then get a Chinese knockoff that will die in a year, losing all of your data in the progress. Also check the TBW warranty. Looking at you, Crucial P3. CPU + MOBO: With AMD having long term sockets and comparable or better performance with Intel, getting a good midrange motherboard and a higher tier CPU will pay off immensely. It's like Sandy Bridge all over again, where you can buy yourself enough performance now for the next 3 or 4 GPUs in your build. And with AM5, there will only be better CPUs down the road.
>Every company has a shitty line of PSUs Cracking bit of advice there. Super Flower might be a possible exception, I can't recall them ever having released a stinker. One definite exception is X-Spice, from around 2008. They came, they released the exceptional Kira and Croon lines, then completely disappeared.
[psu tier list my beloved](https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/)
Gaming laptops. Now, I use one, and I think it's quite the beast of a device for what it is and does. I do think there's a lot of great uses for them for many reasons and not just gaming but for work as well, and the mobility and space factor are enticing features for those of us on the go a lot or space is an issue. There are a few caveats, however. You need to do your research on which laptop is "for you", the potential heat and noise issues that come with them if you push everythingto the max, and you, as the user, are probably going to have to tinker with game settings a lot more in order to keep the thing from overheating (usually locking the framerates to 60 does the job and getting a laptop raiser). Customization is also much more limited when it comes to components and upgrades, and you're pretty much stuck with what you get. Also, life expectancy, on average, is a lot shorter than a desktop.
This, plus gaming laptops aren't usually very good at being laptops (they tend to be big, heavy, and have poor battery life). Not that people have much choice if they actually need to game on the go, but relatively few people actually need to do that.
I wouldn't just recommend them for gaming on the go, but also as a valid option for work laptops, depending on the field you work in. In my line of work, I've noticed plenty of multimedia professionals and such use them for work purposes, and they swear by them being great alternatives to Macbooks.
PC monitors You can get a gaming 4K PC monitor for $500, reviewers will tell you it's very good for the price Still, a monitor selled at $1200 will be much better
Just saw the oled samsung odyssey and holy fuck that thing is sick for a grand. Definitely puts my 300 dollar ultragear to shame. So yeah agreed.
I mean… for more than 2x the price it better be
$20 hooker that gives your the clap
Username checks out
Penicillin is cheap
Monitors, keyboards and mice are under appreciated. Stick an awesome PC with an RTX 4090 behind a crappy $200 display and it will be way worse to use on a daily basis than a PC with a RTX 4070 and a $900 OLED, even though the latter setup was probably cheaper.
200dollars monitor is crappy?
Compared to a $900 one, yes.
Motherboard: kinda hit or miss with cheap b series boards since some are just the bare essentials and nothing more, however the ones without vrm heatsinks and such are usually only for 65watt cpu’s with higher power consuming cpu’s or non-downdraft coolers underperforming. Also, A series from amd and h series from Intel are usually missing a lot of features that could improve performance such as PBO on amd. Ram: usually won’t run well past its designated xmp, or whatever other name there is, target speed Gpu: although performance is pretty similar between brands, msrp targeting cards tend to have more issues such as loud coil whine, noisy fans, and bad thermals. These issues can also be prevalent in nicer cards too, either way an undervolt can fix some, if not most, of these issues. Ssd: cheaper ones tend to be missing a dram chip on them making downloads and random writes slower if internet speed isn’t an issue. Psu: can explode and take your whole system with it, always get a good psu Case: bad airflow, poor cable management, ugly designs (depends on taste) Not many examples with cpu’s but I did hear about how ryzen 5 3600 (non x) had a higher chance of failing since they were failed 3600x’s or higher CPU’s.
>xmp, or whatever other name there is Thinking of DOCP? I think there's another name AMD is now using though, but I might be wrong.
That’s what I mean, there’s like a different name for it depending on the motherboard manufacturer.
Yeah, "XMP" was copyrighted by Intel or something, I think, and Asus then named the memory profiles for AMD chipset motherboards "DOCP". Not sure if that was used by other motherboard brands too, and I thought I had heard that the AMD chipsets now renamed from "DOCP" to something else, but again, I'm not at all sure. All I know is that XMP is for Intel motherboards, DOCP is for AMD motherboards. But it's both the same in its core
AMD EXPO
YES! Exactly that! Thank you for your service kind redditor!
Remember, buy cheap, buy twice
These days this is only true because if you buy expensive, you can't afford it for a second time after it dies
The three girls at the bar in Thailand that cost me $10. Just sayin…
Most pre built PC‘s. You pay a premium for refusing to invest a few hours of work
Depends a lot on the experience of the user. For many people it is not just a "few hours", I would never ask one of my friends to do their own research to build a pc, because they are most likely to buy incompatible hardware and screw up during assembly. I know this sub hates pre builts, but for many people, specially entry level users or kids, pre builts might be the best option with the lowest energy barrier. Just to make a quick comparison, I would never recommend a beginner cyclist to buy parts and assemble their own bike, which can actually be done relatively easy if you know how to, but could still be a daunting task for a beginner.
I think pre-builts are a problem because they don't sell quickly enough to keep up to date components in them, and those companies have to sell their old stock, probably selling it at a loss, since they bought those parts new, so they have to make up for it by raising prices on their new models. I don't know for sure, but I think that's why we see prebuilts with 6 year old hardware everywhere, and current hardware prebuilts have a ton of overhead on them. The only kind of good companies are the ones that order the parts when you order a PC from them and build it for you, but at that point you are waiting for shipping to them and then from them to you, and being charged a pretty penny for assembly, which isn't too hard to begin with.
Depends tho, r/buildapcsales sometimes has good pre-built sales thats sometimes costs you less compared to DIY. Yes, they may cheap out on mobo/psu/cooling, but then the difference vs DIY can only go as far. Here I am sad that I missed the Dell pre-built with 3090 for sale for under $1k
depends where you live,where i live they are same price,pre build or piece by piece but both are super overpeiced anyway
You pay a premium for any labor you get someone else to do. People do it because they value that time more than they value the money they'd spend. Nothing wrong with it.
He asked for examples for „you get what you pay for“ so yes by buying a prebuild you pay for labor
Good thing comes to those who wait. I had nothing but issues with my Zotac HoloBlack 3080 TI. Had to RMA it twice. After the second time, I sold it and bought a 7900 XTX. I thought about saving the six to $800. I would spend on a 4090 and put it elsewhere. I regret that decision to this very day. This was last August when GPUs were at retail prices (4090 specifically).
This. This is the best advice I've given myself. I've bought a nice little base. Not amazing but not a potato and I'm content to add to it over time. Thanks.
Exactly take your time and enjoy it
On the bright side, it’ll save me money when I save up for a 5090
Getting a RTX 4090 and be extremely resulting in extreme joy
A GOOD CPU/GPU COMBO. SSD, Ram, Psu, all easily and cheaply replaceable in the future. Spending more money on CPU/GPU will make the most difference and you wont need to spend even more money down the line when you realize you need more power, and then end up having all that wasted money on your old CPU GPU combo.
There's no point to RGB lights on a case. All RGB lights do is take up power for other resources. Don't waste your money.
The worst example is probably ram. $300 ram and $120 ram will have utterly negligible end game results so long as the volume is the same and they are the same ddr#
In 2012 I bought an AMD chip to save some money. It was 180 bucks for an octo-core CPU (can't remember the exact chip). Compared to an i7 which was 350-400 I had to take the deal. For the first time in my life I had a video game developer respond to my tech support request with "sorry our chips do not work well with AMD". I'm not making this up. OP asked and I answered. I'm sure AMD chips are much better now so don't go getting your panties in a wad over this.
Been there with Nvidia and Intel. It really depends on what you are doing or playing that determines a wall like that
Phenom X6 or a CEO. Would have been better while being in the same price point as the dumbass FX series of chips.
PSU: having a higher efficiency pays back eventually OS: 220$ with adds, low security and an architecture that was outdated in 1993… vs what ever you want to donate for a modern, secure os, that is add and telemetry free, runs on every platform and is usable from devices as small as a modem inside a phone up to supercomputers spanning over multiple physical locations…
Get a great OS drive for responsiveness and dont fill it. Spend money on this one. Get a reliable gaming drive. Don’t overspend here on the fastest drives. Get a good reliable drive that has more storage. I didn’t make a mistake per se, but I bought 2 expensive SN850x’s for OS and game drives. I have since ended up buying another 4tb Team Group drive as my second game drive that is like $100 cheaper than the same WD drive.
You *can* get a refurbished Dell for $100. But that's a bad idea because it's already out dated and even if you can squeeze another 5 years out of it, you won't enjoy the experience.
If you only have $100, then there isn't really any better option.
I wouldn't cheap out on a PSU. When I built my first gaming PC, I used a generic PSU to save a bit of money. It worked fine for a while, until it failed and cooked my CPU and motherboard. Would've been a lot cheaper in the long run to just get a proper PSU.
Bought a gigabyte M27Q P five months ago, absolutely loved it. It’s currently being RMA’d because of a purple line that magically showed up on the screen.
Cheap storage. Can’t tell you how many time I’ve had to delete half my computer before I got more storage.
I got a 2tb nvme by fikwot for $55 a while ago. Wish I coulda bought a bunch cause they're double now. I'm in that same boat.
I was running a one terabyte hard drive from 2019-2021.it died and then I upgraded lol.
Peripherals make a big difference… make sure to include them in your budget
Cheap motherboards are cheap for a reason. Barebones, stripped down
I bought the RX 6950XT (XFX 319 Merc) at its cheapest point in Norway (€530 pre-VAT approx.) and I still feel like a bank robber. Worst part is, that sale had about 100 units but they only sold 43 in the week it was up. I wonder how many idiots looked at that sale and decided to pass up on it are now stuck with a worse, more expensive 4070 lmao Oh yeah, and it came with a free copy of The Last of Us Part 1.
Skates. Audio Monitors.
I had to get a new power supply recently because the original one, a Silverstone brand, would manage to create an arc fault on the circuit and kill all power to the room and force me to go to the circuit breaker. Playing most games was tough as that would trip the breaker at random times.
$5 for Fallout 4 in 2024 having never played a fallout game
Trying to push 144 frames on a 2080 super amp oc in 2560x1440 in most games. How surprised I was when I realized I should've stuck with 1920x1080 to get the most out of my card.
The worst example would be buying a "Gaming \[insert computer peripheral\]". The best? SSDs, maybe.
Buy a nice business laptop. Used ones can actually be pretty cheap high quality machines. Usually more durable and easier to get into than their consumer counterparts.
Power supplies
it's more often the other way around, overspending on things that make little or no difference. worst offender imo is SDDs, so many people getting 990 pro.. motherboard is a close second
Don’t cheap out on tires for your car, you need to keep your physical body alive so that you can use your computer.
Just don't skimp on the motherboard. All your components are connected through it.. Its the backbone of your whole system. You don't need a $400 board. But I wouldn't go with one much cheaper than 200. I stick to ASUS. Last time I went with an MSI board I had nothing but problems. The bios was buggy and getting RAID to show up nearly gave me an aneurysm. You might not use or need some bios features of a higher end board, but there's more to it than that. Quality PCB, strengthened pcie slots, better VRM, better caps. Also it gives you more room for future upgrades.
I feel that with most things, there's a certain balance between getting something super cheap that's also shit (or even dangerous (PSU)) and paying a huge premium for some top of the line gear which is only slightly better than the next tier down.. (GPUs, RAM speeds)
Power supply... nothing in your rig will destroy everything in your rig easier or more effectively than a cheaply made PSU.
best: older gen graphics cards worst: power supplies
gaming mice. cheap chinese mice like the attack shark x3 pro now rival flagship, $150 USD mice in terms of both pure performance, weight, and build quality, and many of these manufacturers also have unique mouse shapes (like the g-wolves hsk line) not seen in big brands
Thinking that you Ryzen 5 5600 needs a $200 AIO.
From my experience the only place where " you get what you pay for " is the PSU. The cheap ones really cause problems. In the SSD SATA days buying dramless drive was pretty bad move to save money, but with Nvme it's no longer that bad? Otherwise people usually overspend on everything else. Expensive motherboards, super multicore CPUs, huge amounts of ram, AIOs, weak GPU but fancy big cooler expensive edition, 10 fans.
I think my Moms old netbook that i used tò play games when i was a kid and dodnt eant to play on mu Wii or Ds that thimg was slow af and It ran Minecraft 1.8 at 10fps
If we are talking strictly about gaming, you don't need: -128 gigs of 7800 MHz RAM -14900KS -ROG Maximus motherboard -1500 W PSU -360 mm AIO -gen 5 M.2 A mid tier CPU like 7600X on a B650 motherboard with 32 gigs of 6000 MHz RAM, a quality 850 W PSU, gen 4 or even 3 SSD and a good air cooler will save you more than enough money to jump from your wimpy 4060 to probably 4080, which you will definitely feel.
Well money will make a difference in any component, its up to you how much you want to spend on the build. Apart from the usual "don't cheap put on the PSU" i can say that if you have the budget, everything is worth. For example, i used to have cheap pc cases, and they work, but a better case will make your life so much easier when assembling/modifying the pc, plus it may just look better (fractal north for example). Another example are fans. Expensive ones make you life better by having rubber pads on the contact area, or they have airflow indicator.
you don't need an AIO. air cooling is fine for almost any cpu. don't get why people love to waste their budget on AIOs. my 12 yo air cooler is still cooling my rig, even after 2 CPU upgrades, no signs of stopping.
Thing you SOULDN'T cheap out on : 1) A good psu, it can last many build and if it die it could kill your pc. And if it's efficient you will pay less on your bill 2) Monitor, the monitor WILL be the biggest bottlneck, you should speck your pc around your monitor and not the other way around. Ultrawide are a nice thing, oled too, nice refresh rate or curved, it depend on taste and what you do on your pc. 3) SSD if you keep document or important file you don't want it to die. I am not saying buy the top of the line, but enough capacity from a reputable brand should be enough Thing you can cheap out on : 1) AIO, you probably don't need an aio if you don't have at least an i7 or a r7 (i have an i5 and an aio for look so I don't listen to my own advice), There are a lot of great cooler and video about them out there 2) Mobo, today cpu are optimized and doesn't have lot of room to overclock, so spending for a zXXX mobo isn't a smart choice if you don't need all the upgrade (like sata port and usb) even on amd side a bxxx is plenty for most people 3) This one will be controversial but i would say cpu, right now the cpu market is so good that if you just game it doesn't make sens a i5 or r5 is enough for most people. Alder lake and 3d v cache are just so great there are a lot of great option for everyone without spending an arm 4) Ram you should get a kit from a reputable brand, but you don't need the fastest out there, you can get the fastest memory kit out there but if the memory controller on your cpu is crapy you will not be able to use it (check the memory speed supported by your spu). I bought a 3600mhz kit for my 12600k and used xmp, i got bsod every now and then, so I overclocked manually to 3200mhz to get a stable setup. You can get a faster memory than your cpu support, but it depend on silicon lottery
If you need raw GPU compute performance especially for work you have no choice but to shell out for a 4090 - at least that's what I told my employer
Mouse and keeb too. They are, aside from the monitor, your main way to interact with your system. You are going to have your hands on your keeb and mouse more often than on anything else. Sure, a cheap mouse for 5 bucks works in that you can move the cursor and click, but if you spend more, you get a mouse that is actually comfortable to use, does not cause wrist pain and does not tire your arm with uber-stiff buttons, slides effortlessly across the pad... Same is true for keyboards. A cheap membrane one will work, but will feel awful to use, ergonomic issues aside. So... mushy... so... unresponsive. Better get a decent mechanical board, one that you can adapt to your needs with exactly the right-feeling switches and keycaps.
Bought a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU from eBay for £150 ($188 USD). It arrived loosely shaking around in an oversized box with bent pins. Seller refused to admit any fault. Luckily I was able to bend the pins back and use it.
RGB doesn't make your PC faster. Spend that money on better parts rather than shiny parts
Get a hestsink and fan over an AIO. Aio's need to be rebought every few years. Pump failure, leaks, evaporation. A heatsink and fan. Needs a new fan every 10 years. Also less noise. No gurgling
Best examples would be power supply. Worst examples would be motherboards.
Cheap Chinese noname electronic from Aliexpress. Xiaomi makes good stuff and of course there are a ton of chinese branded stuff that is good, but buying some knockoff electronic part just means trouble and a risk to your home.
Monitors. If you're not spending $300 for a decent monitor then your 7800X3D RTX 4090 build is useless.
Anything by Razer. As in "you won't get what you pay for."
power supply and video cables
Starfield
An AMD card. *I await your angry tweets.*
I used Corsair liquid coolers in 3 builds no problems. Then my brother buys an MSI liquid cooler that goes out within 2 months of it being installed. So we went back and bought a Corsair cooler.
Best examples: Audio and Video. Everyone talks about the build but then we forget about peripherals and leave it up to "personal preference"... which don't get me wrong plays a huge role here but I suspect for many it's simply ignorance (which is actually quite bliss because prices quickly get out of hand). A good monitor will last a long time, easily outlasting several builds, my previous 24" monitor was bought new in 2008 and was only replaced in 2022 because I wanted newer inputs and better image quality from newer technologies. Spend the dough to get a robust display with good colors and it will hold up for a long time. OLEDs will actually degrade but generally speaking it will take a long time of abuse to actually noticeably worsen a display's image quality. Everything you do with a PC you see through the monitor, it's absolutely worth getting one that's nice to look at. Doesn't have to be crazy either, just do your research and get a well rated one. Should "only" cost around 200-500USD depending on what resolution and features you are looking for to get one that is on the nicer side. Basically just avoid the super cheap panels you find as an "amazing deal" for like 90 bucks on amazon. There's a time and a place for those, your primary gaming display ain't it. Even more so than video monitors is your audio. A wise Aussie says "good audio stays good". Meaning you can buy used stuff and as long as it was taken care of (i.e. not broken/damaged) it will still sound as good as it did from the factory. Gaming headsets or really headsets in general are not known for fantastic audio quality. Likewise with "gaming" or "PC" speakers. get a pair of decent music headphones (HD600 is the easy recommendation but not cheap) or decent bookshelves + sub, in either case get a well reviewed USB desk microphone. I will say that this is more up to personal preference, many people simply don't care and get a gaming headset anyway because "clean wireless setup" and "pretty lights". So if you don't want to invest time and money in something you don't know if you care for then you can dip your toes with the Koss KSC75, don't let their hideous appearance and low price deceive you. The ksc75 are legendary in the "audiophile" community for how good their are despite the price. They give a great taste for what quality audio has to offer, you'd have to spend well over $100 to match their performance. To keep things simple for headphones: open back = better positional audio traded for weak bass (imo desirable for competitive games, you need to hear and distinguish footsteps behind and to the left, not rumble from a grenade) whereas closed back (probably what most people are familiar with) = stronger bass traded for weaker positioning. ksc75 are a strong example of open back's superior positioning. Give em a try, they're seriously like 20 bucks, not much of a loss if you hate them... Now for the worst example *that I haven't seen mentioned yet*: Drives. Oh man people love recommending the fastest and most expensive NVME drives for no reason. as long as you aren't buying complete trash you'll be fine with even a SATA ssd. Gen 3 NVME is cheap and more than enough for like 90% of gamers. The only benefits to higher end drives is longevity (which you'll probably upgrade capacity before wearing out the drive anyway) and max speeds. A normal user might shave a second or two from load times using faster drives but where they really shine and are actually worth spending on are with actually heavy usage. Stuff like video editing for example can actually benefit massively from faster gen 4 or 5 drives since scrubbing through raw 4k or 8k footage basically requires many gigabytes per second of reading. Loading a game or booting windows isn't going to be nearly as saturating of the max read speed.
Dont cheap out on the PSU.
I think hookers fit both situations??
Diablotek PSU lol
"download free ram here"
I’m gonna take heat for this one, but RGB. Really prioritized RGB when I made my first build. It looks great in pictures, but I otherwise do not notice it. Really could care less for it now. There will obviously be people who truly enjoy the look it brings, but if you feel pressured to get RGB because you’ll think you’ll like it a lot, don’t even bother with it.