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Offline Pete Svarrior

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SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« on: May 01, 2016, 06:14:56 PM »
It's time to spend some money you guys!!!!

As many of you probably know, I have wanted to buy a new desktop for years, and I think I'm finally ready to commit enough £ for that to actually make sense. This thread is intended for all the nerds to make fun of me for my choices and to suggest stupid alternatives that I will laugh at and disregard.

Some ground rules:
  • This will first and foremost be a gaming computer. I will also use it for Excel spreadsheets, browsing FES, and I might donate my processing power to science when shit's idle.
  • I work something silly like 12-hour days and literally don't have free time. I'd prefer not to invest any time into building my own PC, unless I can save enough money to get a serious upgrade out of it.
  • My budget is £1000 (not including peripherals - I'm reasonably happy with what I have), and I'd like for that to be a fairly firm ceiling.
  • I'm not married to nVidia/Intel, but for some reason I always tend to pick them over AMD. There's no rhyme or reason to it, so feel free to convince me to flip-flop.

Here's what I came up with so far: stuff

Discuss.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2016, 06:17:02 PM by SexWarrior »
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Offline cat

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2016, 06:18:12 PM »
Not enough flashy lights.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2016, 06:19:32 PM »
New ground rule: no girls allowed >o<
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Offline cat

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2016, 06:21:30 PM »
I mean, I'll build the PC if it's cheaper. You can trust me...

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Offline Vongeo

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2016, 07:45:33 PM »
I will also be building the same PC as Sexwarrior.
Maple syrup was a kind of candy, made from the blood of trees.

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Offline xasop

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2016, 08:29:01 PM »
Install OpenBSD, ditch NVIDIA and join the 2010s with your storage capacity.
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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #6 on: May 02, 2016, 03:46:27 AM »
If you're willing to wait, new advances in GPU's might drop the price of the current cards when they come out.

Otherwise, I've had great success with HP pre-builts. I got a 980ti and i7 for like a grand, and didn't have to put it together myself.
You don't think I'm going to post here sober, do you?  ???

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #7 on: May 02, 2016, 10:41:13 AM »
Install OpenBSD
no

ditch NVIDIA
But they seem to offer better bang for buck for my use case, as far as I can tell.

join the 2010s with your storage capacity.
I'm tempted to swap the SSHD for a much smaller SSD - it's not like I'll ever need more than 500GB of local storage anyway.

If you're willing to wait, new advances in GPU's might drop the price of the current cards when they come out.
I'm fairly keen on getting it soon. The machine I currently use for video games is an old broken laptop that can barely run anything anymore.


Otherwise, I've had great success with HP pre-builts. I got a 980ti and i7 for like a grand, and didn't have to put it together myself.
Thanks, I'll check them out
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Offline xasop

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #8 on: May 02, 2016, 10:46:48 AM »
Install OpenBSD
no

Incorrect.

ditch NVIDIA
But they seem to offer better bang for buck for my use case, as far as I can tell.

You'll be much worse off with NVIDIA after installing OpenBSD.

join the 2010s with your storage capacity.
I'm tempted to swap the SSHD for a much smaller SSD - it's not like I'll ever need more than 500GB of local storage anyway.

That's the opposite of what I meant.
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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #9 on: May 02, 2016, 11:16:17 AM »
I wouldn't recommend a hybrid SSHD.

Hybrids are... icky and more prone to failure.  If you want an SSD for your OS, buy a dedicated drive for that and another for your main storage.

OR buy an SSD for a select few games and the main storage for your OS.  Simply put: SSDs really speed up online gaming, especially MMOs which have a ton of assets that need loading every time you walk into a social hub.

Also, why a pro-gamer motherboard?  Unless you need an extra millisecond off your ping or to be able to pinpoint sound direction with a surround sound system, it's overkill.  Especially if you don't plan to OC.

Hell, when I got new parts for my system, the only real upgrade was more RAM, a new video card, and a new monitor.  Games became much smoother.  Same old motherboard (from 2009).  Go for a cheaper board.  You won't notice a difference. 
If you are going to DebOOonK an expert then you have to at least provide a source with credentials of equal or greater relevance. Even then, it merely shows that some experts disagree with each other.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #10 on: May 02, 2016, 11:31:24 AM »
SSHD vs SSD+HDD - I'll look into it more, thanks for the heads up. Come to think of it, I could use my current machine's SSD as the OS/games drive.

Motherboard: I will likely want to OC at some point, probably more because I like tinkering with things than out of an actual need, but still. The price difference seems small enough to justify it.

I might swap our the SSHD for an HDD and throw more RAM into the mix.
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Online Rushy

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #11 on: May 03, 2016, 05:34:19 PM »
I would advise against building a gaming computer right before the 14nm GPU node products are released here in a few months.

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Offline xasop

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #12 on: May 03, 2016, 10:48:32 PM »
I would advise against building a gaming computer right before the 14nm GPU node products are released here in a few months.

Yeah, instead of buying products that are known to work well, he should wait until a whole new generation is spawned and get the earliest, buggiest releases. Makes sense.
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Thork

Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2016, 12:18:47 AM »
I would advise against building a gaming computer right before the 14nm GPU node products are released here in a few months.
You'll always be waiting for something. The 14nm GPUs. They'll arrive and it'll be 10nm canyon lake chips. DDR5 memory. It is a never ending game. Just fucking buy something. You are building a computer today.

Also, note Intel stepped off Moore's law in early 2004 when they hit the powerwall.
http://www.edwardbosworth.com/My5155_Slides/Chapter01/ThePowerWall.htm

They are about to hit the infrastructure size wall. 14nm was a watershed moment in electronics. It was the first time in history that it cost more money to have the same amount of transistors on a subsequent chip. IE chips from 14nm onwards will give less bang per buck.

This from an industry that used to give us 50% increase on a processor ever year. We are now down to about 5% and have been since 2008.

When I was at uni, you'd build another PC every 2 years - 3 years ... you had to. Software made your machine obsolete and the next gen was always so much better. Now a PC from 2008 still runs absolutely fine.

Paying £100's more for a teeny bit of perceived performance which is mostly benchmark fap material and not worth it in the real world is silly.



Ok, so you need more ammo to ridicule my post ... here's my suggestion.

You aren't afraid of linux like me. You need a games machine. You really don't need bleeding edge shit. Does it really need to be a massive noisy lump under your desk? Get something small, quiet and pretty.

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-steam-machine/pd?oc=d00asm08&model_id=alienware-steam-machine

The processor is 4th gen. This is good. 6th gen has had all kinds of driver issues. 14nm is a bollocks. However the passmark score of the i7-4785T is 7485 and of the i5-6600k you choose is 7803. There is sod all in it.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2260&cmp%5B%5D=2570

But the i5 is going to cost way more because it is 6th gen. Also note the i7-4785T is a T. IE only 35W compared with the massive 95W of the PC you are looking at. That translates to a massive amount of heat and hence fan noise - especially if they are overclocking it for you for the sake of another 10% performance .... that processor isn't going to be your bottleneck on £1000 machine. That'll get annoying.

A complete machine, and you still have a staggering £300 left over to buy cool games, a better sound system, treat yourself to a monitor, buy more game pads, external storage drives, whatever you like.

Get a steam machine, pay £0 for the OS, its slightly older gen giving you great value for roughly same performance, quiet, cheaper, looks nice, sits under your TV fine, has controllers ... boom ... Thork to the rescue ... again. They do the alpha if you want a windows version of the same machine. G



Otherwise check out Quiet PC ... they build solid PCs with no bloatware for a good price.
https://www.quietpc.com/systems
« Last Edit: May 04, 2016, 12:26:27 AM by Dr David Thork »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2016, 10:21:12 AM »
I appreciate the input of both sides of the "wait a few months" debate. However, my current machine is pretty bunged up and poses a risk of blowing up in my face Real Soon Now(tm). Even if we reach a consensus that waiting would be a prudent choice, I'd rather get something now and avoid the inconvenience.

As for Thork's "bleeding edge" versus "smart money" argument - it's not an unfair one. I know I'm overspending, but I'm comfortable with that. Being a wacky nerd, I'm sure I'll find ways to push that machine to its limits one way or another.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2016, 10:28:33 AM by SexWarrior »
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Offline xasop

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2016, 12:39:25 PM »
I appreciate the input of both sides of the "wait a few months" debate. However, my current machine is pretty bunged up and poses a risk of blowing up in my face Real Soon Now(tm).

You're not kidding. I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has.

As for Thork's "bleeding edge" versus "smart money" argument - it's not an unfair one. I know I'm overspending, but I'm comfortable with that. Being a wacky nerd, I'm sure I'll find ways to push that machine to its limits one way or another.

I've gone that way and never regretted it for a minute. Enjoy your stupidly expensive new PC.
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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2016, 04:40:27 PM »
You're not kidding. I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has.
It's largely in the same condition as it was when you saw it, except the USB ports are starting to fail and I may or may not have zapped the mobo a couple times :^)
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2016, 10:43:00 PM »
The only thing I'd change is your storage. Get a PCIe SSD if you can. Add more drives later if you need more storage. The difference between 100MB/s and 750MB/s is well worth the extra money. But yeah, like Thork said, just get it now. There will always be something new right around the corner obviously.

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Offline xasop

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #18 on: May 04, 2016, 10:53:23 PM »
The only thing I'd change is your storage. Get a PCIe SSD if you can. Add more drives later if you need more storage. The difference between 100MB/s and 750MB/s is well worth the extra money.

No it isn't. For most people, latency on random reads/writes is far more important than throughput. You need a very specialised use case for transfers faster than 100 MB/s to be worth any amount of money.
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: SexWarrior is getting a desktop
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2016, 08:46:18 AM »
The only thing I'd change is your storage. Get a PCIe SSD if you can. Add more drives later if you need more storage. The difference between 100MB/s and 750MB/s is well worth the extra money.

No it isn't. For most people, latency on random reads/writes is far more important than throughput. You need a very specialised use case for transfers faster than 100 MB/s to be worth any amount of money.

It's a good thing SSDs do both of those things considerably faster than a traditional hard drive.