PC Builders

I also had a 9700 Pro.

I worked at a PC custom build and repair shop called TechWorkz around 2002 - 2004 when that card was new and hot. That company was purchased by TotallyAwesome Computers, where I worked for a few weeks after we were bought out before realizing that their style was not for me (lots of upselling and sales pressure - I just wanted to build and fix computers).

I have literally build or repaired hundreds of PCs - i understand the reputation that AMD had in the past, but my experience says that it was largely unfounded. Things have a way of spreading in cliquey communities like PC enthusiasts, however.

Most PC builders do not have deep-level knowledge, and that's totally fine.

My first degree was in CSIS, with a focus on hardware and sysadmin - but I took another path later in life.

Not trying to impress my wife or whatever - just giving you my background so that you understand I'm not just repeating what I've heard or read, or using one bad experience to make a lifelong decision.

I remember cranking out Athlon 64 builds back in those days - i still have a working PC running an Athlon 64 and Win98SE.

 

I unfollowed this thread and keep getting notifications and I am weak. My apologies.

 

Since we got onto hardware... Do any of you fully utilize all of the new tech? I mean, 30 cores, really? Over 1KW PSUs? $3K GPUs?

I don't game, so when I drive cores it's because of parallelized math or multi-threaded IO. Are GPUs of, say, 5yrs vintage, not capable enough to handle current game loads? What are you getting out of the cost of building one of these mega PCs?

 

My workload consists of 3D modeling using AutoCAD for steel assemblies for construction industry and on my free time I game. For work my CPU is the biggest bottleneck and giving it more power only works until a point especially during rendering and my GPU is pretty chill. For gaming some games maxes out the 10 gb vram on my 3080 but the bus bandwidth is so quick its barely noticeable unless it’s a heavy scene with ray tracing.

Ik my next upgrade is an AMD cpu either a x800X3D or a flagship chip that can have high single core clock speed for CAD and good multi core performance for rendering.

 

Crysis got my dad into gaming. He played that game for years and got so bored with it he would try for achievements in veteran mode lol. It's also the reason why he built his first gaming PC.

 

I'm not a big fan of RT. Too much of a performance hit. As long as I get HDR, I'm happy. Disabling RT also keeps me from having to move up to an xx80 card, and I've generally been able to stick to the xx70 models considering the shorter bus width than xx80/90 models. But yeah, the 10 GB thing on newer games is getting to be a problem if I want to keep the graphics turned up, and the last AAA game I played from 2024 was indeed close to using 10 GB. I don't necessarily want to upgrade to a 5070 (currently have a 4070S barely closing in on a year), but if things keep going the way they are, I may have to. Hopefully I can hold out until the S models are released, assuming they see the light of day.

On another note, I'm super impressed with Unreal 5 and Lumen. Robocop: Rogue City looks incredible. Plus there was very little performance hit, and I could still hit 120 fps/120 Hz locked at 1440. Here's some screens I took while playing on my super ultrawide oled (although this is a measly 3840 x 1080, 32:9 aspect). The detail, lighting, and reflections are just impressive. Ray Tracing what?

 

That's me, too! I was a dad in my 30s when the game first came out lol. And yeah, I hear that. Gaming and building PCs is what got me started in a tech career.

I re-bought all the Crysis games on Steam a couple of years ago on a big sale. Been meaning to install them and crank up the graphics, being that I was never able to with how taxing those games were back when they released. But I'd guess they won't be as impressive today.

 

He still logs in and plays for a bit. His 4080 is a helluva lot better than what he had at the time.

 

The lighting is quite nice I gotta admit and I think if this level of quality was integrated into more games Ray tracing would die overnight for reasons you mentioned above. It’s just too intensive in some games. I think the 40x0 gen was a good upgrade we got higher clocks and lower power consumption and this time around its the complete opposite.

 

That's cool. I haven't touched it in maybe 10 years. I got really into Crysis: Warhead and played/replayed that for a bit even after Crysis III released. Easily my favorite of the series, albeit only being an expansion of the first Crysis and thus a shorter game.

Edit: I just remembered the Crysis games I mentioned that I grabbed on Steam are the more recent remastered versions. Just the main games I-III were remastered though, and unfortunately not Warhead. I think I'll jump back into them after I wrap up my current game.

For sure, and this is where one of my criticisms of Nvidia lies. They've got too much of a corner on the market with RT, and I can't help but feel what DLSS has become is just a means to keep RT functional and significant, if it wasn't that from the beginning. Unreal 5 + Lumen was looking promising when I first read about it, but just about all I've seen and heard of in the last year in regards go to GPUs is DLSS 4 and multi-frame gen.

 

That's kinda my point. I've found best benefit on getting a chipset with the highest clock speed as a lot of software just doesn't use libraries intended for parallelism. Right now, no load, with my 6 physical cores, I'm at 2% utilization with 3000 threads @4.4GHz. I don't see how more cores would benefit anything. But I have seen the difference of running code, or calc-heavy software, on two different chipsets with choked clock speeds.

Interesting to know that you are using all 10GB of VRAM. That's definitely more than I was expecting.

 

Missed that comment. Yes, it's definitely a lot of overkill.

Based on recommendations of the 3 PC builders and gamers in the office I restricted the brands to Corsair, Seasonic, and EVGA units with an 80+ Gold or better rating as a PSU starting point.

The guy who previously built PCs for a living recommended getting a PSU with double the estimated wattage to cover the random draw spikes that happen. In the top left of the image it shows just under 700W estimated with no peripherals, so lowest I would have gone would be a 1200W to be a bit under his recommendation.

Here is the price sorting from low to high with my PSU highlighted. The only plat rated unit that is cheaper is a 1200W, also from EVGA, but it is a full hundo less expensive. I thought about it, but with the power supply being selected toward the end of the parts list I splurged. I was, and still am, solidly under the pulled-straight-from-my-ass budget I picked for a PC. All the other similarly priced platinum units were lower watt, so it seemed like a no brainer to get the 1600W Plat at that price.

 

Well, you'll definitely be covered. Matter of fact, if another PC nearby ever blows their PSU, they can just rig a jumper from your PSU and power up

Another good thing about buying the higher priced/higher end PSUs is the abundant connections they include to hook up all your peripherals

 

I was thinking the same.

I am overkill with my 1k, but thats the beauty of building... everyone can do what they want.

I imagine that is some extra weight though.... oof.

 

Another pro about the higher end PSUs is they're modular so you don't have to stow unnecessary cables in the case - only connect what you need to use and the rest of the ports stay empty.

 

To answer the usage question,

I 3D draft, read and design for work. Then I spend most my time in meetings with two profiles open and running all the time. I barely even make mine work. Occasionally I game, Cyber punk made my ps work a little, but not enough to worry. When I ran fuzzy donut for stress testing (trying to find an issue) the pc handled it like a boss. My nerd friends who were here helping were a little impressed.

I dont even know how to look up the usage to tell you were i sit, but its low enough that when my GPU spins up and Im not paying attention I always look at it in confusion for a millisecond, until I realized what the noise was.

I built an overpowered, overclocked gaming rig that I usually watch my security cameras and watch netflix with.

 

I feel like most of mine are empty, so fair point!

 

You are my spirit animal.

 

I love how much my nerd friends REEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee about this build. And you should have seen the discord/facing from the LAN event people when they found out I dont play games and when I do its usually low graphics stuff lol

 

I'm sure I'll play more than what it sounds like you do, but I also want to try some digital art stuff. Perhaps a little video and photo editing, but nothing professional level. Probably get some USB drives for music. The overkill I am building into it is also to help "futureproof" it so I don't need to upgrade anything for at least 5 years. Then I can do upgrades a piece at a time for much less than the initial investment.

 

So, the CPU was picked up and came with a hat because Sean is a boss. All 3 purchased components are in hand now, and there are a couple sales with Newegg on some other items on the build list that might have me snagging some other stuff a bit earlier than planned. It's only like $50-$70 in savings, but that's still nice to get. Debating if the savings are worth it or if I'd rather just space out the purchases more to lessen the feeling of the pinch.

One of the guys in the office was asking if I had all my parts yet, and I laughed saying no. Long story short it led to me pulling the stuff up that I have and holy crap am I glad I bought the GPU when I did! I ordered the card on 1/24/25 at $1,018.49 all told. Below is the Newegg and Amazon offerings from yesterday when he asked about it. Though on Amazon now you can get the card for $1,029.99 which isn't awful compared to what I paid. Kinda nuts how fast it can fluxuate.

 

Gee you kids are amateurs. Mine is bigger. I just need a bigger computer case

 

I think they case I'm eyeing can take two of those with room to spare.

 

Just ordered the case, RAM, and SSD from Newegg.

Not gonna like it when the CC bill hits, but it'll be worth it... I hope.

 

So, I went and updated my build status and some prices to reflect the sales on pcpartpicker. I now only have 3 things left to purchase (not counting peripherals) before I can begin assembly. CPU cooler, OS, and the motherboard.

A guy at work had a site/resource to buy windows for a bit less than retail, but it's not one of the super cheap key purchases. It is a legit windows but for a solid savings. I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but he should be on shift in the morning for me to ask.

I am about a month ahead of schedule because of the sales that saved me about 80 bucks helped me pull the trigger, as previously mentioned. I am holding off until all this stuff pops up on the CC bill so I can pay it all off. Never carry a CC balance kids.

 

Wondering how @GODZILLA 's build went.

Meanwhile, I'm still sitting on parts from November (AM5 board, CPU & fan, RAM, and psu) that I haven't installed yet.

 

I had some life things pop up.

I am sitting on a pile of parts and still missing the motherboard, CPU cooler, operating system, and all peripherals.